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New Employee Aboard... Now What?

Brandi Leos, City of Tigard, OR (LinkedIn, Twitter) What I'm Listening to: NPR's songs of the summer for 2018 (spotify playlist) What I'm doing: Developing a new website for the IPMA-HR Oregon Chapter Onboarding is an important part of a new employee’s experience at your workplace, but whose job is it? Some will say human...

Real-Time Outdoor Communication for the City of Atlanta

This guest post is by ELGL member Ed Krafcik. Goal Enable real-time outdoor communication for the City of Atlanta's Customer Service Department (ATL 311), as well as the City's residents, neighborhood associations, and local businesses. Solution The City of Atlanta selected the Soofa Sign and Soofa Talk content management system to deliver important messages and share relevant...

What Consulting Taught Me

This post is by ELGL member Haley Kadish. Haley received her MPA from the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University. She started her career in local government as an ICMA Local Government Management Fellow in Catawba County, NC. After her fellowship, she joined The Novak Consulting Group where she worked with nearly 50...

The Downside of Domino's

Morning Buzz by Andy Kuhn What I’m listening to – Happy Hour by Weezer What I’m watching – I have been re-watching Entourage, not sure why? I miss LA probably What I’m reading – Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain TL:DR - The free rider problem is real, and may be worse in recessed communities. The...

Webinar: Comprehensive Community Engagement Strategies

Webinar: Comprehensive Community Engagement Strategies Friday, July 27, 2018 11:00 a.m. PDT This webinar is cohosted by ELGL and Bang the Table There are many reasons to launch a comprehensive Community Engagement strategy, including increasing reach and capacity, fostering equity, building trust, agency empowerment, creating a shared vision, and mobilizing a community. A rather untold...

Public Meetings are Boring

Welcome to the blog series, "The Local Government Nerve Center" about the important work of clerks and recorders. Want to be a contributor? Learn more here. By Megan Asikainen, CivicClerk You are likely thrilled to see residents filing into your meeting room to observe and take part in public discussions on topics that will impact...

Grateful

Right Now with Stacy Schweikhart (LinkedIn/Twitter) What I’m reading: The Buddhist Path to Simplicity What I’m watching: No time for screens - training for a 100 mile charity bike ride What I’m listening to: John Coltrane I woke up this morning feeling grateful. Grateful for all of the local government professionals around the country who found out about...

I Have to Ask: Civilians in the Police Department

In this series, guest columnists respond to one of three topics selected by ELGL co-founder Kent Wyatt. This week Cassie Johnson (LinkedIn & Twitter), Scottsdale (AZ) Police Department, Police Analyst II, provides a first hand account of working in a police department when you are not a police officer. Not just a career, but an...

Diversity Dashboard Now Available

We are excited to announce that the first look at the Local Government Diversity Dashboard is now available. The Diversity Dashboard is a crowd-funded data collection effort managed by ELGL and hosted on the OpenGov platform. The data collection includes the self reported gender, race, age, and veteran status of Chief Administrative Officers and Assistant...

I’m Old School Part 2: Implementing Change

Right Now with Mario Smith (LinkedIn/Twitter) What I’m reading: The numerous processes to navigate my retirement from the military. What I’m watching: FIFA World Cup when I’m not finishing classwork. What I’m listening to: Joe Bonamassa - Bridge to Better Days Implementing change in an organization, we all have went through it. Now, I know what you...

Ask Ellie and Jill: Loud Talkers, Uncomfortable Conversations and a Book Recommendation

In the series, ELGL members can anonymously send their questions, difficulties or scenarios to answers@elgl.org and receive a response from the ghost writing response team. Your name, organization and other details will not be shared in the posting or subsequent response. Dear Ellie & Jill, There’s a long-tenured employee on my team whose voice naturally carries, and she frequently...

Paying For it All

What I’m Listening To: Some classic U2 What I’m Watching: World Cup What I’m Doing: Sweating profusely in the insane summer heat ELGL has a lot planned for the remainder of 2018 and the first half of 2019. We just started our fiscal year and are out fundraising to achieve our plans. As you may have noticed last...

Share: How Do You Forecast Personnel Costs?

This information request is by our good friends at OpenGov. Please take a minute and share your perspectives with them. Personnel is the largest expense in government, often comprising 70 percent of the operating budget. But calculating personnel costs can be extremely cumbersome because there are so many factors that influence compensation (from seniority to...

Future of Public Hearings

Travis Parker, City of Lakewood Colorado Planning Director, writes about how the role of technology played in changing the public hearing process in Lakewood. Throughout our country the business of local government is conducted in public hearings. Councils, boards and commissions sit behind a dais on a weeknight and listen to public comment before deliberating...

Progress, Not Perfection

Today's Morning Buzz is all about burnout. Right Now with Daniel A. Soto (LinkedIn/Twitter) What I’m Listening to – Migos - Stir Fry What I’m Watching – I recently finished binge-watching Riverdale (thanks Ben Kittelson). What I Did this Weekend – I took a quick road trip to Modesto, a large city in the Central Valley in...

Relational Local Government

Right Now with Kevin Teater What I'm listening to: the Folk Pop station on Spotify What I'm reading: 'Walkable City - How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a Time' by Jeff Speck What I'm watching: Parks and Rec (Season 2: I got a very late start). The part where Mark, the planner, was...

Humanism in Local Government

Kyle Knott, LinkedIn & Twitter, has worked at Village of Mukwonago, Wisconsin, Elk Grove Township, Illinois, and DeKalb County Business Incubator. My first post was about the concept of professionalism. I wanted to convey that, at its core, professionalism calls for an abandonment of individuality to conform to a culture. This culture stresses the necessity of responsibility, accountability, and...

Advancing the #13Percent Initiative

In the aftermath of ELGL's launch of the #13Percent Initiative in 2014, numerous states have launched programming aimed at increasing the low percentage of women in chief administrative roles in local government. The upcoming release of Diversity Dashboard data shows that our profession is continuing to struggle in making significant progress. Below is another opportunity...

Doing Just One Thing Makes You Better At Everything

Right Now with Nick Smith (Linkedin/Twitter) What I'm reading: It's the new fiscal year! What am I NOT reading? But, mostly social media analytics and insights about social media analytics. What I'm watching: I'm really into this Bon Appetit series where a pastry chef sciences out ways to make gourmet versions of guilty pleasures, she's amazing: Twinkies...

Using Your Time off (Even When People Might Be Judging You)

What I'm Reading: Radium Girls by Kate Moore What I'm Watching: Moana (alone, for the 5th time) What I'm Listening To: Drake's new album "Scorpion It's the summer — not just that, it's a holiday week. Honestly, I'd be interested to know how many people check out this edition of Morning Buzz. I bet it...