We caught up with Erik Tungate, City of Oak Park, MI, for this exclusive interview about consolidation, employee engagement, and nighttime. Oak Park consolidated recreation departments with neighboring Ferndale’s leads. Where did the idea originate? What were the biggest hurdles to overcome in implementing the change? Technically, we haven’t consolidated our recreation functions. We signed on an interlocal agreement with … Continued
Bobbi Nance, Park District of Oak Park Project Manager, follows up on her last column – Parks and Recreation’s Perception Problem by discussing special districts. In light of John Oliver’s take on special districts, we re-post Bobbi Nance’s article where she shared her experience working for a special district. Want to join the conversation by sharing your opinion … Continued
Fifty Nifty Takeaways What do we hope to learn from this series? We hope you will gain a better understanding of the unique characteristics of local government in each state, we hope you will learn that there are others like you who are motivated to make a difference through the public sector, and we hope … Continued
Prepare for #ELGL14 by learning about who is attending. Find out if you’ll be surrounded by soft talkers, loud eaters, and finger biters or whether you’ll be surrounded by the best in local government. Patrick Rollens Village of Oak Park, IL — Social Media Coordinator Connect: LinkedIn and Twitter (Complete the sentence) #ELGL14 is….. an affirmation that I … Continued
I’m a big proponent of taking social media interactions into the real world whenever possible. Being able to shake hands with someone who you only know as a Twitter handle, or raise a glass with your favorite Facebook fans goes a long way toward strengthening the sense of community around town. It’s even better when … Continued
The Midwest chapter hosted its Lunch and Learn event at the Village of Oak Park and Patrick Rollens is here to give us the break down of how it went and what they learned. Oak Park TV Manager, Joe Kreml, spoke about operating a YouTube account on a budget. The Recap Last week ELGL’s Midwest chapter … Continued
Jennifer Jones, Village of Oak Park (IL) Parking Permits Supervisor, authors a new series on customer service in local government. She brings ten years of experience in local government and a wealth of ideas for promoting customer service in all levels of the organization. The Personality of the Guest Jennifer Jones, Village of Oak Park … Continued
Vitals Jennifer Jones Village of Oak Park Parking Permits Supervisor (Complete these phrases) Best thing about the…. 80’s was…music , and great movies 90’s was…… video games, clothes and music 00’s was….. social media, iPhone, technology growth and political change Last year was….. A good shift in the economy. Today is….better than yesterday. Tell … Continued
I was pleased to see that last month’s column about how to respond to snarky comments on social media generated some nice discussion on LinkedIn and Twitter. I also sent the column to my boss, the Oak Park Communications Director David Powers. As you can see from this pic, Oak Park’s staff offices lack a … Continued
Knope of the Week winner Patrick Rollens is back for another installment of his “Broken Social Scene” column. This time he explains how to deal with the negative comments that citizens might post on your Facebook page. These sometimes snarky posts can pose real issues for local governments and Patrick has a plan for how … Continued
