Beyond the election: Where does the village go from here?
Plan the work; work the plan.
This is the only way that we will end up with the Riverside that we want. Operating on cruise control won't cut it. With that in mind, it is not premature to start a second train of thought. A train of thought for how to move forward after the election. By starting now, ahead of time, we will be . . . planning. Once again, as a relatively new resident (3 ½ years), I offer a few thoughts from a fresh set of eyes for your consideration. Consider this an open invitation to brainstorm.
The business of running our village is just that; a business. A business in which the citizens are the both the stockholders and the customers. To take stock of the present status of our business, I offer a report card for your consideration. I came up with this idea because I like organizing my thoughts into different frameworks to make them more useful and to keep the process interesting.
As I look through this report card, I am thinking of positive thoughts instead of negative ones. I am thinking of ways that we might improve instead ways to criticize. I am thinking of ways that we can move forward as a team.
A report card on our business: (assign your own grades in your mind)
Our Marketing Department:
Do most of our citizens understand the state of our infrastructure & finances?
Do we adequately research the wants of our primary market (the citizens)?
Do we let citizens craft survey questions?
Do we do a good job of translating citizen's wants into an attractive product offering?
Do we try to avoid bundling?
Do we do a good job of marketing our community to potential businesses and to tourists?
Do we enhance the value of our brand?
Our Engineering Department:
Have we architected a blueprint for our home?
Do we have a good policy for addressing teardowns & patchwork development?
Our Enforcement Department:
Do we adequately enforce the building codes that we already have?
Our Finance Department:
Do we publish a short report card with Key Performance Indicators?
Do we educate or citizens about what those KPIs mean?
Do we balance our budget each year (no deficit spending or using reserves)?
Do we have an open-books financial record keeping system?
Do we always, always avoid decoupling projects from costs?
Do we ensure that our marketing department avoids decoupling projects from costs?
Have we identified all alternatives available for augmenting long term finances?
Our Human Resources Department:
Do we practice preventive healthcare by avoiding undue anxiety for our citizens?
Our Management Department:
Do we speak a common language?
Do we appropriately utilize all of our assets?
Do we harness the creativity and skills of our citizens?
Do we have an adequate system of checks and balances?
Do we avoid bending to the pressures of a vocal few?
Do we represent the interests of the majority of our stockholders (citizens)?
So what do you think? Did you think of any ideas to help improve our business?
Here are my high-level thoughts.
1. Don't employ deficit spending:
We are spending more money than we earn; and, we are dipping into reserves to do so. I personally consider this to be a crisis. In order to solve it we need a short-term solution to treat the symptom and a long-term solution to implement the cure. By not balancing our budget, we are deferring the pain. But it is this very pain that we can harness to prod us into facing reality and thinking through our long-term solutions.
2. Identify and evaluate the complete set of options and trade-offs that we have available to increase our tax base and reduce our individual burdens.
Then present the findings to the voters. Harness the creativity of our citizens. Think outside the box. I remember an interesting case study in school. The plant was out of capacity. One team proposed a multi-million dollar plant expansion. A second team figured out that if one person came in 30 minutes early to warm up the equipment then capacity would be more than adequate.
3. Come to an agreement on an identity for our downtown.
Some of us like our downtown pretty much the way it is with a few minor improvements and a beefed up attempt to draw in a few restaurants. Some of us would like to “sell— our downtown in order to increase the density of our town in order to “slightly— reduce taxes. Some of us would like a more up-scale downtown. Some of us just seem to be enamored with planning. We need to decide what the majority of citizens would like, at the price that they are willing to pay.
4. Manage the teardown process in a manner that improves the value of our Riverside brand.
Some of the houses that are torn down are beautiful. Many of them are not. Almost all of them are in poor condition. We may have little control over which ones get torn down, but let's raise our standards about what we allow to get built back up.
5. Improve our system of checks and balances:
Humor columnist Dave Barry once joked that we should have a Department of Judy. Judy would be a single, working mother. When considering new projects, the government would then run them by Judy. For example, they might ask if we should use our tax dollars to build a Lawrence Welk museum. To which Judy would give careful consideration for a full 10 seconds before replying . . . no.
Not only do I see the humor in that, I also see a bit of wisdom. In fact, I think our government could benefit immensely from an Ordinary Citizen Review Board whose members would be elected by the citizens.
6. Speak a common language.
Some days I listen to village-speak and think that I must be from another planet. Maybe we can build a common language. Here are a few proposals.
Vocabulary Term: Project —“ what we want to do.
Vocabulary Term: Cost —“ the price we pay.
Vocabulary Term: Funding —“ where the money comes from.
Grammar Rule: Never discuss a project without discussing its cost.
For example, when operating under a budget deficit and discussing a community center with our neighbors, it is incorrect to say: “Would you like a community center?— The correct form of this question is: “Would you like a $6 million dollar community center?— It is also considered correct form to say: “Would you like a $3 million dollar meeting place?— “If so, would you like to add a $1.5 million dollar swimming pool and/or a $1.5 million dollar exercise facility?—
Vocabulary Terms: Planning
If you read my earlier posts, you know that I don't think much of bundling products together. Instead, I would like to be able to pick and choose. I do believe in some form of planning though. But isn't a plan a bundle? Yes, in part it is. Since we have multiple people involved, it must be a democratic compromise. Take a look at quotes on these two topics from wikipedia.
Vocabulary Term: Product Bundling
Here are two quotes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_bundling
“Product bundling is a marketing strategy that involves offering several products for sale as one combined product.—
“In oligopolistic and monopolistic industries, product bundling can be seen as an unfair use of market power because it limits the choices available to the consumer.—
Vocabulary Term: Urban Planning
Here are two quotes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_planning
“Urban, city, or town planning is the discipline of land use planning which explores several aspects of the built and social environments of municipalities and communities.—
“Changes to the planning process over past decades have witnessed the metamorphosis of the role of the urban planner in the planning process. Calls championing for more democratic planning processes have played a huge role in allowing the public to make important decisions as part of the planning process.—
What constitutes a good plan? It is one that the majority of our stockholders support. It is also one that was obtained at a relatively modest cost.
Frankly, all this talk of planning scares me a bit. I was recently handed a master plan to look at. Is a good one or a bad one? I don't know. I will list the important information so the experts can tell me if it is a good one or a bad one. It is about a 2-pounder and is about 1 ¼ inch thick. There is a very nice history section that was photo-copied from somewhere else. There is also a very helpful section on “Abandonment Of The 1996 Plan & The Need For A New Plan.— It doesn't seem to be defiled by references to any dollar amounts such as projected financial implications of any plans or dollar amounts that were paid to the authors of the plan.
So how do we walk the fine line between a bad bundle and a good plan? I think to answer that question we need to draw on the people that have experience doing it. That probably includes many in our village.
What would I really like? I would like to have few informal Saturday afternoon coffee sessions where we, the ordinary citizens could meet with we, the ordinary citizens who also happen to have planning experience. I would love to get together and just talk and exchange ideas.
As an ordinary citizen of the first variety, I need a lot of education. I recognize that we need some amount of planning, but I also have some fears about planning that I would like to have addressed.
1. Do the majority of our citizens want a plan to evolve to something higher and better, or do the majority of citizens want a plan to defend against the loss of what we already have? Or a combination?
2. I would love to see someone put together one sheet of paper with the following information: Column headers: Initial estimate for cost of developing plan, Final cost of developing plan, City, percent of citizens that approved of the final plan. Rows: list plans that are success stories that we may look at in order to better educate are selves about the process. If we can't quantify that citizens approved of the outcome, then they don't count.
3. I have a gnawing feeling that if we could educate our citizens about village finances, they might be willing to pay more taxes. I worry that we may be selling off the assets of our village when we don't need to.
4. I have a gnawing feeling that many, perhaps a majority of our citizens would prefer that we make only minor improvements to our downtown.
5. I have a gnawing feeling that we may be spending a large amount of money.
6. I have a gnawing feeling that we may end up with a pork-barrel bundle instead of a democratic compromise.
7. I have a gnawing feeling that we may embark on a long, ongoing planning process when what our citizens might prefer is that we just plan to enforce the building codes that we already have.
8. I have a gnawing feeling that if we can't adhere to the codes we already have in place that we probably won't adhere to the results of any new plan.
9. I have a gnawing feeling that if the planning process is to long, those who are driving the process may become so attached to it that they feel compelled to push it through even if it diverges from the interests of the majority.
10. I have a gnawing feeling that whether we are considering spending a large amount of money to hire a planning firm; or whether we are approving a final plan; that we the ordinary citizens will only serve in an —˜advisory' capacity instead of a —˜voting' capacity.
11. I have a gnawing feeling that we won't have the checks and balances provided by an Ordinary Citizens Review Board.
12. I have a gnawing feeling that the meek may inherit the earth, but that the meek may not inherit Riverside.