Why City Government Matters

At-Risk Teen Turns Life around Thanks to City Government: a True Story

CHF Team — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:55:00 GMT

by Mercedes Sanchez, Houston City Hall Fellow '10

Imagine…you are a 16 year old kid who wakes up to find your best friend dead next to you. The previous night you were both at your house playing video games, smoking weed, and taking Xanax—a common drug among teenagers.

How would you feel?

Looking back, you might remember all the good times you had growing up; you had been best friends since you were 8 years old. You might think about the time when you were in elementary school and he defended you from the bully who was picking on you. Or the endless hours you two spent playing basketball at the YMCA down the street from your house. You might think about his family, and how every time you would visit they welcomed you into their house. You might remember your plans for the future, how you were both going to conquer the world together. You were going to be best friends forever.

Now imagine this. Today is his funeral, and your friend’s mom has forbidden you from attending the service. You feel guilty about his death, you feel like it should have been you instead. You have had sleepovers and done drugs many times, what went wrong this time? The weeks that followed the burial you didn’t care about anything. The pain and guilt keeps intensifying. It feels as if life has no meaning for you anymore.

After that, things just keep going downhill; your attendance at school is so bad that you have to repeat the 9th grade. The abuse of alcohol and drugs keeps getting worse. You find yourself hanging out with a pretty rough crowd. At home, your mom’s never there because she is always working trying to make ends meet for you and your little brother. You are hurt, depressed, devastated, and completely distraught.

One day, you decide to finally go to class and during lunch you see that counselor, from the Mayor’s Anti-Gang Office, who is often at school during lunch time. Some of your friends talk to him all the time, so you know what he does. In the past he helped some of your friends with tattoo removal, found jobs for a couple more, sent some to drug and alcohol rehab centers, and others to credit recovery schools. He knew your best friend and he was aware of your situation.

Now imagine that this outreach worker became a dependable person in your life. For two months straight he was there to talk to you. He always listened to you and did not try to impose his ideas on you. Little by little, he was able to earn your trust and helped you realize you were not constructively coping with your situation. He was able to help you receive grief counseling and set up everything for you to be placed in an in-patient treatment facility for 120 days. While in treatment you were able to attend school and catch up with your credits.

This story is real. It is simply one of the many success stories in the Houston Mayor’s Anti-Gang Office, where I am spending my Fellowship. We know the journey does not end just because we offer assistance; there will be hard times ahead, because of the influences of others. However, this client – like many others - now knows that he is not alone. He knows to contact his trusted counselor if times get hard. Because our counselors go out to the local schools and spend time with at-risk youth on their own turf, they are always available to help any client, even those who have completed their programs or have initially rejected help.

This is why city government matters: when this kid had no one to turn to, a counselor from the Mayor’s Anti-Gang Office was able to get through to him and direct him to the services that he needed to put his life back in the right track. These services help deter young people from becoming involved in violent gangs and committing crimes. It is the purpose of government to help its citizens and the Mayor’s Anti-Gang Office serves that function everyday.

local implications of energy policy

CHF Team — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 02:18:00 GMT

By Rance Graham-Bailey, San Francisco City Hall Fellow '10

January seems to be a sign of a much cleaner future for residents of San Francisco’s Southeast.

This month, Mayor Gavin Newsom received a letter from the CaliforniaIndependent System Operator (CAISO or Cal-ISO) that it anticipates allowingMirant’s power plant at Potrero to close at the end of the year. The closing ofthe power plant would mark the end of fossil-fuel plants in San Francisco; the other at Hunters Pointhaving closed in 2006. Closing the two plants have been environmental justicegoals of the City since the 1990s. Pollution from the plants has contributed torecord-high rates of asthma, cervical cancer and countless other ailments confrontinga historically African American portion of the City.

The CAISO was created by federal regulatory authorities to plan and manage California’shigh-voltage transmission grid, minimize black outs and keep utilities andmerchant generators from exploiting the markets used for sale of energy. TheISO prevents generators and transmission line owners from manipulating marketprices while ensuring electrical reliability in local areas.

For privately-owned facilities such as those at Potrero, CAISO determineswhether power generation is necessary for local reliability and whether it isappropriate to implement Reliability Must-Run (RMR) contracts that legally bindthe power plant owners. CAISO conducts studies annually about how contingencies in theelectrical grid could affect stable delivery of electricity and designatesmust-run status for generating units accordingly. Mirant has even expressedthat it would close the plant at Potrero once the ISO removes itsmust-run status.

Conceptually, I’ve found transmission to be an illusive component of electricpower. As electricity goes from power plant to power outlet, transmission is acritical infrastructure in between. Generators feed power into the transmissiongrid across long distances—sometimes across entire states—until the power isdelivered into a community’s distribution system, the series of power lineslining its streets.

Located at the top of the Peninsula, San Francisco is resource-constrained in that there issimply not enough transmission capacity to reliably import its entireelectrical load. This explains why, after over 10 years of staunch oppositionto the power plants, only one has successfully shut down.

The City’s strategy to close both power plants and get a cleanerelectrical portfolio relies on both renewable energy and reduced electricaldemand, in addition to more transmission capacity. However, the level ofrenewable energy and reduction in demand alone has not matched the generatingcapacity provided by the plants.

This is in part because of the difficulty in integrating many renewable resources.Solar and wind, for example, are intermittent resources whose hours ofoperation are controlled by environmental factors. The ISO cannot turn on theresources at-will as it can with fossil-fuel plants, or even hydroelectric orgeothermal plants. Technological innovation and adoption will hopefully addressthis weakness of renewable energy in the near-future.

In the end, it appears that increased transmission capacity will be largelycredited with eliminating the power plants in San Francisco. New transmission lines andupgrades are what primarily led to the 2006 closing of Hunters Point and arealso cited in this month’s letter to Mayor Newsom about Mirant’s plant. Inparticular, a public-private partnership produced a new underwatertransmission cable that connects San Franciscoto the East Bay.

The San Francisco Power and Utilities Commission (where I am spending myFellowship) has played an important role in implementing these equity-drivenenergy priorities of the City, and it is this leadership that hopefully willsee the release of Potrero’s must-run designation at the end of this year andthe close of the plant in the following year.

Copenhagen maynot have achieved what many would have liked, and even our own Congress appearsto have lost the urgency of confronting energy reform. However, as this examplein San Francisco shows, local governments are stepping up to the plate,thinking globally about the effect of climate change, and acting locally tohelp their own residents who have suffered from poor environmental stewardshipfor far too long.

Houston Redistricting: Redrawing the Council in a changing city

CHF Team — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 23:25:00 GMT

By Christopher Gustafson, Houston City Hall Fellow '10

    Every ten years, the most important political event of the decade happens. No, it is not an election. I’m talking instead about the event that essentially determines how competitive an election will be. Redistricting is the process by which every state must redraw their election boundaries to comply with new data presented from the decennial census. Ever since I have been active in politics, redistricting has been the political cause of my life. This is not to say that I do not care about other issues - in fact I care a lot about social services and economic justice - but I have come to the conclusion that without a focus on redistricting, there is no way any other issue will come to fruition.

    Why must we redistrict you ask? Well it all goes back to the constitutional requirement to redraw legislative lines and a line of court cases that culminated in the Supreme Court with Baker v Carr. In Baker, the Supreme Court ruled that courts have the power to enforce “one person, one vote”. This term refers to a requirement that all districts (with the exception of the United States Senate) have roughly an equal number of people in them. Therefore, whenever the census results come out, lawmakers must readjust district lines to ensure compliance. This can be done one of two ways: by either slightly tweaking districts or by a full-scale overhaul.

    The City of Houston will soon be in the midst of a potentially complicated redistricting that involves many factors. Believe it or not, City Council members actually redraw the lines. Many times they are voting on the districts that they will eventually run in. This may seem a bit sketchy, but it is certainly not uncommon. Most states and cities engage in this practice. Currently, there are nine district council seats that are equally proportioned throughout the city. Here is a link to the map: www.houstontx.gov/council/maps/councildistricts.jpg

    While there are many things council members can do to design districts that fit their particular needs, they are bound by the law and must obey many precedents that have been set in the law. Four of the districts, B,D,H and I are protected under the Voting Rights Act, an act passed by Congress that ensures that minority populations living in the same community are allowed to pick a representative of their choice. Do they have to necessarily pick someone who is of the same ethnic group? No, but the law says the state cannot prohibit them from making that choice. This derives from the Jim Crow era policies that made it hard for African Americans to vote in the south. There were many districts where African Americans were the majority of the population, but less than 10% of registered voters. The law is designed to ensure that if a district has a majority minority population, then that population must also be the majority of registered voters. This act was passed in 1965 as a response to racial segregation in the South. Congressional leaders determined that, if a community has a sizeable minority population, then districts should be able to reflect that. In the ideal form, this means that the districts should be proportional to the population. For example, if 25% of the area is African American and there are four districts, then one should be African-American.

    The four protected districts in Houston are composed of 2 African-American and 2 Hispanic districts. The other five districts are not protected because they do not have a majority of one specific minority group in them. This is where the problem occurs. Houston is roughly 44% Hispanic, 18% African American, 25% White and 8% Asian. With only two Hispanic Districts, Houston is not meeting the ideal standard of Hispanic representation. With only two protected districts, Hispanic majority districts lag far behind their city population.

    As of today, this is not necessarily a problem because of the growth in Hispanic population over the last ten years, but the next census may prove more difficult for the current lines.

    By law, when Houston reaches a certain population, it has to add two more district seats to the council. The question is where these two seats are going to go? If we are to take the Voting Rights Act at face value, both seats should go to Hispanic-majority districts because Hispanics represent the largest bloc of inhabitants in the city; however there are many challenges to this. One is that Hispanics are spread out throughout the city; it is very difficult to craft districts that are Hispanic majority because districts would have to reach across entire sections of town to find Hispanic pockets of inhabitants. So what happens if the city council decides not to pursue this? Well, they could potentially face major legal problems. In District F, a district that is almost completely minority, but where no one minority group makes up a majority, an Asian-American has won for the last eight years despite the fact that Asians are the smallest group of citizens in the district. Hispanics make up a large plurality but not a majority, making it difficult for them to elect a member of the Hispanic community because they are the least likely to be able to vote. It is a known fact that a certain portion of the Hispanic community is not eligible to vote, due to the fact they are not citizens of this country in the traditional sense. Still, under the rules of the census, they are supposed to be counted for purposes of representation. So while Hispanics are outnumbered among registered voters, they are still by far the largest bloc of inhabitants in the city. This leads to a very large conundrum - the city is required to accommodate the city population in a way that is fair to all its inhabitants, not simply its voters. Furthermore, three districts, C, G and E, are majority white and have solely elected white council members throughout their history, giving white citizens a substantially higher percentage of representation on the council than their proportionate population. Should these districts be allowed to stand after the census, they City may well face law suits under the Voting Rights Act.

    Finally some people may ask, in the age of President Obama, is it necessary to have districts drawn for minorities? My personal opinion is yes. I believe the nation has an interest in making sure that all its citizens are fairly represented. However, personal opinions aside, the Voting Rights Act is still the law of the land and unless it is overturned, there are things the city must do to comply with it. It will be left up to the courts to decide whether they have properly executed the law.

    It will be an interesting year in the City of Houston because of redistricting. This is the first major redistricting fight the council will see in a generation and could lead to a shift in political power.

obesity prevention: taking menu-labeling local

CHF Team — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:42:00 GMT

By Rachel Deason, Houston City Hall Fellow '10

    Last fall, as part of my Fellowship, I conducted a policy analysis of what is going on with menu labeling legislation at the city, state, and federal level. The term “menu labeling” refers to the mandated posting of calorie information on menus and menu boards at fast food and other large chain restaurants. Many public health experts believe this legislation could help to stem the obesity epidemic, which is taking its toll on Texas and other states around the country.

    According to the Texas Health Institute more than 29% of Texans in 2007 were obese, while two out of three adults in Texas were overweight. These numbers represent an unabated 20-year upward trend in the number of severely overweight residents. Even more disturbing is that obesity rates in Texas have more than doubled since 1990, when the Texas rate stood at 12.3 percent. Children are affected as well, with studies showing that every third child born in 2000 is likely to wind up with diabetes. Diabetes is only one of several chronic illnesses that are linked to obesity. Robert Gould, president and CEO of Partnership for Prevention, said “Today's children face the prospect of being the first generation in history to live sicker and die younger than their parents.”

    Obesity is also costing Texans the big bucks. Recent reports estimate that Texas spends more than $5.7 billion on obesity-related chronic conditions, including hypertension, cancer, diabetes and back problems. If obesity levels continue to surge as projected, Texans will spend more than $23.2 billion on obesity-linked health care in 2018, or about $1,255 per adult.

    Menu labeling legislation will provide consumers with the information they need to make healthier choices. Menu labeling laws have been passed in 4 states, and have been introduced in 25 other states. City government officials have also taken up the fight, with New York City leading the way as the first city to implement this legislation. On the federal level, until June of 2009, there had been two versions of menu labeling legislation, commonly referred to as the LEAN Act and the MEAL Act. Compromise language has been taken from each of these bills, and is included in the health care bill that is currently making its way through the United States Senate. These provisions, if passed, will require chain restaurants with more than 20 locations nationally to post calorie information on their menu boards, drive through boards, and printed menus. This important legislation will be one more weapon with which consumers can fight off the obesity epidemic.

    The most exciting aspect of my research came about after I had already completed my analysis. I had the opportunity, along with my supervisor, to meet with two lobbyists from the American Heart Association to discuss the idea of beginning a grassroots campaign in Houston to promote menu labeling legislation. I hope to be able to serve on this task force and put everything I learned in my research into action!

Local Government and the Decennial Census

CHF Team — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:00:00 GMT

By Richard Whipple, San Francisco City Hall Fellow '10

Every ten years, the federal government conducts the largest civil service mobilization in the nation: the decennial census. Each decade, every single resident of the United States is included in the census enumeration. In addition to providing valuable data sets for researching and understanding the demographic composition of our nation, census information plays a critical role in dictating congressional representation and determining to whom and where over $400 billion in federal funds is distributed. The census enumeration, in many ways, represents the best of effective federal government bureaucracy.

An unsung, yet mandatory member in the cast of census collaborators is local government. Despite all the planning, organizing and well-oiled execution of the Census Bureau, the efforts by the federal government to accurately count the country’s residents fall short. With resources and representation at stake for all parts of the country, the census enumeration is highly relevant to all city governments and community organizations.

For some perspective, the 2000 census efforts represented record funding levels from the federal and state government. Organization on behalf of the Census Bureau and State of California was touted as the best in any census to date. Yet over 100,000 residents were undercounted in San Francisco alone. Though this number was a vast improvement over previous census enumeration efforts, it still equated to a loss of over $300 million in federal funds that San Francisco could, and should, have received.

What can be credited for the improvement of 2000? And what is also needed to close the 100,000 person gap in 2010? I propose that the answer is local government. Of all levels of government, local government is closest to communities and residents. In its best form, local government knows community-based organizations, understands local issues, and has trusted relationships with neighborhood leaders. It knows what kind of messaging will resonate with communities and is more equipped to be responsive to their concerns and challenges. Local government leaders, especially in San Francisco where I live and work, have strong relationships with the communities that they serve. In addition, many local governments provide millions of dollars of funding to community organizations through grants and contracts. Local governments also provide much of the services and infrastructure that residents rely on daily.

So how can San Francisco’s local government tip the scale to maximize results in the 2010 Census? Through enrolling and utilizing trusted leaders in the Complete Count Committee; through entrusted reliable community groups with conducting outreach and addressing specific barriers; and through engaging City employees, departments and leaders to insert census messaging into the many interactions that they have directly with the residents of San Francisco. As I have watched remarkable community leaders work in concert with the census bureau’s strategy, I see how local government plays a critical role in bridging the gap between the individual and the nation. While there will always continue to be challenges and obstacles related to including all residents in census counts, San Francisco has made a remarkable effort to identify and communicate with those most likely to be left out.

Ultimately, the census represents more than a needed demographic analysis of the nation’s residents. If executed correctly, the census can be a starting point for developing a relationship of trust between the undercounted and underserved communities and government. It has the potential to change perceptions about government, and to strengthen citizen participation in the decision making process.

Work Hard. Be Nice.

CHF Team — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:21:00 GMT

By Rachel Deason, Houston City Hall Fellow '10

On December 2nd, the Houston City Hall Fellows were incredibly fortunate to meet with Mike Feinberg, the Co-Founder of the KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) Foundation as part of our learning about local public education. For those of you who are unfamiliar with KIPP, let me give you a brief background. KIPP started in 1994 with a single Academy in Houston, Texas. Today, KIPP is a network of 82 high-performing public schools around the nation serving 21,000 children. Like Teach For America, they are committed to bridging the educational gap that exists in our country. KIPP schools meet for longer hours, and for more months out of the year than typical public schools. Teachers, parents, and students must sign a “Commitment to Excellence” that details expectations for each involved party. These are just a few examples of the many qualities that have made KIPP such a successful endeavor.

Mike was an excellent speaker, and the enthusiasm and passion with which he runs his organization is quite evident. His program has clearly impacted thousands of students across the country, and the statistics of the “KIPPsters” that have come through his schools are impressive to say the least. The stories he shared with us were inspirational, and I’m sure there were hundreds more that we simply did not have time to hear. He served as a wonderful example of someone who has achieved great professional success while at the same time contributing to the community around him.

However, there was one thing Mike said that stood out to me as a recent college graduate still learning to navigate her way through the working world. I have a feeling that this simple statement will serve as a road-marker for me down whichever career path I end up following.

“Work hard. Be nice.” This is one of the tenets of the KIPP Foundation, but it is applicable to any private, public, or non-profit organization and its employees. Too often we are taught that the two must be mutually exclusive; that you can not possibly achieve great success by going around being “nice” to people. I disagree, and so does Mike Feinberg. And while my opinion may not matter, his certainly should, as he has reached the pinnacle of what anyone with aspirations of pioneering social change could hope to achieve. The daily grind would be much improved if we could all keep this simple concept at the forefront of our minds.

I’ll end with a personal anecdote from my placement within the Houston Parks and Recreation Department — Monday morning I was walking into our new office building when I happened to see an older colleague coming down the sidewalk behind me. I wasn’t in a hurry, so without thinking much of it, I stood and held the door open for him. As he walked through, he smiled and said: “A young lady held the door open for me?! This is going to be a great week.” If I can improve someone’s week without saying a word, I can only imagine the results of everyone making a conscious effort to live by Mike’s words of wisdom.

Coping with Sea Change

CHF Team — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:12:00 GMT

By Jason Karpman, City Hall Fellow San Francisco '10

Veteran’s day was this month and I owed my grandfather a phone call. He did not sound good. My mother had told me earlier this week that he had stopped eating because he was depressed. He recently had to stop driving because of health reasons, but his new lack of mobility has only made him feel worse. He said I was the third person he had talked to all week.

He asked about my fellowship and I told him how I have been learning about sea level rise at work. The topic has become of particular concern for me since working in San Francisco’s water department. As tides rise, they will intrude into our city’s storm drain system and potentially flood the city above ground. To make the rise personally relevant for my grandpa, I mentioned that I had been shown a photograph of the old Officer's Club at Fort Ord falling into the beach as the encroaching ocean reclaims it. Since my grandpa had been stationed at Ford Ord during World War II, I felt sort of conflicted about telling him something so dismal, but he said the invitation to reflect upon the past made him feel young again, so it was OK.

The topic of conversation quickly changed from sea level rise to reminiscing about life at an army post. Unlike a lot of other vets, my grandpa speaks fondly of the war. I think it was the closest he ever came to the college experience: he got to travel, continually meet new people, and live in close proximity to all his friends. I think that the desire to approximate that lifestyle again is what attracts many of us to live in cities.

I wondered how different my grandfather’s life would be today if he had lived in a city instead of the suburbs of Southern California. Would losing his ability to drive have had such a profound effect on his morale? Would living in a denser community have provided him with more opportunity for social interaction? It is difficult to predict which of our choices will have the greatest impact on our future happiness, but the quality of our social lives is inextricably linked to the design of our built environment.

I intended to write this post about sea level rise. I thought that my conversation with my grandfather would serve as a revealing anecdote to the terrifying rapidity with which our landscape is already changing. However, my grandfather’s general nonchalance around the loss of the physical structures at Fort Ord and his preference to instead talk about the loss of the social relationships with which took place there, revealed that sea level rise may have been the lesser of two evils. Living alone had already left him feeling stranded well before the water ever hits his door.

Urban policy won’t undo the hardships of growing old, or cure social isolation, but it can mitigate some of their symptoms. What if post-war development had been targeted in cities instead suburbs? What if shared space had also been included in the marketing of the American dream? Would sea levels even be rising if cars hadn’t been so prioritized in urban design? Given the predicament that city governments face in having to plan for sea level rise, we have the opportunity to address those questions and correct previous mistakes. Some parts of our cities will have to be protected, others rebuilt, and some may even be abandoned. New development will likely look very different, but my conversation with my grandfather reminded me that some essential characteristics must be fundamentally preserved: density, pedestrian mobility, and access to public space. It is because of those design principles that nearly every time I leave my apartment that I run into someone I know on the street. Like my grandfather, it’s the potential loss of that interaction that I ultimately find most terrifying.

City government: government of the people, by the people, for the people

CHF Team — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:50:00 GMT

By Elisabeth Wilkins, City Hall Fellow Houston ’10

It is widely accepted that the type of government that most directly affects both an individual and their community on a very constant, and often vital level, is the local government. Whether it is because of the life-saving aid received from local police and fire departments during times of distress, or the issuing of marriage licenses or permits for opening businesses, city government truly has the ability to reach the community faster than any other level of government. This is because city government is not only the direct provider of services to the community, but is comprised of members of that community.

It wasn’t until I began working within city government that I realized the unique opportunity that city government offers: Those who spend their work day dealing with the issues of the city, are able to witness the direct effect their work has on their community. They are doubly invested in the city; as citizens and employees. This is a ray of hope in a time where the disconnect between high-ranking, high-paid state and federal government officials and the people they are commissioned to serve seems to be wider than ever. In the realm of city government, those deciding how the city budget is distributed, where a new park is planted, or how wide a sidewalk is, are those individuals in the car next you during frustrating traffic, preparing their families for the next hurricane in the gulf, or calling 9-1-1 during times of desperate need. City employees are typically residents of the city they serve, and because of this, it is especially important that they have an understanding of the community, its issues and its culture. Who better to run a city than its citizens?

City employees tend to have a vested interest in the jobs they perform and whether they are elected officials or administrators, they unlike many federal government agencies, are literally faced with those they affect on a daily basis. Recently, I had the opportunity to do a ride along with a Houston Parks and Recreation Department park manager. Several times throughout the day, we were flagged down by a park user who requested a moment of our time. Some offered advice on how to improve the landscape, others simply wanted to report a broken branch, or offer a thank you for an improvement to the trail. At one point, we were stopped by an elderly jogger the park manager referred to as “Coach” who after years of using the park’s trail for exercise, was now on a first name basis with most park staff. After the park manager spent a few moments speaking with the man, it was evident to me that “Coach” was confident his suggestions and feedback were not falling on deaf ears. This is just one of the many ways that the city government reaches the community in a very tangible way. It is the duty of city government to carry out legislature, and city employees who are entrusted by the community they are apart of to ethically carry out these statutes.

While many of us can name a government official proven to be an exception to the idea of a devoted and ethical government employee, it is obvious in the local setting when these individuals do not live up to their responsibilities. The community is able to literally walk into City Hall and hear council’s thoughts on neighborhoods, ordinances, spending, and most importantly, they are able to have their voices heard at public session by those who have the power to evoke change. It is not only in the best interest of the city to have ethical workers and officials but is also in the interest of that individual to remain constant and honest in their work. After all, when their work day is over, they are surrounded by the lives they affect daily. With this comes tremendous responsibility as well as the opportunity for immensely rewarding work. City government is truly a government formed by its people.

The Tree on My Block

CHF Team — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:00:00 GMT

by Adeel Iqbal, 2010 San Francisco Fellow

There was a big storm that hit the Bay Area the other day. It reminded me of the monsoon rains I had to regularly deal with while working in the slums of South Asia last year. Sewers overflowed in San Francisco. Roads turned into murky rivers. Trees were knocked down. When I got home from work, I saw that the tree in front of my neighbor’s home in the East Bay had toppled over onto his lawn. Not surprisingly, my gut reaction to all of this was to think about work.

My Fellowship with this year’s batch of San Francisco City Hall Fellows is in the Department of Public Works, which takes care of everything from potholes and sewer repair to graffiti abatement and the maintenance of publicly-owned trees. That means when a storm like the one that hit the other day decides to roll around, the department has got its work cut out. Residents, businesses and visitors call in to report everything that is going wrong. And all of them expect a response within seconds.

In my neighbor’s case, I was pretty certain it would take some time before anything happened. This tree had not fallen on a major thoroughfare. It was not blocking traffic. And it wasn’t a safety hazard. But I was wrong: it’s been less than two weeks since the storm, and the tree is gone.

More striking for me, however, is the fact that this tree had been up since before anyone on the block moved in. My city planted it. My city also planted the hundreds of other trees around the neighborhood. That means that for all the years my family has lived on our street, the city has maintained every one of the trees. Not once had I given that any thought. But the day the storm hit, it was all I could think about.

Even though I once covered city government as a reporter for my campus newspaper at UC Berkeley, I never fully grasped how much our cities do for us. Trees along a street, for example, seem like such a simple thing at first glance. But when I stop to think about it, I realize the natural touch, the colors of fall, the fresh air and the scent of home that all the trees bring to my neighborhood would not exist were it not for my city. Being at the Department of Public Works has enabled me to appreciate the plethora of services a municipality provides in a way I would never have imagined. And that, in and of itself, has already made this year’s Fellowship experience a truly worthwhile one for me.

Walking The Talk

CHF Team — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:51:00 GMT

by Rachel O'Shields, Houston Fellow '10

It is widely accepted that city government, and government as a whole, is very bureaucratic and consequently, can be extremely frustrating. Although I am not attempting to disprove that theory in its entirety, as a Houston City Hall Fellow, I have noticed some high points in the city’s operations that should give its citizens some faith in their municipal government.

“To work in partnership with the community to promote and protect the health and social well-being of Houstonians”

The mission statement of the Houston Department of Health and Human Services touts quite an ambitious goal. How would a city department go about achieving this sort of objective? Recently, I have observed that they face the issues of the community head on.

Last week, I was fortunate to be a part of AIM, the Houston Department of Health and Human Services’ response to the needs of its under-served communities. AIM stands for “Assessment, Intervention, and Mobilization” and its mission statement is to “Improve the health and well being of the community, one person at a time”. There are three phases of AIM. The first, Assessment, consists of an initial survey of the community that HDHHS intends to serve. Mobilization is the final phase, in which the Health Department maintains these relationships formed with residents and ensures they are getting the services and care they need. Intervention, the phase in which I participated, is the second and largest of the three. Essentially, members from each division of the Health Department, totaling about 300, come together in a specific area of Houston and reach out to the residents. This AIM focused on the Greater Fifth Ward area, but previous AIM’s have included areas, such as Tri-Community, Sunnyside, Near Northside, Independence Heights, and Magnolia.

During the second phase of AIM, or Intervention, there were fifteen Touch teams of HDHHS employees that strategically filtered through the Fifth Ward community. The historic Fifth Ward community is located Northeast of downtown Houston and is one of the six original wards of the city. Although the community has a strong identity and history that binds its residents together, many of these families have experienced poverty, poor health, and a lack of education for generations. In 2000, about 62% of the Fifth Ward population was living below the poverty line. This under-served community has seen its share of social ills and poor health indicators, making it a great candidate for the Health and Human Services Department’s AIM project.

The teams primarily surveyed the residents for immediate needs and if some were uncovered, the Touch teams contacted the other branch of the operation, Service Response and they came out to the affected individuals’ homes to meet their needs. Team members also knocked on doors, handed out information on disease prevention, and engaged residents by informing them of services currently offered to them by the Health Department.

Although I have lived in the outskirts of the city of Houston my entire life, I have never thought or heard of the municipal government as an entity that physically reaches out and serves the community. Sure, everyone knows that the city picks up your trash, ensures that you have running water, and so on, but I have recently witnessed that it does so much more. I believe that due to a cultural disconnect between the terms “public service” and “community service”, many people underestimate the efforts of the city government to truly serve its citizens. This large-scale, grass roots effort is an example of why city government matters and how it can truly align itself with its mission statement.

Keeping All Houstonians Safe

CHF Team — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:00:00 GMT

By Lindsay Zwiener, City Hall Fellow Houston '10

City government plays an integral role in the maintenance of public
safety in the community. Not only are police officers, fire fighters,
and paramedics on the front lines, but there also exists a substantial
infrastructure of personnel who plan for longer-term issues. Planning
and crime analysis are largely the responsibility of City government,
and the City plays an integral role in homeland security as well.

A great deal of the City’s resources is directed toward public
safety—HPD’s operating budget is nearly $700 million and the City’s
largest departmental budget—and the responsibilities of this
department warrant every dollar. A police department affects all
aspects of its citizens’ quality of life—recreation, mobility, even
economic growth. Officers keep safe parks and open areas, maintain
safe roadways, and keep crime rates low so that Houston is more
attractive to potential citizens and businesses.

Within the Houston Police Department, I am getting a firsthand
perspective of all the work that goes into the long-term planning of a
police department. Not only must day-to-day responsibilities be
maintained, but problems both long-term and short-term must also be
addressed. As diverse and as large as Houston is, crime and public
safety problems can vary greatly across the city. For example,
Houston’s diversity of languages presents a unique challenge to its
police department, as officers must be able to provide equal services
to all residents, regardless of their language spoken, in a timely
manner. Accordingly, HPD has a very diverse workforce that can speak
dozens of languages, but an up-to-date database of HPD personnel and
their languages spoken must be maintained and shared effectively, so
that dispatchers and officers can be aware of this valuable resource.

I have had the opportunity to work with data analysis projects
pertaining to family violence, chronic burglary and theft problems,
new technologies, and new methods of working with limited English
proficiency citizens. As my Fellowship progresses, I am looking
forward to exploring in depth the crime problems affecting the Houston
area and what the City is able to do to prevent and suppress these
problems.

city of houston taking great strides to reduce its carbon footprint

CHF Team — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:55:00 GMT

This post is written as part of Blog Action Day '09, a collaboration among more than 10,000 blogs exploring various facets of Climate Change. Find out more at http://www.blogactionday.org.

by Elizabeth "EB" Brooks, City Hall Fellow Houston '09

Houston is known as the "Energy Capital of the World" for its many ties to the oil and gas industry, but its municipal government is truly dedicated to energy conservation as well as investing in renewable energy technology. If Texas were a country, it would be the 8^th largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world, but Mayor Bill White is dedicated to ensuring that the City of Houston is addressing the government's role in this issue, not only for the environment, but for the health of its residents as well as the viability of its economy.

First of all, the City of Houston has set an extremely progressive goal to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 2010to 11% under our 2005 base limit. In order to accomplish this incredible feat, the Office of Environmental Programming is working with many City departments to design, implement and a wide variety of programs, some of which are mentioned below. To read a full copy of the Emissions Reduction Plan, please click here. Also, the City has partnered with several key organizations to address our greenhouse gas emissions and develop creative solutions to reduce them, such as the Clinton Climate Initiative and ICLEI, the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives.

The following are a few aspects of the City's progressive plan to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions:

* Purchasing Wind Power

In 2007, the City negotiated a contract for 30 MW of wind power with the option to increase the amount by 10 MW each year to a total of80 MW. The City has brought on the additional 10 MW each year thus far - the current amount purchased is 50 MW. For the year of 2009 alone, 314,626tons of greenhouse gas emissions will be avoided by switching 50 MW of demand to wind power.

* Solar Power Installations
In April of 2008, Houston was picked as a Solar America City. With this recognition came a $200K grant from DOE and a $200K match from BP Solar. With the funds, the city installed 6.6KW systems at the Code Enforcement Building and the City Hall Annex. There are also a lot of other systems around Houston - the biggest one is atop the George R. Brown Convention Center, recently installed - 100 KW. To learn more about solar initiative shappening in the Houston area, including the city government's efforts, please click here.

* City Building Retrofit

The City has contracted with Siemens and Johnson Controls to perform energy efficiency upgrades on 271 city facilities. The improvements will be paid for through energy savings, estimated at a 30% overall reduction.

* New City Building LEED Certification

All new construction of City facilities over 10,000 square feet are required to be LEED(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified. While these standards focus on many other aspects of environmentally-responsible construction, energy efficiency and emphasis on renewable sources and natural lighting play a large role in certification.

* LED Traffic Lights
As traffic signals wear out and require maintenance, the City is replacing the systems with LED traffic lights at all of its 2,450 signalized intersections.In 2007 alone, the City converted 400 signals to LEDs, which produced an annual savings of more than 2.7 million kWh of electricity. When all are replaced, the conversion will save $3.6 million per year in electricity savings.

* Recycling Program for all City Facilities

The City recently implemented a workplace recycling program, which will significantly increase diversion from the landfill. In addition to this, a group of City Hall Fellows recently conducted a study of the City's waste stream andidentified additional sources for diversion where recycling efforts could be increased, some of which have been implemented since the report.

* Houston Airport System's Environmental Initiatives
The airport is greening up its operations by installing lighting controls in interior/exterior areas and creating green workplace policies.

* Lighting Retrofit Project
The General Services Department, responsible for building maintenance, upgraded the lighting (from T12 w/ magnetic ballasts to T8 w/ electronic ballasts - also CFLs) in many facilities in 2006.

* Installation of Energy Miser Technology and Light Bulb Removal from Vending Machines
These two measures save the city $33,280 per year in electricity.

* Mayor's Hybrids
Selective replacement of non-specialized city fleet vehicles with hybrids
- by 2010, the city will own 1,600 hybrids, the third largest hybrid fleet
in the country.

Ultimately, it is clear to see that with strong leadership and a dedication to change, there are possibilities for major economic and environmental savings within government. With new technologies coming online every day and a recession that pushes for wiser use of taxpayer dollars, city governments have the opportunity and the obligation to invest in intelligent choices today for benefits that will be reaped for generations to come.

a local approach to a national problem

CHF Team — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:26:00 GMT

by Niiobli Armah, City Hall Fellow Houston '09

City government matters for a number of obvious reasons. Any individual who doubts the productivity of its municipal government should ask themselves several questions such as: where does the water come from when they take a shower or flush the toilet, or who picks up their trash from their residence. Believe it or not, last time someone got pulled over for a speeding ticket, that too was municipal government at work. Outside of the obvious reasons mentioned, the importance of City Government transcends the everyday tangibles.

One debate that captures this is occurring throughout the political discourse of America: the “Health Care Crisis.” This crisis we are in has been brewing for quite some time. No matter what side of the argument you fall on one thing for sure is, Americans must live healthier lives. The fact is the crisis we are in is directly linked to the cost of our health care system, costs primarily related to a number of preventable diseases. Local government is uniquely postured to urge citizens to live healthier lives, while equipping them to do so.

Upon beginning my City Hall Fellows journey I never would have imagined that I would have the opportunity to become an advocate in the arena of one of the most important issues facing our country. Becoming an advocate taught me how much City Government matters today, and how much more it will matter tomorrow.

The last thing I expected upon beginning my work as a city hall fellow was to be given a project in its embryonic stages. The Mayors Wellness Council in Houston was founded in 2005 to address Houston’s ranking by Men’s Fitness magazine as the “Fattest City in America”. The mission of the council is to leverage the auspices of the Mayor’s Office in collaboration with public, private, and non-profit sectors in the Greater Houston area to encourage and motivate Houstonians of all ages and abilities to make wise choices regarding healthy eating and regular physical activity through education and participation in fun activities. The Mayors Wellness Council is an example of the impact that municipal government can have on the health of the entire nation.

Neighborhood Wellness Teams (NWTs) is project that was birthed in the Mayor’s Wellness Council that came to being through the work I did with the employees of the Recreation and Wellness Division of Houston Parks and Recreation Department (HPARD). The goal was simple; to create small entities of citizens to engage, educate and initiate a culture of wellness across the city if Houston. Twelve pilot sites where chosen across the city in which NWTs were created. The Neighborhood Wellness Team model utilizes a grassroots approach to engaging citizens and implementing wellness programs. The model suggested citizens work together in their communities to put on health fairs and festivals, health education classes, health awareness and advocacy programs, nutritional eating seminars, running and cycling events, walking clubs, walking school buses, wellness events, and wellness challenges.

The Mayor’s Wellness Council observed that communities offered unique opportunities to engage citizens in the wellness discussion. Yet, they discovered that an efficient model for community-based wellness did not exist in Houston. Consequently, the Mayor’s Wellness Council chose to focus on programming in neighborhoods - the final (or sometimes first) level though which civic participation occurs. Many residents do not have access to worksite-based or school-based wellness programs; even in households where parents are participating in worksite wellness programs and students are participating in school-based wellness programs, a neighborhood-based wellness program provides the missing link to connect the entire family to wellness activities together.

Houston’s municipal government is at the fore front of innovative practices that will ultimately affect the quality of life for the citizens of their city. Houston has created a model that is serving as a catalyst to change the way that everyday citizens think about their health. In some areas of Houston Wellness Block Parties have replaced ineffective health fairs, and in other parts of the city access to farmers markets in low-income areas is coming to fruition.

City Government Matters: the wellness gap in Houston is slowly subsiding due to the work of municipal leaders and employees. Motivating individuals to make behavioral changes is not an easy task for any government agency, but it is possible. Houston is proving that when municipal government gets in the trenches and motivates citizens to help the city help themselves, benefits will be reaped. A healthier, more engaged population with a higher quality of life is just the beginning. If more municipal governments choose to step up to the plate and shift resources into establishing community-based Wellness programs, the return for both citizens and cities can be enormous and the importance of municipal government will be realized.

behind the stats…the City, its people, and the future

CHF Team — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:09:00 GMT

by Jessica Huey, City Hall Fellow San Francisco '09

“The future never just happens; it is created.” - Will and Ariel Durant

Last Friday, I helped plan and organize the City of San Francisco’s first Workforce & Succession Planning Conference at our Main Public Library. You might be wondering, “What’s the point?” Or even thinking, “Another City conference…that’s great, but is anything actually going to happen as a result of it?...What are City employees even doing? Do they even care?”

Don’t get me wrong, I can’t say I haven’t wondered similar things. As a member of the 2008-09 San Francisco City Hall Fellows Class, half of my Fellowship year was spent analyzing the changing demographics of the City’s workforce as we prepared for a report and conference on the topic of succession planning. With the economic downturn, departments in local governments everywhere are grappling with dealing with a diminishing workforce as a result of budget cuts while still preparing for the mass exodus of retirements expected in near future. At the beginning of my Fellowship year, it seemed daunting to be able to get people thinking about “solving” this problem. Did you know that the City is the single largest employer in San Francisco, with 28,000 employees? Did you also know that the average age of a City and County of San Francisco employee is 47.6 years old? When you consider the fact that over 20% of City employees are eligible for retirement, the potential impact is no small thing.

For the past couple of months, I’ve been buried in analyzing statistics about the City’s workforce and reading about, “building your future workforce.” When thinking of the City’s workforce, I would think in terms of its statistics. And future workforce? I figured that there were enough problems today that to think about that the future always seemed so far off. Thinking about creating any sort of “change” in an organization this big, I admit, seemed pretty ambitious.

Last Friday, however, I realized something. Scanning the audience at the conference and wondering if the presentations had enough take away points to be meaningful, I took a moment to step back. I looked out and saw individuals, people I had met during this past year at meetings, people I had had casual conversations about what the City could do differently, everyday people who I knew were doing great things. I saw people who cared about the future of their departments. I heard stories from Baby Boomers who were concerned about the development of the staff they would be leaving behind and then heard from the few younger employees in attendance (did you know that only 3.9% of the City’s workforce is under the age of 28 yearsold?) who spoke about wanting to learn and invest themselves in providing services to the City. And more than just these stories, I heard departments sharing the steps they’ve already taken to invest in their workforce, improving their services – things I was unaware of. What I realized is that, despite the fact that it’s so easy to just think of City employees as statistics, the City is an organization of dynamic individuals creating small changes everyday. Behind all the City services you and I receive are these individuals, people who may share common frustrations about the bureaucracy of government, but who also are committed to making changes where they can.

City government, admittedly, has a lot of critics. And change? Well, change in local government doesn't exactly have a reputation for happening quickly. I had been worried about the impact the conference would have - if it would be effective. And now that it's done and over, I'm confident in saying it was - while there may have not been an answer to all the City's problems or created an immediate change in procedures, it got people talking - sharing their progress, thinking seriously about the future of the City, and stepping from behind the titles of their departments and connecting on an individual level with each other. So maybe there hasn't been an immediate change just yet, but the was I see it, the “future” we talk about – well, it begins with, and it is in, the conversations and the dialogue we have today.

“Every conversation is a communications opportunity. Treat it as such. Be thoughtful about what you say and its potential impact.” – Dan Cohen

Engaging City Government: My Right, My Duty, and My Journey

CHF Team — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 02:40:00 GMT

by Mario Salinas, City Hall Fellow - Houston 2009

When you think about city government, what comes to mind? Most think of first responders; after all they have the city’s name (in my case, Houston) right in their department name and they are the most noticeable units of government out on the city streets. Others may think of the mayor, who by act of the city charter is one of the most powerful urban executives in the US. Perhaps a city councilmember comes to mind, all of whom play a very important role in our local government. Yet I remain curious as to how many of my fellow Houstonians know the name of the councilmember representing them? How many Houstonians can name the three frontrunners that are vying to be our next mayor, with only two months until Election Day no less? I speculate that if one were to conduct a Jay Leno-style informal street poll, the results would be anything but encouraging.

It has always fascinated me that, although city government actually has the largest impact on our daily lives, people seem to know the least about it, or its functions go unrecognized. When you awake in the morning, you expect clean water to flow from the shower. As you flush your toilet, you expect waste to be treated and disposed of properly. When you place your trashcan on the curb for collection, you expect to be able to walk out of your home without fear of crime. Your commute to work is on a road system you expect to be well maintained and patrolled. You expect street signs and traffic lights to keep things flowing in a safe manner. Lastly, you stop for a quick breakfast-to-go from an establishment that has been inspected for cleanliness and food safety. By now, you get my point.

We see that even in the first few hours of our day, we have unknowingly benefited from city government services in many ways. We take for granted most functions of city government, only noticing the things which do not work exactly as planned, or policies that we do not agree with. Even given this reality, those things we disagree with involving city government should make us want to learn more about how things are done. They should push us to engage the local system of government.

I had an interesting experience a few months ago while working in my City Hall Fellowship in the Mayor’s Office of Public Safety and Homeland Security. I went on a ride-along with an HPD Officer. As I pulled into the police station where I had been assigned, something dawned on me; I had been there before. Some years earlier, while in high school, I had visited that very station to file a police brutality complaint against an officer, whom I believe had used excessive force against me in an incident that was the result of no fault of mine. At that point, as a teen, I could have adopted negative assumptions about all HPD officers, disengaging from anything having to do with them. Years later, as the hours of the ride-along passed, and we responded to various calls, I gained insight into the job of a police officer. Now, I can truly say that I better understand and have gained a great respect for what they do. That’s not to say that HPD, or any department in the City, is a perfect institution. Such a thing does not exist, in either the public or private sector, as recent developments attest, and I still believe excessive force was used all those years ago. My point is, if city government is a mystery to you, or if you don’t agree with a certain policy or aspect of how things are done, get involved on a local level and engage city government. The moment you do so, you lay claim to your rights and powers as a resident of your city.

Even if you think you have it all figured out, there is always more to learn. When I applied to become a member of the inaugural class of City Hall Fellows, I considered myself an engaged, informed Houstonian. I went on to learn so much more in the span of my yearlong fellowship, as I saw all of work that goes on behind the scenes.

Earlier this month, professor and local political analyst Richard Murray predicted that only 1 in 8 Houstonians will vote on November 3rd. Presidential elections always bring out the most voters because of the amount of media converge and hype that surround them, but it is the local elections that affect us the most. The beautiful thing about city government is not only does it touch our daily lives in many ways, it is also the most accessible level of government. The more of us that become informed and lay claim to our rights, as residents of a democracy, the healthier that democracy becomes. Lofty language you say? I beg to differ; the proof is right outside your front door.

Peeking Under San Francisco’s Hood

CHF Team — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:44:00 GMT

by Jeffrey Gersick

As far as city governments go, my hometown, San Francisco, is one-of-a-kind. The second most densely populated city in the country, San Francisco is a minority-majority city with slightly more than ¾ million residents. Although our local government is best known on the national stage for taking progressive stands on gay rights, health care and environmental issues, the city also struggles with the standard urban challenges: crime, a significant homeless population and too much drug use. San Francisco is one of the few places in the country where there is a combined city/county form of government, and the unique political dynamic that results shapes municipal policies and decisions.

Last month, I spent three weeks introducing the 2009-2010 San Francisco City Hall Fellows to “all things San Francisco,” to ground them as they begin their extraordinary year-long adventure of simultaneously working in and studying local government. The three-week long orientation blended three different tracks: “Foundations” academic modules that addressed the fundamental concept of cities in general and San Francisco in particular, from historic, economic, sociological and environmental perspectives; “Governance” modules that introduced the primary policy issues currently confronting San Francisco; and professional skills development sessions designed to better equip the Fellows for public service careers. To examine the role cities play in our society and the evolution of the City and County of San Francisco, the Fellows met with Chief Economist for the City and County Ted Egan, Associate Curator of the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society Kristin Morris, as well as City Hall Fellows’ National Director of Curriculum and University of Arizona Assistant Visiting Professor Jason Hayter.

These sessions were not merely academic journeys down centuries of urban history, however. Ms. Morris's perspective on the post-war destruction of the fabric of African-American and Japanese communities in the Fillmore District and Western Addition through "redevelopment" served as a stark example of the difficult issues currently facing San Francisco as it fashions a comprehensive development plan for the Southeast corridor of the city that must avoid the mistakes of the past. San Francisco's renown commitment to social service delivery only functions as well as it does because of the unprecedented cooperation between government agencies and the extensive network of neighborhood organizations and NGOs that exist throughout the city. As a result, during orientation the Fellows got a broad overview of current San Francisco issues from those working most closely with residents and city government to deliver services and address local challenges. This also served to provide multiple perspectives on major policy issues: The Department of Public Health briefed the Fellows about San Francisco's cutting-edge mandatory health care ordinance, Healthy San Francisco. Subsequently, the Fellows also heard from a long-time HIV/AIDS activist about public health care issues, through the lens of HIV/AIDS activists who have worked in the field for decades. To get a handle on local labor issues, Fellows spent time with the Senior Vice President for Policy at the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce -- focusing on the interests of the business community -- and then with a chief organizer for the local SEIU -- focusing primarily on preserving union jobs.

The Fellows also learned the nitty-gritty of the administrative and legislative aspects of local government. Both President of the Board of Supervisors David Chiu and Supervisor David Campos briefed the Fellows on local legislative processes. They received an overview of San Francisco’s local government structure from the city’s Chief Administrative Officer. But the Fellows also saw how cities can interact effectively on a day-to-day basis with their constitutents. The Fellows toured the city’s one-stop “311” citizen’s access office. The "311" line is the integrated system for responding to resident issues (information on bus routes, pothole repairs, public inebriation, trash removal, etc.) that highlights local governments' new emphasis on customer service. Both the legislators and the administrators emphasized the elevated priority that San Francisco now places on customer service, candidly explaining that this mirrors a national shift in the perspective of local government operations. The Fellows also examined the public perception of city government and the role of the media in sessions with a San Francisco Chronicle columnist and a City Hall beat reporter. These sessions put a face on the theories of governing, and vividly demonstrated the human effects of every policy decision the city implements. The Fellows’ local policy track concluded with a series of field explorations to districts and neighborhoods throughout San Francisco that culminated in a group presentation of the distinct character, demographics, positive attributes and challenges that exist in each area of the city. As a concluding exercise, this presentation allowed the Fellows to consolidate much of the information they'd gathered about the "state of the city" they were about to serve, and appreciate the eclectic nature of its citizens and the variety of needs that San Francisco local government must strive to meet.

The third track of professional development sessions included training in effective interview techniques, fiduciary duty and ethics in the public sector, office protocol and professionalism in the workplace, race and class influences on public policy, “managing up” as a young professional, and a workshop by Full Court Press Communications Founder Dan Cohen on creating effective presentations and basic communications principles. This concentrated and intense experience was made possible only because of the incredible support and generosity of city officials and department heads, neighborhood organization leaders, professional service providers and an array of public servants from every sector. The goal of the Fellowship is to repay that investment by the entire San Francisco community through service to the host agencies and departments of the city throughout the year, and ultimately to continue that commitment for the duration of their individual careers in public service.

Be Extraordinary

CHF Team — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:00:00 GMT

When I left my partnership-track job at a big law firm to launch City Hall Fellows nearly 2 years ago, I expected to get a lot of questions. Before making the leap, I prepared myself to answer questions about the viability of the business model. About how the program would work. About how I would interest America’s best and brightest -- who had been avoiding government for decades -- in local government. About my vision for the future and how City Hall Fellows would change the world. I even was prepared to answer questions about my personal choice to forego certain financial security for a risky social endeavor. But there was one question it never crossed my mind to prepare for: “why does city government matter?”

Since then, I have spent a lot of time practicing my “pitch” by talking to strangers about what I do – not just potential funders or city officials, but also the guy sitting next to me on the airplane, the nurse in a doctor’s office, a friend of a friend of a friend at a party. Almost always, the first reaction from anyone who does not work for city government themselves is “why city government? Isn't it just a big, useless bureaucracy?” My initial response to this was: “don’t you see, city government is where the rubber meets the road.” I would then launch into how much I learned while working for the City of New York the year after college. After all, experiencing firsthand on a daily basis just how much even the most arcane aspects of city government (in my case, the information technology and telecommunications department) impacted regular people’s lives is what inspired me to launch City Hall Fellows. But their blank stares told me very quickly just how useless that cliché was in persuading them that city government matters. And my personal experience more than a decade ago as a 21-year-old city employee working on technology strategy was so far removed from their lives that it didn’t really resonate as much more than a mildly interesting anecdote. Unlike me, the people I was trying to convince had never worked for a city government. Nor did they care to. So I turned to impressive statistics that I figured would make the impact indisputable. For example, according to the Brookings Institute, “85% of Americans live in metropolitan areas.” But, again, their blank stares made it clear I wasn’t getting through.

A few months ago, Echoing Green sent me the book Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath. In it, the Heath brothers (both columnists for Fast Company magazine, Chip is a Professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Dan is the co-founder of publishing company Thinkwell and formerly a Consultant to Policy Programs of the Aspen Institute) discuss the importance of concreteness in making ideas clear. Chip and Dan define concreteness as explaining ideas in terms of discrete, tangible human actions and sensory information. They rightly point out that sensory information is too often absent from business communication. And that this absence makes mission statements “often ambiguous to the point of being meaningless.” Chip and Dan also make their point concretely, by contrasting typical business marketing with the concrete images replete in urban myths, such as “apples with razors”. Ultimately, they argue, “Speaking concretely is the only way to ensure that our idea will mean the same thing to everyone in our audience.”

Reading Made to Stick got me thinking. Eventhough everyone I was talking to lived in, worked in or visited cities, they had no idea how much of their daily existence was directed, governed or impact by what city governments did. Most of them would never notice the routine services their municipality provides unless the city stopped providing those services. What these people needed to understand why city government mattered were concrete examples of how city government impacted them personally. So I shifted my narrative. When asked “why city government?” I stopped responding with statistics and clichés. I stopped telling them why I cared about cities. Instead, I asked the person I was talking to if they knew who set the schedule for the traffic lights near them. How the streets and sidewalks near them were maintained. How come the next neighborhood over got a playground and park but theirs did not. And who maintained that neighborhood’s park. As these conversations continued, I could see the light bulbs start to go off. When people started thinking about who was responsible for maintaining the daily fabric of modern life, they started to see just how important city government was.

Here at City Hall Fellows, one of our goals is to educate Americans about why city government matters. To communicate this, we need concrete stories about how city government impacts regular Americans, for better and for worse. And we need your help. I am delighted to announce that City Hall Fellows recently partnered with one of the hottest new communityengagement tools to emerge this year, The Extraordinaries, by launching a profile on their new micro-volunteering platform. Now, whenever you have a few minutes of downtime (e.g. waiting at the doctor's office, sitting on a bus, or in line at the grocery store) you can use your iPhone to share in audio, video, photographic or text format how city government impacts your life. To get started, download TheExtraordinaries iPhone app (Blackberry and desktop widgets coming soon). We plan to use your testimonials to help spread the word about the importance of city government. And why it matters. Thank you for being extraordinary and helping us fulfill our mission!

Why City Government Matters

CHF Team — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 00:30:00 GMT

by: Bethany

What are the first things that come to mind when you hear the words “city government”? Bureaucracy? Red tape? Incompetence? Politicians who are full of hot air? “City government” often conjures up all sorts of negative connotations. But if you are like most people, you know very little about what your local government actually does. Or the impact that it has on your life.

The fact is, local government is the only institution in this country that impacts the lives of every American every day. Drive down the street to go to work or to the store? Those traffic signals, stop signs, street signs, street lights and lane markings you see – local government agencies put them there and maintain them. Turn on the kitchen sink and water flows? Flip a light switch and the power comes on? Local governments make those things happen. Ever noticed that your community has separate residential and commercial districts? That is because of decisions made by local government planners and officials. Taken your kids to play in a neighborhood park? Most likely, that park is maintained by local government employees. Police. Firefighters. Schools. Hospitals. The list goes on. Every day, local governments tackle public health, education, poverty, discrimination, public safety, economic development, transportation, housing, environmental, and even national security issues.

This blog will examine the role local government plays in our society and the many ways in which local government impacts our lives. Our bloggers are the staff, Fellows and alumni of City Hall Fellows, the only non-partisan national service corps program training the next generation to drive social change from within local government. Our posts will include analysis about the services city governments provide and how they are perceived, personal stories of interactions with municipal government, our Fellows’ experiences on the job, reflections from our alumni after immersing themselves for 12 months in all things city, descriptions of municipal programs that you might never have heard of, but that affect you every day, as well as occasional City Hall Fellows program news. We hope that, in reading our blog, you, too, will come to appreciate just how much city government matters.