Public Record

WordPress Migration

admin — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 23:37:40 +0000

Finally getting around to leaving Typepad and migrating things to WordPress. The design is just a default until I get everything moved over properly so things might be a little wonky for a little bit. Should be up and running likkity-split!

Council Retreat – Shorter Workweek

Derek Young — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:44:47 +0000

At the end of next month the Gig Harbor City Council will have it's annual "retreat." Retreat is a term to be used loosely here since we always have it at the Civic Center.

A lot of cities go away somewhere together, sometimes even here in Gig Harbor. The purpose is to throw around ideas the Council has and set priorities for staff to respond to in the budget and coming year.

I'm going to use this blog over the next couple weeks to lay out some ideas I'll be bringing up. Some I will be pushing on, on others I haven't made my mind up but think are worth discussing.

Today it's restructuring the workweek to only be open four days instead of five.

This actually came up when the financial crisis was in full swing and we had decided to use employee furloughs to save some cash. Furloughs basically reduce the workweek for employees thereby saving some pay; in this case about 6% of payroll. Of course employees don't care for getting a pay cut and it's hard to maintain service levels so furloughs are really a stopgap measure while longer term restructuring can be done.

Shortening the workweek would mean instead of reducing hours and pay, we would shift to working 4 days for 10 hours. Obviously police and public works crews would continue to operate or be available around the clock as their duties required. The City of Buckley did it initially to save money on energy costs but found a number of other benefits that seem to jive with what other governments around the country have found after implementing the schedule.

Employees actually loved the schedule which was sometimes to their own surprise. It meant three day weekends were the norm and four day weekends were fairly common (when paired with Monday state holidays). Parents in particular enjoyed the extra weekday with the kids in school to get things done that would normally be crammed into the weekend. That means more time actually doing fun stuff. Fun stuff is popular, or so I'm told.
Productivity increased with more hours connected to the same breaks. By cutting out a workday you also cut out 1.5 hours in breaks. For public works crew that tends to be magnified since they have to drive to and from their breaks reducing time actually on the job.
Overtime was cut down. Think about it, if you're already putting in a 10 hour day, do you really want to stick around longer? Of course not, so employees made sure to get their work done during the schedule rather than staying an hour or so longer. In addition, staff frequently must cover Council meetings or other advisory boards like planning commission, overtime would no longer be needed in those cases.
While I'd probably let employees decide how to arrange hours of operation, in Buckley they chose to open pretty early which meant contractors could stop in to get their business done prior to heading to a job site rather than taking time out of their own day. Other citizens found it beneficial to have City Hall open outside their own work hours.

There are some disadvantages however:

Obviously citizens who can only access the Civic Center on Friday would find themselves without access. While they may be few in number, it's a serious issue.
I'm told that in some places employees who are single parents found the schedule difficult to manage given the constraints of child care and being away from their children for that many hours. This is actually my biggest concern and I'd love to hear from people if you have ideas how to manage this.
For people like me with the attention span of gnats, keeping focused for that long of a duration is difficult. While overall productivity increased, I have a suspicion at least some would struggle. Perhaps the periodic 4 day mini-vacations will mitigate this?

I'm sure there are other advantages and disadvantages but they were the ones that immediately sprang to mind. Other ideas? Thoughts? Concerns? Hear any good jokes lately?

Leave a pithy comment below and you'll have good luck all day. True story.

Candidate Interviews – How Not To Do Them

Derek Young — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 11:02:13 +0000

Question: Worst candidate interview of all time or worstest?

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Test

Derek Young — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:52:40 +0000

Typepad problems… just testing out the solution.

Harborview Water Main Construction

Derek Young — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 14:47:06 +0000

You’ve probably seen the signs, notices, and newspaper articles but I thought it worth just one last attempt to save you some serious headaches starting next week.

We will be replacing an ancient water main on Harborview Drive starting next week. Expect LONG delays if you choose to use this route during these times. Work will begin this coming Monday the 23rd of August sometime after 7pm, at the intersection of Harborview and North Harborview Drive… which brings up another important point. How did it become North Harborview? Did it vote against secession during the Civil War?

I digress.

Below you will see that some areas will have work at night, others during the day. A number of factors went into it, namely the desire to not interrupt business during the day or residents at night. Obviously there is no perfect solution but this is the best we could come up with. We also wanted to avoid the downtown core in Zone C until tourists left in October.

Please be patient with the workers and fellow drivers, this will not be fun. Unfortunately it is unavoidable and we’ll keep an eye on problems as they occur. Let our staff know if you have concerns or feel free to contact me directly.

If you know someone who will be affected by this, be a friend and forward it along.

Sequencing Diagram 08-20-10 (1)

Open Thread – Selling Park Naming Rights

Derek Young — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:54:12 +0000

The TNT’s humor columnist “The Nose” discovered a mislabeled sign at Pt. Defiance Park and came up with an idea to sell naming rights at our parks for revenue. I’ll let them start:

Metro Parks Tacoma spokeswoman Nancy Johnson called it a misprint and said the sign was taken down Thursday after The Nosy One pointed it out. She said a replacement sign in a few weeks will say “Dalco,” the proper name of the waterway between Point D and the south end of Vashon Island.

Come to think of it, however, commercial sponsorships could be a thrifty way to keep local parks open. The manufacturer of ACDelco auto parts would be a nifty place to start.

Other corporatized landmarks at Point Defiance could include:

• Owens Corning Fiberglass Beach.

• Van Camp 6 (because loggers love beans).

• Ford Nisqually.

I think Mt. Rainier Beer National Park is pretty obvious. Manwich Sloppy Joemma State Park? There’s got to be something there with KopaChuck Hunter State Park (you’re welcome Mr. Mayor).

Any others?

How about questions, comments, complaints? Open Thread is yours.

City Legislative Agenda

Derek Young — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 12:37:23 +0000

In addition to my duties on Gig Harbor's Intergovernmental Committee, for the past few years I've sat on the Association of Washington Cities Legislative Committee. We make recommendations to the Executive Board on a policy agenda that we'll take to Olympia the following year.

It's a fascinating process as you have broadly diverse needs and opinions with the AWC representing every city from Seattle to Union Gap and everything in between. Yesterday my subcommittee, Flexible General Government Operations met for the first time. The mission is to address the creative responses to problems cities have.

I thought I'd note here a couple of items that are rising to the top of our list:

1) Use of volunteers

This issue has come up as a result of the recession. While most cities make at least some use of volunteers (Gig Harbor does extensively and you can find out how to participate here) decreased revenues has meant pullback in services, particularly parks. Rather than have their local parks mothballed because maintenance workers have been laid off volunteers in places like Pierce County have stepped up. The employee unions and guilds have concerns that this takes away work from their members which is a technical violation of fair labor practices.

A possible solution is to recognize what work truly can no longer be avoided and make that available to volunteer groups. I suggested that perhaps we could even compromise on a recession clause which ties this type of agreement to GDP growth. In last years legislature there were a few proposals that had such clauses.

2) Early Retirement

We have a strange rule in our pension system that employees can retire at 55 with 20 years of service, but if they don’t retire at that time they must wait a full 10 years to 65 with at least 5. The proposal is to fill in the intervening years with a sliding scale which would allow workforce reductions through retirement rather than laying off workers which impacts our budgets. I have a suspicion it was set up this way to balance the pension system budget which the state has failed to meet obligations in. The more workers you have paying in for the same amount of benefit, the easier it is to meet pension revenue demands. A lot more research is needed to figure out the impact of this proposal.

One of the other committee members brought up an issue I had not considered, that this could have an unintended impact on women who are much more likely than men to have their careers interrupted with children. If it causes their 20th year of service to fall anywhere beyond their 55th birthday, then they must put more years of service in for the same benefit as their male counterparts.

3) Open Public Records

Over the last decade or so we’ve seen a massive increase in abuse of Washington’s Public Record laws. Open government advocates and newspapers have understandably been opposed to further restrictions of these rules because the public needs to know what their government is up to. I tend to agree. However, Washington is unique in that the state only allows cities and counties to recover the cost of making copies, not the staff time required for research. For the average request this is not a problem. However, we now have a set of government critics who use the rule for their personal crusade against that government requesting thousands and thousands of documents for which they pay next to nothing. If they don’t pick up the documents or simply “inspect” them the taxpayers pay for all that effort. In one case in Lakewood a single person made over 500 public record requests last year.

To put that in perspective, that one person is costing Joe and Jane taxpayer 1.5 FTEs (Full Time Equivalent or 1.5 employees) just to service their requests. That’s 1.5 cops or public works workers that can’t be hired to pay for their war on government… ironically these same people tend to be critical of wasted tax dollars.

I think we as local government have missed the mark on our approach to this issue which has resulted in media opposition. My hope is that we can come up with a new solution that serves the publics needs but begins to either recover costs of this abuse or at least discourages it.

I don’t want our citizens or reporters having any roadblocks to getting the information they need, but something must be done. At that time I’m hoping to start meeting with these groups to see if there’s an acceptable solution rather than going to Olympia in conflict again (hear that TNT? This is an olive branch).

Gig Harbor’s Legislative Agenda

Tonight Gig Harbor’s Intergovernmental Committee will meet to set our own legislative agenda. While it tends to be focused on local issues, we’ll also begin discussion of statewide local government concerns to endorse.

Over the years we’ve had a great working relationship with our legislative delegation from the 26th District. Sen. Derek Kilmer and Rep. Larry Seaquist have done an incredible job of accomplishing most if not all of our major objectives. They’ve come through with grants for our sewer system upgrades you see going on downtown, saving ratepayers millions. They’ve sponsored and successfully passed policy changes to meet Gig Harbor’s unique needs. They’ve secured funds to begin design on a frontage road for HWY 16 which is in process now to make major safety enhancements to the businesses that access directly off of the highway.

But most incredibly, Sen. Kilmer saved the St. Anthony’s hospital project through creation of the Hospital Benefit Zone. That creative solution to future traffic needs in Gig Harbor North at the Borgen interchange amounts to a $60 million dollar commitment from the state. We’ve reduced the scope of that project dramatically since that time but will still depend on those dollars. The hospital could not have been built without it. It really was an incredible win for Gig Harbor and the whole of the Kitsap Peninsula.

Sometimes We Make Mistakes

Derek Young — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:00:00 +0000

As our City Administrator noted in an email to the City Council, this is a preemptive strike. We goofed. Or at least the County did, but it's in the City so everyone will like think it was us.

This year instead of contracting out to a private firm to stripe the city's streets, Pierce County was able to cut us an even better deal. Chalk up a win for local government cooperation. They did an excellent job, but a little too excellent in fact. They striped two well traveled roads that will have extensive work done to them in fairly short order, Harborview and 38th.

It was an honest mistake; probably a miscommunication somewhere between the County's Public Works supervisor and their crew in the field doing the work. Thankfully, it's not nearly as embarrassing as the picture above either. But the point is that in this economic environment with so much attention to government waste, we know some folks will notice with incredulity, that we just painted roads that are about to be paved over.

They have good cause for concern. Lack of attention to detail on large projects can cost taxpayers a lot of money as we saw in the Nalley Valley project. When mistakes like that happen we should have the same degree of accountability found in the private sector if not more. However, mistakes do happen and thankfully in this case, they won't cost GH taxpayers any money.

In the end the most important part of the process when government commits an error is letting people know. As was the case in Nalley Valley, the inexcusable sin is not the mistake, but the lack of transparency that followed. That's why we've lost the trust of the people and why all of us in government have to work hard to get it back.

Introducing Gig Harbor Based Vote IQ

Derek Young — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 15:14:21 +0000

What's not to love about Vote IQ? It's a Gig Harbor company, has an All-Star group of advisers from across the political spectrum, utilizes social media to educate voters and connect them with political leaders and causes. Seems like it's got pretty much everything right?

From their About page:

Vote iQ is the first major social networking site expressly designed for politics. It is a groundbreaking platform that revolutionizes the relationship between voters and policy makers. It is specifically designed for the ever-changing political world connecting policymakers, voters and political causes across the United States like never before.

Vote iQ places the interests of voters first. It provides a virtual meeting place where voters can get involved and network, find in-depth profiles of the candidates running for election in state and federal races, and read unbiased accounts of the hot topics in the news. Vote iQ is for voters who want a place where they can confidently make up their own minds after seeing issues discussed from all sides.

Their "Beta" page is now launched and from all appearances it'll work a lot like other social media, but has a match function that kinda reminds me of a dating site, only in this case it matches you with politicians. Ewww… dating politicians.

I just signed up as a "politician" so we'll see how this goes. It feels like a smart way to re-engage people at a time our country desperately needs its electorate to step up and make some smart decisions. Whatever helps I'm in favor of it.

Check it out here but a word of caution, this thing is just getting going so don't judge too quickly. It feels like something that will build over time.

Anyone else signing up? Thoughts?

Imagine Gig Harbor Without Political Signs

Derek Young — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 12:43:17 +0000

Seems like every campaign season we see new letters to the editor or "Jeers" about the political signs that pop up. Candidates view them as a necessary evil because they're not only annoying and expensive, but it's hard to win if your opponent uses them and you don't.

None of this is intended to bash on those who put them up (all candidates who raise even a tiny amount of money) since I have used them in the past as well. It's more of an idea on how to get rid of the ugliness and cut campaign costs at a time when the latter is VERY attractive.

Last year I tried an experiment. Because I didn't want to ask for donations with the economy collapsing and couldn't afford to buy them myself, we went sign free and won. Frankly I was a little surprised. Didn't even have a victory party because I didn't want to be around people when I lost.

So the question is, how could you remove the incentive to use them?

Here are my thoughts and I'd be interested in hearing yours.

1) Start a website for pledges and organizing supporters. We could call it a "pledgsite," get it? The idea being that we ask candidates in the next election cycle to sign onto a pledge saying they would not use signs unless their opponent did. If promoted properly with plenty of support by electronic signature, Facebook fans, and media attention, it would make clear who are the ones who would prefer to save their campaign dollars for more effective communication.

2) Stake out a logical boundary. We probably can't get the entire state on board so start small. I'd suggest the Peninsula School District boundaries. Most of us on the two peninsulas consider ourselves a part of the same community. It keeps the taxing districts together and gives a logical seperation between Kitsap and Tacoma. If we're lucky, they'll see this and start a similar movement. It would, of course, mean that campaigns that cross that boundary would have to remember where it is, but they're usually sophisticated enough operations that it shouldn't be a problem.

3) Agree on an "action" to take against candidates who refuse to sign the pledge or those who sign and later violate it. This is where organization is key. Without a very large number of people supporting the cause and an easy way to communicate with them, the price will be small for the rogue candidate. We'd need to turn it into a disadvantage to put up political signs. Facebook is really handy in this regard because of it ability to speak to and mobilize a large number of people at once.

4) Press Relations. Not everyone is keyed into new media so it's important to get print media on our side right off the bat. Again, if enough people are interested, it's a story when someone breaks the "rules." Nobody wants a negative story or editorial when they're campaigning. Trust me… I'm the king of the negative story while campaigning. Some day I'll write a book on it.

What do you think? Is this something you could get behind? Would you actively support it and help organize?