City Hall Corner

New Hillsboro Website

2011-04-24T20:22:00.001-07:00

We have been working on the new City of Hillsboro Website for a couple of months. We like what we have so far. Going live Sunday with the new site helps us stay current with Hillsboro news.

One of the chief advantages is the ability to put information on the site without having to go through a webmaster. This gives us ability to be as current as the moment we write a story.

The site will be developing further in the next week or three! There is a lot more information to add. One of the new features on this site is the tab "How do I?" We will be covering a wide number of items that will give instructions/advice on these topics. For example:

How can you pay a ticket?
How do you register to vote?
How can you recycle?

We have a list of 20+ more items to add. Come and watch how we develop!

Here is the question of the day. Why did we go live with the site when we still have more information to put up? The issue is more related to our ability to keep the old site current. We really can't keep it current at all. Our new site gives us the ability to write an article and paste it in the site administration software. It is so easy compared to what we were doing with the old one.

Take a look and give us some feedback.

Toxic Management

2009-08-23T17:31:00.001-07:00

One of the Blogs I read sent me to the following site http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/article766260.ece.

It is a study by a Danish expert describing a Danish hospital executive that actually caused his employees to become ill. That is ironic. Where people go to get well is being served by folks who are sick of their work.

I have heard more about this since coming to Hillsboro. It tells me that much of the "new fangled" stuff is leaving out the most important part of managing people. Relationships and behavior of the staff make a ton of difference when dealing with customers. I listen to the Manager Tools podcast every week. If there is one thing I have learned by listening, it is the communication skills of the manager helps create the environment where employee behavior creates the work making the organization successful.

The problem with these toxic managers is that they appear to be doing some good things at the expense of the people who support their work. Workers hope that these managers will be found out and fired. The trouble is that it takes time to see the good people going out the door for Boards to see the trend. In the mean time, good people are gone and performance suffers with the lack of experience of the new employees.

Managers seem to think it is the "bad attitude" of the folks leaving rather than understanding the real problem is the managers themselves.

Boards of Directors, Governing Bodies and senior managers need to spend more time in the hiring process evaluating the potential executive. So much rides on the success of the organization's health that they must select managers who can manage people well and get the job done. This is one reason I spend time at the Manager Tools web site.

Still, there are still too many bosses that believe that they have the God given right to act that way because they are in the "Boss" position.

In graduate school, I read and studied Douglas McGregor's Theory X (the drill sergeant)/Theory Y (relationship manager). The role of an organization's leader is to do two things. The first is the successful completion of the work the organization is there to do. The second is to get people to do the work willingly. Work can be enjoyable and fun while getting the main purpose of the organization accomplished. A tyrant boss can get things done—for awhile—then the organization will deteriorate.

Organizations have a duty to teach "management" and have that be a key trait before making people managers. Just because you are smart, have a degree or are competent in a field of work doesn't qualify someone for a manager's role.

Gallup Poll Finds 57% Believe Stimulus Having No Impact Or Hurting Economy.

2009-08-17T06:51:00.001-07:00

I subscribe to a news service from the International City/County Management Association. The item listed below came from today's issue.

USA Today (8/17, Heath, 2.29M) reports, "Six months after President Obama launched a $787 billion plan to right the nation's economy, a majority of Americans think the avalanche of new federal aid has cost too much and done too little to end the recession." A USA Today/Gallup Poll "found 57% of adults say the stimulus package is having no impact on the economy or making it worse. Even more -- 60% -- doubt that the stimulus plan will help the economy in the years ahead, and only 18% say it has done anything to help improve their personal situation."

I would be classified in the 57% based on our experience with ARRA. As you know, Hillsboro received approval to resurface Ash Street to the tune of $412,000 and change.

The stimulus program was sold on having "shovel ready" projects that could be built immediately. That would get money into the economy and therefore get the economy cooking again. It seems that we won't be getting this project started in calendar year 2009 at all. Here is the timeline:

March--Program approval
KDOT project meetings indicate the projects need to go through KDOT review process
Project design goes from 7 sheets to 36 sheets to meet KDOT Specifications
Project bid letting is scheduled for December 15, 2009
Construction begins sometime in 2010

I really like the opportunity for the Federal government to pay for the improvements to Ash Street. BUT, getting an infusion of cash into the economy in a timely fashion is not going to happen.

This was touted as a "jump start" to a stalled economy. If Hillsboro is a barometer of the impact of the Stimulus program, then the program is a failure.

30 Year Celebration

2009-06-19T13:51:00.001-07:00

We had a small party today to honor City Clerk Jan Meisinger. Thursday, Jan celebrated her 30^th anniversary with the City of Hillsboro.

Doing anything for 30 years takes a considerable amount of fortitude and dedication. Her work has given her an interesting perspective on how humans work and interact. She would have a bunch of stories about how Hillsboro works. Knowing Jan, I know the secrets are safe—at least until the offer comes to write "the book" we would all like to write about our experiences.

Congratulations on your 30 years with the City of Hillsboro.

Kansas impact on the Economy

2009-04-26T16:38:00.001-07:00

Last week, I attended the KU City Manager seminar. The theme of the program was how cities were coping in this economy. The example cities/counties experienced the desperate times we hear about in the news daily.

One thing like to do at conferences with my colleagues is spend time in the halls talking and comparing notes. This year the comments are not like the stories we hear from the major media outlets. Like Hillsboro, Kansas communities are coping well during this time. The more I listened to the stories in the seminar and the stories in the hallway a theory developed in my mind. In Kansas' smaller communities, local governments do not stray far from the core purpose of what government is supposed to do! The purpose of government activities is to do for the community that we can't do for ourselves. When we gather in community living, we try to spread the jobs around. One person does law enforcement, another does fire protection. One provides water and another teaches school. And the activities go on.

In larger communities, there are more people asking for more things to be done and because there is money available, the diversity of activities grows.

This is the contrast I saw last week. Since folks want more and their government is willing to provide it times like we are seeing create pressure to keep doing the same grandiose things. In our smaller communities, I see us doing the core services well and fairly Spartan. (We certainly could use a couple more people in certain areas too.) We are living within our means and we have a sense of not getting too extravagant. The Midwest work ethic plays here too.

So my unofficial poll is this, we are doing well compared to the east and west coast. We are thankful that our community does not hurt like those I heard about last week.

And they say Crime Doesn’t Pay

2009-03-31T06:37:00.001-07:00

One of the Blogs I read regularly is one called Evolving Excellence. The March 31, 2009 posting summarizes some thoughts I have concerning our financial situation. I pasted it below for you to see. One of the thoughts I had yesterday while reflecting on the GM CEO sacking was how similar it is to the actions the CIA took in the 1960's and earlier with foreign governments. If our government didn't like the leader of another country, we set about to have a coup and "bam" they were gone or dead. About the only nice thing about the past weekend's maneuvering is Mr. Wagoner only lost his job.

Posted: 30 Mar 2009 03:24 PM PDT

By BILL WADDELL

Bank of America got $25 billion last Fall, then another $20 billion in January, plus a guarantee against losses of $118 billion, and now the New York Times is reporting that the bank also grabbed another $5.2 billion unbeknownst to the rest of us through an outfit called American International Group. By my arithmetic, that comes to a shade over $168 billion of our cash the bankers needed to cover their screw-up.

Part of the bailout money went to cover the $20 billion+ losses of Merrill Lynch, which the B of A bought knowing full well that Merrill Lynch had lost all that money. It also went to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to thousands of Merrill Lynch employees right before the deal closed. The B of A then covered the bonuses with the first bailout check, and is now dragging their feet as the New York State Attorney is demanding the details.

The boss at the Bank of America - a good old boy named Ken Lewis - not only stays out of federal prison, he keeps his $10 million a year job. Note: In fairness to Mr. Lewis, he demonstrated great personal sacrifice by settling for $10 million in 2008 while the bank was in D.C. with its grubby hands out. The previous year he took home $20 million.

Contrast that sad story with GM. They get $9.4 billion - 95% less than the shifty banker got. And now for reasons Mr. Obama has yet to explain, if GM wants another dime, the big boss has got to go. Rick Wagoner is fired.

As readers of Evolving Excellence well know, I am hardly a member of the Rick Wagoner fan club, but no one has ever breathed an insinuation that he is sneaky, devious or in any way dishonest - like the bankers and brokers with their bonus shenanigans. No State's Attorney's Office has reason to investigate Wagoner, or his management of General Motors

What are we to think of this other than to draw the obvious conclusion: The folks in the financial community can play as fast and loose with ethics, the law and other people's money as they want without consequences? Manufacturers, on the other hand, can't even fail, let alone wallow in the self-serving ethical sewer the bankers and brokers inhabit, without losing their jobs.

What's up with that???

There might have been some logic behind it had Obama demanded that GM put a manufacturing pro in charge like Alan Mulally at Ford where a bailout wasn't needed, but no. Wagoner is being replaced by Fred Henderson - another in a long line of career GM accounting and finance guys a whole lot like Wagoner. So what's the deal?

We are told we have to follow through on bonuses to sleazy bankers and Wall Street shysters or else they won't be able to attract the best talent. But throw the manufacturing bum out on his ear - after all, anybody can run factories ... is that it Barack? Screw the manufacturers and fawn over the bankers and brokers?

Why didn't UAW President Ron Gettlefinger get canned part of the mandate? Didn't the union have an awful lot to do with the mess at GM? Or maybe canning Wagoner is Obama's way of helping his union backers by giving GM management a hearty head slap.

Whatever this deal, it is, like just about everything Obama has touched in his first few months on the job, it stinks. Bankers and union bosses sail through the economic mess unscathed, while manufacturing management and manufacturing workers get the shaft.

Most laughable is that the auto industry crisis is largely the result of bankers so fouling things up that no one can get a car loan. If the Bank of America had found their way clear to make just a little bit of the $168 billion available for people to buy Chevys, maybe GM wouldn't be in such dire straits. Just a billion or two of it would have helped, but no, that hasn't happened.

You blew it Rick. You have acted honorably, and naively thought you were dealing with honorable people. Shoulda paid yourself a whopping bonus out of the $9.6 billion instead.

The wonderful world of municipal finances

2009-01-22T06:46:00.001-08:00

This is a long and involved posting about the City's 2008 and 2009 finances. I didn't expect it to be as involved as it ended up. It is technical and really designed to supplement the article that appeared in the Free Press last week. This is their story. Hillsboro Free Press - City intends to monitor cash flow in troubled economy

The City of Hillsboro is starting 2009 as a number of other organizations—watching where and for how much our revenue stream takes us this year. Because of the national economy, how we operate the many facets of what we call the City of Hillsboro will be different in 2009 compared to any recent year of operation.

For most of 2008, I watched two of the city's funds—electric and water. Earlier in the year, I reported to the city council that the utility funds were under financed. We passed rate increases in Water, Sewer, Electric and Sanitation. Because of the cooler, wetter summer, water consumption was lower than the recent history shown here.

	Water Consumption.
	in Gallons

2002	112,894,350.00
2003	103,875,606.00
2004	102,557,808.00
2005	93,061,646.00
2006	99,762,566.00
2007	91,054,053.00
2008	87,229,292.00

We all felt the hurt of rising fuel costs during the summer of 2008. In the electric utility, we felt the hurt of fuel costs in the cost of power. The cost of power always includes cost of fuel as one of the components. In 2008, our fuel adjustment was $432,525. When we forecasted the rate adjustment, we were expecting $272,613. Another way of saying this is the projected fuel cost was $0.0098 per Kwh. In August, we paid $0.031 per Kwh. The table below shows that the cooler weather this summer also affected the electric utility.

	Total	Total
	KWH	Sales
2,001	21,301,884	1,898,523.03
2,002	21,966,858	1,942,454.45
2,003	21,330,321	1,904,157.48
2,004	21,583,919	1,993,473.74
2,005	22,478,221	2,069,403.19
2,006	22,512,665	2,064,434.00
2,007	22,911,018	2,133,872.89
2,008	22,664,202	2,067,733.46

Traditionally, the City's general fund receives a transfer from the utility funds. Since the cash flow here was so low, we did not transfer the full amounts. Since every action has it consequences, the impact on the general fund was that $125,000 that it would have been received wasn't. We finished 2008 with a lower cash balance there as well. The bottom line for us is that we will be looking at possible rate changes in 2009 as a result of the lower than projected revenues. I am working on recommendations to the City Council now.

The rest of this post will be for the die-hard finance person interested in seeing how the municipal finance world works. If you bail out now, I won't be offended. It is stuff I need the keep the City Council updated on to fulfill our financial accountability responsibilities. Don Ratzlaff's (Hillsboro Free Press) story about our efforts covers the basics.

So the question "Larry, why should we care about these cash flows?" The Kansas "cash basis law" requires that we keep positive balances throughout the year including having a positive balance at the end of the year. As a result of not having a larger cash balance several months will have negative balances, thus violating the law. I know this now because I have projected the revenues and expenditures of several funds to see this.

The City of Hillsboro has 39 separate and distinct funds. It is somewhat like running 39 different companies and each of them must be profitable every month and at the end of the year. A large number of these were created for what is called a "special purpose." We have a number of funds for the Public Building Commission, Recreation Commission and several unique funds like the tree fund, K-9, DARE, paying sales tax and employee withholding taxes.

I said two paragraphs up that I was projecting the revenue/expense stream of several funds. What I am actually tracking are 17 distinct funds. These are the funds where a considerable amount of business is being done. Here is a list:

General

Library

Recreation
Special Highway (Gas Tax for repairing roads)
Industrial
Special Law Enforcement/Fire
Family Aquatic Center
Equipment Reserve
Sales Tax
HCMC Plant Property and Reserve
PBC Family Aquatic Center
Capital Improvement
Bond and Interest
Water
Electric
Sewer
Sanitation

An example of the complexity of the cash flow process is tracking the General Bond & Interest fund. It receives payments from other funds (City of Hillsboro companies like water and sewer) to pay debt issues. These debt instruments receive principal and interest deposits at least two times per year and are then paid twice a year. What makes this fund "fun" to watch is that the first series of payments start February, March, and April and the second set start in July and go through October. Each debt issue requires payment in the Bond & Interest Fund the month before it is to be paid. The Bond & Interest fund is also property tax supported, the property tax revenues received from Marion County must be in the Bond & Interest fund as well.

One of the more unusual flows of cash occurs with the Family Aquatic Center. When the sales tax issue was approved to build the pool, a Public Building Commission (PBC) was formed to be the owner of the pool during the duration of the pool debt. Sales tax is deposited in the General fund then transferred to the Family Aquatic Center (number 7 on the list above) as rent. Then the Family Aquatic Center makes a payment to the PBC Family Aquatic Center (number 11 on the list above) and that fund makes the pond payment. In my view, there is one too many funds in that transaction—that being #7 Family Aquatic Center.

New "Hillsboro" Sign is Up

2008-10-22T19:20:00.001-07:00

I just have to brag about persistence. There is a new billboard sign on Highway 50 telling the world how to get to Hillsboro.

Most folks remember the former sign was broken down and needed to be replaced. The Chamber of Commerce was responsible for its maintenance and keeping the rents coming. When the director resigned this spring, Clint Seibel, Executive Director Hillsboro Development Corporation, took up the cause to get the sign rebuilt. The old sign had to be removed. A design needed to be developed. A new agreement needed to be reached with the land owner. Funds needed to be raised for the construction and printing of the new sign. An application needed to be approved by the Kansas Department of Transportation before construction could be started. Clint worked on this over 8 months. Now it is done. It looks great.

Hillsboro’s New Welding Program

2008-10-16T18:15:00.001-07:00

The third of this year's economic development projects came to life yesterday. The new welding program under the guidance of Butler Community College (El Dorado) started class with five students. The program is to train new welders to meet the needs of our two trailer manufacturers. Read and watch the Wichita Channel 12 report here. There is a video clip there too.

This project started early this year with the idea of having a ready resource of welding talent in the Hillsboro/Marion County area. Recruiting welders to the two trailer manufacturing businesses was tough given the strength of the US Dollar helping nearby AGCO in Hesston. They were hiring everybody they could so they could build farm machinery for sale overseas. Our local businesses wanted to expand their operations but the supply of trained workers was very small. The answer was to build a training center where folks could be trained, get a nationally recognized certificate and have an industry ready to hire the best students in the class.

To make the situation work, local industry met with the City of Hillsboro Butler Community College and representatives of the Kansas Department of Commerce. All these folks had their hand in making this program start. Hillsboro Industries manager, Phil Wyssenbeck, sits on a Department of Commerce Work Force Development Council. His efforts brought the Department of Commerce to the table. This gave access to a $100,000 grant to purchase equipment for the classroom. The City of Hillsboro had space in the AMPI building that was large enough for both the shop and the classroom.

Once all the details were worked out, City of Hillsboro staff and contractors began a short timeline project to get everything ready for the first day of class. We had to reroof the portion of the building to be used by the program, add heating and air-conditioning, rebuild one of the dairy work rooms into a classroom with a teacher's office, replace doors to meet current industry standards, and install air a make-up system so welding fumes can be exhausted.

The objective is to train 15 students at a time in the program in 8 week sessions. This class started with five. It is a great start. Now we will nurture it and help it grow.

National Financial Crisis

2008-09-24T07:43:00.001-07:00

The past couple of weeks watching the various players in the financial crisis has me reflecting on our country's history. The memories of the crash of 1929 were told to me by my father and grandparents. Decisions they made subsequent to the depression were forged by that experience.

We are now hearing that some of the laws that came out of that time to protect us from future problems were based on "crowd think." A story I heard on NPR last week as I came home from work suggested the divisions and regulations of investment banking and commercial banking were based on bad analysis. Back then, any bank could be both a commercial bank, taking deposits and doing loans plus have the ability to sell stocks and bonds. It was assumed then that the commercial banks had a hand in selling more risky "paper" to their customers. The historical research since then has (according to the NPR story) proved that the commercial banks did a much better job of selling "good" stocks and bonds than did other financial institutions. A couple of Senators got together and wrote a set of regulations that focused on dividing the business so commercial banks could no longer sell stocks and bonds.

Pondering this leads me back to one of the first blogs I wrote. My dad sent me some money for my birthday and as I normally do, I went to the book store and spent it "wisely." I purchased Tom Peters book Re-imagine. The early chapters had me thinking about the consequences of bad decision making. In business, the consequences results in bankruptcy. Of course, there are a number of other casualties in the business failure. Employees of the firm are as directly affected as ownership. There is financial pain and suffering with both parties but in one sense it is different. Employees are putting their trust in ownership that they make good decisions to keep the firm going. The business either restructures or goes away. The penalty for bad decision making is the death of the company. There are consequences and they are sometimes harsh.

This led me to continue thinking about bad decision making in government. Typically the consequences are not the same. What would normally result in a business death does not happen in government. Maybe someone gets fired but the organization goes on. What usually happens is the organization is reorganized and someone has to clean up the mess. That usually means a new set of taxes to pay for the problems left behind.

So, watching the current situation, we see a clamoring by national figures saying "protect us from the bad decisions people make." There are, of course, impacts on the general public. There will be hard times. But isn't this somewhat nature's way of getting things back in balance when we get out of balance. Having the Federal government step in and save the situation is not good. We have learned that the government will always be there to protect us from the "bad" while letting the good happen. Accountability is lost. I expect we will not learn from these events and we will be paying more taxes until the next lesson comes along. Maybe then, we will learn.

Measuring the Heartbeat

2008-08-05T20:26:00.001-07:00

Monday mornings are a time for Clint Seibel to meet and talk about the world of economic development. Monday this week was different. We walked up to the ribbon cutting for Bill and Olivia Good's new business—Good Health Chiropractic and Diagnostic Center. The nice part of visiting was measuring the heartbeat of Hillsboro business. When you see a new business opening in town you realize the risk folks take to pursue their passion. There are a number of other things to see as well. Such as:

There is a store front that is now occupied
That storefront has been reconditioned to an exquisite new facility with modern equipment.
There is another young family in town (adding to the future school population is a good thing)

In earlier reading in economic development literature, multiple businesses of similar type are good for each other. The book I am remembering quoted the presence of antique stores. One is a struggle but having three helps survival. The lesson for Hillsboro points to our multiples in business. We have multiples in the following: hardware, Chiropractic, auto sales, auto repair, gas stations, and grocery. I am sure I have left something out but you get the point. When you have a multiple of a business folks will look at both. Purchasing opportunities go up and all the businesses do better because of the competition.

So, here is the first look at the business heartbeat. The next few months will have similar ribbon cuttings. That is good—very good.

Senior Executive Institute

2008-07-31T18:41:00.001-07:00

I am just finishing a two week Senior Executive Institute at the University of Virginia. The experience has been great! The food has been outstanding and the learning experience better than the food.

The primary goal of the course has been to teach leaders of local government how to lead their organizations to a new high performance level. To learn this, we had several grueling days of classroom work and small group exercises to show how creating a high performance team can be done. My group has shown this in incredible ways.

Our first challenge was in a fun environment – bowling. Our challenge was to say only positive and encouraging statements and to increase the performance of the team from game one to game two. My incredible team had the top men's score, the top women's score, the greatest improvement from game one to game two and the third best women's score. I was the champion of the 9 pin game. I got more 9 pin frames than the rest of the team but no one was counting that. I did get one strike to contribute to the improving scores!

While the games had their place, the real learning came in working with the small group. Our group included three city managers, one librarian, a Public Information Officer, a Public Works Director and the Executive Director of a Recreation District. Each contributed to my experience and to the total learning experience.

We had our challenges getting together initially but are not just seven individuals but one fully functioning group. The experience puts the reality of our organizations at home and how they perform in a new light. What you expect of our organization has a number of variables. There is a performance level—what we get done and the experience you have when we perform it. This causes us to look at what we are doing and then ask is this the right what? (I think you need to say the last sentence out loud to get the right meaning. Emphasize the last underlined what.) If what we are doing is not the expectation of the community then we are not performing at the level that makes for a satisfied constituency.

This is just a small example of our week.

Windfall profits

2008-06-09T11:41:00.001-07:00

One of the blogs I read is called Evolving Excellence. It is generally focused on a manufacturing process called "lean." Today the author takes a poke at what he calls the economic illiterate and the subject of oil company windfall profits.

Since oil prices have jumped in the past year (I remember 19 cents a gallon), folks are going bonkers at the amount of profit oil companies are making. Go to the following site and see what other companies are making and not getting the "trash news" oil is getting.

http://www.superfactory.typepad.com/

Economists are changing their tune

2008-05-14T19:48:00.001-07:00

I have a subscription to a daily review of news items prepared by US News and World Report for ICMA – the International Association of City/County Management.

Wednesday's edition referenced a Wall Street Journal article that said economists are changing their minds about the recession. Evidently "it took a detour." Wachovia economist John Bryson now says the chance of a recession is 45% which is down from 90% in April.

This is good news because what I see here in Hillsboro contradicts the notion of a recession as well. Two key indicators everyone here can see for themselves. Rod's Tires is building additional space and Elcon Electric is building a new building. Both are in our Hillsboro Heights subdivision. The two other indicators are the agreements the council approved this week selling land for two more businesses to begin. We are keeping a number of other eggs warm waiting for them to hatch.

These activities make the opportunities we will have with Buxton and their retail business possibilities more positive. When we can go into a potential business partner and cite the activity it is hard for a business partner to ignore us. They want to be where things are happening. Right now, things are happening.

Kansas Sampler Fest

2008-05-04T19:49:00.001-07:00

I just returned from Concordia and the first year of their Kansas Sampler Fest. Every town gets a two year contract. This was their first.

Driving there Friday was interesting with the wind blowing and storm clouds forming. Earlier in the day, my wife drove to Colorado Springs and she said the driving conditions were Terrible. For dinner, I was escorted to the Annual Rotary District Convention dinner where I heard one of the smartest ladies I have met. I wish I had her name right now to share with you. She is the construction project manager for Horizon Wind Energy, the company building the wind farm in Cloud County. It is a project I was aware of while I worked there but because it was county, I wasn't directly involved. It is great to see the project progressing. There will be 67 wind towers constructed before the end of November. Each will generate 3 megawatts of energy. One tower would take care of our electric needs in the winter. We need 2+ for the summer

The Kansas Sampler Fest is an annual event to promote tourism in Kansas. Everything was Kansas. Folks showed off things they make here, events to go to and places you could go just to enjoy. Some of the things folks were doing were driving to every County Courthouse, buying fabric in every county (I think there is a quilter there), and buying a fence post in every county.

Saturday morning I met my Sampler Partner, Marion County Economic Development Director Teresa Huffman. We started putting information bags together early and it seemed that we were doing that constantly from 10 AM to 2 PM. Scattered throughout the day were familiar faces from Concordia and the surrounding area. I saw a number of folks I used to work with – Joe, Darrel, Charles, Art, Izzy (The octogenarian promoter of Concordia, Larry, Larry (both were not me), Lisa, several fire department personnel including one we sponsored for paramedic school, Ruby, Cher. One of my friends sang Happy Birthday to me. One special sight was seeing Dana. She is just recovering from cancer treatment.

Sunday was less hectic from a crowd perspective. The first entertainment I listened to was "The Brothers and Sisters" from Goessel. I recognized Kathy from our P.O. and Goessel City Clerk Anita Goertzen. One of the guys sounded just like John Denver. Incredible!

While I enjoyed seeing friends the most important thing was promoting Marion County to folks who were not familiar with us. We had two gifts to give-away. They were a night in one of seven bed & breakfast establishments in the county and dinner in any of our county's restaurants. I learned the secret to signing your name and dropping a registration in to a "chance box." That is why it is still a secret!

One key point in attending a festival like this is getting our name in front of folks who would visit and spend a little time here. We distributed a number of boxes of stuff about the county's activities. My obvious opportunity was talking about the Art's and Craft's Festival in September. It was fun to hear from the folks who came to Hillsboro in the past and how they liked our town.

I hope a number of you will be able to join me there next year.

Waste Treatment Plant Started

2008-03-26T11:44:00.001-07:00

The election season is nearly over for municipalities. My blog entries are intentionally sparse during this period. Things are pretty quiet here compared to some places I have been. My general comment about elections is that "you must vote to have any chance to complain."

We are under way on the construction of the new wastewater treatment plant east of town. We hope that we will be treating water this time next year. When I came to work last summer, Delores said that she was frustrated with how long it is taking to get started. That was a clue to "make something happen." We had to "urge" the engineers to move ahead and "urge" the Federal agency providing the funding to clear the path so we could start bidding. At one point, we needed Congressman Jerry Moran's office for help. The help was appreciated and we are working.

The treatment process will be different than our current facility. We are going to a "lagoon system" from a "mechanical" plant. The biggest difference in the two systems is the lower electrical use that will be in the lagoon process. Our current plant requires the use of blowers to put large amounts of air in the waste treatment tanks. That air keeps the bugs healthy as they do the things they do. The "bugs are a number of single cell organisms that feed on the dissolved waste.

I wondered how I would use my high school biology course – now I know.

Getting things done

2008-02-19T18:26:00.001-08:00

One of the stories I heard on my short drive home tonight was one on NPR about the book "Getting Things Done." http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19105832

Being a manager at any level is about getting things done and any tips you can learn to be better at it is worth the time. NPR has an audio clip of the story they ran that you can listen to as well.

Hey, it is just over 4 minutes. You can stop and listen at least that long!

Street Sweeping

2008-02-14T18:27:00.001-08:00

I was talking with Steve Millett today about today's street department activity. He was working at sweeping the streets.

It is a normal task for this time of year. They are spending their time picking up the sand that was spread during our earlier snow and ice storms. If you didn't know, we purchased a new sweeper last summer. It does a great job. Since the curbs in Hillsboro are not the same from block to block, the operator has to adjust the brooms for each block. It is one of the things that help us clean properly.

Steve mentioned today that cleaning in the spring is more difficult than other times because we still have some leaves in the curbs. He has been sweeping each block up to four times to get the cleaning done due to the matted leaves and accumulated dirt/sand.

As we move into Spring expect to see us "spiff" up the town and get rid of the vestiges of winter. Oops, the weather forecast has flurries predicted tonight. Maybe there will be some more sweeping after the scooping!

A need to Brag

2008-02-06T07:22:00.000-08:00

I came in to work this morning with snow dragging under my car as I backed out of the drive way onto a freshly plowed street.

I have the pleasure of working with some very fine street crew workers here as well as Concordia, Baldwin City and Jerome, Idaho who clear our streets so we can get around. (These are towns where I worked that had regular snow fall.)

To get ahead of the traffic means they had to start pretty early. Key to doing a good job and getting downtown ready for business is grading before traffic starts to pack the snow down.

Here in Hillsboro, we are starting to pay attention to streets again after a period of ignoring them. The time between John Unruh and Dale Dalke has been stressful on the street infrastructure. We will be paying for it for awhile. In the meantime Dale and the crew of Steve Millett and Lance Booker will be working hard to make our driving experiences better.

While I am remembering folks, Ron and Jim in Concordia, Bill in Baldwin City and John in Jerome - you guys rock!

Buxton Process

2008-01-21T09:50:00.001-08:00

We are making good progress with Buxton. We contracted with Buxton to identify and find up to 10 new retail contacts. Buxton had developed a map of our major and secondary trade areas and sent a report on our retail demographic characteristics.

When I was doing my background checks with other Kansas clients, one of my colleagues told me his greatest surprise was seeing the makeup of his community was not like he thought it would be. With that information, I expected to see demographics that looked more like the college town that we are. No, the demographics look like my colleague's community.

Buxton uses some unusual terms for their population segments. I had a great time looking at their terms and definitions. One is "Blue Highways." It represents a lower middle class population living in a rural community on highways that are usually connected by blue lines on a map. Boomer men in the group generally like to hunt and fish and the women enjoy sewing and crafts.

One of the surprises to me in our demographics was the largest population cohort was the 35-44 age group followed by the 25-34. The second table below shows the larger to smaller Cohorts. It is a interesting look at the population.

Cohort	Pop	% of Grp	Cum %
0-4	368	5.06%	5.06%
5-9	392	5.39%	10.46%
10-14	463	6.37%	16.83%
15-17	349	4.80%	21.64%
18-20	398	5.48%	27.11%
21-24	460	6.33%	33.44%
25-34	736	10.13%	43.57%
35-44	843	11.60%	55.17%
45-49	524	7.21%	62.39%
50-54	493	6.79%	69.17%
55-59	374	5.15%	74.32%
60-64	333	4.58%	78.90%
65-74	606	8.34%	87.24%
75-84	596	8.20%	95.44%
85+	331	4.56%	100.00%

Cohort	Pop	% of Grp	Cum %
35-44	843	11.60%	11.60%
25-34	736	10.13%	21.73%
65-74	606	8.34%	30.07%
75-84	596	8.20%	38.27%
45-49	524	7.21%	45.49%
50-54	493	6.79%	52.27%
10-14	463	6.37%	58.64%
21-24	460	6.33%	64.97%
18-20	398	5.48%	70.45%
5-9	392	5.39%	75.85%
55-59	374	5.15%	80.99%
0-4	368	5.06%	86.06%
15-17	349	4.80%	90.86%
60-64	333	4.58%	95.44%
85+	331	4.56%	100.00%

Utility update

2008-01-20T17:58:00.000-08:00

Last week I promised to write about the utility rate analysis I am going through. In the weeks before I started work while I was working on the 2008 budget, I spotted a problem that needed attention. Each of the four utility budgets were being balanced against the existing cash balance. The expenses of the four were not covered by the revenues of the four utilities.

Our problem comes from at least two points. The cost of the recourses we resell has risen due to improving the utilities. We have built a new water plant and we have not yet adjusted the rate to recover the additional cost of debt service. We are building a new waste water facility and that debt service will add over $4 million to the mix. The Rural Development Agency is funding our construction project. They have projected that we need to adjust the sewer rate to an average of $35.00 per month per customer. Westar is no longer the contract supplier of our electric energy. They were going to increase our wholesale cost of power and the City chose to join the Kansas Power Pool to help control prices. Even at that, the cost of electricity will be higher than what we have paid in the past.

The other point comes from taking funds from the utility funds to offset costs of the general fund and other property tax generating funds. The “subsidy” accounts for 20% of the four utilities total budgets. It is normal for cities like Hillsboro to have their utility funds cover some costs of general operations. The impact is that property tax levies are held artificially low.

The decisions the Council and I have in front of us will focus on how to keep the cost of utilities low while covering the costs associated with the operations of the utility and the general operations. With a $3.8 million annual budget, the dollars are there but fixing the imbalance will mean reprioritizing what we do in local government.

The total transfer to general operations is $781,500 from the four utilities. A portion of those funds would be transferred to general operations under normal conditions. We have come to rely on those transfers a little more than we should. That is, in itself, an understatement too.

So, what do we do? Our City Council is committed to rebalance the contributions from utilities but, as with all problems, the fix is not easy. It is not a problem that can or will be fixed within the course of this budget. It will be more likely the next one or two budgets. As we go through the strategic planning process, we will begin to see how the fix will occur.

Progress on two fronts

2008-01-15T13:22:00.000-08:00

There are two projects that the City Council and I are working on. The first is developing a new strategic plan. The second is reviewing the budget around our utility rates. Since this post is longer than I expected, I will write about the utility rate issue later this week.

Twice last week, we met in work session to talk about the future of Hillsboro. Monday, I gave a presentation on what the strategic planning process is all about. In a nut shell, I described two approaches that communities use. There is a “citizen based” process where all the ideas come from community members involved in the process. This process usually takes about one year to complete. The other is a Council/Staff process where specific questions are directed to Council and staff about the direction they see Hillsboro going. A community can usually get through this process in a month to six weeks.

I generally prefer the second model because it involves me directly in the discussion with the two groups that have to implement the results of the process. I see the end results as something the City Council can then evaluate my performance by. As a new resident of Hillsboro, one cannot expect that I would have a complete handle on the needs of the community. That is the key to having both staff and Council in the same room together at the same time. I can draw on the knowledge, experience and aspirations of that key group to lay a foundation for the work we are about to do.

Our second work session began the hard work of identifying how we think about Hillsboro. I am not going to write (yet) about the results of the initial meeting except to say there is excellent raw material to work with. Here are the questions I posed to Council and staff:

Exercise 1
· How do you see Hillsboro in 10 years? Responses here tell me about the hopes and dreams we have for our town. It also compares reality with what we would like to see
· Describe the positive elements of this change
· Describe the negative elements of this change
· How would you influence things so the negative elements do not happen?

Exercise 2 (a SWOT exercise)
· Strengths – what is the community doing right
· Weaknesses – what should the community stop doing?
· Opportunities – what should the community start doing
· Threats – What is the most important problem or project that needs to be addressed?

Exercise 3
· Identify 5 significant EXTERNAL factors that will affect local government in the next two to five years.
· Identify 5 significant INTERNAL factors that will affect local government in the next two to five years.
· What trends might have a major impact on the local government in the next five years:
o Demographics
o Economic
o Social
o Technological
o Environments
o Political
o Regulatory or legislative

We spent 2 ½ hours identifying our responses to these questions. Our next step is to start analyzing the answers we came up with and develop an action plan around the response.

Boomtown Bolg

2008-01-08T12:07:00.000-08:00

I have been reading the Boomtown USA Blog written by Jack Schultz for a number of years.

In the January 7th post, he describes the top 10 trends he sees for 2008. http://boomtownusa.blogspot.com/ is the URL. While you are there, sign up to get his blog feed every day. It will come via email like this does. He does a great job keeping us all up to date on development issues and what folks are doing around the country to grow jobs and opportunities in their communities.

I prepare a Blog posting from time to time from other Blog's I read. when I read and think something is important from a Blog, I will write about it and send you to the site too.

This is a Planning Week

2008-01-06T19:06:00.000-08:00

The City of Hillsboro has a big week planned starting Tuesday. The Council will have a work session Tuesday noon and Wednesday afternoon (4:00 PM) to talk about strategic planning. Thursday, the Planning Commission will be holding a Public Hearing on adopting a new Comprehensive Plan, Subdivision Ordinance and Zoning Ordinance. All of these will seriously affect what will be developing in Hillsboro in the next 5-10 years.

Through my teaching with the League of Kansas Municipalities, I developed a short seminar on strategic planning. I will be giving this presentation to the Council and the staff Tuesday and Wednesday. I do Introduction to a full blown strategic planning process and show a version of “strategic planning lite.” What the Council and the staff will participate in on Wednesday night will be the “lite” version.

The session will focus on four questions. I’ll outline those after the work session.

Ice Storm

2007-12-17T19:36:00.000-08:00

We fared well during the recent two storms. I want to brag about the Electric Crew. The worked all night Tuesday, got a little sleep Wednesday morning and went back at it. They did a fantastic job.

One thing I particularly want to point out is the triage approach to their work. The office staff took phone calls from residents about where lines were down and services were lost. Gary Andrews took the calls from the office and checked them out to prioritize the work of the guys on the crew. It worked great. Mike, Jason, Todd, Randy, and Joe made a number of folks happy throughout the night.

We had two outages that cut service to Hillsboro. Tuesday morning, a 15 year old patch failed under the weight of the ice. Tuesday night, the Westar substation lost power due to a burning switch. The high amount of electric load going through the switch with no where to go as power lines in the country were falling contributed to the fire. Westar had to do a temporary patch to restore power about 1:30 AM. Again, as the power was restored, the crew drove each primary line to see there were no fires as a result of turning on the individual feeds. It was very important work that was unnoticed by us.

Key to the survival of our system was the tree trimming we did earlier this fall. We caught a bunch of grief for our tree trimming but the work paid off. We did not lose power as a result of trees. Now, there were a number of residents that were not so lucky. We had over 50 houses that we had to reconnect after repairs were made due to tree limbs falling on the secondary services.

I hope folks take note of the fact that due to the tree trimming, we all had power. Again, very forward thinking and action kept us in power.

Thanks Guys!

The Bee Movie

2007-12-04T19:12:00.000-08:00

At the Kiwanis meeting today, Hillsboro business owner Brent Barkman presented his company’s involvement in the Bee Movie.

Barkman is the Chairman of the board of Golden Heritage Foods. They process honey for a number of markets. He noted that he and others in his company had been officers in the national honey trade group. They knew that the Bee Movie was being produced and made a pitch to Dream Works to be part of the promotion process for the movie. In January 2007, they, along with other honey marketers, went to Hollywood to meet with movie developers to brainstorm how the honey market might be promoted with the release of the movie.

After getting a private meeting with Dream Works people, they were able to show a prototype of the Barry Bee honey bottle. The result was a contract to use the Barry Bee likeness on the bottle. They are now distributing the 2 ounce honey bottle nation-wide.

Next up for the Golden Heritage folks is getting an E-store up that will provide Barry Bee honey products. It is scheduled to be ready just before Christmas at www.ghfllc.com.

Completed Move

2007-11-29T18:43:00.000-08:00

My move from Concordia to Hillsboro is now complete. The house finally sold and the household goods are moved. I actually stayed in the same town for more than 10 days last week. My biggest problem was to find an auto shop to do the work that Charlie and Steve did for me. I think I found one!

I am going to use this Blog space to write about Hillsboro now. If you want to hear about what we are doing here, I invite you to stay registered. If, however, you want off the list send an email to lpaine@cityofhillsboro.net and let me know you want off the registered user list and I will remove your name. What I need is your email address. Some of the addresses do not let me connect a name with an address so just sending your name won't help me remove your address. It is a manual process.

I am finishing month 4 here. It has been quite pleasant compared to the Concordia environment. Imagine that!

About two months ago, we approved a plat for a new business park along highway 56 on the north end of town. The subdivision has 11 lots in 21 acres. We have two businesses interested in the property already.

The second business contact was interesting. The company called the Mayor, a realtor, and said we are interested in coming to your town, do you have some "dirt." Evidently that is developer slang for developable property. That was the week we were approving the Plat.

Being a curious sort, she asked "how did you find us?" The company used a "site selector" company called Buxton. Buxton uses a large number of data sourses to match businesses with communities. They work with 4,500 companies in the US. Additionally, they work with over 300 communities to help them find retailers for those communities. Hillsboro will become a client shortly.

Hillsboro has a number of projects tied to the sales tax revenue so development of retail markets is important. We have a very nice "cement pond" that is being paid for by sales tax money. Developing solid property tax and sales tax generating business, therefore, is very important.

Over the next 90 days, we expect to review 50 to 200 companies that match the buying patterns of Hillsboro folks to see who we can recruit here. It is an interesting concept that I will write about as we go thorough the process.

One important decision that the City Council considering is to make the marketing data available to the existing retail community so they can be more effective in their retail niche.

In doing a background check on the Buxton folks, I talked to a City Manager I know who said "with this information, I know exactly how many refrigerators will be sold in this market. Now I can talk with the retailers in town to prepare for that market demand." It is specific information like that that makes the service valuable to the local folks.

Once we identify the target business we want to go after, Buxton will help introduce us to the company. Our economic development person - who, by the way, is a private sector person like Kirk Lowell - will join me in making the pitch to the selected companies. (Note to the woodshop: now, don't spill your coffee; the private sector model works and it works here too!)

It has been fun sharing this information with you. I hope to get a group of Hillsboro folks signed up now. I need to get a new picture too for the masthead. Later!

Thank's Concordia

2007-07-22T19:46:00.000-07:00

I have completed my career in Concordia. I will be getting up at a very early hour to get to Hillsboro by 8 AM. Some of you know, I am not a morning person. Taking the two drive with my iPOD humming a few podcasts will get me in the mood for starting the day.

I had a lot of comment from the "think about" program I did last week with Kirk. For those who missed it, we talked about the differences between Mayor/Council and Commission/Manager forms of government.

Over the weekend, Don Osenbaugh, from the League, and I taught our annual Municipal Leadership Academy class in WaKenney and Junction City. As usual, we had a number of elected officials from both forms. I picked up more reasons for the conclusion I came to at the close of last weeks show.

I have turned off the email response for the time being. Since I don't have access to the old address, I won't see you comments. You can post them anyway. I will read them later.

I will still remember all the fine folks here. You have been great!

LP

Air Quality Permit.

2007-07-01T15:57:00.000-07:00

There is a meeting scheduled for Everton Energy's Air Quality Permit Monday July 2, 2007. The meeting will be in the City Hall Community Room at 7 PM.

It would be a good thing for people to attend the meeting to see how Everton is meeting these requirements.

Remember the comments that were going around when the ethanol project was announced? There were people saying that "yellow sticky stuff" would be coming from the plant.

See you at the meeting.

Getting Ready

2007-06-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

Life is getting a little hectic around the house as we get ready to move to Hillsboro, KS. Every time we leave the house, it has to be spotless "because someone might show the house!" Living in "perfect" is trying.

Getting some time in at the Hillsboro City Hall has been fun. Learning new names and putting them with faces adds to the fun. I have been to two Council meetings and they are different than here. One of my greatest disappointments is that someone sent the Mayor of Hillsboro an unsigned thank you card with a little note enclosed. I shared a comment with the Mayor before so her getting the note was not surprising. I was embarrassed for Concordia.

I am looking forward to the coming week. We will see the fruits of our labor in the economic development world. It is interesting to see the interest in our community by business and industry from around the country.

I am reminded about the conversation I had with one citizen when I arrived. He said "Concordia is just dying. We need to let her die in peace." It led me to develop the "signs of life" list showing the number of new business ventures Concordia was experiencing. It will be interesting to see how the impact of another big project will bring out "our dead and dying" mentality. Building our community both economically and socially is an important part of what our community leaders are trying to accomplish.

By the way, I heard a great rumor last week. It seems that the City Commission was reported to have received $100,000 each for voting yes on the ethanol project. We really need someone to step forward with credible information. I would carry this to the KBI personally to have it investigated. As with any rumor, this one is so ludicrous, it is absurd

Ethanol takes next steps

2007-05-13T20:22:00.000-07:00

The news at city hall these days has been ethanol and will be ethanol for some time to come.

Water has been the key part of our discussions. We are seeing evidence that the water is available and is able to be permitted. Our focus has been on learning what other communities have learned the hard way and going to school on their experiences.

What is great at this point is application of the lessons learned.
· Everton is looking for and finding water resources for the plant using their resources.
· Everton will be constructing the wells, well houses, and piping system that connects it to the City of Concordia.
· Everton wants the effluent water from the waste water treatment plant for use in their cooling towers. They will clean this water with sand filters to be built on the WWTP grounds.
· The entire infrastructure will be given to the City of Concordia before the plant is constructed.
· At the end of the day, we will charge them for the privilege of providing water to them.

This ends up being a great benefit for the City. Without Everton’s intent to build a plant, the City could not secure the water rights Everton is acquiring because we have a surplus in the allocation of what we have versus what we use. Everton can get access to water because it will become part of the municipal water system.

Due to the private financing process they are using, Everton is not able to keep these assets on their books and asked the City to finance this infrastructure. Our first reaction to this was guarded. What looked like a good deal suddenly looked shaky. The result of our concerns produced the following results:

· During construction of all the infrastructure elements, Everton will provide a $6 million letter of credit to ensure construction is complete. If something happens to Everton during this construction period, we call the bank holding the letter of credit and the project is paid. Period. Again, if something happens to Everton during this construction period, we call the bank holding the letter of credit and the project is paid. There is no risk there.
· Once the construction is complete and the water system is operating. The cost of construction will be converted to a Special Assessment District Bond where Everton is the sole member of the district. That bond picture will have two years of bond payment reserves held so that if Everton goes away, we have two years of bond payments available while Everton’s financiers work out how to pay those debts.

While the first one is very little risk, the second financing method has some risk. While we don’t expect or wish any failure on Everton’s part, we do have to consider the possibility of a business failure.

A key element in the risk planning is knowing that the special assessment district bonds are a first position debt if a failure happens. Our $6 million comes before the $200 million. For the folks that own the $200 million debt, having the City of Concordia in the first position will be troublesome. They will want Concordia’s lien removed thus paying off that bond.

This week at the City Commission meeting, the Commission and Everton will be discussing the development agreement. No action will occur at that meeting. Adoption consideration is scheduled for the June 6, 2007 meeting.

A new Blog to watch

2007-03-30T13:45:00.000-07:00

Early in March, our daughter Brynn went on a missions trip sponsored by the university she attends in Ohio - Cedarville University. She went with about 30 other students to Puebla, Mexico to work a camp for elementary and junior high kids.

On one of the last days the group was there, one of the young men was injured and broke the C2 vertebrae. Long story short is that it was a severe and life threatening injury.

Because I am a Christian and I do not believe in coincidences, I believe God put a number of people on that site that day with equipment that normally wouldn't be there. The people who helped keep him alive were incredible. One fellow "bagged" the young man for 1.5 hours. That meant he pumped air into and out of his lungs for that time. You can read about those situations in the Blog.

Listening (actually reading them) to the stories makes one really appreciate the level of medical care we are able to provide. What they had to do to get him back to the USA was incredible.

Which leads me to tell you about the new Blog my family reads. www.checkinondan.blogspot.com

The young man's name is Dan Knudsen. He is a junior at Cedarville University. Today he is paralyzed from his ears down and getting all sorts of therapy to get him back breathing on his own.

I encourage you to read his family's Blog about what is going on. Take time to read the comments, which are many, and get the perspective of how precious life really is. Start at the beginning and get current. Get a box of Kleenex, you will need it. When you are finished you will see life as it really is and how positive you can be.

This is a challenge I hope you will take. It has reminded me of situations Susan and I have been through and the sustaining power Christ gives to us each day. LP

Sales Tax Continues

2007-03-27T14:45:00.000-07:00

I wrote earlier about the attention I pay to Sale Tax receipts the city receives. It is a barometer for me to see how business is doing.

Today the March distribution was forwarded to us. We will see it in the bank probably Thursday. The nice thing to report is that March revenue out paced the year to date mount from 2006.

The total received last year was $366,645. Received so far is $386,049. This amount puts us 5% more than 2006. I don't have a feel for the sales tax growth in other rural markets beyond a comment I heard from Secretary of Revenue Joan Wagmon in January 07 when she said that most of Kansas has flat or less sales tax growth.

Remember that next Tuesday is the election. As they say in Chicago "vote early, vote often."

Sale Tax Report

2007-02-26T15:10:00.000-08:00

The news continues to be good on the sales tax front. Concordia's receipts for February (January transactions) was $139,948.66. We received $130,776.14 in January 2006. The collections year to date are $17,526.51 more in 2007 than in 2006.

Yes, business is good in Concordia! Thank you for supporting our local businesses.

Also, Tuesday is primary election day for the City Commission and the Community College. Remember to vote.

Elections

2007-02-25T12:23:00.000-08:00

Tuesday is the primary election for both the City Commission (two seats) and Cloud County Community College (three seats).

The City primary election will rduce the candidates from six to four. The Community College primary will reduce their field down to six.

Voting is an important right that we as American's are not regarding as important any more. As a student of the political process, I was impressed by Iraqi voters braving personal danger to vote.

How would you justify not voting to an Iraqi voter?

Character Counts!

2007-02-09T06:56:00.000-08:00

Mayor Joe Strecker gave this to me last week. I comes from the River Valley District Extension Newsletter. The newsletter says that this is the first of 6 articles. I hope to get the others and post them here too.

Have you heard of the Six Pillars of Character? If not, let's introduce those to you. This is going to be the first article in a series covering the Six Pillars of Character. Please feel free to use this information in your daily lives and in your communities as we all strive to be better citizens.
The Six Pillars of Character are: Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring, and Citizenship. This month we are looking at the broad overview of these Characteristics, in the months to follow there will be specific information about each pillar as well as activities to use at home, at work, at meetings, and other places.
Trustworthiness Be honest
· Don't deceive, cheat or steal
· Be reliable
Respect
· Treat others with respect; follow the Golden Rule Use good manners, not bad language
· Be considerate of the feelings of others
Responsibility
· Do what you are supposed to do Always do your best
· Think before you act - consider the consequences
Fairness
· Play by the rules
· Be open-minded; listen to others Don't take advantage of others
Caring
· Be kind
· Express gratitude Forgive others
Citizenship
· Do your share to make your school and community better
· Get involved in community affairs
· Obey laws and rules
(Amanda Lott, District 4-H and Youth Development)

City Hall Day at the Legislature

2007-01-25T18:56:00.000-08:00

Today, Commissioners Joe Jindra and Darrel Hosie and I ventured up to Topeka for the League of Kansas Municipalities’ City Hall Day at the Legislature event. It usually requires that we leave when it is dark. (I don’t like getting up that early.) I enjoyed the drive because it reminded me of winter in the San Joaquin Valley where I grew up. From Clay Center to past Manhattan fog covered the road. It was also an opportunity to get quality time with two members of the Commission.

The event brings elected and appointed officials to Topeka to hear about what the legislature is doing from the House and Senate leadership and to get updates from LKM staff. Today we learned that there is a new constitutional amendment proposed that will freeze property tax values for those over 65 years of age.

We also heard about the SB 323 approved last year. It is the Eminent Domain bill. Legislation is being proposed to address the use of eminent domain in the areas where blight is involved. A new definition of blight is being proposed – although we did not hear what it was.

The resumption of Local Ad Valorem Tax Reduction revenue (LAVTR) was discussed. LAVTR was created in 1965 to help communities lower their ad valorem tax (property tax). During the Graves administration, the State of Kansas decided that they needed those funds to balance the State budget forcing local entities to come up with local funds to off set the loss of LAVTR. The impact to Concordia was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. I was working in Baldwin City at the time and the loss of those funds was $200-$300 thousand. That was a considerable hit on the ability to fund the budget. If that happened today, it would be 8.7 Mills that would be made up by both new tax revenue and reductions in spending.

We heard about the changes in FCC Cable Rules that are affecting municipalities across the nation. In budget comments the past several years, I have pointed out that franchise fees for Cable, Telephone, Gas, and Electric are at risk from the US Congress. We are projecting $533,000 in 2007 revenue that could disappear by congressional action. Franchise fees are our third highest source behind Sales Tax ($1.5 million) and Property Tax ($619,000).

SM 20 is a bill requiring all units of government to be a member of Kansas One Call. One Call is a private organization that coordinates location of underground utilities so contractors can carefully excavate without disturbing a buried water, sewer, gas, electric, or cable line. The problem with this bill is that it is mandatory. The City is a member of One Call but there are 222 communities with populations less than 500 that cannot afford to participate. Many times, we have one employee spend the entire day marking locations for contractors. This bill would also put the oversight of local utilities under the jurisdiction of the KCC. From our point of view, oversight is better left in the hands of the City Commission – at the local level.

One of the most interesting speakers was House Utilities Chairman Carl Holmes (R-125). He spoke of the many things that were happening in the Utility area. One key point I picked up on was the development of transmission lines so wind energy projects can be developed. Capacity on transmission lines is one of the problems of expanding renewable wind energy in Kansas. This is something I need to watch.

The highlight of our day was spending time with new Representative Elaine Bowers. It was fun to see the enthusiasm she expressed toward the work she is now doing. Those who know Elaine are not surprised by this. During our conversations, she took us on the house floor where she introduced us to several new legislators and also the Speaker of the House. We are looking forward to working with Representative Bowers in her new role. Even as a 3 week freshman legislator, she seems very comfortable in this role.

Note to Jim: I am writing at 8:48 PM at the dining room table. Blogging is a part of communicating what is happening in and around the City. I enjoy it, people enjoy it from all over the world (right, I said world), the Commissions likes that I am doing it, therefore, don’t be surprised that I continue to write.

City Sales Tax Increases for January 2007

2007-01-25T17:51:00.001-08:00

Today, we received notice of the Sales Tax distribution from the State Treasurer. Collections paid to the City amounted to $131,021.97. January receipts from 2006 were $122,667.98.

It looks like Concordia businesses had an exceptional Christmas season. The growth in the tax receipts from the previous January were 6.8%. Congratulations Concordia businesses.

Happy Birthday Cher

2007-01-24T06:14:00.000-08:00

Chamber Dinner

2007-01-15T19:14:00.000-08:00

A number of you were able to brave the snow and ice to attend the Annual Chamber Dinner Sunday night. For the out of town readers, for the past several years, the Chamber speaker has been the "community" (now there is a grammar challenge for you).

The format is that 15 community leaders get three minutes to give an update on their organization. Sure, it is short but you can say a lot in three minutes

Several people I talked with after the dinner mentioned the same thing. The City, County, School District, Community College and Hospital were repeat speakers. What was very interesting to see and it spoke volumes about what Concordia is now becoming.

Most of the other speakers were saying thank you for being one of my customers. Thank you for encouraging me with my business. The comments were very positive. It seems to me that a business cannot survive without the folks behind it being positive. It helps customers WANT to come back.

Some of the speakers were several of the new businesses that opened in 2006. They are getting involved in the Chamber right from the beginning. Way to go Roberta (Lowrey) for getting these folks connected.

You can read the story in the Blade-Empire http://www.bladeempire.com/web/isite.dll?1168888641703.

Continuous Improvement

2006-12-31T15:04:00.000-08:00

In the context of my posting about working on the Baldrige Award, I found this little quote to have both a powerful message and also to say that improvement is incremental. If we get better than where we were when we started, then success can be identified.
Continuous improvement is the goal.

Let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the good.

Good, Better, Best.
Never Let Me Rest.
Until My Good Is Better.
And My Better Best.

Army Ranger Slogan

Shoot for the Stars

2006-12-30T18:01:00.000-08:00

Today, I was reading one of the several Blogs I check.  While reading, I thought of the context of this piece.  We always think at the end of the year about what we accomplished and what is planned for the New Year.

I reviewed a list of the objectives I had for our department heads and key staff.  Most of the items were addressed, although some were not achieved in the manner I expected them to be completed.  Still, we had a pretty impressive list.

2007 will be a year that will mark some significant change for us.  As I shared with the staff Wednesday, I have been thinking about quality for some time.  When I met with the City Commission for my job interview in December 2002, I stated that one of my personal objectives for the time I am City Manager is for the organization to be recognized as the best managed small city in America.

Now I am not talking about City Manager management but management of the City of Concordia.  To accomplish that objective, the key metric is to be “recognized.”

Here is the objective for 2007- we are going to start work to win one of the Malcolm Baldrige Awards.  For those who want to check it out, go to this web site: http://www.baldrige.nist.gov/.

As I type, I can hear the mocking going on down at the coffee shop, which is probably the right place for it.  Everybody knows that “no work is done at the coffee shop.”

Every teacher we had, every coach we played for, every boss we ever worked for told us that we needed to stretch our daily performance to excel and to succeed.  Every day we get up for school or go to work is a battle to keep from being beaten down.  I remember my parents telling me to “reach for the stars.  You may not get it but you will be a darn site further than the one who doesn’t try.”

The Baldrige is the “star objective” for me.  We may not achieve that goal but we will be recognized as a leader in municipal governance because we are trying.

Ethanol Water Study

2006-12-18T20:32:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, I did a presentation to the City Commission regarding the upcoming Ethanol Plant to be located here in Concordia.  The chief aim of the presentation was to address some of the misinformation circulating about the community.  What I intend to do here is reflect on what I see happening.

For those who are outside of Concordia reading, Everton Energy LLC announced they plan to construct a 110 million gallon ethanol production facility on the east side of Concordia.  Land options have been signed while the company does its water investigation.

Water is a key element in the success of this proposed project.  As a result, we asked Everton to hire one of the state’s premier water geologists to assist them in locating additional water resources for the project.  Everton hired Bob Vincent, owner of Ground Water Associates of Wichita, Kansas.  At the present time (12/18/06) they are drilling test wells along Plum Road, south and east of Concordia.  These test drillings will generate information about the water formations around Concordia and will be provided back to the City, County, Division of Water Resources (DWR) and the Kansas Geodetic Survey.

The plant will have a requirement for three utility services from the City.

Potable water

Waste water effluent

Sanitary Sewer

The potable water is for the product processing, clean-up, and domestic use in the office and the plant.  The non-potable water will be used for boiler circulation.  The daily requirement will be 900,000 GPD (Gallons Per Day) and as engineering proceeds, the manufacture expects to design around a smaller consumptive amount.  So, how much smaller?  I can truly say, I don’t know.

Everton will be more concerned about that than the City will be.  Everton’s objective is to find and provide the water they need above and beyond the current City resources.  Those water resources will be given over to the City to manage and sell back to Everton.

Those familiar with Concordia recognize one of our water resources is the Republican River.  The City has water rights in the Republican River basin and due to drought conditions the Division of Water Resources has restricted our water consumption from the Republican River basin.  Fortunately, we have water resources in two other water formations.  They are the Oak Creek Alluvium and the Dakota Aquifer.

Everton is spending their efforts in finding resources in the Dakota Aquifer.  This is very good since DWR is not allowing any new uses from the Republican River basin.  What DWR is particularly happy about is the effect of water production and discharge will be a net gain from what we currently draw and what we will be returning to the Republican River.

Lest we get excited about the quality of the water going to the river, it will be the same water we are discharging now.  What I know of the water use plan is this.  The potable water used in processing is a closed loop.  Process water is totally used in the production of ethanol and not discharged.  When the corn is introduced to the cooking process it is added to a brew.  Water is added to get the mixture at a certain moisture level and cooked.  Water loss comes from two points in the process.  It evaporates as steam and it goes out the plant as Dried Distillers Grain (DDG).  The drying process brings back water to the process side and is reused.  The biology of the return solution is important because it contains the materials that help break down the corn for the next process.  So, there is no discharge of process water.

Effluent water from the City’s waste water treatment plant will be used for operating the boiler and the cooling system.  These sources will be discharged from the plant back to Oak Creek and the Republican River so they can replenish those aquifers.  Water from the Dakota formation will end up in the Republican River in greater quantities than the City currently draws.  There is a Win-Win.

The other Win-Win for Everton and the City is, as I mentioned above, the water rights.  Once Everton finds and perfects the water resources, they will give the water rights to the City of Concordia.  Another DWR point of concern is that they prefer that a unit of local government be the water provider to the plant.  With Everton providing the water rights to the City, they will not be in the water business.  This gives DWR another point of comfort.

The last point to cover today is what the City gets from this relationship.  I have urged the Commission and CloudCorp to consider when we provide either water or sewer service outside the city limits, we would have as part of our development agreement provisions for annexation.  Our agreements thus far include willingness to annex the project in exchange for providing utility service to the plant. This is significant to the future of City tax policy.  The current property will be added as commercial value and not as agriculture as it currently is valued.  I haven’t tried doing a cost/benefit study yet but I see a general picture looking positive.  Again, Everton finding and supplying the water resources to the City, the City selling that water (and effluent water) to Everton and property tax gains on the project’s Assessed Value.

As we wait for the results of the water investigation, we see the possibility of benefits to both Everton and the City of Concordia.

What's that have to do with the price of tea in China?

2006-12-17T17:45:00.000-08:00

Several weeks ago, I attended an Economic Development Conference sponsored by the Kansas Bankers Association.  The noon speaker was the President of Kansas State University.  He spoke of the awards students were winning.  They were not sports awards – Academic Awards.  He was reporting on the most recent award winner.  She was a Kansas native that won one of the six most prestigious academic awards in the United States.  He went on to tell that K-State leads the nation in Public University awards of these six.  Private universities have more but K-State leads everyone else.

The week before, I was listening to Concordia High School Counselor Larry Laas, speak about the academic success of students in Concordia.  I asked him to look up the records they had at school.  Here is his email:

“I looked in my files and found that records began to be kept in 1966.  Since that time, Concordia has been fortunate to have 31 National Merit finalists and 45 National Merit Commended Students.  In just the last 12 years, we have had 12 National Merit Finalist and 11 National Merit Commended Students.  Very impressive for a school our size!”

As my mother used to say, “What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”

Well, as we recruit businesses to Concordia, as we are now, being able to point to the success of students in the classroom is a key point of interest to owners and families of folks who will come with those businesses.

We are doing something right in our schools.  Academics is the primary mission of schools.  We should take our hats off to the work our USD 333 staff is doing.

Great Day

2006-11-30T17:51:00.000-08:00

Today, I had a great day. I joined Kirk Lowell, John Forshee, Phil Gilliland and Deb Peters (Four Rivers Development Corp, Beloit) at the Kansas Bankers Association Economic Summit.

The Keynote Speaker was Boomtown USA author Jack Schultz. Many of us read his Blog http://boomtownusa.blogspot.com/ regularly. It was good to see him give his presentation live about “The 7 ½ Keys to Big Success in Small Towns.” His message was POWERFUL! It was fun to watch the delivery too. There was energy and commitment in every breath. Wow.

Before the meting started, I introduced myself. As a subscriber of this Blog, he chided me for not writing as frequently as I have in the past. Chiding is noted and I will write more frequently.

Let me give you a summary of the 7 ½ steps

Adopt a “can do” attitude

Shape your vision

Leverage your Resources

Raise up Strong Leaders

Encourage an Entrepreneurial Approach

Maintain Local Control

Build Your Brand

7 1/2 Embrace the Teeter-Totter Factor

This is a teaser. Read the book. There are several in the Community. All the Commissioners got one two years ago. Once you read it, you will see that Concordia is moving in the absolute right direction.

Brick Mural, Hay Market Square, Lincoln, NE

2006-10-29T18:26:00.000-08:00

Whole Wall Project

2006-10-29T18:13:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, we were taking our daughter Brynn back to the airport in Omaha so she could fly back to college in Ohio. Having spent several “fast” trips to Omaha this summer due to Susan’s transplant we were able to stop in Lincoln for a change. Susan’s main reason was to find a Scooter’s coffee shop. We fell in love with their smoothies. It is no wonder since they use ice cream mix as their base ingredient.

While searching, we found Hay Market Square. It is around the train depot. As we got out of the car to look around, Susan found a brick mural that reminded me of the Whole Wall Project here in Concordia. Just this last week, the Cloud County Historical Society had their annual banquet and they were showing copies of the artwork that will some day soon decorate the wall of the “old Everett Hardware Store.”

The mural in Lincoln was a reminder of how much the project will beautify one of Concordia’s entrance points. As folks are driving up and down Highway 81, the finished product will cause folks to stop and look.

I am not involved in the fund raising but I am sure that a financial gift would be appreciated.

Ethanol

2006-10-05T18:10:00.000-07:00

I prepared a memorandum to our employees last week which was put in their pay envelopes. Here are my comments.
Given the amount of discussion on the Ethanol Plant, I thought I should give you an update of what I know about of the plans to build an Ethanol Plant in Concordia.
It was publicly announced September 8th that developers have acquired options to purchase a site identified east of Concordia and just south of the fairgrounds for the purpose of building the plant. Their plans depend upon availability of water.
In regard to the City’s involvement in the project, we have been asked to provide effluent from the Waste Water Treatment Plant. We may be involved with the supply of potable water to the plant but that will be using water resources that the developer is securing. The following paragraph was cited in the public announcement:
Everton Energy has retained Kansas’ leading ground water hydrologist and a Kansas water rights attorney. This project team will work closely with the City of Concordia in determining and securing appropriate and ample sources of water while maintaining or increasing the City’s current water rights cushion for its citizens and businesses. If the City can cost effectively provide the needed water to the ethanol plant, Everton Energy will request annexation of its ethanol plant property into the City limits of Concordia.
Those in the water department may recognize the ground water hydrologist as someone we have worked with for several years – Bob Vincent. Bob is a native Concordian and has state wide credentials and is well known for work done in Concordia in the past.
The other point in the announcement that needs reaffirmation is the intent of the developer to secure additional water capacity (which means above and beyond what we currently have) to meet the production requirements of the plant. Comments the developer has made in meetings here in Concordia indicate he intends to make sure the existing water situation is improved for the City.
I sat in a meeting last Friday with Bob Vincent and Keith Stewart, (Assistant Water Commissioner, DWR, Stockton office) where we talked about the ethanol developer looking for and securing water rights for his project. Several issues came up that were pertinent to the water issue

New water rights will be sought in the “Dakota formation.” It is the body of underground water outside the influence of the Republican River Basin. We heard from Vincent and DWR that NO MORE water can be pulled from the Republican River Basin

One of the more interesting facts I learned was that the Republican River is NOT contributing to the volume of water in the Republican River Basin, it is actually extracting it. Recharge come from flooding or high water flows following a rain storm.

Vincent said the water level in the Dakota formation is not falling. Contrary to what is happening in Western Kansas, water levels are staying fairly stable. The practice of taking water in Western Kansas is called “mining” or taking more than is being recharged. In Central and Eastern Kansas the practice is “harvesting” or taking what is being added back to the aquifer.

Once the additional water rights are secured and the plant is constructed, the City will annex the 160 acre property. It has been interesting hearing that the City’s intent is to annex a five mile radius around the town. This claim is so far fetched! The chief reason is that state statute requires that a utility plan be provided for a proposed annexation area if utilities are not already present. By the time annexation occurs, water, sewer and effluent systems will be in place. The rumor about the five mile radius is unreasonable because we cannot possibly afford to provide utility service nor has there been a feasibility study to determine whether any area has practical affordability.
The next step in our process to nail down this opportunity is to draft and have approved a development agreement with Everton Energy. The development agreement will outline the things the City will do or provide as well as what the developer will do or provide. Examples of things that could be included are water services and at what rate they will be paid, where we are in the fire protection process, a statement regarding annexation as well as other points.
This plant will have a positive impact on Concordia. I hope that in the process of seeing it develop, you will feel free to ask any question about the development. I will do my best in answering the questions.

City Hall Corner Photo

2006-09-26T19:26:00.000-07:00

Along with all the other experimenting I have been doing, I found a way to put a photo of City Hall on the Blog. It is obviously the Northwest corner of City Hall for those readers here in town. We have readers literially all over the world - Yes I know who your are. Thanks for keeping in touch!

DiscoverConcordia.com

2006-09-26T19:04:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, we lanched a new website to highlight things going on in Concordia. The site - www.DiscoverConcordia.com is basically called a portal or entry point to other Concordia websites and inormation.

The purpose is to introduce people to Concordia and have an interactive experience. We want a place where we can highlight business needs and where we can keep a community calendar (you can make your own entries but it will be monitored). It is an infant now so the site needs some attention like any newborn will. It is not a site for the City or any other entitity but will allow links to them.

Look at it and send me your comments.

New email addressing

2006-09-26T19:00:00.000-07:00

I am trying to get a new email addressing system built into the blog. The service I had on the site ended up being some fellows hobby and not his business. Taking a lead from a fellow blogger, I am using FeedBlitz. It will take a few days of experimenting since I don't do HTML very well.

Investing in Downtown

2006-08-31T18:31:00.000-07:00

The power of a few well placed dollars is beginning to show up in downtown. Several businesses are taking advantage of the grant/loan project to improve the look of downtown.

Citizens National Bank and the City of Concordia partnered earlier this year to improve the looks of downtown by fall fest (third week in September). The progress to date has been awesome!

The latest improvement has been Coppoc Sports with their new awning going up today.

Tom’s Music House awaits a porch to go above the store windows. There is new paint on the Thrift Shop and the second hand shop next door. Hart to Heart is getting new windows. After all the work is done, I will post the before and after pictures

All the new paint and window works is having a great impact on how we look to others.

There are several business owners that are still in process of improving their buildings.

Seeing what is happening makes you proud of your town, doesn’t it?

Changes at City Hall

2006-08-09T18:09:00.000-07:00

Changes at City Hall

Don’t expect to see or hear about what happened at City Hall Tuesday morning.  Personnel changes are not discussed, period.

The changes you can expect to see is the manner in which citizens are treated by our staff.  Tuesday afternoon I told the front office staff what I expected when John and Jane came through the front door or called on the phone.

First, when we have a visitor, we can expect that City Hall Staff will recognize the visitor with “Hello, I am Larry. How may I help you?” They will extend their hand offering a hand shake.

When you call, you will get a greeting “good morning (or afternoon), City of Concordia, (we don’t say “City Hall” any more. What City Hall is this?)  This is Larry, How may I help you?”  I shared this concept at the Department Head staff meeting today too.  I expect all of us to respond in the same fashion in person and on the phone.

Two simple greetings intended to tell folks we are here to help.

City Hall is on loan to us by the community so that we can help them with things they need.  There are very capable people waiting to help and I am pleased how they are taking to the new steps.

Tuesday night, I read another Blog I enjoy, Manager Tools (http://www.manager-tools.com/).  The third article down, also posted Tuesday, was a piece describing customer service.  It seems that Mark Horstman and I were on the same frequency.  I recommend reading his material AND listening to his pod casts.

A positive attitude

2006-08-01T14:21:00.000-07:00

"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort!" ~ Herm Albright

Concordia Wal-Mart Article

2006-05-23T09:21:00.000-07:00

Wal*Mart Article
Author Denis Boyles, who has been a resident in our community the past year, has seen his latest work published in the American Enterprise Magazine (www.theamericanenterprise.org).  His article is not one of those published on line but you can find it at the Frank Carlson Library.

I found the thesis of Denis’s story interesting when he came to my office several months ago doing his research.  The magazine’s publisher wanted to gauge the impact of Wal-Mart’s in rural communities.  Comparing McCook, NE and Concordia was picked for the story.  As we heard at the Chamber Coffee today, the McCook Wal-Mart manager and Concordia Wal-Mart manager’s worked together in Great Bend.

The article is not a Wal-Mart “love-in.”  It is balanced and has good insight to the two communities.

Local Fireman

2006-05-17T06:43:00.000-07:00

I received the following poem from one of our fire Captains. I hope you like it. Also, remember the work that both our Police and Fire staff do for this community.

Local Fireman".

My father was a fireman
He drove a big red truck,
And when he'd go to work every third day
He'd say, "Mother wish me luck".

Then Dad would not come home again
'Til sometime the next day,
But the thing that bothered me most
Was the things some folks would say.

A fireman's life is easy
He eats and sleeps and plays,
And sometimes he don't fight a fire
For days and days and days.

When I first heard these comments,
I was too young to understand
'Cause I knew when people had trouble
Dad was there to lend a hand.

Then my father went to work one day
And kissed us all good-bye,
But little did we realize
That night, we all would cry.

My father gave his life that night
When the floor gave way below,
And I wondered why he'd risk his life
For someone he didn't know.

But now I realize
The greatest gift a man could give
Is to lay his life upon the line
So that someone else may live.

So as we go from day to day
And we pray to God above,
Say a prayer for your local fireman...
He may save the one you love.

College Drive Business Park Sewer

2006-03-06T15:13:00.000-08:00

Folks have been wondering what is going on at the College Drive Business Park. Last fall, we identified the condition of the existing manholes on the sewer system running along the west side of what will be the new shady lake development. We knew that this is the opportune time to replace the manholes and pipe since there would be about 15 feet of cover over the pipes when the shady lake development work is completed.

The Commission approved going to bid last December and we received a proposal from Midland Construction of Kearney, NE.

Over 600 feet of new sewer line and manholes were installed in the past 7 work days. The weather opportunity has been good to us as well. Since there has been little rain, the condition of the work site allowed the contractor to move quickly.

The City Sewer Crew will run our sewer camera system through the pipe late Monday or Tuesday to check the construction. If everything checks out, the project will be complete Wednesday.

2006-03-02T07:40:00.000-08:00

Here is a photo from Monday 2-27-06 theater progress. Brick will cover the face of the metal building across the front and around the sides. The sides will be bricked back about 20 feet at th front and a product that I call Stucco will cover the exposed metal.

We cannot see it yet, but as the brick goes up the front, there will be features added that will simulate window openings like those showing on the building on the right.

Downtown Progress

2006-03-02T07:02:00.000-08:00

We are making progress in Downtown. Yesterday was the opening day for the downtown grant process. Kirk Lowell made a presentation at the Commission meeting lastnight (3-1-06) and reported 6 applications were received and another four were in process.

The grant funding comes from a $50,000 allocation from the City which will be matched by a $50,000 low interest loan from Citizens National Bank and owner funds. The funds are divided 45% Grant funds, 45% Loan funds and 10% owner funds. If the property owner didn't want to secure a loan, their share is 55%. In each application, the City's maximum grant ($5,000) and bank loan ($5,000) will be $10,000. Any project where the total cost goes above the grant and loan limits will be covered by the owner.

The theater is progressing as well. The brick is going up on both the theater building and the adjacent Dumbbell's building.

With the progress on the theater and the improvements to our downtown buildings, we will see a vast imporvement to our downtown. It will be a place to be proud of again.

Anonymous Letters

2006-02-17T13:36:00.000-08:00

Yogi Berra is quoted “I do not answer anonymous letters.

One of the problems of responding to the large number of anonymous letters that circulated through the community is the anonymity issue.

Folks are just not willing to step up to take on some one’s battle if they are not willing to identify them selves.

White space Solution

2006-02-10T19:49:00.000-08:00

The problem is solved, I think. The HTML expert in our family sat down and figured out the problem with the Blog formatting. I couldn’t stand having the Blog articles apart from the sidebar. Not getting Perfection is hard to accept when it comes to seeing your work on the internet. Thanks for your help Brock. Your dear ole dad is proud of you.

White Space Problem

2006-02-10T07:02:00.000-08:00

I am still waiting for Blogger to help me correct my blogging problem. As you might be able to tell, I changed the Blog format. Now, instead of white space ahead of the blog, all the information that was at the left is WAY DOWN the page. I lost the ability for folks to subscribe to the Blog too. That will be a relatively easy thing to get back when the family technical writer is available. He helped me get it right in the first place.

I have been working on the City Commission’s Strategic Planning work session notes. If I didn’t say it in the last post, it is interesting to see the commonality among the Commissioners. It is also interesting to see the variety of issues they presented to one another. We will be discussing these at the work session next week. After we work the list over, I will post it here. Right now it is a 3 page list.

Several months ago, I helped the City of Minneapolis begin this process. I talked to Mayor Bob Hudson this week and it appears they are moving ahead “on their own.” That was the plan when we started. Barry Hodges had just been hired as their City Administrator. Working together with the Minneapolis governing body and the community has given Barry an opportunity to gain a picture of what needs done in Minneapolis. Getting a clear picture is always a benefit when you take over a new job.

Weird

2006-02-07T19:05:00.000-08:00

Yes, I think it is weird that there is this great white space at the beginning of the Blog. I look at it as an analogy for the potential in all of us that is not being used. That is fairly pithy for 8 PM!

A week ago Saturday, the City Commission met to work on strategic planning. They each came to the meeting with a laundry list of projects they would like to see done. I am in the process of gathering them into a document that they can prioritize and then set me on a course of “getting things done.” There were a number of very good ideas.

If you didn’t have a chance to go to the CloudCorp Meeting and hear writer Denis Boyles speak, you ought to read (or reread) the article in the Blade-Empire. Here is the URL http://www.bladeempire.com/web/isite.dll?1138650418000. This quote from the story is one I really like:

One of those characteristics that he (Boyles) touched on was demographics. “People who live far away from here think most of the communities are dying, that it’s just a matter of time,” Boyles said. While depopulation is a fact of life along the Republican River, it does not have to define communities.

The problem with depopulation, he said, is that “it breeds a terrible disease–pessimism. In talking to a professor from the University of Kansas, who was in Concordia this past summer, he found a definition of pessimism. “Pessimism is the embrace of what you fear will not be possible,” he explained.

In visiting towns along the Republican River, he said he could see examples of this everywhere he went–where some towns were dying, and others were thriving.

“The difference between pessimism and realism is that pessimism excludes the possible,” Boyles said. “Since Americans are taught to dream to be all they can be, not all they can’t possibly be, pessimism is downright anti-American.”

Sunday night at our church was a Kansas Day celebration (for those out of state, it is the celebration of Kansas being admitted to the Union). Our concluding activity was to sing our State Song, Home on the Range. I think we ought to sing it more often and take to heart the phrase “where seldom is heard, a discouraging word….”

When tied to the message from Denis Boyles heard the night before, encouraging words are what build cities and also what build relationships.

Thinking

2006-02-02T06:48:00.000-08:00

Thinking

"Third-rate minds are only happy when they’re thinking with the majority; second-rate minds are only happy when they’re thinking with the minority; and, first-rate minds are only happy when they’re thinking."

--British author A.A. Milne (the creator of “Winnie the Pooh”).

Sales Tax revisited

2006-01-04T14:05:00.000-08:00

I saw Wal*Mart Store Manager Roy Reif downtown this afternoon. He mentioned the comments I made at the Chamber Coffee Tuesday morning about the sales tax revenue.

We talked about what the sales tax means in real dollar sales. You might notice I changed I made to yesterday's blog as a result. I said something like the $1,496,869 revenue came from $20.5 million in retail sales. (Divide the $1,496,869 by the sales tax rate of7.30% and you get $20,505,055.)

If you looked at my numbers yesterday, you might have known I was wrong. Our sales tax revenue is a 1% city tax and a 1/2% county-wide tax. The two generally split $1 million for the 1% tax and $500,000 for the county-wide tax. The retail sales that would generate $1,000,000 of city sales would be ($1,000,000/.01) $100,000,000. One hundred million dollars of retail sales. The same caluclation goes for the county-wide sales tax ($500,000/.005 = $100,000,000.

That amount is still some serious change!

2005 Sales Tax hits

2006-01-03T13:47:00.000-08:00

Even with gas prices above the $2.00 level Sales Tax revenues reached another milestone.

During the 2006 Budget process, we projected income at $1,500,000 for 2005. The Department of Revenue distribution to Concordia came in last month at $1,496,869.75. That is just $3,130.25 short of the prediction. It is not quite like Ivory Soap since it was 99.8% of the projection.

I mentioned this at the morning Chamber Coffee because it reflects in the health of our community. In 1995, the City Sales Tax revenue was $794,400. That is quite a jump in 10 years and reflects on the growth of our business community. Congratulations folks!

Using a Good Idea

2005-12-15T18:45:00.000-08:00

It is interesting how a good idea, applied well, can end up profitable.  Earlier this year, the Commission and I attended the annual conference of the League of Kansas Municipalities.  While we were “networking,” Commissioner Joe Strecker met a lady he went to high school.  She was one of the vendors – actually helping her son with his company.

His company is called Purple Wave.  It is headquartered in Manhattan, KS. (The non Kansas readers should understand the school color of Kansas State University is Purple and KSU is in Manhattan.)  Purple Wave is a company that auctions equipment using an e-bay model.

Last month, new Fire Chief Larry Eubanks identified two vehicles that were surplus and needed to be disposed of.  They were an old rescue truck and an old Pumper truck.

During the League conference, Joe said to me “you need to check out that company.”  After returning to work, I saw the value of the contact.  When Eubanks told me of the condition of the two vehicles, remembering the contact spurred action.  I found the vendor brochure and had Eubanks call Purple Wave.  They put the vehicles on their web site and the bidding began.

Our expectation was that we would get some amount more money that we have in local bidding.  Earlier this summer, we were asked to find potential bidders for the old ambulance slated for trade in.  We ran several want-ads in major city markets and received no bids.  We ended up trading it in for $2,000.  Now that we know about Purple Wave, we can expect a better equipment disposal record.

Well, the best part is this.  The sales price for the rescue was $9,600.  The sale price for the old Pumper was $2,500.  The bids from Monday morning rose from $3,500 to $9,600 by the Tuesday at 10:00 am closing.  Needles to say, we are very happy with the result.

Getting back to writing again

2005-12-15T18:44:00.000-08:00

It is time to get back into the swing of doing Blogs again.  It is tough to just sit down and write.  It gives me an appreciation for the editorial journalists that do this for a living.

I have a couple of items to write about today – both related to fire equipment.

Earlier this spring/summer we ordered a new ambulance.  It was delivered today!

It doesn’t look too much different than the one the Department is using now.  That is intentional.  Having the two ambulances outfitted nearly the same will help the EMT’s find things quickly since the two units are manufactured by the same vendor – MedTech.

As I said above, it arrived today.  Within minutes, firefighters and EMT’s started arriving to look the “new beauty over.”  It was interesting to watch the folks touch the various cabinets and doors, check out new head-sets, and test out the horn and siren.  There was a sense of watching sailors bring a ship to life.  There was a display of reverence as they considered the work they would be doing together.

The new ambulance is coming to life.  Thursday night, the Fire Department staff will be putting things in their place, loading cabinets with the various tools and supplies that will help keep someone alive.

This new ambulance is the product of a number of a number of people.  What is remarkable is the time it took the Fire Department staff to prepare bid specifications.  Our policy is to have the Commission review them prior to bid approval.  The Commission has a chance to ask “why this?” for the various specifications before they approve letting us go out for bids.  We then send the specifications to a number of vendors who prepare a cost estimate for us.

Before the Commission awarded bids, several vendors brought their demonstrators to Concordia.  Commissioners came and viewed the ambulance demonstrator vehicles and crawled all over them with the EMT’s to get their views of what was good and what was better.  In the end, this conversation between the EMT’s and the Commissioners produced a level of confidence ending in a purchase decision for the vehicle delivered today.  Each group – the EMT’s and the Commission - had the confidence the best vehicle was being purchased for the community.

The EMT’s had a say in what the City purchased.  That reverence I saw today reflected pride in their role in the purchase decision.  They actually OWN the new ambulance.

Police Chief Recruitment Progresses

2005-11-20T18:38:00.000-08:00

Police Chief Recruitment Progresses

One of the things that has kept me busy the past few weeks has been the Police Chief Recruitment.  Friday, I interviewed three candidates – two from Kansas and one from Missouri.

Normally, job interviews are 30 to 60 minutes.  The team of interviewers and I spent about 2 hours asking questions.  I feel I have enough information now to make an offer.  I see the end of the process leading to hiring a new Police Chief.  We can then move toward making the necessary changes to change us from “Good to Great.”

By the way, “Good to Great” is the name of a great book by Jim Collins.  I recommend reading it.

Things to be thankful for!

2005-11-20T18:17:00.000-08:00

Things have been quite busy at home and work the past few weeks.  It has been busy enough to “think about” writing the next blog but that is about it.  With Thanksgiving week before me, there is a break – Thankfully.

With that in mind, there is much to be thankful for.  In his letter to the editor Friday, Jerry Burgess pointed out a number of good things about Concordia.  You can’t list them all. However, Jerry did a very commendable job of reminding us of the value of this special place.

The past couple of weeks, my wife Susan has been involved in promoting a mission’s ministry of Samaritan’s Purse and Operation Christmas Child.  Susan and several others organized the local church memberships to prepare a Christmas present for children of Third World countries.  Folks put a number of toys, hygiene necessities and school supplies in shoe boxes that will be sent to children, some who have never received a present before.  Today, we took 701 shoe boxes to the Salina “relay point” from our area.  The boxes will be shipped to Minneapolis, MN and processed to be sent overseas.

One of the things to add to Jerry’s list is our generosity.

Police Shooting Report

2005-10-27T19:41:00.000-07:00

Well, it is time to write about the Police shooting experience. Now that the County Attorney has issued his findings, we can express our feelings and opinions about the situation.

I remember the night of September 22. The back door was open and I could hear sirens – one after another. After hearing what seemed like four different series of sirens, I thought I ought to call dispatch and ask what was going on. As I moved to get out of my chair, I heard another siren. I knew that dispatch was still busy and I would be hearing from someone soon. I was right.

Detective Mike Copple called a few minutes later with the news that there had been an “officer involved shooting.” I am not sure whether I verbalized my thought or not but the first questions was the safety of our officers. At that point hundreds of crisis management questions begin to kick in.

My first action was calling Mayor Joe Jindra. I think one of the first rules of any city manager is that no matter how bad the situation, call the Mayor first and alert him/her to what is happening. There is nothing worse than finding out from someone else about a problem. As I called Joe, he was hearing about the event from his son who was listening on a scanner.

The next step was to pack up my laptop and head to the Police Station. I knew I would be in the Public Information Officer role as well as the City Manager role. Mike and I went to the scene. I didn’t see anything except for a large number of people standing about the police lines that were set up. After conferring with the other Sheriff Deputies we brought our officers back to the station. What I saw impressed me regarding the professionalism of these men.

The attention to detail that I heard and learned about in the military was evident. The weapons were cleared and placed in evidence cases. KBI was present, interviewed each officer and secured the weapons.

As we sat waiting for the KBI agent to arrive, we talked. Some of it was small talk other times it related to some of the cases they were working on. What was obvious was we didn’t talk about. As I watched and gathered my own impressions, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on in the minds of these two guys. Moments earlier a gun was in their face, they responded as they had been trained, a man dying at the hospital.

After they were interviewed by KBI, the officers were taken home. They, more than likely, hugged their wife and kids a little tighter and wondered how the world would treat them when the sun came up.

I asked questions about their care in the next few days. We had been talking about it all night but now that the officers were on their way home, it was time to be frank. In these situations, crisis teams are brought in to work with the officers. We requested the State Highway Patrol team to come and assist.

In my next posting, I will talk about the press relations side of this event.

Before I sign off here, I did want to reflect upon an observation about the police profession. I think every officer joins a department with that vision of making a difference in the community where he or she works. From before they fill out their job application, through their time at the police academy and after they get out on the street, there is this understanding that someday they might have to use their firearm in a combat situation. I don’t think they want to use it. However, being trained and prepared is part of the toolkit.

Having to fire your weapon is a situation that all of us who are not in the law enforcement business will not understand. It is something you plan for but you hope never happens. Our Police Department puts their life on the line every day to protect our community. We need to pause and reflect upon that responsibility for awhile. I am pleased our department has people who are willing to put themselves in harms way as a means of providing community protection. Our thanks need to go out to those who provide our safety. If you are inclined, pray for their continued safety as they insure ours.

Fun with Blogging

2005-10-19T09:53:00.000-07:00

Fun with Blogging

Last week, I attended the annual conference of the League of Kansas Municipalities. I was asked to be a presenter for one of the Sunday Roundtable discussions concerning my Blog. It was fun sharing what I have learned and the local benefits of getting out a story that the local press cannot cover the way I can in the Blog setting.

In the three sessions (30 minutes each), I talked to governing body members, City Clerks and City Managers. During the second session, I was urging the group to begin their own Blog and out of the blue, I said if they did that would make me a “Blog-father!” (My favorite type of humor is expressed in that last line.)

My friends at the League office have given me another opportunity to promote Concordia. Telling them the cost of doing promotion like this is well within the budget of the smallest community was enjoyable too. By the way, it is free. Most of the time, I write these while I am at home (all but three).

Boomtown Blog Recognition

2005-10-19T09:22:00.000-07:00

You all need to go to the BoomTown USA Blog. http://boomtownusa.blogspot.com/ Concordia received what Mayor Jindra calls “National Attention.” As I was looking at the list of subscribers, I found the email address for Boomtown USA author Jack Schultz. I was amazed to see his address there.

I took the time to write a thank you. I also took the time to write about the good things happening in Concordia. (Part of the City Manager’s job is to promote his community!) I shared information about our Tuesday Morning Chamber Coffee and the entrepreneurial activity that I call “signs of life.”

He responded last week and said he would be writing about us.

Readers interested in economic development need to subscribe to Jack’s Blog and also read his book. I know there are several copies circulating in the community.

Thanks Jack for highlighting Concordia!

Police Chief Search Narrows

2005-10-06T21:17:00.000-07:00

October 5th came and went. October 5th was the deadline for applications for Police Chief. 25 individuals expressed interest in the position. 17 filed both a resume and the City’s application form. It reminds me of the birthday boy sitting in the horse barn sifting straw saying “there’s got to be a pony in here somewhere!” In the list of 17 there is a new Police Chief. I do not know his/her name yet but I am confident the result will be positive.

The group included 8 from Kansas, Colorado (2), Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey, Oregon and Pennsylvania (2). Some of the out of state candidates have worked in Kansas before. The qualifications are impressive.

The next step in the selection process is to review the resumes and applications in detail and develop a “short list.” For this step, I asked several people to help me. I have two police chiefs and two from the community reviewing the documents. I found the last time I selected a chief when I was employed in Baldwin City, having a law enforcement executive at the table was priceless. Being able to get a community perspective is just as valuable.

Once the “short list” is developed, we will be conducting interviews here in Concordia. I have tentatively set October 21st or October 24th for the interviews. Getting all the schedules coordinated will be the final factor there.

Following the interview will be the selection and negotiation phase. I am hoping to be finished by the end of the month. As usual, there will probably be something to change the schedule. The key point is to find an exceptional individual that is the perfect fit for Concordia. I am confident in the outcome.

In the last posting C. Morrison wrote “Larry, what do you mean we have places we do not want to acknowledge? I would think the city police chief would only be concerned with places that are a source of criminal activity. Of Course, the Chief of Police is really interested in the entire community. However, there are places that we are not proud to take visitors but I did anyway. A chief needs to see the good, the bad, and the ugly. The point was being made by my back seat driver that I shouldn’t be showing this part of the town as a means of impressing the spouse. A new Chief has to see all of it (and we didn’t show all of it due to the lack of time).

Over the weekend, I will be making a presentation to the League of Kansas Municipalities about Blogs. If you have any impressions, add them to the comments area for other Kansas community leaders to see.

Police Chief Update

2005-10-02T18:13:00.000-07:00

Among all the activities of the past week, I have tried to focus on the process of finding a new Police Chief. Joe Strecker has a favorite saying that applies here. A dog that chases two rabbits catches neither one!

So, what does that have to do with the Police Chief? Everything!

As I mentioned in the last Blog posting, I had a number of outlets for finding the new chief. Even during the shooting incident, I had to focus on the process of getting a new Chief. Yes, it would have been easy to refocus on the officers and their plight but finding their leader is my responsibility.

The application process concludes Wednesday afternoon. There are a number of people who have expressed interest from all over the United States. This weekend, I played host to a visitor who wanted to see our community before submitting a resume/application.

It was an interesting tour around town. Susan accompanied me on the tour with our guest and spouse. Susan was amazed at the places I have not shown her in Concordia but are important for a Police Chief candidate to see. Even here, there are places we do not want to acknowledge. At the end of the tour, I received the resume/application as if to say we passed the test.

The next step in our chief selection process is a written assignment. It will give me an opportunity to see how the candidates can write – if you can’t write, you can’t teach an officer how to prepare a good police report. The other part of the task is to see how they think. This part will be the first indication of how the candidates will fit in our community.

My plan is to have interviews mid month and a selection before the end of October.

Police Chief Recruitment

2005-09-20T13:45:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks have been frustrating as I attempt to secure a new Police Chief.

I had been trying to woo the Baldwin City Police Chief to Concordia. I hired Mike McKenna four months before I moved to Concordia. I recognized his professional caliber. I want that level of competence as I replace Chief Maley. For several weeks, we negotiated and I finally lost out to Baldwin City as they increased their contract with Mike. He had been in charge of the early BTK investigation. You might remember, law enforcement officials credited the early efforts and the preservation of evidence as one of the keys to capturing BTK. I watched his investigative methods secure a confession to an internal theft situation of one of the local businesses.

There has been a complete turnover in officers in Baldwin City since I moved from Baldwin City to here. It is a direct result of raising the bar – expecting police officers to do police work at the highest level. There is a difference in the quality of officers here compared to the department Mike McKenna assumed in Baldwin City. The fellows here are competent, honest, and professional. Yes, I do know there are folks that criticize our Police force. Our fellows do need fresh leadership and this is a good time to find that leadership.

Now that Mike McKenna is not a candidate, I do have a major problem related to expectations. I have those same high expectations for the individual we eventually hire. The pressure will be on both the candidates and the City Manager to bring out the best candidate.

I am doing a “national” search now. Using the International Association of Chiefs of Police website, I have placed a recruiting ad looking for a new chief. It is one of the tools I used when I found McKenna. One nice thing is that it was free. In comparison, the cost of recruiting within Kansas is not free.

I will be mailing an announcement to every chief in every community this week. Included with the announcement will be a tri-fold brochure I prepared. If anyone wants a copy, send me an email (citymanager@concordiaks.org) and I will forward a PDF version that you can read, print or send to a friend. (A comment won't work since some of you use an email alias.) I even added a reference to this Blog so potential candidates can see what I focus on here.

While I am recruiting, I am still looking for an Interim Chief. I am using the Kansas Police Chiefs Association, the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center, the KBI, the Kansas Highway Patrol, and referrals from people I know in the Police world. It seems like I am asking everyone I know if they know someone in the police community that might be interested in an interim position.

Finding an interim chief has been one of the frustrating elements I mentioned in the lead paragraph. I am looking for someone that has had “command” experience from being a Lieutenant, Captain, Deputy Chief or Chief. Usually, those folks do not want to get back into police work. Trying to get them back into law enforcement and the stress it produces is one reason they shy away from returning.

On the bright side, however, I have been able to secure administrative help in managing the Police Department. Former City Clerk/Commissioner Verna Ferguson will be watching the flock for me. Her many years of experience with the city provide her the skill to manage the administrative functions and it gives me peace of mind that someone who knows our system and is watching over things. (It really hasn’t changed that much in the 10 years since she retired.)

FEMA is not a First Responder

2005-09-06T15:25:00.000-07:00

In an earlier Blog story this afternoon, I commented on an article I received from a City Manager friend who lives in New Mexico. He sent me the following article. Here it is as I received it.

Craig Martelle: FEMA is not a first responder (Craig Martelle, retired as a major in the U.S. Marine Corps, lives in North Huntingdon. He recently launched the Strategic Outlook Institute, a public-policy organization.)

Don't be so quick to pillory the federal response in New Orleans. Immediate emergency management is primarily a local and state responsibility
Tuesday, September 06, 2005

As one who has received training by FEMA in emergency management and also training by the Department of Defense in consequence management, I believe that the federal response in New Orleans needs clarification.

The key to emergency management starts at the local level and expands to the state level. Emergency planning generally does not include any federal guarantees, as there can only be limited ones from the federal level for any local plan. FEMA provides free training, education, assistance and respond in case of an emergency, but the local and state officials run their own emergency management program.

Prior development of an emergency plan, addressing all foreseeable contingencies, is the absolute requirement of the local government --and then they share that plan with the state emergency managers to ensure that the state authorities can provide necessary assets not available at the local level. Additionally, good planning will include applicable elements of the federal government (those located in the local area). These processes are well established, but are contingent upon the personal drive of both hired and elected officials at the local level.

I've reviewed the New Orleans emergency management plan. Here is an important section in the first paragraph.

"We coordinate all city departments and allied state and federal agencies which respond to citywide disasters and emergencies through the development and constant updating of an integrated multi-hazard plan. All requests for federal disaster assistance and federal funding subsequent to disaster declarations are also made through this office. Our authority is defined by the Louisiana Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act of 1993, Chapter 6 Section 709, Paragraph B, 'Each parish shall maintain a Disaster Agency which, except as otherwise provided under this act, has jurisdiction over and serves the entire parish.' "

Check the plan -- the "we" in this case is the office of the mayor, Ray Nagin who was very quick and vocal about blaming everyone but his own office. A telling picture, at left, taken by The Associated Press on Sept. 1 and widely circulated on the Internet shows a school bus park, apparently filled to capacity with buses, under about four feet of water. If a mandatory evacuation was ordered, why weren't all the taxpayer-purchased buses used in the effort?

Who could have predicted the anarchy resulting as a consequence? The individuals who devolved into lawless animals embarrass the entirety of America. (I worked in a U.S. Embassy overseas for a couple years and I can imagine what foreign diplomats are thinking.) What societal factors would ever lead people to believe that this behavior was even remotely acceptable?

The folks in New Orleans who are perpetrating the violence and lawlessness are not that way because of low income or of race, but because they personally do not have any honor or commitment to higher ideals. The civil-rights leaders should be ashamed at playing the blame game.

The blame is on the individuals. The blame is on the society that allowed these individuals to develop the ideal that the individual is greater than the national pride he is destroying. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was very clear in her comments that she was offended at those who suggested the suffering in New Orleans was prolonged because of race.

As a retired Marine, I hang my head in shame to see my fellow Americans degenerate so far. I spent so many years in the Corps helping the citizens of other countries rise to a higher level of personal responsibility to ensure that in case of emergency, anarchy did not necessarily follow. When people are held to a higher standard of personal responsibility and they accept that, then they will do the right thing when the time comes.

It seems that the mayor of New Orleans is leading the effort in not taking responsibility for his actions. The emergency managers for the state of Louisiana do not have much to say either. The failure in the first 48 hours to provide direction for survivors is theirs to live with. When FEMA was able to take over, it started out behind and had to develop its plan on the fly. Now the federal government has established priorities -- rescue the stranded, evacuate the city, flow in resources and fix the levee. It appears that now there is a plan and it is being systematically executed.

Hurricane Katrina was a national tragedy -- not just in the number of lives lost or the amount of physical damage, but also in the failure of people to do what is right when no one is looking.

Refugee Planning

2005-09-06T14:53:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of talk concerning hurricane refugees coming to Concordia. Much of what I have heard is they are coming, then they are not.

What continues to be important is the people of Concordia have a "heart" for these people. Everyone is grateful for that.

During the weekend, I was asked to have water turned on for the Beverly Health Center. Since it has not operated during the period I have been City Manager, it is not a place I have thought about. Well, some one did. It needed cleaning. I have heard there were large groups of church people donating time to get the facility ready to accept people.

I received an email today from one of my City Manager friends in New Mexico that put the past week's effort in perspective and it makes good sense with what these folks are doing here in Concordia.

The point of the email is that FEMA is not a first responder. It is not the responsibility of the Federal government to be first on the scene fixing things for communities that have endured the effects of a devastating storm like Hurricane Katrina. It is the responsibility of the local community to first assess the problem and, if necessary, call for state and Federal assistance.

There is a specific protocol for asking for aid. Locals assess the situation and ask the County Commissioners to declare an emergency. State aid can then be called in and if the damage can be valued high enough - something like a fixed percent of the statewide assessed value (I am fuzzy on this part) the Governor can ask for a Presidential declaration of emergency. All this is part of the community's emergency management plan.

I heard Larry Blochlinger say today at Chamber Coffee that when a tornado hit is ranch, there wasn't enough damage to declare an emergency where he could get government aid. What did happen is that neighbors came by the droves to help. In New Orleans, there are no neighbors to help - everyone was affected. Well, yes there are neighbors - they are called Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia....

So the response here is much like the Pharisee in the bible who asked "who is my neighbor?" In Concordia, these folks have names who are trying to express compassion for the losses our fellow Americans in Louisiana are suffering. They are trying to help by providing a little relief.

Now the hard part of really organizing local efforts is kicking in. Thursday evening, leaders of the various service providers will gather to develop a plan to assist our neighbors.

So, what if these refugees do not show up? The effort is not wasted, No not by a long shot. If we had a disaster here, we have just identified all the social service providers that will be important in responding to a local disaster. From the City side, we can clean up street of debris. I now have another element to our community disaster plan that wasn't available before.

This is a great opportunity we have to place Concordia on the "caring" map and demonstrate what it is like to live in a small rural community. The best part is we see the exercise of community in its best form.

Comment Made About Travel

2005-09-06T08:16:00.000-07:00

This past week, I received a comment from a reader about "official travel" and the experience of Ann Morris. I thought a response to the comment would be appropriate.

Part of my employment agreement with the City is that I get the "privilege" of attending the International City/County Management Association. To me, privilege means that it is not a "right" and therefore should not be abused.

When I travel to events like this, I try to share the room costs with another manager. That really means I have to find someone who will put up with me and I can put up with them. It is one way to split the cost of $199 per night rates down to tolerable.

In some of the other travel opportunities, I take advantage of Priceline or similar programs. One trip I recently made had room rates at the conference hotel at $105 (in Wichita). I found a room for $40 in El Dorado.

So, C. Morrison, there is my response. I am glad you chose to offer a comment. LP

Sales tax blip

2005-08-30T08:52:00.000-07:00

I must have jinked the sales tax collection this month. Earlier I bragged that City sales tax revenue was continuing to rise. Our last report showed a small drop from the August 2004 report. So now we have 20 of the past 22 months with sales tax more than the year before.

Fortunately, we are still on target to receive $1.5 million for the year.

Consumer Confidence

2005-08-30T08:33:00.000-07:00

Today I read on CNN that the Consumer Confidence Index is unexpectedly up in August. Dispite the oil prices and the affects of the hurricane in the south, we still see positive things going on in the country.

Later this month, Linda Sutton at the Small Business Development Center is sponsoring an Entrepurnial seminar. Folks from the Kansas Center for Entrepreneurship, the Department of Commerce and the Kansas Small Business Development Center are sponsoring a town meeting. It will be at CCCC on September 27th at 1:00 PM. Call Linda and get a reservation (785 243-1435).

I bring this up because when I saw the notice, I sent Steve Radley, Kansas Center for Entrepreneurship, an email and shared our "signs of life" story. His comment was: "Wow, that's exciting stuff and I would also agree that the number of companies is significant."

Consumer Confidence is a big part of a business owner's success. Now we are getting the word out regarding our success.

Corps of Engineers visits with Concordia

2005-08-25T20:36:00.000-07:00

Thursday was a great day for Concordia. The Corps of Engineers came to town to discuss the flood control project. The Corps is working on a 50/50 project with us to establish whether we qualify for funding in their Section 205 program. Section 205 is part of the flood mitigation authority. What makes this a great day is that we are one step closer to knowing if Corps funding is possible.

We spent the day discussing what we wanted out of the project. The obvious is a flood control structure on the 21st street alignment. Secondary is the ability to sell property for economic development purposes. I have to say secondarily because if we rated the flood structure on a scale of 1 to 100, the flood structure is 100. Making the balance of the property available for sale would rate a 98. Seeing sales of land is important in the long run. It will help us repay the cost of purchasing the land.

The Corps brought a team of six to Concordia to evaluate the project. We described the work that has been done to date. Campbell and Johnson finished doing the topographic work to provide our engineers with information to develop a preliminary plat. This will be the initial step in making the land available for sale.

Briefly, to subdivide property for sale, a developer must prepare a drawing showing how the lots will be laid out. That is called a preliminary plat. Once approved by the planning commission and the city commission, the division of land becomes a “final plat” and sale of property can occur.

Getting into the Corps of Engineers funding cycle is our objective at this point. The Section 205 program is a 65 Federal/35 local cost share. We learned that land costs can be applied to the local share. Doing the math, $500,000 of land purchase provides up to $1.4 million of project cost. What the real issue now is Congress is not funding the Section 205 program like it used to. We started the process of lobbying our congressional delegation – Senator Brownback is on the Appropriations Committee – to help us fund the project.

The question to be discussed by the City Commission is whether we want to wait on Federal money for a 2007 or 2008 construction or pay the cost of construction from a GO Bond today (meaning 2006 construction). Weighing the risk of waiting on the Federal money against using local tax funds will not be an easy decision.

One side bar to the discussions was the capacity of the existing storm sewer system. Most of the rain events in Concordia are handled by the existing storm sewer system. The reason two dams are proposed is the quantity of storm water exceeds the capacity of the storm sewer. I asked Campbell and Johnson to estimate the project cost of addressing the capacity of the probable storm. The price tag is $8.0 million. It didn’t take too long to it was not a viable solution.

The Corp project team will have their work done in October in time for us to get our request in the next federal budget process. We should know by then whether our project qualifies for Corps funding.

Increased readership

2005-08-03T07:08:00.000-07:00

I am happy to report that there are now 31 folks who have subscribed to the City Hall Corner Bolg. It is a small but growing number.

If you like what you see, send this on to your friends.

Yesterday, the League of Kansas Municipalities asked me to make a presentation at their annual conference in October about Blogs. My teaching partner at the League pointed out several times in our recent Municipal Leadership Academy sessions that Blogs are becoming one of the "new trends" for communication to the public.

As you see, I have a unique forum from which to speak. Those who respond with comments get the opprtunity to share in the forum.

I am pleased that you choose to read my "rants."

Sales Tax benefits

2005-08-03T07:05:00.000-07:00

Several years ago, voters of Cloud County chose to impose a 1% sales tax county wide. The tax revenues were divided between the County and the several cities in Cloud County. The added sales tax has been a boon to all the agencies. I recall hearing Jamestown Mayor Judy Hill thank Concordia numerous times for the added sales tax revenue that it produces for Jamestown.

It is helping Concordia too! In reviewing Concordia’s Sales Tax collections since 1995, collections have risen from $794,400 to $1,423,300 in 2004. In 2004, the added 1% sales tax contributed $476,700 to the city’s revenue stream. The new revenue is equal to about 21 mills.

The City Commission gets credit for establishing a number of funds that benefit from the additional cash. An Equipment Replacement Fund was established that provides for the replacement of vehicles and heavy equipment. Each year, money is set aside for each vehicle to be used for future replacement. This is not exact science yet, but it is working. Many of the newer vehicles we have now are the result of putting money aside from the sales tax revenue.

The Commission also created a Capital Improvement Projects fund (CIP). This fund is one where funds are set aside to fund big projects too. Some examples are the mill/overlay on 11th street. It is 100% local funded. The mill/overlay on Broadway and mill/overlay on 6th Streets are KDOT projects and we have a share of the total project. Later this summer, the airport runway will be getting a new surface courtesy of a FAA grant where we pay 5% of the total cost. In each of these projects, the City had put cash aside to see they are done. By setting money aside, we are able to pay cash for the projects.

In FY 2006, the Commission is again planning to set aside from the General Fund $613,000 for projects. These projects include street construction, storm sewer construction, setting reserves for future “slurry seal” on streets, rebuilding a salt storage structure at the City yard, and several other projects.

The best part of this story is the sales tax is contributing to the ongoing improvement of our community. It is helping us be attractive to both business and customers. The July 2005 sales tax payment tells an incredible story about Concordia. The difference in July 2004 ($121,528.51) and July 2005 ($135065.53) payments shows $13,537 more revenue. It amounts to about $150,000 to $170,000 more business in Concordia in 2005. If annualized that is nearly $2,000,000 more sales than the year before. If we have nothing else to brag about (and we do), we can point to the new retail sales that is making our community a nice place to live.

2005-07-17T19:40:00.000-07:00

This weekend I have another opportunity to represent Concordia doing some teaching for the League of Kansas Municipalities. This will be my fourth year with the Guiding the Municipal Organization. My teaching partner is my friend Don Osenbaugh who works in the field office for the League. Don has a dream job. He works out of his home in Derby and manages the League Worker Compensation Insurance program. Don wouldn’t mind me bragging about him. Under his management, the pool premiums have doubled, not by raising rates but by doubling the Work-Comp business. It is impressive. It is also a good value for cities as we work toward cost containment.

The seminar will involve covering the state of Kansas again. We will be in Colby, Lyons and Chanute the next two weekends. I like the opportunity to visit other cities in Kansas and to see what they are doing. It is also fun to see elected and appointed officials (managers, clerks, various department heads) and hear what they are saying about their communities. I already know we will hear an earful in Lyons. CM John Sweet is caffeine on two legs. John and Lyons are always up to their eyeballs in projects.

The best part of our program is sharing what we know about managing communities. Don and I have an agreement – we must interrupt each other! It helps the audience stay awake and it helps us challenge one another’s thinking.

Every year (each of the four), I ask my city manager friends what they would like their elected officials to learn from this course. It is a basic introduction to municipal management. We cover such things as managing public meetings, how staff and the governing body members have to interact, and why they need to be prepared to do their work. One of my favorite parts has been dealing with the press. I have learned that broadcast media need a short story for their air time. In big business, it is like having a 20 second elevator speech ready when you meet the “Boss.” Most of the time, the press is not out to “get you.” They have a job to do and I help them do it by telling my story.

Since one of Don’s perks is getting around to many cities west of Topeka (that is where the legislature believes the dividing line is from eastern to western Kansas), he has been introduced to a number of good restaurants. So, despite the number of miles I will be putting on the car and the seriously good conversation and food we will have along the way, I will come back charged up from the opportunity to share the practical wisdom I have picked up from the graduate school of hard knocks. The conversations with our class members will be priceless. I will even learn something on the trip I can apply here in Concordia.

Independence Day reflections

2005-07-06T06:34:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, I received an email from my friend David who lives in New Mexico. Just as the Iraq War was concluding, he was offered an opportunity to teach public administration principles to folks in Iraq. He made many friends, including a young man named Ahmed. David and Ahmed have kept in touch since David returned from Iraq.

Included in David's recent email was a copy of a note from Ahmed about our holiday. I wanted to share it with you since it reflects the personal impact two men from different countries can have on one another. Hopefully, Ahmed's views really reflect the majority of Iraqi citizens. There is the same spirit in Ahmed's words that I saw following the reading of our Revolutionary War documents. There is a need in the human spirit to demonstrate free living, the ability to make personal choices, and live without fear of a bully whether it be King George or Sadam. Here is Ahmed's letter:

My American Friends,

Happy Independence Day ! l ask the God to keep you safe, let your celebrations in this day more pleasant to you, and make America more powerful. We, Iraqis, ( if not all, but most ) are grateful for your great favor in liberating our country from the former monster. We, Iraqis hope one day to have such an nice day as yours, hoping love will dominate between the Americans and Iraqis forever. With all my regards to you as an Iraqi man, let me say, " God Bless You All and America".

Ahmed

BoomTown USA Link

2005-06-30T06:31:00.000-07:00

Everyone needs to look at the BoomTown USA blog http://boomtownusa.blogspot.com/. There are two stories where I want to draw your attention.

First is the story about the Association of Washington Cities report on the state of their cities. They see their rural communities the same as I see Concordia. There is optimism in the smaller communties compared to the urban centers. Look and see what I mean.

Tuesday's BoomTown post describes a report from Forbes Magazine about entrapreneurs and there success in smaller communties.

There are 25 of us now subscribed to the City Hall Corner. Thank you all for subscribing. Feel free to pass the word.

Road Openings

2005-06-29T20:17:00.000-07:00

OK Everyone, get ready!

Ron Copple is busy getting Hill Street AND Valley Street ready. After the Fourth, we will do a grand opening/ribbon cutting (tough going trying to hit double keys).

The Street Crew is doing a great job getting our roads into shape.

Look forward to the week after the Fourth. We will start the mill and overlay on 11th Street. We have Hill Brothers doing that work by contract.

Here's the deal. Where you drive, we are there. I should do a list of roads we have overlayed or rebuilt in the past few years. Yes I will.

Take note again folks, we're getting things done!

Challenge my thinking – Part 1

2005-06-29T08:28:00.000-07:00

My dad bought a very thought provoking book (actually he sent the money) for my birthday this year. It is Tom Peters’ Re-imagine. He starts the book ranting about the Dean of the Stanford University Business School, Robert Jaedicke. When Peters attended Stanford, Jaedicke was his accounting professor. In 2003, Jaedike was the chairman of the Enron Audit Committee and confessed to being clueless about “the truckload of peculiar transactions that brought the company down.” What strikes Peters is that his old “Prof” is “the last bastion of bean counting” and didn’t (or pretended to) see the poor practices within the firm.

Reading Peters book has me thinking again about the impact of similar activity in the public sector. First of all, I do not mean to convey concern about the accounting practices of the City of Concordia. I do continue to ask myself the question about what happens to local governments when people make stupid mistakes – planned or unplanned – that cause the question of bankruptcy to be discussed.

In the business world, bad decision making causes the businesses to go away or be purchased by other firms. Since different governments provide services that cannot or will not be performed by the private sector, these local governments more than likely won’t go away or be purchased by another local government with more efficient management controls and procedures. A more likely scenario would be a court appointing a custodian or “special master” to administer until things were straightened out.

My first job in Kansas, Baldwin City, was headed toward bankruptcy. The City Clerk had been using city fund for her personal benefit and was fired before I interview for the job. (She was later convicted and sentenced to 6 months probation.) My first eighteen months there were very stressful as we straightened up procedures and put financial affairs back in order. Every day we looked at the cash balance in the bank and every Council appropriation ordinance meant sending checks out as cash came in over the next two weeks until the next Council meeting.

Governments are not like private sector companies. Who would stand for the doors of the police or fire department to be chained shut? Who would stand for the water or waste water utility to stop working if the “parent company” closed? What more efficient organization would come in to “right the ship?” There is an expectation of continued service.

So what do you think?

Sign up options are now available

2005-06-22T20:36:00.000-07:00

After several attempts to find a way for people to get an email when a new posting is available, I finally found a way.

Now you can subscribe to the City Hall Corner using the "subscribe box" in the panel on the left side of the Blog site.

By signing up, you will receive an email everytime I post to the "City Hall Corner" as a reminder to go look.

I have a subscription to another Bolg that works that way. It is great. I get a short teaser of the content and a short URL to click that will send you here to see what wisdom I try to empart.

Highway 81 Corridor Study

2005-06-17T13:27:00.000-07:00

The City Commission and the Planning Commission have been working on a project to evaluate whether rezoning of some residential properties along Highway 81 is needed.

After a joint work session, we advertised for a planning consultant that would give the City an unbiased professional opinion about the potential of rezoning. LandPlan Engineering of Lawrence (and Tom Phillips and Associates of Manhattan, a sub contractor) reviewed the rezoning question.

Following the widening of Highway 81 to a four lane highway, a number of new businesses have been started along the corridor. Several years ago, there was a contentious rezoning when the Short Stop was proposed. The rezoning led to a development that led to poor design and inefficient land use.

With Highway 81 gaining in traffic counts due to the completion of the four lane between I-70 and I-80, commercial development pressure is growing. With the commercial pressure comes pressure on the existing residential properties. Competition for commercial space will have a negative impact on existing residential uses.

The city’s General Plan or Comprehensive Land Use Plan describes the future zoning along Highway 81 as Commercial. So both City Commission and Planning Commission raised the question: Can we rezone the entire corridor to Commercial and provide protection for the residential uses at the same time.

The Planners have proposed the use of an “overlay” zoning that would allow both uses to peacefully coexist. Before the Planning Commission and the City Commission consider the issue, they directed that we have a public forum where the public can comment about the development procedures.

The meeting will be held the City Commission Chamber at City Hall on Monday, June 27th at 7:00 PM. This will be an open forum where residents and commercial property owners will have opportunity to comment on the proposal. If you have property in the area, you should plan on attending.

We are a Big Deal

2005-06-09T14:10:00.000-07:00

It might not look like it from the outside but Concordia is a big deal town. The point was made again Tuesday at the Chamber Coffee. Jim and Becky Higgins (Becky is National Director of the Orphan Train Heritage Society) are in Concordia for the annual Orphan Train Reunion. Concordia is home to their group.

This weekend, Orphan Train Riders and their descendents will spend time in Concordia celebrating this portion of our nation’s history and our heritage. A full schedule of the weekend’s activities can be picked up at the chamber office.

More information about the Orphan Train movement can be found at either of the two websites: http://orphantrainriders.com/ http://orphantraindepot.com/.

What is interesting about Concordia and the Orphan Train Heritage society is the seamless integration of two affiliated groups. The national group and the local museum are operating under different purposes to achieve a greater understanding of the Orphan Train Movement.

The accomplishments of the local museum are significant. They acquired the old BNSF Depot. They raised money to refurbish the roof and the exterior. They were just awarded a KDOT grant to refurbish the depot’s interior. One of the Orphan Train Rider descendants donated a clock which will be unveiled this week end too. They are about to name a curator for the museum as well.

So it is a big deal. From operating out of a back office at Century 21 and Radio Shack to moving into a new museum. Bringing folks to town and sharing the attributes of our community is a BIG DEAL.

Theater Project

2005-06-06T22:00:00.000-07:00

The theater project is moving ahead. The rush coming from the demolition process seems to have mellowed down to what is happening at the site. Of course, rain has slowed things down. I noticed piles of dirt behind the hole left by the lumber yard building. The plan is to fill the hole to 95% compaction (a standard measure) for the eventual construction.

The walls of the Dumbbells building and Monique’s are to be cleaned and restored. Monique’s will be covered with stucco. The reason is the brick used for that building is very soft and prone to deterioration. The wall on the Dumbbells side will be stripped of the plaster, cleaned and repainted. Yes, repainted. Take a quick walk to the porch of the building. You will see the building was painted at some time in the past.

Campbell & Johnson will be sending out bids for building restoration soon.

Several weeks ago, Kirk Lowell showed a concept drawing of the building. What I saw was encouraging. The building front will keep the historic feel of the downtown. The architecture will keep the “rhythm” of the existing buildings. While you are on our walk to see the painted brick, look at the north side of the street. There are second story windows in each of the buildings. This “rhythm” will continue in the design of the theater.

We hope to see the site plan at City Hall next week- Planning Commission reviews such things. By then, we ought to have something in the Blade-Empire that will show how nice it will look.

Hill Street

We were supposed to see work start on Hill Street today. The owners of the rental machine were to be here to show the crew how to operate the equipment. Well, they didn't arrive and we, therefore, didn't start paving. Some things you can't plan for. Stay tuned. I will report it as we actually get started.

High Expectations

2005-06-03T06:55:00.000-07:00

I read a Blog written by Jack Schultz. He wrote the book BoomTown USA. It describes the economic development activities of a number of communities across the country. His chief point in all his writings that community attitude is very important in communities economic vitality. Today he writes about an article written by NY Times Columnist David Brooks (June 2, 2005) about Europe. http://boomtownusa.blogspot.com/ Brooks describes unemployment rates between 8 and 11% and growth rates that haven’t seen 3% in the past 14 years.

Schults writes: “One of his more interesting thoughts in the column was Brooks’s observations about momentum for countries. “It is happier to live in a poor country that is moving forward—where expectations are high—than it is to live in an affluent country that is moving backwards.”

One of the reasons we support economic development in Concordia is that business development is to influence our attitude as a community. When we prosper, we feel good about Concordia.

In February 2004, I had a brainstorm where I identified several businesses that had new owners, built new facilities, expanded or were new startups. The first list totaled 60 businesses that fit the pattern for the past five years. That list has grown in the past year because we have looked even closer to what is happening here. (You can get a copy of the current version at the Chamber office.)

Being in this fame of mind also allows us to stand and celebrate when good things happen in the community. Last weekend, the Concordia High School girls track team won the state 4A Championship. In a way, their success reflects what is going on in the community too. One event nearly cost them to loose all because of a fall. So, did they mope? No, they got up and finished the meet like the champions they were before the meet started.

They are reflecting what is happening in the Concordia business community. Everyday folks are going to work to do the very best they can. We have seen some fall but we are getting back up and getting back to the job. We are now doing what Brooks cited in his article – moving forward and enjoying the high expectations.

Initial Story

2005-05-27T09:39:00.000-07:00

I have been encouraged to prepare short stories about what is going on at the City.

Just like many managers in many business areas, the blogging process has become a way to meet customers and discuss issues that are relevant to their businesses. I will be using this as a means to share my thoughts on the issues facing the City of Concordia as an organization and Concordia as a community.

I will take responsibility for the facts and opinions in this Blog. Just as I said as a younster doing a radio show, my opinion is not necessarily the official opinion of the management; in this case, City of Concordia.

Many folks will wonder first "What is a Blog?" A blog is a combination of two words: weB and LOG. That results in the shortened version of Blog.

I will be writing to a number of audiances. I have learned that different folks look at these things for different reasons. So I will be writing to people in the City of Concordia as a political subdivision, the greater community of Concordia, employees of the City, and to folks who live other places who are still interested in where they used to live. I know the latter is true because of getting email messages from them asking about what is going on. It has caused me to check up on some of the places I have lived and worked to see what is going on.

The one rule I know I will be using here is one I learned several years ago. The community where I worked was planning to purchase some ground for a business and recreation park. I was encouraged to write several OP/ED pieces about why the City Council wanted to pursue this development. The problem that occured was that one person from the community turned the process into a campaign platform to run for mayor. I stopped my writing because I became the issue not the property aquisition.

So, if someone wants to run for office, I won't use this to debate issues.

So, the rule is this:I won't be naming names or making references to folks who do and say dumb things.

I won't be having any conversations with any animals either.

So here we go. Issue number 1. I hope folks enjoy reading and provide honest and tasteful feedback. I will be the measure of tasteful too. Larry