City of Davison, Michigan

Running a city is sometimes like running a family or a business. There is never enough money to do all things you may want to. This causes some great discussions during the budget process, and it causes us to keep things prioritized.

As I read about other communities (Flint Twp, County Courthouse, Livingston County Twps.) struggle with balancing budgets, layoffs, cutting back on services it reminds me to be thankful for the dedicated staff we have here in the City of Flags.

Our staff is continuously refining how we operate to make sure we are the most efficient and effective operation possible. This efficient and effective operation is not a destination we are striving to get to. This is a journey that we have to continue to work at.

One way is keeping up with technology (as I mentioned in previous blogs), but there are other ways that our team has been doing a great job with.

An example would be our Community Service Program. We have teamed up with the 67th District Court in Davison to have people put back into the community as part of sentencing for some indiscretions.

Since 2003 we have had 13,231 hours worth of labor come through our community development office. These people have done such things as set up and clean up for city events, pulling weeds from flower beds, filing at city hall, etc…

What does this mean financially to the city and it’s residents. About $120,799.03 in labor cost if I use $5.50 per hour and throw on taxes and fringe benefits. Pretty soon that adds up.

Every department in the city has done creative things like this to keep offering some of the services that might other wise been put on the budgetary scrap heap. Since 2002 that total sum of money city wide would be around 3.9 million dollars.

City Council and staff have done a great job of thinking outside the box, but like I said earlier… It’s not a destination, it’s a journey, so stay tuned to see what else we can do as a team.

It is not too early to plan for your up coming weekend. Sometimes after the big Thanksgiving weekend people feel a let down when the next weekend rolls around.

Doesn’t have to happen that way.

Saturday December 3rd you can come downtown Davison for the annual Christmas Parade. It’s a smaller parade (probably 20-30 entrees) that runs from the Fire Hall to Third Street. There are warming pots stationed through downtown if the weather is cold, and the jolly Old Fellow in that Red Suit poses for pictures with the youngsters.

There are several scheduled things to do like:

• Hayrides
• Ice sculptures
• Music & Carolers

After a day of shopping and having fun downtown the Mayor lights the traditional Christmas Tree at the Corner of Main and Second Street.

Hope to see you downtown, and Welcome Home for the Holidays!

As I reflect on Thursday’s Thanksgiving Holiday, I truely have been blessed and have much to be thankful for.

I have a beautiful and loving wife who is a great partner and mother.

I have three 1/2 great kids. Even though they challenge us sometimes, they continue to grow and learn and it’s fun to see how far they have come. And I can’t wait to see what they become.

I have been blessed with City Councils who don’t often see eye to eye on every issue, but can come to consensus to move our city forward.

I have a responsive staff who keep taking on the next challenge and making it an opportunity for the future.

Sometimes we overlook what we have to see what others have, and then we miss out on some of the greatest gifts of all. I hope I don’t …

“Must be nice to be able to sit around and read magazines.” Scott my DPW Supervisor said as he strolled into my office this morning. I actually had a copy of Snow Magazine in front of me. Today was scheduled to be a catch up day where I attempted to clear piles of mail, literature, magazines off of my desk.

It is appropriate that I had Snow if front of me, since today we are expecting or first accumulation of the white wet stuff. But it does bring to mind the stereotype of “just reading a magazine”.

Actually the term should be skimming magazines. Unfortunately all the time I have is to skim the different topics and see if it has relevance to the City of Davison. In this issue of Snow Magazine there were various topics involving things like Customer Complaints, What makes a top contractor, Drivers falling asleep at the wheel and other safety items, plus there is normally a product review where you can get pros and cons to different equipment and learn from others experience.

With all that, it was Editor Mike Zawacki’s editor note that struck me today. Jurassic Workplace was a very well written editorial. Mike made the comparison between the past management practices versus today’s world. Here are a few descriptions that I found fun and could relate to:

• Tyrannosaurus Rex. Manager you could hear before you could see. Typically a yeller to intimidate and let all be aware he/she is not to be messed with. A lot of times the razor sharp attitude would gobble up employee ambition and drive in a single bite.
• Brontosaurus. A lumbering mass of coworkers bloated on apathy and just lumber into work everyday. These people normally consume vast quantities of company time & resources and produce very little.
• Triceratops. Three horned, tank like creatures depicted squaring off against one another for dominance. These colleagues who were more interested in conflict and strife than solutions and compromise. Leads to a lot of headaches with all the head butting.

Can you relate to any work place dinosaurs?

The article when on to make his point that if an organization is stuck in a prehistoric management rut the organization will more than likely follow the dinosaurs into extinction.

Maybe that’s why I peruse through the magazines that range from Universal Advisor (accountant focused), Michigan Municipal Review (Michigan city related topics), American City & County, and Michigan Privatization Report(privatization trends), and Public Management (International City Management)…The reason is to attempt to take what is going on around us in the world and not re-invent but use it to our community benefit.

We had a good size crowd at our City council meeting last night.

The second thing on last nights agenda was the swearing in of Council Members.

Don Csutoras was re-elected to his second term garnishing the most votes in this election.

We have two new comers to the City Council, Ralph Arceo and Kevin McKague. Both new members have been to several City Council Workshops and Council Meetings leading up to the election, so both have a decent understanding of how the Mayor runs the meetings.

New Council Member Ralph Arceo
introduces some of his family who
were present for the swearing in.

All three terms are for two years as was changed by the 1999 Charter revision. One of the items that will be discussed in the near future is the changing of terms back to the four year terms that they once were.

Friday I attended our quarterly “Thumb Nuts” meeting in Frankenmuth, MI. I always get a different look when I say I’m going to a Thumb Nuts meeting, so I better explain what a Thumb Nut is. In simple terms it’s a city, village, or township manager from the thumb region of Michigan. One of the advantages of being from a State that resembles two mittens is being able to point at your hand to explain where you are from.

Our Thumb Nuts group gets together four times a year to help each other informed on different issues that effect us all. Some times we have a speaker come in, or one of the members gives us a program based on a project they are going through or just completed.

During the meeting each of the dozen or so managers usually present get an opportunity to explain what is going on in our communities. It is through this process that we can learn who has done what. This helps when you go through a similar situation. You may remember Charlie just dealt with that last year, whamo, give Charlie a call and find out how it was handled.

At this meeting we had a guest from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR)explain the State’s Land Consolidation Strategy. The state gains a lot of property through the Tax Reversion Process and did not have a plan on what land to keep (for the betterment of the State) or which land they should get rid of. The state owns some 4.5 million acres of land which includes 97 State Parks and 800,000 acres of game areas.

Michigan has started a three step process to inventory and prioritize it’s land holdings to see which properties that make sense to hold onto and which ones it should sell and get back in private ownership.

Of the other business of this meeting we exchanged wage surveys amongst the municipalities. This is a way we can compare the different wage rates with communities of like size and nature to gage trends and find comparables.

This week the front office staff at city hall sat through a day of software demonstrations from BS&A Software. City council has budgeted to upgrade and update our technology to better serve the city resident’s and business.

What we have found is that we are adding a lot of labor to the process of checks and balances that we don’t have to do we we have the updated software. One function alone will save an estimated two labor hours a day.

We will also be moving to have full interrogation between almost all city hardware and software which will assist us in cross training and other efficiencies.

Staff has been working with demo software to experiment and familiarize themselves with the look and feel of these tools. The day of demonstration allowed them (office staff who actually do the work) to see how everything interacts.

I was able to poke my head in a few times and was impressed with the questions staff was asking. I am also impressed with the attitude of staff who realize that change can be challenging, but accepting that this will be better for city and our operations

Kind of sounds like a calendar doesn’t it?

Well I had the honor of having breakfast yesterday with the ladies who run our Davison Community Enrichment and Recreaction Program to honor National Community Education Day. November 15, 2005 was declared Community Education Day by the Governor of Michigan Jennifer Granholm and local leaders joined together to discuss the challenges that face community education today and tomorrow.

Ah yes the day you can hear sun rise in Michigan is November 15. The opening day for rifle deer season is a traditional holiday for a lot of families in Michigan. Last year, according to Big Game Hunt web site , about 756,000 hunters take to the woods of Michigan starting today.

Do you realize this is the largest invasion of armed people to any peninsula in history?

More interesting for me than the invasion are the stories that I read every year about family bonding that occurs and is a tradition passed on from generation to generation (like this story that appeared in the Oakland Press). The Detroit Free Press ran an article attempting to place the positive impacts of Deer Season in Michigan. Their estimate is that in 2001 deer season added $540 million to the States economy.

For employers you can bet it’s a competitive time of year to schedule vacations.