Monday, January 07, 2008
New Year, New Decisions
I just fired this off to my email list:
News about Lakewood, January 2008
(Man, that was fast. Whatever happened to 2006?)
Welcome to 2008, everyone. And welcome to a new year of public policy in Lakewood.
Councilmembers Don Anderson and Claudia Thomas were sworn in tonight, as was yours truly. You have four years of us to look forward to. The council unanimously elected Doug Richardson as mayor and Don Anderson as deputy mayor.
To their credit, The News Tribune is launching into e-reporting in a major way so the paper can help fill you in. As an example of how news stories on the Web can affect participants directly, I myself learned Claudia Thomas did not plan to run for mayor from a blog posting earlier today. Now there's a story up already about our choices : http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/updates/story/248305.html
If nothing else, stop to read that last link. Yes, me calling Don Anderson a 'talented newcomer' to the council is like William Seward telling Abraham Lincoln that Lincoln has great potential. Hey, you try to sound intelligent to a newspaper reporter. What I should have said is that Don's deep experience on various elected and nonprofit boards has given him the experience to help lead our cantankerous cast of characters. Or something like that. What I most find effective about Don in the short time I've known him is his ability to quickly summarize and capture what's been said and then advance the subject.
We could use some disciplined discussions in Lakewood.
As an aside, the question of how we pick a mayor is one of the strangest that courses through Lakewood right now. If you have not seen it yet, you might check out my earlier blog posting on the subject(below) Maybe everything I wrote then is moot, but I still say Lakewood has more things to do than tie itself up into knots over who is mayor.
I’ll be picking up my newsletter again so you will hear more from me. You can argue I have been negligent. My mother-in-law returned from long travels this week and told me she was very disappointed that she’d had to hear from the neighbors, and not her son-in-law, that we have a new police chief. Well, of course, we don’t have a new police chief ... but her neighbors thought otherwise. So this story reminds me that without a local weekly paper that delves into all the minutiae of a city, emails like this one are important.
I need to send out some calendar information, because a lot of interesting events are coming up including the annual Martin Luther King Day celebration at 10 a.m. this Saturday at Clover Park Technical College.
In the meantime, to help tee up a New Year in Lakewood, here’s Walter’s list of some of the most important decisions and events to happen in 2008. That we know of.
1. New superintendent: The most important decision scheduled to be made in Lakewood is not going to be made by the City Council. The question of who will lead and manage the Clover Park School District is incredibly important to adults and especially the children. Pray for the Clover Park School District board, but first please pray that they get good candidates. There is a national shortage of good superintendents. Whoever takes Clover Park and Lakewood is going to have to thirst for a challenge.
2. New police chief: There will be a national search for a police chief to replace Larry Saunders, who this spring will be going to Iraq to serve our country in what has to be one of the most amazingly dramatic and brave stories of 2007. Since public safety is so important to this council and more importantly, to our community, this job will be very, very important.
3. New economic development director: Joe Hannan, our economic development director, left to be city administrator of Mukilteo. The economic development director has the important role of recommending how to keep jobs and grow jobs within Lakewood. The economic development director advocates for existing and potential businesses within City Hall and the community.
4. A chamber leadership program: I’ve written about this before, so the short version is that every other significant community around here has a formal community leadership program. These programs put 20 to 30 people through a yearlong series of activities and ‘graduates’ them onto the boards of nonprofit groups, onto city advisory committees, and onto schools boards and city councils. As part of my day job, I’ve become convinced that the big difference between Lakewood and places like Lacey, Auburn and Federal Way is that those places have thriving adult leadership training programs.
Just as a matter of process, I should note this is also not a decision of the City Council. I’m chairing a Lakewood Chamber of Commerce board committee that is looking into the question of how to start such a leadership program.
5. Tillicum: So we as a community are paying to extend sewers into Tillicum in 2009, with the potential of allowing some real improvements in the community. There is a development moratorium on right now that the council will discuss next Monday.
Will the council and city staff create land use regulations that allow for both the rights of private landowners AND the right of the community to expect the best possible employers and the best and safest housing? Or will Tillicum just rebuild a newer version of what's already there?
To my mind, this is the most lasting of the big questions facing our council. If we do this right, Tillicum could attract major businesses like hotels and nice restaurants, and a wide range of decent housing, that could last for decades after we’re all long buried. Imagine the wonderland that could develop at the edge of a major employer (the military) and sandwiched between the state’s busiest freeway and a beautiful lake. Improvement works to everyone's benefit, because the residents of Tillicum themselves want a safer and more livable community.
There’s a lot at stake.
6. Accountability. Perhaps partly because Lakewood is a relatively new city, many people are very suspicious of how the city spends tax dollars. To me, it's a matter of familiarity breeding contempt. In that case, though it seems to me that we should make lemonade from lemons. All the suspicion should give extra energy to those of us who don't think Lakewood is better or worse than anywhere else, but should find ways to demonstrate to citizens whether and how they are getting more services and the right services for their bucks. Once again, I commend anyone interested in this subject to the book, 'The Price of Government.'
Forward this post
News about Lakewood, January 2008
(Man, that was fast. Whatever happened to 2006?)
Welcome to 2008, everyone. And welcome to a new year of public policy in Lakewood.
Councilmembers Don Anderson and Claudia Thomas were sworn in tonight, as was yours truly. You have four years of us to look forward to. The council unanimously elected Doug Richardson as mayor and Don Anderson as deputy mayor.
To their credit, The News Tribune is launching into e-reporting in a major way so the paper can help fill you in. As an example of how news stories on the Web can affect participants directly, I myself learned Claudia Thomas did not plan to run for mayor from a blog posting earlier today. Now there's a story up already about our choices : http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/updates/story/248305.html
If nothing else, stop to read that last link. Yes, me calling Don Anderson a 'talented newcomer' to the council is like William Seward telling Abraham Lincoln that Lincoln has great potential. Hey, you try to sound intelligent to a newspaper reporter. What I should have said is that Don's deep experience on various elected and nonprofit boards has given him the experience to help lead our cantankerous cast of characters. Or something like that. What I most find effective about Don in the short time I've known him is his ability to quickly summarize and capture what's been said and then advance the subject.
We could use some disciplined discussions in Lakewood.
As an aside, the question of how we pick a mayor is one of the strangest that courses through Lakewood right now. If you have not seen it yet, you might check out my earlier blog posting on the subject(below) Maybe everything I wrote then is moot, but I still say Lakewood has more things to do than tie itself up into knots over who is mayor.
I’ll be picking up my newsletter again so you will hear more from me. You can argue I have been negligent. My mother-in-law returned from long travels this week and told me she was very disappointed that she’d had to hear from the neighbors, and not her son-in-law, that we have a new police chief. Well, of course, we don’t have a new police chief ... but her neighbors thought otherwise. So this story reminds me that without a local weekly paper that delves into all the minutiae of a city, emails like this one are important.
I need to send out some calendar information, because a lot of interesting events are coming up including the annual Martin Luther King Day celebration at 10 a.m. this Saturday at Clover Park Technical College.
In the meantime, to help tee up a New Year in Lakewood, here’s Walter’s list of some of the most important decisions and events to happen in 2008. That we know of.
1. New superintendent: The most important decision scheduled to be made in Lakewood is not going to be made by the City Council. The question of who will lead and manage the Clover Park School District is incredibly important to adults and especially the children. Pray for the Clover Park School District board, but first please pray that they get good candidates. There is a national shortage of good superintendents. Whoever takes Clover Park and Lakewood is going to have to thirst for a challenge.
2. New police chief: There will be a national search for a police chief to replace Larry Saunders, who this spring will be going to Iraq to serve our country in what has to be one of the most amazingly dramatic and brave stories of 2007. Since public safety is so important to this council and more importantly, to our community, this job will be very, very important.
3. New economic development director: Joe Hannan, our economic development director, left to be city administrator of Mukilteo. The economic development director has the important role of recommending how to keep jobs and grow jobs within Lakewood. The economic development director advocates for existing and potential businesses within City Hall and the community.
4. A chamber leadership program: I’ve written about this before, so the short version is that every other significant community around here has a formal community leadership program. These programs put 20 to 30 people through a yearlong series of activities and ‘graduates’ them onto the boards of nonprofit groups, onto city advisory committees, and onto schools boards and city councils. As part of my day job, I’ve become convinced that the big difference between Lakewood and places like Lacey, Auburn and Federal Way is that those places have thriving adult leadership training programs.
Just as a matter of process, I should note this is also not a decision of the City Council. I’m chairing a Lakewood Chamber of Commerce board committee that is looking into the question of how to start such a leadership program.
5. Tillicum: So we as a community are paying to extend sewers into Tillicum in 2009, with the potential of allowing some real improvements in the community. There is a development moratorium on right now that the council will discuss next Monday.
Will the council and city staff create land use regulations that allow for both the rights of private landowners AND the right of the community to expect the best possible employers and the best and safest housing? Or will Tillicum just rebuild a newer version of what's already there?
To my mind, this is the most lasting of the big questions facing our council. If we do this right, Tillicum could attract major businesses like hotels and nice restaurants, and a wide range of decent housing, that could last for decades after we’re all long buried. Imagine the wonderland that could develop at the edge of a major employer (the military) and sandwiched between the state’s busiest freeway and a beautiful lake. Improvement works to everyone's benefit, because the residents of Tillicum themselves want a safer and more livable community.
There’s a lot at stake.
6. Accountability. Perhaps partly because Lakewood is a relatively new city, many people are very suspicious of how the city spends tax dollars. To me, it's a matter of familiarity breeding contempt. In that case, though it seems to me that we should make lemonade from lemons. All the suspicion should give extra energy to those of us who don't think Lakewood is better or worse than anywhere else, but should find ways to demonstrate to citizens whether and how they are getting more services and the right services for their bucks. Once again, I commend anyone interested in this subject to the book, 'The Price of Government.'
