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City Showcase Highlights Successful City Programs
by Larry Foxman
 This is the second part of a series about cities featured during the City Showcase at the Congress of Cities in New Orleans.
Participants at the 2007 Congress of Cities in New Orleans had the opportunity to learn about unique city programs from across the country through the City Showcase. Visitors to the City Showcase were able to talk one-on-one with city representatives to learn and share knowledge about the programs and ideas being displayed.
Also included in the City Showcase were seven of the eight winning cities of the NLC Awards for Municipal Excellence.
Each of the cities chosen to participate in the City Showcase demonstrated successful program development in a variety of areas of interest to elected officials and city staff. More city programs will be presented at the 2008 City Showcase at the Congress of Cities in Orlando, Fla.
The following is a partial list of City Showcase participants with descriptions. The first part of the list appeared in the January 21 issue of Nation’s Cities Weekly; the remainder will be in a future issue.
Health and Well-Being
The Avondale, Ariz., Young Families Program is designed to improve teen pregnancy outcomes, decrease infant mortality, reduce teen pregnancy rates and increase father involvement. Based on the formula “healthy moms = healthy babies,” the program provides both individual case management and group education to both pregnant and parenting teens. The Young Families Program is easily replicable and cost effective in any city. At a cost of $350 per participant, the program results in the prevention of approximately 40 teen pregnancies per year, saving the community $3,364 per pregnancy, and saving the city more than $135,000 annually. Contact Christina Lyons at (623) 333-2700 or clyons@avondale.org.
Central to Fort Worth, Texas’ population-based public health program is an innovative approach to assessing community needs that results in local health and social service measurement — the Comprehensive Community Needs Assessment. Conducted every five years, previous assessments resulted in more than 6,000 face-to-face surveys, yielding a 99 percent level of reliability. Integration of a Geographical Information System in assessment planning, administration and data analysis assures the information can be calculated for changes within the municipality. The city estimates the study would have cost more than $1 million if handled by an outside vendor. Contact Michael Kazda at (817) 871-6210 or Michael.kazda@fortworthgov.org.
Up & At ’EM: A Healthier Johnson City, Tenn., is a comprehensive strategic plan designed to measure and understand the prevalence and severity of obesity in the community and provide broad reaching interventions to reduce it. It is targeted at improving the health of the community by encouraging collaborations with key stakeholders — businesses, schools, health care providers, civic groups, faith and neighborhood organizations, and community leaders. Start-up costs for the program are minimal — marketing, advertising and reward/recognition products (T-shirts, hats, etc). An initial 10,000 step challenge promotion was funded by the city and business sponsorships. Contact Jenny Brock at (423) 434-2665 or brockoj@comcast.net.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s Lapham Park Venture is the first assisted-living facility within a public housing development. Faced with an ever-shrinking pool of resources and a growing demand to meet the health care needs of elderly residents, Milwaukee stakeholders formed the Lapham Park Venture to bring together practitioners in planning, housing gerontology and social services to provide on-site integrated care. Nursing home placements have since fallen from 5 percent to less than 2 percent per year. Seventy-five percent of Lapham Park residents have their needs met at the in-house facility. The Venture has reduced Medicaid nursing home costs by more than $1 million a year. Contact Ken Barbeau at (414) 286-2905 or kbarbe@hacm.org.
Housing/Neighborhood Redevelopment
In Los Angeles, Calif., The American Dream is an innovative program that seeks to develop vacant nuisance properties within Los Angeles into affordable, work force and market rate housing, community businesses and pocket parks through the strategic partnering of public and private sectors. The program facilitates the development of these nuisance properties by assisting nonprofit and for-profit developers in navigating the city agencies to obtain approvals, working with the city council to obtain a reduction or elimination of nuisance abatement liens, and providing information and general assistance when needed. Initial start-up costs involve only the research costs into property status and the ongoing title search costs. Contact Rosemary Anaya at (213) 978-8737 or rosemary.anaya@lacity.org.
In Muskegon, Mich., Operation Resurgence and Re-awakening’s goal is to rehabilitate previously vacant and blighted homes throughout the city of Muskegon by bringing all of the public service providers together in order to revitalize the community and neighborhoods. The project is designed as a three-prong initiative: the first phase is the rehabilitation of 10 vacant and blighted homes and their sale to moderate income first-time homebuyers; the second phase involves working with service providers and citizens to improve the overall health and image of communities; and the third phase continues to revitalize neighborhoods on a long term basis, bringing in commercial investments to support existing businesses. The project is financed through HOME funding through HUD. Contact Will Griffin at (231) 724-6717 or wil.griffin@postman.org.
The City of Portland, Oregon’s Living Smart Competition was created as a response to neighborhood concerns about infill development that was out of scale with surrounding houses. The Portland City Council directed the Bureau of Development Services to initiate a design competition to create a catalogue of concept plans suitable for narrow lot development. Funding for the design competition was provided through the Bureau of Development Services, competition registration fees and corporate sponsors. Several of these award-winning design plans are now available to the public at no cost with the issuance of the building permit. The Permit Ready program is a practical incentive for developers and homeowners to build with a neighborhood appropriate design. Contact Anne Hill at (503) 823-4807 or hilla@ci.portland.or.us.
Municipal Broadband
The Fiber for the Future Initiative in Lafayette, La., is working to provide Internet, phone and TV to all businesses and residents in Lafayette utilizing fiber-to-the-home technology, for an average customer savings of 20 percent and for economic growth and development. The citizens of Lafayette have already saved more than $3 million in lower cable TV rates based merely on the announcement of the fiber initiative, causing current providers to withhold rate increases, while increasing rates in neighboring communities. Additionally, the initiative has boosted economic development by attracting a 1,000 person international call center to the city. The system will be operated and managed by the Lafayette Utilities System. Contact Mindy Davis at (337) 291-8930 or mdavis@lus.org.
The Mountain View (California)/ Google WiFi Project established the largest outdoor WiFi network in the United States to meet the goal of expanding the availability of information over the Internet to the entire Mountain View community. It also provided expanded Internet availability inside city facilities such as the library, senior center and city hall. The project did not result in any direct costs to the city, and saved funds in the long run as there was a growing need to provide additional internet access in the library and the senior center. Potential future applications of the WiFi system include monitoring street lights, utility meter reading and video streaming of emergencies to hospitals or command centers. Contact Ellis Berns at (650) 903-6549 or ellis.berns@mountainview.gov.
Municipal Staff Development and Benefits
Colleyville, Texas’ Workforce Development & Sustainability Plan provides a unified course of action by recognizing the interdependency of competitive compensation and benefits, succession planning and staff development. With almost 50 percent of Colleyville government employees set to retire within the next five years, and an employee turnover rate of nearly 17 percent due to higher pay and benefits in the private sector, the city needed to address the issues of salary, benefits and staff development in order to retain valued employees. In addition, the succession management plan is an ongoing process of identifying, assessing and developing talent to ensure leadership continuity throughout the municipal organization. Both programs work to prepare government employees for advancement, either vertically or horizontally, in an already lean work force with limited opportunities for career advancement. Contact Stephen Seidel at (817) 503-1112 or seidels@ci.colleyville.tx.us.
Dublin, Ohio’s Healthy by Choice, predicated on the concept of employee choice, is a health management program designed to challenge and reward those who choose healthy lifestyle behaviors. The program starts with a comprehensive assessment, then employees and their spouses are assigned a health coach and a confidential health goal for the future. They are provided with the tools and support they need to meet their goals. Employees and their spouses can either participate in the Healthy by Choice program or pay a contribution to the cost of their own medical benefits coverage. Nearly 100 percent of Dublin employees have chosen to take part in the Healthy by Choice program, and the city expects a return of $3-$5 on every $1 spent. Contact Mary Kay Ruwette at (614) 410-4445 or mruwette@dublin.oh.us.
The Citywide Computer Coaching Network in Englewood, Colo., is a cost-effective approach to meeting the internal training needs of city employees. Computer training is delivered by peer-trainers through traditional classroom instruction, brown bag sessions and one-on-one coaching. Coaches are not technology professionals, but city employees who volunteer their time to teach the practical skills they use on an everyday basis. By leveraging the knowledge and skills of internal resources, the city is able to deliver effective training at a fraction of the cost typically associated with technical training. In its first year of implementation, the network delivered more than $20,000 worth of computer training to city employees. Contact Karen Main at (303) 762-2327 or kmain@englewoodgov.org.
Mobile, Alabama’s CitiSmart Program was instituted with the goals of gaining effective efficiency and developing accountability among all 2,400 city employees. The Mobile Technology staff designed iReact software to expand many other departments’ ability to report on mission accomplishment. CitiSmart allows the mayor and his executive staff to receive weekly computerized briefings from department heads outlining personnel, budget, operations, equipment and goal attainment status. Initial costs of program implementation, including personnel and equipment, was roughly $100,000; however, in the first nine months of operation, the Mobile CitiSmart program has led to hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings and previously uncollected revenues for the city. Contact William Harkins at (251) 208-7011 or harkinsb@cityofmobile.org.
The Management Preparation Program of Plano, Texas, (MP3) was created and developed when the city recognized the need to prepare for the tidal wave of retiring baby boomers and the lack of preparation for transitioning to the next generation of leaders. A multi-tiered, 12-month program, MP3 combines diverse training methods that provide reciprocal benefits for the participants and the city in that opportunities for promotions are enhanced, while the city’s commitment to service excellence is reinforced. The goal of the program is to provide the skills required of executive managers. The program has grown to include partnerships with two universities and two community colleges for continuing educational opportunities. Contact Daryll McCarthy at (972) 941-5216 or daryllm@plano.gov.
2008 City Showcase
Applications for the 2008 City Showcase in Orlando, November 11-15, will be available in the spring. Cities interested in applying should contact Larry Foxman at (202) 626-3137 or foxman@nlc.org.
Details: Information on these outstanding City Showcase programs can be found in the City Practices database or by contacting the Municipal Reference Service at (202) 626-3130 or mrs@nlc.org.
City Practices database provides access to more than 6,000 local government programs.
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