Friday funday

The lighter side of local government


Public Private Partnership?

In Alamosa, Colorado the town council raised funds by auctioning off the rights to paint the fire hydrants. Flickr user Zelda Go Wild has documented some of them in a Flickr photo set.

I've been to Alamosa - and it's not a place I particularly wanted to visit. My car broke down when visiting the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve (breathtaking, by the way) and we had to get it fixed in Alamosa. Folks there were pretty friendly though and the town's views are spectacular across a wild and windswept landscape. (Via SLV Dweller)


Reputation management or do they wear shoes?

Yesterday I attended a talk on the Local Government Association's Reputation Project. It's all good, sensible stuff - and another way that local government is supporting itself in improvement (though perhaps they could take a bit more advantage of Web 2.0 concepts though there was an acknowledgement of the power of good story-telling).

It struck me as funny that the same week I heard that talk - I read this story about reputation management in Louisville, Kentucky. They're not just trying to change the image of the city government, but of the whole city.

People familiar with the metro area see it as a large, fast-paced city that has become a hot spot for business and recreation, said Matt Schulte, president of the brand research and strategy group Horizon InSight, a division of Louisville’s Horizon Research International.

The problem is that 89 percent of outsiders say they don’t really know enough about Louisville to form a realistic view, he said, so they automatically envision pictures of the “Old South” and ask questions such as, “Do they wear shoes?”

...snip...

To replace stereotypes, the region must put forward a more positive, urban view, but it “needs to be grounded in reality,” Schulte said. “We’re not going to be the next New York or Las Vegas.”

Hmm. Now, I come from the South - so I understand this - but I have to wonder how succesful they're going to be when Southerners do love to cling to some of their more iconoclastic traditions. For example, electing a dog named Goofy as mayor in the picturesque town of Rabbit Hash - not too many miles up the road from bustling, metropolitan Louisville. And I also wonder when I see the city government's list of 16 reasons to love Louisville that includes both some really cool attractions (the waterfront development, Mohammed Ali Center, the Kentucky Derby) as well as some things that might only be of interest to the local government anoraks - such as the combined city and county governance structure.

(Both stories via Governing's blog)

Now that's long service

Jack Chase may be the UK's longest serving and oldest parish councillor. He's just turned 100 and he's served almost 80 years on the parish council.

Mr Chase says his biggest achievement was overseeing the start of work on the
village's sea wall in the 1930s

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