Desarius

Running for office 2 in Politics JoeUser Forums

If you are running as an incumbent, the first thing you should do the day after you get elected, is write a thank you notes to everyone who helped you. When you do something (I write this from a Mayors perspective) for the rest of your term, write down what you do for each block and neighborhoods. As an example we have a program of rebuilding about 6 streets a year using federal and state dollars. Guess what every voter on that street needs to be reminded of the fact that you got this

Goofy Citizens in Home & Family JoeUser Forums

We were doing a walk thorough of a new neighborhood, and we spotted a sidewalk that needed to be turned towards the street to make a crosswalk on a corner lot. So we notified the owner we were going to build this sidewalk, well he went nuts. Apparently he had issues with school kids walking anywhere near his house since the corner was a bus stop. He filled the voicemail up of one of my senior managers with profanity and rage about those kids, to the extent that we saved it and played it back for

Running for office in Politics JoeUser Forums

My town is 15,000 people of which 4,000 people are registered to vote. It has roughly 5,000 old timers and 10,000 newcomers. The town is divided into 6 precincts one for each alderman. Understanding the math of election is the first step to understanding how you get elected, in our local elections only 20% of the electorate is going to vote (our last election was less, close to 11%). Mayoral elections have some more turn out so for argument sake say 25%. Use 4,000 registered voters as a base num

The Village Idiot in Politics JoeUser Forums

There is an alderman in our town that is an absolute fool. He has been in office for 12 years, and basically has no clue what is going on. He was adamantly opposed to a development for political reasons, reasons known only to him, he made a long rambling discourse against the project when the vote came up. However there are so many details and votes later on the same project, after the important ones concerning the develoment, he randomly votes yes or no becuase of course he never reads the agen

Reply to artistic laxative in Art JoeUser Forums

Very nice I had similar dreams, the problem is life intervenes! I turned to local politics to make a difference even in a small way. The Mayor

Mayor 101-- Setting the agenda in Politics JoeUser Forums

One of the skills I have learned the hard way is the power to create the meeting agenda. Setting the agenda allows you to control what gets acted upon. For example if you don't have the votes to pass something today, don't put it on the agenda. Not to boast but I have yet to lose a vote, however things I have wanted to do have not made it to a vote. Why lose in public! Understanding the simple fact that you control the agenda, gives you absolute political control over spending powers at

Reply to George W. Bush in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Its simply amazing what he is doing to the country, the 87 billion we are sending to Iraq, would erase the debts of every single state in the Union. Or provide roughly $12,000 to every child in this country for education. I would also suggest a site called the www.smirkingchimp.com, for more. TheMayor

Reply to Reconciliation! in Blogging JoeUser Forums

I hope this was a work of fiction like you disclaimer says.....but I am not so sure. The Mayor

Commercial positives at last in Politics JoeUser Forums

Well its nearly official, we have finally landed a major commercial business, a national chain pharmacy! I have a feeling we are sitting on an explosion of commercial growth which has long been overdue in the town. Wooing this business has taken almost a year, involved cutting out a neighboring community (subtly) out of the mix. I ran on a platform of economic growth and commercial development and the pressure has been building as we go forward to deliver something, but finally we have

Mayors and discussion boards in Politics JoeUser Forums

A lot of new developments in our town are developing yahoo message boards, where rather then gossiping over the back fence and confining inaccurate information to a few homes, the whole development can benefit from the lack of knowledge. It does have merits in that by monitoring the message board I can detect certain problems and step in and fix them. I have one alderman who is in a frenzy to respond to those emails before me, I suspect he will be running against me in a year or so. It's funny w

Saturday Morning with the Mayor in Politics JoeUser Forums

Since I have a full time job, as a vice president for mid sized company, the sizzling $10,000 a year does not keep my daughter in clothes let alone anything else. So Saturday is a big mayor day, I was up and working through the 3 newspapers that cover the area. Then it was off to breakfast with a local community activist for breakfast to discuss his needs for money for a low powered bandwidth community radio station. They need between 30 and $80,000 to get it up and running, so of course they wa

Reply to Secret stuff in Politics JoeUser Forums

Thanks I try to be as "clean" as possible, there are tech savvy people here, hopefully not blogging, which is why I am vauge about details.

Reply to The Doctor in Politics JoeUser Forums

I still laugh about that, he must of had a cow! Glad you stopped by there are many more stories so little time to blog!

The Doctor in Politics JoeUser Forums

For years I had this lunatic who used to write these nasty letters to the editor with no foundation in fact and or reality. Usually he spewed wild accusations about me being out to get him and how I was ruining the town based on the rumors that he made up. Anyway this guy had a doctorate in Economics so we called him the doctor. I responded via a letter to the editor once basically pointing out that every thing he said was a distortion or wrong. He responded with this very odd letter basically r

Reply to Mayor 101 in Politics JoeUser Forums

There are a couple of versions, in our library, some versions are better then others

Secret stuff in Politics JoeUser Forums

As you can well imagine the moment I am "outed" for blogging in my town this blog will go away. So that's why I am not divulging the who, what, where, when and how of my Mayoring. By and large the numbers and the locations that I mention in my posts are not accurate, they are fudged one way or another. I am trying to make sure that the "fudged" numbers do not impact the blog but you never can tell. As you can well imagine that funny stories about residents and political issues might not go over

Reply to The Town in Politics JoeUser Forums

There are very few, we have one employer of 4,000 peopl. We are about 80 miles outside a major metropolitan area. So there are a lot of commuters into the inner suburbs living here. Most of the people moved here seeking affordable housing. Although new home pricing is $200,000 which does not strike me as affordable. But people are moving here like crazy. We have a increasing number of white collar workers and a stable base of blue collar.

Reply to Mayor 101 in Politics JoeUser Forums

Read it! Agreed very helpful, I actually also reccoment the "the art of war" by sun tzu

Political affiliations in Politics JoeUser Forums

I have been asked what sort of political affiliations I have. On our political level in this state town elections in municipalities under 50,000 residents are non partisan. So I ran under a made up for the moment party. However I am a democrat. This is a county that goes 55/45 republican and about 20% of the offices are held by democrats in the county. I am the township chair for my area, only because I am the only democrat that's visible in my corner of the county. I don't meddle to much in par

First steps in Politics JoeUser Forums

When I ran for office, I ran on a platform of economic development. When I became mayor I discovered that my predessor had left an administrative mess behind. Simple management things had been ignored or left to languish. We had an employment issue that came to a head 3 days after I became mayor (perhaps a test of me by the staff). My first question was what does the employee manual say? Guess what, did not have one! So my first major goal suddenly became revamping the whole business a

Mr Crab in Politics JoeUser Forums

We were doing a walk thorough of a new neighborhood, and we spotted a sidewalk that needed to be turned towards the street to make a crosswalk on a corner lot. So we notified the owner we were going to build this sidewalk, well he went nuts. Apparently he had issues with school kids walking anywhere near his house since the corner was a bus stop. He filled the voicemail up of one of my senior managers with profanity and rage about those kids, to the extent that we saved it and played it back for

Mayor 101 in Politics JoeUser Forums

There are so many important things to grasp when you lead a community. It difficult to pick out the most important because the one that seems the most obvious off the top of my head is "keep your mouth shut." However there are times when people want to hear the mayor speaking out. People want to be led so there are times you need to talk and make the hard decisions. After thinking it over "keeping your mouth shut" is the most important. Most small community's have a pool of people or f

Mayoral funnies in Politics JoeUser Forums

Unlike Fiorello Laguardia a former Mayor of New York who read the comics to people over the radio in the 20's and 30's the funnies in my town usually are deposited in front of me by irate residents. Somedays the highlight of my day is that "behind the scenes" thing that always crop up in local politics. I can always tell when I am getting a "mayoral funnie" it's when you hear a story and think, what is this a joke?

The Town in Politics JoeUser Forums

About the Town I am the Mayor of a town that is one of the fastest growing municipalities in a Midwestern state. We are struggling through a change from a "Mayberry RFD" outlook on village services to one that is professional and proactive. The census figures for the first 90 years of the towns history are 0 drifting up to 1600 then in 10 years we jumped to 3500, then 10 years later to 5500, that's when I come in as Mayor. Less then 3 years later we are 15,000 people on the way up to 30,000

Mayor 101 in Welcome JoeUser Forums

When I was elected I looked high and low for a "How to be a Mayor "book or "mayoring for dummies." So when I couldn't find that particular book I thought why not write it yourself, but start right now! So 2.5 years later here I am. The last years have been the most rewarding and the most annoying ones of my professional life. There are so many challenges with leading my town through what I perceive as the most significant period in its 100 year history. I am a professional