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Five questions for our Town Council candidates |
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Friday, 28 March 2008 |
Up Close and Personal
By Clint Hyde
After an endless series of debates between candidates for President of the United States, the New York Times published questions to the politicians as posed by selected economists, scientists and military analysts. Their questions had not been asked during any of the numerous debates. Let’s try that here in little old Mammoth Lakes.
Experience versus Judgment?
Candidates for national office like to point out their depth of experience and how that prepares them for the position they seek. They also deride their opponent’s lack of experience for the office as if that will predict how they will perform. The people of this town are interviewing you for Town Council and may hire you by their vote in June. In the hiring process the interview is usually at the stage that the candidate is considered capable, but the hiring person wants to know if you fit in. You may or may not have experience at the local town government level, but maybe you can describe your ability to judge the issues. Give us examples of difficult decisions you were forced to make and tell us how you reached them. How did it feel after the decision was made? Were you satisfied or dissatisfied with the result? If it went wrong, what did you learn and how will you decide differently today?
MBWA, or Management by Walking Around
A popular management technique practiced by effective company leaders involves spending time making informal visits to various workplaces to find out just who are the people working for them that actually do the work. They discover some employees have valuable, underutilized skill sets. They find out who really enjoys the work and gather lots of suggestions on how to do things in a cheaper, better way. Are you willing to spend more time around town to find out who our residents are, rather than relying on them to show up at Town Council meetings? There are excellent business owners who don’t have time for that, but would be delighted to see you visit them in their establishments. Are you willing to spend an hour or two each week to walk about and hear what our citizens want in local government? Maybe you would prefer to stand around Vons or the Post Office and catch up with the electorate? I have never seen any of our current Town Council members at either place.
Due Diligence
Whether your experience within government is limited or you know everything there is to know about our Town staff and the budgets they work in, are you willing to educate, or maybe re-educate, yourself with the different departments and get to know the staff? Just like you would experience MBWA to get to know the town's residents, it would be useful for new or re-elected Council members to spend some “face time” with everyone in the town hall, and I don’t mean just the department head. For example, it would be useful to actually ride the trolley around town on any given, random day. That is, if you want to understand the perspective of the driver as well as the users. How about the ice rink? Do you know who works for the town and for how long? Do you know the percentage of the budget that public works eats up? Do you know why the Town of Mammoth Lakes has a tourism department when other towns of equal size might have a nonprofit organization that they fund?
Tough Love
Have you raised any children, either yours or someone else’s? Do you understand the concept of tough love? It doesn’t make you seem fair or just, but it keeps you on course and out of trouble. It means you might seek out a contrary opinion on an issue just to test out your own. It means you may find yourself telling the Advocates for Mammoth that this town is not an ideal retirement community if you insist on being opposed to any and every change. It may mean telling a constant council meeting attendee that time to speak is limited and the local residents and business owners/operators have the floor first. Can you be brave enough to tell Town staff that their input is valued, but not absolute? They may be the enforcers of established development rules, but may not make up the rules as they go along.
Fiscal Funeral Director
Can you afford to spend time away from your own job or business? If you answered yes to all the above you are definitely going to spend more time on council matters than any member has in the history of this town. It is going to demand more time than expected, although it will get easier as you become knowledgeable to the degree we are talking about here. Until the economy makes a major turn around you will be forced to cut staff and expenditures. Are you prepared to make these financial decisions?
Clint Hyde left home at an early age and lived in Europe before traveling the rest of the world, working in international marketing. He moved to Mammoth in 2002 to pursue mountain biking, snowboarding, backcountry and cross-country skiing, hiking and backpacking. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent policies and opinions of the staff or owners of the Mammoth Times. Reader response is encouraged.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 03 April 2008 )
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