From the City of Punta Gorda:

My friend who lives there sent me this message as issued by the Mayor's office. I thought you'd be interested in the e-mail transmittal as well as the content what they send out to residents:

In addition to the weekly report we send out from Councilmen Bill Albers, we thought we we send out another type of report the City Managers Information Sharing report, which are highlights from a weekly staff meeting. Please let us know what you think.

Attached, for your information, is the City Manager’s “Information Sharing” report, reflecting the highlights of this morning’s weekly staff meeting. As usual, please feel free to contact me directly with any questions or comments.

Information Sharing

Department Director Staff Meeting of Monday, April 6, 2009

For some years now, we have incorporated the organization’s shared values in the Annual Budget. They are:

• Involvement and participation of citizens in city government

• Delivery of efficient and effective quality services

• A customer oriented approach to everything we do

• Honest, respectful and ethical behavior by all city employees

• Stewardship of responsibility for city resources

• Accountability for performance and finances
  

In a recent article in the International City/County Management Association magazine, the topic of value-based leadership was discussed. Here are some practical steps to strengthen our ethics and shared values:

• Know our values

• Recognize behavior that is consistent with our shared values

• Live the values

• Coach others toward value acceptance

• Admit mistakes and right wrongs to restore trust
  

Police Department conducted a testing process for the position of Police Officer. A total of forty-four (44) applicants participated in the process. Thirty-eight (38) candidates passed the first two testing hurdles (written examination and physical abilities test) and are taking part in the oral board process at the time of this writing.

Water Distribution - Cross Connection Control Program: Staff field inspected 29 existing commercial sites and added them to the City’s cross connection database. To date; 8,616 of the 12,136 locations throughout the city are now in that database. The meter technicians have turned in 20 reports of cross connections since being trained to recognize these potential hazards. Their reports consisted mostly of hose bibs installed directly to water meters on vacant lots, which are illegal, and without an approved backflow device. They are a great risk of contaminating the city’s water system.

Water Treatment Plant - Kathleen Saurez, one of our operator trainees completed her 2080 hours of on the job training allowing her to become a licensed operator. She had completed course work and passed the state exam prior to being employed by the City. Congratulations Kathleen!

It is that time again; in the coming month, the Assistant City Manager will begin putting together the Spring/Summer 2009 edition The CITYHALLways. Please submit your article ideas to your Department Director.

Reminder….Coconut Craze Day is this Saturday, April 11^th from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Laishley Park. For more information, please visit http://www.mainstreetpuntagorda.org/events.html.