So, we are on a slow moving train to changing the Department of Planning and Development to the Department of Economic and Community Development. Why?
The more I think about this, the more I lose the “why” of doing this. What are we accomplishing? Are we becoming more efficient? Are we saving money? Are we helping staff in some kind of way? Are we addressing issues of management of this huge department that currently exist? To me, the answer to all of those are no. So what are we doing?
I’ve blogged about this before, twice. I continue to think the public input on this was botched pretty badly, as evidenced by the business community, who gets their paid lobbyists to have closed doors meetings, showing up and thanking the Mayor and expressing their pleasure in this reorganization. Meanwhile, members of the public and neighborhood associations and community groups, while thanking the Mayor as well, were still trying to figure out what was going on and how this would effect them. Many hadn’t waded through the 108 page document to figure it all out, and who has the time to do that, besides the paid lobbyists?
Truth of the matter is, no one knows how the neighborhoods and community services are going to work in this plan. Meanwhile the economic development/business community piece of this has some clear actions that will happen as a result of this reorganization. Community services are simply being shoved around in an organizational chart that just doesn’t make sense. At the same time there is talk of combining city committees for Seniors, Childcare, Community Services and Block Grant (which by the way, is insane, no one would ever serve on the committee due to the workload), there is also a pilot project that includes the Housing, Block Grant and Community Services working together which is probably a good idea, but Housing remains their own separate entity. Meanwhile the Senior Center, which no one seems to know what to do with is being put with the Office of Community Services and Community Block Grant offices. It’s not logical.
The “neighborhood” piece is equally chaotic. The offices of Community Services and Community Block Grant that do very different things, but deal with the hands on day to day work with low-income neighborhoods but are on a different track than the Planning Unit, that deals with mostly middle class neighborhoods that can raise the money and have volunteers to do neighborhood planning. We need to find a way to deal with neighborhoods in a comprehensive way. If developers get a “one stop shop” with multiple staff to help their developments make their way through the city bureaucracy, shouldn’t neighborhoods have just one person that could be an entry point to the city bureaucracy? Shouldn’t they have their own “one stop shop”?
The more I look at this, the more questions I have and the less answers I have for those are asking me what we should do. This issue is being discussed this week at the following times and places, and I’d encourage you to attend if you are interested:
Economic Development Commission (At University Research Park) Wednesday at 5:00
Community Development Block Grant Commission (In Room 260 Municipal Building) Thursday at 6:15
