Peter Auger, Auburn Hills City Manager
Thoughts on running a city, daily musings, and everything in between.
City Manager, Auburn Hills, MI
Rainy Days
There are sometimes when you read about governments and rainy day funds. Some wonder is that the same as “slush funds?” No, it is not, and depending on the philosophy of the organization Rainy Day Funds or Reserve Funds are just like a person’s savings account and emergency fund wrapped into one. A case in [...]
Posted in Communication, Finance, Legislative, Planning, Programs, Projects
Revealing the Secret Sauce
Why? This is a question we often receive, another is, how? What? Is another good question that our team is consistently asked. Just returning from another quest, searching for businesses that want an environment they can thrive in always reenergizes us to continue to tell our story. Why tell others? There are some who say [...]
Posted in Business, Communication, Events, Leadership, Legislative, Planning, Programs, Projects, Service, Training
Money
Funding is an issue no matter what organization you run. One difference in the public sector is we use OPM (Other People’s Money). Some people spend OPM a lot easier than they would their own, we try to be more stingy with OPM than we would our own. It is approaching the Federal Tax Day [...]
Posted in Business, City Council, Finance, Infrastructure, Leadership, Legislative, Planning, Programs, Projects, Service
Back to Lansing
Today I start with a couple early meetings and then head off to the capital city of Lansing to chair the MML Municipal Service Committee. This committee will look over, review and then give input to about a dozen pieces of legislation. Most laws that we review might seem mundane, but most also do have [...]
Posted in Business, Communication, Leadership, Legislative, Programs
Dodd-Frankenstein
I read the above name with curiosity this morning. I remember Stoker’s Dracula, Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, but I thought it was Shelley’s Frankenstein… What gives with that, I had to read more. Of course most of you readers probably already know it’s not about some scary novel, this article ended up [...]
Posted in Business, Legislative, Random Thoughts
11, 29, 35, 38, 56, 64, 70
No, the answer is not 303 (the sum of the above numbers). The actual sum is about 56 million. It is interesting, working in government. I do get to meet a lot of very interesting people. Some famous, some you would never give a second look to. Some can’t wait to tell you how smart [...]
Posted in Business, Events, Legislative, Projects
Numbers, percentages and list
Some days it seems we look at a lot of data. Look at, absorb, sift through, organize, rank, rate, verify…. It is all part of the process to run a quality organization that adds value. One thing I learned at Oakland University, located right here in Auburn Hills, in Statistics and Advanced Statistics courses is [...]
Posted in Business, Communication, Finance, Leadership, Legislative, Planning, Projects
Why are we involved?
Ah, now this is a good question. It follows the question of what are you going to do about “them”. For those who are totally lost right now, thinking I fell off the soap box I stand on once in awhile and bumped my head. After last week’s bomb shell that the School District of [...]
Posted in Business, Communication, Finance, Leadership, Legislative, Local Events, Programs
Communist Manifesto
Ah the things you learn from this here blog. Did you know that on today’s date in 1848, The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx with the assistance of Friedrich Engels, was first published in London, England? This political pamphlet argued to put an end to class society forever by implementing dogma to put classes [...]
Posted in Events, Leadership, Legislative, Planning
Political Correctness (PC)
Uh oh, looks like the faceless bureaucrat has pulled out the old soap box…those who despise these rants might want to pull their small children away from the screen. This boils from when I was reading where U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, representing the 2nd Congressional District, didn’t like the inaccuracies in the way Connecticut Congressmen [...]
Posted in Communication, Events, Leadership, Legislative, Projects
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