Accountability

It’s that time of year for my annual accountability review. This is where I get to sit down with the City Council to look back over the past year and see if I am living up to their expectations. This can be a very informative process as each elected official can editorialize and tell me what they liked and where they would like to see something changed. The conversation actually has more impact for me than anything that could be placed on paper because sometimes communications don’t come across as they are meant without the dialog.

After reviewing the past year, the City Council then gets to talk about prioritizing where my focus should be this year.  There are five areas the City Council looks at:

1. Community Relations
2. Council Interactions
3. Leadership Activities
4. Financial Activities
5. Operations

Each category is then broken down further. In the Community Relations section it is spelled out what they feel I should be accountable for in that area, such as:

• City Ambassador
• Community Outreach
• Attract Business
• Meet with Developers, CEO’s, Business Leaders
• Resident Relations
• Community & City Events
• Interact with Other Municipalities

Of course there are measurables to each category. I am suppose to spend about 30% of my time on the above category. Over the year we do attempt to keep the City Council informed to all the categories and what we are accomplishing, or where we think there might be speed bumps. In this way there is constant communication and nobody is surprised.

We think this is a good process that keeps all engaged and a good pulse on what we are doing.