Transportation and Infrastructure City Council Subcommittee

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee meeting, to see the presentation on our Solid Waste Programs. We had already made a presentation about a month before, but the Council had some concerns about them, so the leaders altered the programs. It was great to see some of the work I had done had contributed to the presentation, and the subcommittee recommended our programs.

I found the presentation before ours very interesting; it actually got to the crux of the challenges of public service. The presentation was about proposed changes in bus routes, to be more efficient and save money. It was clearly extremely well researched and had included stakeholder meetings and extensive cost-benefit analysis. The presentation was very detailed down to the bus routes that were going to be changed.

One bus route was proposed to be changed from every 15 minutes to every 30 minutes. A citizen, who rides the bus route, spoke against this proposed change on behalf of his community. Many of the riders have no alternate form of transportation, and there is no bus shelter for the stop. Council members were concerned for the residents, but the administrators from transportation said that just that one route change would save the City $80,000. Even to compromise at every 20 minutes, the City still would not be able to save the $80,000.

This is why it is difficult to run government like a business. If the City were a business, they would most likely easily choose their bottom line and save the $80,000. But council members and administrators have to be concerned about their constituents, especially the most vulnerable citizens from low-income areas who rely on public transportation.

The subcommittee voted to recommend all of the changes except for that one route. They could not sacrifice the well-being of the constituents for the large savings.

What are the strengths of your organization? If you were in charge of a similar organization, are there any things you would do differently?

I could choose several levels to respond to this question- the entire City of Phoenix, the Department of Public Works, or the Solid Waste division. I'm going to focus on Solid Waste, although some things I think apply to both Public Works and the whole city.

• Innovation and Creativity: I feel very appreciated as an intern. The leaders at Solid Waste are always looking for innovative and creative ideas, and they like having new, young people to contribute. They have recruited several young master's educated students (mostly ASU MPA's) to the division.  Not to say that the workers who have been there a long time can't contribute creative ideas too- they welcome ideas from all levels.
• Value all of their employees and encourage communication: Something that is unique to solid waste is that they encourage all employees to do ridealongs to gain an understanding of operations firsthand. They do not want to have a deep chasm grow between those in the field, like drivers and landfill operators, and those of us who are at City Hall in a cubicle all day. I have also attended meetings out in the field with other City Hall folks. 
• Great Leaders: The supervisors I work with the most are great leaders. My supervisor is an Administrative Assistant II, Lorizelda, and she is a really great leader. She has a lot of responsibility, but she wants the interns to have a great learning experience, and she helps us out when necessary but also lets us take responsibility for our own projects. I also work with John Trujillo, the Assistant Director of Public Works. He is a great advocate for the internship program in general, and has a great enthusiasm for his work. I often see him walking around the office just to see how people are doing- this is not something you always see from a boss. Both Lorizelda and John have these very positive attitudes that inspire and motivate people to do a good job.

I'm actually not sure what I would change about my organization. I think I need to still spend more time here; I still feel like I only have a basic understanding of what goes on. I will be here for a year, so I feel at the end of my time I will have a better idea. So far, so good!

Career Services Post 2: Federal Jobs Webinar

I was struggling to find the time to attend a career services event, but then I discovered that there are Career Webinars on ASU's website, many of which have been recorded and saved: https://eoss.asu.edu/cs/students/webinars. I decided to watch the Go Government webinar, which is about applying for federal jobs and internships.

I have applied to some federal jobs and internships in the past, so I was interested to see what advice would come from the webinar. There was some great information about federal pay grades, how to search for federal jobs, and how to make your application stand out. There was an employee from the General Services Administration who gave some insight into their particular Pathways programs.

I already knew some of the information, but there were also some useful tips. For example, the Federal resume is expected to be much more longer and detailed than a regular resume.

It's great to know that ASU has this resource of pre-recorded webinars available, since it can be hard to find the time in our crazy work and school schedules to attend an event in person.

Public Works Department Meeting

Last Friday the 15th, I attended a staff meeting for the entire Public Works Department. Public Works includes not only Solid Waste, where I work, but also Fleet Services and Facilities Management. Neil Mann, the director of Public Works, MC'ed the meeting. This was an especially exciting meeting because Acting City Manager Ed Zuercher came to speak to us. He has only been in the position for about a month, and he explained that he is trying to go to as many staff meetings as possible and meet as many City of Phoenix employees as he can. He made a political kind of speech about the direction of the City in general and then took questions from employees. He reassured employees regarding their pensions.

Here in Phoenix we have a council-manager form of government, which means that the City Manager is actually much more powerful than the Mayor, who is basically just a city council member. Former manager David Cavazos left the City of Phoenix for Santa Ana, which is why Ed Zuercher is the Acting Manager. He has a lot of control over how the City is run. So it is great for the employees to get the opportunity to ask him questions about whatever they wish.

I also got introduced, along with other recent hires to the department. There were a couple of presentations, including one about the new Solid Waste Programs I have been working on.

Overall, the whole department is full of friendly, highly-experienced employees. I really like the working atmosphere of the City as I have experienced it so far.

Garbage Truck Fans

Since working in Solid Waste, I have discovered a rather fascinating subculture. I learned that there are people that go around filming garbage trucks and posting them on YouTube. They know all of the different kinds of trucks, and enjoy discussing them with other garbage fans. And I am not talking about children, who are often known to be huge fans of garbage trucks. These are adults. Here is one example:

Here is a playlist a fan put together: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKB24qVZ-_E&list=PL2ADD4399A816CF33

I love the comments. Some people even have trash related user names.

During one of my ride alongs, I told my driver about these videos. He had no idea, and thought maybe that's why someone was following him one day.

Anyways, I find these niche groups very interesting and hope you might as well.

The World of Communications

The other intern, Patricia, and I have been working on communications for the new programs for Solid Waste. I have not really done much related to communications before, but it is an important aspect of government. New programs may make sense on paper, but if you can't explain them to your residents, they are pointless.

After researching other cities, Patricia and I worked with Yvette Roeder, who is a public information officer for Public Works. She was extremely helpful, and shared her knowledge with us about communicating to residents. Her friendly and open personality makes her easy to work with. She also has her own intern from the Cronkite school, who has also been helping us.

Patricia and I have done several presentations for leaders in our department, presenting our ideas, including mock ups of visuals for use in mailers and the webpage.

I have learned a lot, and I feel like I have really contributed to my department. You might see some of my ideas in a mailer, video, on the radio, or on the website!

How does your organization demonstrate public service and/ or urban governance?

Solid waste services are probably one of the services most taken for granted, but one of the most important services needed for a city to function. To be honest, before this internship, I had not given it much thought myself even though my family has always had City of Phoenix trash collection. 

As I saw when I shadowed call center employees, a lot of our job is customer service. Sure, people take trash collection for granted, but one something goes wrong, they expect it to be fixed immediately. 

I am extremely impressed with how hard everyone works in my department, and it is always the goal to serve the people. Whether it is dealing with residents directly, or trying to figure out the most efficient routes, everyone has public service in mind.

One of the reasons I like solid waste is that we also are always thinking of the future of the city and of future generations. Our goal is to reduce waste and to get people to recycle more, and part of the goal in everything we do is to be environmentally friendly. It is hard for many government agencies to focus on the future when they are so busy focusing on the present (and residents demand that they focus on the present). 

It is very important to me to work somewhere that demonstrates public service, and at the City of Phoenix Public Works Solid Waste, I definitely feel that we exemplify it!

SR 85 Landfill Tour

Oops. I got behind in my internship blogging. I actually went on the landfill tour on October 23rd. I went with the other intern, and a couple of my co-workers. The landfill is out in Buckeye. Just think about that next time you throw something away...it has to get trucked all the way to Buckeye, almost to Gila Bend! The land is owned by the city and was opened in 2006. 

Here is a picture of the section of the landfill that is currently being used:

This is a view from far away, but you might be able to spot the semi-trucks dumping garbage, tarps to cover the trash, and water trucks that prevent dust.

Another view of the section currently in use:

In this photo, you can see the trucks driving to dump their loads:

There is a lot more to a landfill then it appears. The managers of the landfill who led our tour explained in detail. They are constantly trying to get the most efficient use out of the land and the space, while following EPA landfill regulations. 

There is a lot of land that is not being used currently, since the landfill is used in sections, with the trash being compacted and eventually buried. The city leases part of the land out to farmers. Here are some of the fields:

Cotton fields:

This is from the section of the landfill that is full, so has been buried. This is the road that is being built on it:

A landfill produces methane gas, which must be monitored. The landfill uses these flares to burn off the gas. These could be used for energy production:

This part of the landfill is going to be eventually used as a park, as part of the deal the City of Phoenix made with Buckeye:

I could probably write about 5 entries just on the landfill, but this is the basics. There is a lot more to a landfill then I had ever imagined, and the City is constantly thinking about ways to cost costs, be environmentally friendly, and save space.