It's oft been said that "You can't fight city hall"--a reference, no doubt, to the collective angst of all those past local residents who felt wronged by their municipal leaders but felt powerless to do anything about it.
Don't you wish more city leaders had chosen the path of Coral Springs (FL) leadership?! C.S. is the 13th largest municipality in the State of Florida and late this past year they became the first municipality to receive the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award from the U.S. President. Back in the early 1990s, city leaders decided there was a better way to run city hall than the traditional stereotypical approach. So they began making strategic decisions based on a total quality management framework designed around performance targets like resident and business satisfaction, stakeholder partnerships, and overall continuous improvement.
After several years of implementing that strategy, their results began to speak for themselves. Last year, for example, 95% of residents indicated that the city had met or exceeded their expectations for quality of service delivered. Furthermore, 99% of resident businesses would now recommend the city to others as a "place to run a business." And these results are only two of the myriad of world-class levels being achieved by city management on an ongoing basis.
Thankfully, a big part of the Baldrige philosophy is for winners to share their recipes for success with others. If you're an existing (or aspiring) city leader, I'd urge you to take a look at the Coral Springs story and how they run their city hall (http://www.coralsprings.org/baldrige/BaldrigeApplication07.pdf). Your citizens (and voters) will be greatful for any best practices you identify that can be implemented locally. If you find these ideas of interest, check with our good friends over at the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence (www.tncpe.org).
TNCPE has a wonderful set of resources in place specifically designed to help community leaders improve the quality of life for their residents.