Alternatives: Proposals For Local Governments Struggling With Limited Resources
Alternatives: Proposals For Local Governments Struggling With Limited Resources
In the fall of 1994, the Harry Singer Foundation invited a limited number, of mostly small-town schools, to take part in a pilot program. Students were required to find ways to stretch the resources of local government and make services more responsive to the desires of citizens. The Foundation hopes to gradually add larger communities, and offer categories for innovative state and national projects.
Volunteers at the Foundation narrowed the entries to 22. They were then edited and sent to the National Center for Financial Education in San Francisco, California, where they were reduced to five. These five were then forwarded to a consultant and former-public official in Minnesota who has been in the forefront of the reinventing government movement; the innovative mayors of Indianapolis and Houston, 12 governors, two former-governors and two members of the United States Congress. Many had the help of staff, but all read the proposals and expressed an interest in what these young people had to say.
The final entries are reproduced on the following pages, just as they were seen by the reviewers at the National Center for Financial Education in San Francisco. Across from each paper we reveal the school and participants, information that was kept from judges.
This project was a logical extension of our continuing Responsibility and White Hat programs. Over the years, through student submissions and other sources, we have collected stories of good-things going on around the country, in both the public and private sectors. These inspirational examples have been accessible to anyone with a computer and a modem since the fall of 1993.
Teacher
Julie Krabbenhoft
Students
Lynna Follingstad
Lane Sobtzak
Derek Bredman
Paul Butenhoff
Brent Hagen
Tonia Cook
Kerry Bohner
La Rae Tucker
Joel Nasstrom
Jon Fisch
Paula Tenderholt
Brent Berg
Shawn Manning
David Sakry
Melanie Strom
Stephanie Schmitt
Aaron Tester
Monique Sauvageau
Michelle Quiggle
A Community Center
Barnesville is your typical small town; the one that personifies middle America. The town has streets safe for crossing and a school that yields an average graduating class of sixty students. A majority of Barnesville's citizens commute twenty miles daily for employment. People live here for the low tax rate and the efficient cost of quality housing. Like every small community,Barnesville must continually change to stay competitive with other towns in the area. Our English class was asked to tap into the hearts and minds of Barnesville residents to find out just exactly what they thought needed modification.
Our town is unique because it has no a financial problem. Last year Barnesville had a surplus because it owns its own telephone company, power company and liquor store. So instead of writing about ways to stretch public dollars, our class decided to write about ways to improve the living environment for our residents.
The Activity
We divided the class into four groups with different responsibilities. The first group was to poll the community, the second was to poll city officials, the third was to locate any problems occurring with the poll while the job of the fourth group was to talk with city officials to determine if any government workers would be displaced if a certain project was implemented as a result of our polls.
Group One asked three questions: 1) What current services need to be modified? 2) What does Barnesville need to do to improve the quality of life for its residents. and 3) What would you be willing to do to improve the community? Conducting the poll took many hours of work.
We decided to use a cross section of the community. To accomplish this task we needed a list of the residents in each voting ward. We went to city hall and asked if they had a list of all the people in each ward. They said payment was necessary to complete this task, so we went through the entire phone book and categorized each family into the three wards. Separating and proof reading took approximately twelve hours.
We then began making phone calls. We had to make our calls during school which was difficult because many residents worked at that time and we got a hold of many people that were retired and did not have much say in the community. We received many different responses to our questions. In response to our first question: "What current services need to be modified?", the majority said telephone service and road maintenance.
The city owns the telephone system in town. We are one of the only locally owned telephone systems in the country. The main complaint about the phone system is the long distance toll to call ____ which is where a large percentage of the community works and does business. There are families and businesses that will not move into our town because they have to pay to call _____. Until our town has a more customer friendly phone system they will continue to lose families and businesses to nearby towns. In losing those families and businesses they also lose taxpayers and jobs.
The main complaint about Barnesville's street department is snow removal. By the time the Department plows the streets, the snow has been packed down by the cars that have already driven over them. After plowing, there is still about two to three inches of packed snow left on the street. The streets become very slippery and dangerous from this packed snow.
In answer, to our second question, "What does Barnesville need to do to improve the quality of life for its residents?", an overpowering majority said, " Provide a community center with an indoor pool.".Barnesville already tried to build a community center a few years ago, however it was voted down. A city official gave two reasons for the turn down: one is people did not want to pay the taxes required to build it, and the other is that a group of older residents lobbied very strongly against the center. Since the center would also house a new city hall, the proposed location meant seniors would have to walk farther to pay their bills.
There is a group of individuals working on a proposal for the community center again. This time the center will be located on school grounds. This new location is good in two ways. One, the school can use it. Two, it will be located in a central location of the town. The center will not have any displaced workers, in fact it may create new jobs for the community. Some people think that some of last year's surplus should be used in building the community center.
The third question had one dominate answer, volunteer work. People already help with many volunteer projects in the town, and are willing to do more. Volunteers for our Main Street Program maintain a city park and designed and built planter boxes which high school agriculture classes keep filled with flowers. Businesses lining Main Street keep the flowers watered and weeded once they are planted. This project helped the community recognize that high school students are individuals capable of making significant contributions to the community.
The one thing that this town needs is more people. When more people begin to move to Barnesville there will be a demand for the community center, and it will be built. More people will also bring more businesses to town, and when more businesses come to town even more people will come live here. However, until the phone and streets problems improve people will continue to choose other towns. You have to give them a reason to come here and Barnesville is not giving them a good enough reason.
Conclusion
In the final analysis, we conclude that there are advantages and disadvantages of living in a small rural town in the Midwest. The disadvantages being that with fewer people there aren't as many funds available for community projects. Also, many people have to commute to other areas because there aren't enough in-town jobs. On the other hand, the advantages include lower crime rates, more affordable housing, lower taxes and a better learning environment for students because of smaller classes and better student-teacher ratios. This survey has taught us that we have to prioritize what is most important in our lives and be willing to volunteer or make sacrifices for what we feel is important for the town and for what we, as individuals, believe in.
I think this essay contest helped our class get closer in learning how to work under specific regulations. I believe it was a learning experience that will help us as we move on to the real world beyond the seclusion of our school walls. Back