Selling Good City Government Outlining the Development of a Definite Program of Constructive Publicity on Commission-Manager Government in Kalamazoo, Mich., During I' Its First Year of Operation By Harry H. Freeman T must be obvious to students of municipal government that as the commissionmanager plan goes into operation in more and more cities it will stand or fall just in proportion as the people of a city feel that it is what they really want. In other words, it is a selling proposition-a problem of creating a favorable public opinion. No matter how efficient its producing and administrative machinery, no large manufacturing concern, dispensing its product to the masses, could live six months without a consistent, carefully planned and executed "selling" campaign. Many mistakes have been charged against the average American city, but none is more vital and baneful than that of leaving its citizenship ignorant and uninformed of the service it seeks to render. With some appreciation of this fact, the administration. in Kalamazoo during this first year under the commission-manager plan has endeavored to develop a definite program of constructive publicity. To be sure, there is nothing very novel or new in any of its features, but the fact that we recognized the various items as parts of the whole program has meant that we have had the ultimate aim constantly before us, and each has been woven into the scheme to that end. Loyalty of Employes The first step in the program was to make sure that the city officials and employes understood the effort that was to be made, that they were all loyal to the city's interest and ready to work in a courteous and cooperative spirit. It requires no argument to show how easily the whole proposition could be thrown upon the rocks by lack of harmony or by the use of submarine tactics. We were to work together for the common good, and to advance the idea we decided to meet frequently in conference both during and out of business hours. Every city employe was to be a booster-the Commission, the Manager, the department heads, the policemen and firemen, and even the man working on the streets, were to tell the story of the new city government in a courteous, non-boastful manner. Incidentally, it is the most effective way of combating every community's chronic "knockers.” The Local Press The obvious way to reach the public continually is, of course, thru the local press. We have courted widespread publicity for every official act or achievement. The reporters get their daily story from the City Hall and frequent feature write-ups for the Sunday editions. Our local paper has been very loyal to the new government, and extremely liberal in space and publicity of municipal matters. All Commission meetings are public, and the press records in detail each week's work. While such publicity was essential and far-reaching, we felt the need of a frequent summary of our work and decided to get out a monthly paper. The Kalamazoo Municipal Bulletin appeared during February of this year, and beneath its headline the public was informed that it was to be "published occasionally for free distribution to the taxpayers and citizens of Kalamazoo, Michigan, being an attempt to inform the public of how commission-manager government is operating in Kalamazoo—what it has accomplished in the past, what it has under way at the present time, and what is contemplated for the future." The Bulletin is a four-page leaflet of 9 x 12-inch size and contains illustrations and short, snappy reviews of municipal work. Ten thousand copies are printed each time at a cost of approximately $50 per issue, and distribution to every home in the city costs about $25 more. This total cost of $75 per issue is partially offset by a revenue from single-column 2-inch ads, for which we charge $5 each. Not more than four such ads are used in any one issue. Many appreciative comments from citizens have convinced us that the small expense of the bulletin is more than justified. The Complaint Bureau Under the old aldermanic system of government you made your complaint, if at all, to your ward alderman. Perhaps it was attended to, and perhaps not, depending largely on how well you knew your representative or how well he knew how you stood on certain matters. To furnish a central and sure medium for complaints and suggestions (the latter a new appeal to the citizen), a bureau was established in the Manager's office, and widespread publicity given of its existence. A printed form is provided for each complaint or suggestion, and a regular procedure of handling them insures prompt and effective action. The citizen is advised by letter just what disposition has been made of the matter he "so kindly brought to our attention." To determine the efficacy of such work, con sider the treatment of a few hundred such complaints and suggestions over a year's time by each system. For businesslike attention, promptness and genuine interest, you would undoubtedly favor the one now in use, and the average citizen the country over would be likely to agree with you. The Municipal Exhibit Water meters and gunmen's weapons, tax maps and charts of child welfare, fire alarm boxes and plugged sewers, miniature playgrounds and "phony" grocery store scales-everything, in fact, of city government and municipal business that could be shown by maps, charts, diagrams, models and display of actual material used was offered to the public at the big Municipal Exhibit during the week April 7 to 12. The Exhibit was one of the main features in the educational program. Afternoons and evenings during that week a constant stream of people-conservatively estimated. at 12,000-passed in and out of the big hall. and many who entered as skeptics came POLICE EQUIPMENT ON DISPLAY, WITH A WILLING OFFICIAL READY TO ANSWER QUESTIONS. MUNICIPAL EXHIBIT, KALAMAZOO, MICH. 328 PUBLIC UTILITIES SECTION, KALAMAZOO MUNICIPAL EXHIBIT, WHERE THE CITIZENS SAW FOR THEMSELVES HOW LEAKY PLUMBING MAKES THE WATER BILLS MOUNT Total $150.00 257.00 7.77 20.23 130.95 86.47 $737.87 We did not convince everyone, of course, but easily 99 per cent of those from whom we solicited opinions stamped the Exhibit with their strong approval. It was something decidedly new to the average citizen and taxpayer to have the city employes explaining in genuine enthusiasm just how such and such a piece of apparatus worked, how much it cost, how much it saved over the old way of doing it, and like matters. A man who had just previous to the Exhibit entered a furious kick over his high water bill was seen to smile knowingly as he stood watching a water closet register its purposely made leak on a glass water His attitude was entirely changed simply because he could then visualize the meter. leak, whereas it had been quite difficult to accept the explanation at the Treasurer's office when he brought in his bill. Hundreds of people found out for the first time that the tax money they paid in January went entirely to the state and the county instead of to the city as they had imagined, and immediately in their minds. their city became less of an extravagant, Men-and women, wasteful corporation. too-were inclined to be less critical of the slight increase in taxes during the last few years as they studied a chart which asked them whether the war made increased costs for every business except the city government, and then proceeded to show them some of the increased prices that the city has had to pay during the last four years. The general effect of the exhibit could be gleaned from the remark of one man who claimed that he had been paying taxes for forty years but had been able to learn more from the Exhibit in two hours than he had in all that time previous. The City's Annual Report Nothing could be more forbidding and useless to the average citizen than the old type of annual report crammed from cover to cover with long tables of figures and terrifying statistics. When it came time this summer to present in summary form a picture of the first year of operation under the new form of government, we decided to make our report very different from anything of its kind ever seen by the citizen before. For the many pages of dry figures in which he could not possibly be interested, we substituted snappy and understandable paragraphs, profusely illustrated with pictures and catchy charts. The following examples of the many little items letting the citizen know that the high cost of everything made no exception for the city government will illustrate the way in which the matter was presented: IS TALK CHEAP? The telephone is quite indispensable in the conduct of the city's business. Even tho a close scrutiny had been made of the phones in service and a doubling up in several instances brought about, still up to the first of July the city was paying $55.25 a month, or $663.00 a year, for its telephone service. Then the same thing that made you mutter under your breath hit the city-and hit it hardnamely, the increase in phone rates. From $55.25 per month the new rating called for $184.53 per month, an increase per month for phone charges for the municipality of $128.28. This increase over a twelve-month period means an added cost of phone service of The Responsibility of Public Officials These are a few of the things we are doing to "sell" good government to the people of Kalamazoo. We are just making a start, but our interest and ideal are genuine. We have a sneaking suspicion that such propaganda is the real counterirritant for dirty politics. Let us make up our mind that the mass of people in every city are more ready and eager to follow the intelligent leadership of sincere public servants than they are to trail with professional politicians. There has been too much lament in the past over the passive interest in, and even ignorance of, public affairs on the part of the people. Who, stopping to ponder the subject a few minutes, but will agree that some blame should attach to public officials who never attempt to interest the public in the why and wherefore of its own business? FIRE PREVENTION DAY IS A SPLENDID INSTITUTION. IT PROVIDES AN OCCASION FOR GETTING RID OF ACCUMULATED TRASH, BUT THE WISE CITIZENS AND PUBLIC OFFICIALS WILL NOT LET TRASH ACCUMULATE. THEY WILL MAKE EVERY DAY FIRE PREVENTION DAY Civic Centers as War Memorials Statement Prepared by the Bureau of Memorial Buildings of the War Camp Community Service TH HE civic consciousness engendered in many communities thru the constant and active cooperation of all the citizens during the war has brought a more aggressive spirit to the support of municipal projects. Pride in the accomplishments of villages, towns and cities in the war is showing itself in an ever-increasing desire to provide more fully for the development of civic life. The desire is expressing itself in memorials of the war that will typify the spirit of service of all who lent their efforts. The idea of a mere shaft, an ornamented tombstone or something equally inanimate, so popular formerly, has lost its appeal to those who have caught the new vision of "carrying on" the work of bettering the world for which the war was fought. Consequently, the memorials adopted by many communities have taken the form, suggested by THE AMERICAN CITY in September, 1918, of community houses, auditoriums, hospitals, schools, libraries, parks, playgrounds and other worth-while proj ects. But it has remained the privilege of a few communities to see further into the future and to plan an even nobler tribute than a building alone. They have seen the vision of a civic center, the heart and soul of a municipality, where the memorial to those who died and those who served may be expressed not only in the beautiful lines of a single marble building, but in a center of noble edifices, facing and enclosing a plaza or square in which trees and flowers add a touch of natural, living beauty to the memorial. This idea of a civic center, a real center of the life of the community, has been most readily and quickly developed in those places which are considering the construction of new town and city halls and similar public buildings. Their leading men have seen the need of a place in which the citizens may assemble when matters of public interest are to be considered or municipal ceremonials are to take place, and where the demand for human companionship in the mass may be satisfied, even if they may merely sing together. It has become the duty of modern communities to make provision for the development of this growing phase of municipal life. Some cities have felt it essential that the funds needed for such a memorial project should be secured by public subscriptions, to distinguish it from those supported privately or by taxation. Others have felt that a combination of private financing and public subscription would make the scheme easier of accomplishment, while still others have a preference for securing the money by means of bond issues and taxation. But whatever may be the method of raising funds, there can be no doubt that there is a peculiar fitness in dedicating as a memorial a feature which combines so well the ideals of service, beauty and permanency. Memorial Civic Centers in The Bureau of Memorial Buildings of the War Camp Community Service, which recently announced that 280 com munities had decided upon the Courtesy of Robert C. Lafferty, Architect, New York City. |