Issue

October 2007

Related Content

Article President’s Message by Jim Madaffer

Crisis Leadership: Understanding The Emergency Response System and The Elected Official’s Role

Article City Forum Phil Coleman

New Ideas for Solving the Police Chief Recruitment Crisis

Phil Coleman is a retired chief of police for the City of Davis and can be reached at pkcoleman@comcast.net.

In the 1980s and ’90s, a California police chief vacancy would attract at least 60 to 80 applicants. Larger and more politically stable communities could anticipate twice that number, and vacancies for police chief were relatively rare (about one a month on average).

Article Features Tracy Jarman

San Diego Partnership Thinks Outside “The Box” to Enhance Emergency Medical Services

Tracy Jarman is chief of the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department and can be reached at tjarman@sandiego.gov.

San Diego Medical Services Enterprise (SDMSE) is a public-private partnership formed as a limited liability company between the City of San Diego’s Fire-Rescue Department and Rural/Metro, a private ambulance company. Since its founding in 1997, SDMSE’s paramedics and emergency medical technicians (EMTs) have worked hand-in-hand with city fire department responders on the scene of more than 90,000 emergency calls per year.

Article Features Eden Dabbs

Getting a Grip on Graffiti

Eden Dabbs is a communications consultant and an associate editor for Western City. She can be reached at edendabbs@comcast.net.

Graffiti is a challenge for many California cities. In addition to being an eyesore, it can negatively impact the quality of life in a community and affect people’s perceptions about safety.

Article Features Steve Hofbauer

Going After Gangs: What’s Working

Steve Hofbauer is a council member for the City of Palmdale and chair of the League’s Gang and Graffiti Subcommittee. He can be reached at shofbauer@cityofpalmdale.org.

Gang activity is on the rise throughout California and the nation. In Los Angeles alone, gang membership is estimated at 40,000. FBI and California Department of Justice statistics show that violent crime rose 3.7 percent nationally and 4.1 percent in California in the first six months of 2006 compared with the same time period in 2005. And according to the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s National Youth Gang Survey, in 2004, approximately one-fourth of all homicides in 171 cities with populations of more than 100,000 were considered gang related. These numbers exclude Los Angeles and Chicago, where more than half of homicides involved gangs.

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Elk Grove Targets Street Racers

The City of Elk Grove won the Grand Prize in the Public Safety category of the 2007 Helen Putnam Award for Excellence program. For more information, visit www.cacities.org/helenputnam.

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Palmdale Fights Identity Theft with Community Education

The City of Palmdale won an Award for Excellence in the Public Safety category of the 2007 Helen Putnam Award for Excellence program. For more information, visit www.cacities.org/helenputnam.

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Santa Rosa Residents COPE with Emergencies

The City of Santa Rosa won an Award for Excellence in the Public Safety category of the 2007 Helen Putnam Award for Excellence program. For more information, visit www.cacities.org/helenputnam.

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Santa Clarita Fights Back Against Graffiti

The City of Santa Clarita won the Grand Prize in the Internal Administration category of the 2007 Helen Putnam Award for Excellence program. For more information, visit www.cacities.org/helenputnam.

Article Everyday Ethics for Local Officials

Making a List and Checking It Twice: Preparing for the Season of Giving

This column is a service of the Institute for Local Government (ILG) Ethics Project, which offers resources for local officials on public service ethics. For more information, visit www.ca-ilg.org/trust. ILG is grateful to the cities of Los Gatos, West Hollywood and Petaluma for contributing materials to this column. Generous funding for the development of this column is provided by the ICMA Retirement Corporation (www.icmarc.org), whose mission is to build retirement security for the public sector.

QUESTION

The holidays are coming up, and this year our agency wants to do a better job of handling issue of gifts from outside sources. It has generally had a no-gifts policy, but we haven’t actively enforced it, and there is a kind of unwritten exception for gifts of nominal value (for example, plates of homemade cookies from residents or logo items from vendors). What are your thoughts, and what do other agencies do?

Article Special Series Ellen Hanak

Delta Blues: What Troubles in the Delta Mean for California

Ellen Hanak is an associate director of research at the Public Policy Institute of California. Her recent report (co-authored by Jay Lund, William Fleenor, Richard Howitt, Jeffrey Mount and Peter Moyle), Envisioning Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, is available online at www.ppic.org.

On any given day, a visitor to California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta might see acres of verdant cropland, meandering boaters, recreational anglers and some Swainson’s hawks or sandhill cranes. Being there, it’s hard to imagine that this peaceful region is in deep trouble and that its fate will have serious consequences for residents throughout the state.

Article Everyday Ethics for Local Officials

Making a List and Checking It Twice: Preparing for the Season of Giving

This column is a service of the Institute for Local Government (ILG) Ethics Project, which offers resources for local officials on public service ethics. For more information, visit www.ca-ilg.org/trust. ILG is grateful to the cities of Los Gatos, West Hollywood and Petaluma for contributing materials to this column. Generous funding for the development of this column is provided by the ICMA Retirement Corporation (www.icmarc.org), whose mission is to build retirement security for the public sector.

QUESTION

The holidays are coming up, and this year our agency wants to do a better job of handling issue of gifts from outside sources. It has generally had a no-gifts policy, but we haven’t actively enforced it, and there is a kind of unwritten exception for gifts of nominal value (for example, plates of homemade cookies from residents or logo items from vendors). What are your thoughts, and what do other agencies do?