California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Overview

California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Lincoln Puts Neighborhood Electric Vehicles on the Road

The City of Lincoln won an Award of Excellence in the Public Works, Infrastructure and Transportation category of the 2006 Helen Putnam Award for Excellence program. For more information, visit www.cacities.org/helenputnam.

With its population expecting to hit approximately 50,000 residents by 2010, the City of Lincoln’s Department of Public Works had to address the following concerns: 

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Los Gatos Builds Community Unity

“Imagine what could be done if you had 50 volunteers, or a hundred or more.” This was the challenge presented by the Los Gatos Town Council and the idea behind the creation of Community Unity. 

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Santa Clarita Strives to Keep Teens Alive

So fast, so furious — and so dead. Santa Clarita’s 16- to 18-year-olds make up 12 percent of the driving population, yet they are involved in 25 percent of all driving collisions. Traffic accidents are the leading cause of death for those aged 16 to 19, and more than 60 percent of teen passenger deaths occur while another teen is driving. 

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Carlsbad Makes Sportsmanship a Priority

Poor sportsmanship creates an unpleasant environment, impacts safety and results in huge declines in participation across many types of activities. In celebration of its mission to promote respect, unity, safety, enrichment, encouragement and teamwork, the City of Carlsbad’s Recreation Department pioneered a local solution. The Teaching Respect, Unity and Sportsmanship through Teamwork (TRUST) program integrates the value of good sportsmanship at all levels — including city leadership, staff, parents, children and volunteers — through a comprehensive training and communications program that has significantly increased satisfaction among the participants.

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Monterey Park Improves Traffic Safety for Drivers and Pedestrians

The City of Monterey Park covers 7.73 square miles in the San Gabriel Valley east of Los Angeles, and the roadway system comprises 350 miles of paved streets. Most of the business districts and older residential sections have roads that were designed and installed in the 1920s. Traffic-related problems have increased due to the physical constraints of the streets, a burgeoning multilingual immigrant population and the city’s location between three of the most frequently traveled freeways in Los Angeles County. 

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Cathedral City Launches “Stop Identity Theft” Program

Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the United States. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), approximately 10 million people are victims of identity theft each year. Each victim spends an average of $1,500 and 175 hours to recover a portion of their losses. 

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Eureka Establishes Mobile Live-Fire Training Program

Consistent training on essential firefighting skills is critical for the protection of communities, citizens and firefighters. But the City of Eureka Fire Department and members of surrounding allied agencies lacked the ability to practice realistic structural firefighting techniques on a frequent, consistent basis. Unfortunately, this problem is not unique to the city’s fire department. There are no agencies within the tri-county area of Humboldt, Del Norte and western Trinity counties that operate facilities capable of simulating structural fire conditions in a controlled environment – despite the existence of qualified instructors. 

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Cities of Los Angeles County Form Interagency Communications System

Before Sept.11, 2001, most public safety agencies lacked the resources to communicate directly with one another via radio. In some cases, even police officers and firefighters within the same city were unable to communicate over radio. Add the inability of public works crews to communicate with first responders, and the end result was a generally less-than-efficient emergency response.

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Colton Modernizes Emergency Access for Gated Communities

Controlled access gates at residential communities can present a formidable obstacle for law enforcement. Nationwide, public safety personnel have been challenged with the task of gaining immediate emergency access to gated private communities. Agencies everywhere are faced with the same dilemma: what to do when access gates delay emergency services. How can municipal administrators assist emergency responders in better serving the public? One solution is to give them the keys to the city, or something even better, the e-keys to the city. 

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Lincoln Partners With School District to Improve Infrastructure

The City of Lincoln is one of California’s fastest growing communities. In 1990, its population numbered 7,800; today, it has grown to 27,000. Lincoln has been faced with the challenge of expanding its municipal and recreational facilities fast enough to keep pace with the needs of the community.

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Lafayette, Walnut Creek and Contra Costa County Join Forces to Construct a Veterans’ Memorial Building

The San Francisco Bay Area cities of Lafayette and Walnut Creek, together with Contra Costa County, recently cooperated to build an elegant new Veterans’ Memorial Building. This $7.8 million development is one of the most significant projects for veterans completed in Northern California during the past 50 years.

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Fairfield and Solano County Collaborate to Meet Community Needs

In 1998, the County of Solano had outgrown its offices in downtown Fairfield and planned to consolidate its operations in another location. The county was considering a site in one of Fairfield’s business parks.This move would have had a major adverse economic impact on downtown Fairfield because the county is the downtown area’s largest employer, occupying an area equal to four city blocks. The move would have also taken prime industrial land slated for private sector job generation and eliminated tax increment revenues from the local redevelopment agency, as the business park was in a redevelopment project area.

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Glendale’s Junior Ambassador Program Promotes Environmental Stewardship

For 12 years, the City of Glendale’s Neighborhood Services Department has operated successful environmental education programs in the city’s elementary schools. Continuing this education at the middle school level was the next obvious step to maintaining environmentally sustainable behavior in Glendale youth. Neighborhood Services needed to develop a program that would motivate junior high school students to take civic responsibility for their environment.

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

La Habra’s Teens Help Turn Things Around

In the early 1990s, the City of La Habra was experiencing rising numbers of drive-by shootings and homicides. The city ranked second in Orange County for gang-related shootings. The increased violence was attributed to several factors, including a lack of organized recreation programs for youth and a recent influx of gang members from outside the area. In response, a concerned group of community members formed a task force to work with the city to address the problem.

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Foster City Gives Youth an Advisory Role and a Voice

Located along San Francisco Bay on the peninsula between San Francisco and San Jose, Foster City is a growing community of 28,803 residents, offering the benefits of metropolitan living with small town, neighborly appeal.

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Pacifica Improves Beach Facilities and Environmental Quality

The City of Pacifica won an Award for Excellence for this project in the Planning and Environmental Quality category of the 2005 California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence program. For more about the award program, visit www.cacities.org/helenputnam.

Each year, more than one million people visit Pacifica State Beach, which many consider one of Northern California’s better surfing beaches. Owned by the state parks system and locally operated by the City of Pacifica, it’s the first beach south of San Francisco that is safe for swimming and water sports. Flanked to the north and south by rocky headlands, the beach stretches along Highway 1 in a narrow swath of sand, cobbles and upland dune structures. It was once the site of a historic railroad that traversed the area. But over the years, buildings and construction fill had encroached upon the beach.

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Oxnard’s GREAT Program For Groundwater

The City of Oxnard won an Award for Excellence for this project in the Planning and Environmental Quality category of the 2005 California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence program. For more about the award program, visit www.cacities.org/helenputnam.

Like many California municipalities, the City of Oxnard faces a number of challenges related to water resources, including a growing population, greater demand on water supplies, reductions in groundwater, more costly and less reliable imported state water, and the need to restore local wetlands.

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Santa Maria Turns Two Environmentally Sensitive Liabilities Into an Innovative Community Asset

The City of Santa Maria won an Award for Excellence for this project in the Internal Administration category of the 2005 California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence program. For more about the award program, visit www.cacities.org/helenputnam.

Located in Santa Barbara County, the City of Santa Maria is a fast growing, predominantly agricultural community with a population quickly approaching 90,000. Santa Maria provides a full range of municipal services to its residents, including solid waste collections and disposal.

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Cupertino Builds Webcast Studio and Creates Revenue Stream

The City of Cupertino won an Award for Excellence in the Internal Administration category of the 2005 California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence program. For more about the award program, visit www.cacities.org/helenputnam.

The City of Cupertino’s government access TV channel operation began to outgrow its control room space at city hall when live webcasting commenced. The professional ability of the staff, as well as residents’ appetite for information, had driven ongoing infrastructure improvements, but the city’s budget to support the operation was not keeping pace. The challenge then was to continue to improve, maintain and expand communication infrastructure in light of budget shortfalls and staffing cuts.

Article California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence

Beverly Hills Finds a Better Way to Serve Its Residents

The City of Beverly Hills won an Award for Excellence in the Internal Administration category of the 2005 California Cities Helen Putnam Award for Excellence program. For more about the award program, visit www.cacities.org/helenputnam.

The City of Beverly Hills consistently strives to maximize the efficiency of internal operations and the effectiveness of its public service. Several years ago, it recognized an opportunity to streamline customer service approaches to better meet the needs of residents, businesses and visitors. The city’s efforts resulted in the development of the Online Business Center (OBC).