Tell me about an innovative change or positive program made by your local government, or other municipal government.
(Crickets chirp in background. Tumbleweed gently blows across street.)
Does my county health department count as “municipal”?
Before covid vaccines became available, our county (>2 million) health department set up a website for everyone to register and get sorted into several tiers, depending on urgency and risk factors.
When the vaccines began arriving, we got a head’s up email (and texts) a few days in advance, then showed up to the big municipal center they’d co-opted for mass vaccinations. It was astonishingly well organized and planned. When we showed up at our appointed date/time we found:
- Hundreds of feet of covered sidewalk, clearly marked with good signage for queuing.
- Multiple temporary restrooms alongside the line – big, well lit, climate controlled, with hot water and handicapped ramps (not porta potties).
- Arrangements for those who couldn’t stand for long periods (with line placement markers – they could rejoin at the door when their “spot” arrived there).
- About 10 preparation-attendants, walking up and down the line with satchels of pens, forms, and everything to ensure each arrival at the door had everything in order (no holdups while someone searched for ID and forms).
- Clearly marked, multiple lines inside, with helpers to ensure speedy positioning (lots of people would be bewildered and hold up progress trying to figure which line).
- Others ensuring sleeves/shirts/etc. were ready when you sat for your shot.
- Shots were a 1 minute operation.
- Afterward, another attendant gave us paperwork and a sticky note with our shot time + 15 on it, then guided us to well separated chairs for the required 15 minute wait.
- After our time expired, we were instructed to put the sticky note on the chair, which was a signal for the cleaning crew to sanitize for the next occupant.
It was one of the most well planned and well organized “crowd events” I’ve ever seen. We went from the back of a 200 foot line, to vaxxed and out the door with our cards in less than 30 minutes. They did an amazing job.
I don’t have much time for the present executive mayor of my borough, because of various practices that got him into legal trouble some years ago. More generally, successive national governments have made it more and more financially difficult for local government to do much on their own initiative.
But now he’s back in office, money has been found to provide help with energy costs and university tuition fees, and setting up “warm spaces” in local libraries for people who can’t keep up with energy bills. Of course, the professional officers have much to do with all this, which might well have happened with his predecessor, but I credit him with getting these schemes through. I still shan’t vote for him, though - his instincts are too obviously clientelistic.
A successful innovative or positive municipal program? There are so many to choose from but one of the first that come to mind is Seattle’s P Patch program.
The history of the program can be found here:
History - Neighborhoods | seattle.gov
Basically, it’s a coordinated network of community gardens set up back in the 1970s. But residents all over the Seattle area have access to land and facilities to grow vegetables. This increases both food security and food safety, as well as helping create a sense of community in a very tangible way.
I work for small county government. We have free bus service. So, we have a lot of buses. We have what we call a bus barn. it’s ~ 6 bus lanes wide with doors that a bus can drive through for each lane.
When the COVID vaccine became available, we set up all lanes as a place to get a drive through vaccination. You didn’t even have to get out of your car. The bus barn also kept the techs providing the injection somewhat protected from the weather.
We got thousands and thousands of people vaccinated using this system.
I think the Dr’s local poobahs have done a great job of knocking down the tumbleweed population. The crickets? They haven’t been the same since Buddy Holly died.
I work for my Municipal govt so I’ll brag on what we’ve done for our little city of 12,000.
The best thing we’ve done in the past 6 years is get the voters to trust us by passing 2 income tax levies (don’t come at me about municipal income tax, it’s a thing we do in Ohio). The money is specifically earmarked for roads, police/fire/service and recreation.
Since the road program started in 2017 we’ve paved 28 miles of road, at a pace that’s almost unheard of in municipal paving. And we’ve already begun scheduled maintenance on the paved roads, as well as doing new roads each year. And we’re paying cash for the services as the tax revenue goes directly to the roads.
We were able to replace our 30 year old ladder truck for the FD in 2018 as well as most of the other vehicles that needed replacing in the PD and Service. Since we have a healthy and balanced budget we’re able to order the vehicles now that won’t be delivered for a year due to supply issues. But there’s a lot of rust buckets that will finally be retired.
Also thanks to the good work of the finance director, mayor and new parks director we’ve been able to put $750k in upgrades in the Rec center and parks in the last 3 years. Once again updating a lot of stuff that sat neglected or mismanaged for years due to no money.
We’ve also been able to increase staffing in service and the FD due to the new fund from the income tax increase. It’s not just for capital improvements.
I can’t thank voters enough for all the good they did for their city by listening to us when we laid out plans for increased tax revenue. It has been such a pleasure to work with the mayor and all the departments to get all this stuff taken care of. Especially with the recreation stuff, since we’re able to do things that are “wants” alongside the “needs.”
It sounds like I’m campaigning I know but I really do love my city and am really proud of passing those levies 
Beijing just added a dedicated bicycle/electric scooter lane for one rather long block on the main road going by the subway station and highway off-ramps near my apartment. It’s quite nice not having to dodge cars there any longer. Funny thing is that it’s taken this long to get around to that what with the area’s traffic police headquarters at the far end of the block from the subway station.
The city here is really good about responding to issues with obstructed bike lanes. Since I started biking home from work last year, I’ve had to contact the city twice about places where an overgrown bush was blocking the bike lane, and in both cases they trimmed the bushes within 24 hours.
I can’t fault my local council’s response to a couple of minor plant issues - once when I reported Japanese knotweed in a local park, and another time a street tree with overly low-hanging branches. Both times they were on it within a day or two.
London-wide, the executive mayor is pushing hard on air pollution, with an “Ultra Low Emissions Zone” where you have to pay to drive in if your vehicle is a polluter. That’s on top of the inner Congestion Zone, payments for which go towards funding public transport, particularly buses. No doubt drivers would disagree, but I’m all for them .
There have been a couple of really effective “Cycle Superhighways” but the overall picture is a bit patchy.
Good for you. The county I work for is very progressive. I live about a mile over the county boundary in a very conservative county. Ya can’t get anything to pass to help with roads or even the sheriffs office. For instance there are NO deputies on duty between 11pm and 7am. I guess we would have to depend on the state police, or ourselves.
Ya might get lucky and a state cop is close. Maybe.
We obviously don’t live within a town. But the town closest to me has two police cars, but no police to man them. The set mannequins in the driver seat and park them on the side of the road.