Public works, city management: yin and yang

This year, the International City/-County Managers Association meeting overlaps with the International Public Works Congress.

To my mind, this is fitting, because the more I see, the more it looks like the two jobs are beginning to overlap.

The two positions have traditionally defined the opposite ends of the local-government-appointed-official spectrum; public works the operational and city (or county) management the administrative. They were the yin and yang, the sales reps and the editors, the owners and players, both necessary to the operation, and each stepping warily around the other in a measured attempt to protect turf and avoid cooties.

Public works directors have to worry about sewers and garbage. City and county managers have to worry about councils and commissions. (In some places, it’s pretty much the same thing.)

In the past, that’s where the resemblance ended. The two didn’t attend the same meetings, work in the same building or play on the same softball team. Indeed, it’s possible that each viewed the other as some sort of exotic species that merited no more than a polite nod in the halls and from which nothing could be learned.

Technology and the recognition that citizens are also customers have changed all that. Used to be, someone would say, “We need a street here,” and the public works department would build a street. If a city or county had a brownfield site, the city or county manager would look at economic options and recommend the one he or she felt would best serve not only the population, but the budget.

Now, however, citizens have unprecedented access to their government, which allows them to say to the public works director, “This is how we want this street to look,” or to tell the city manager, “We know the economics may not work, but we really want a park on that spot.” And because the customer is always right, the official is compelled to listen.

The emphasis now is on building communities as opposed to things. And to do that, public works directors and city/county managers must share the same philosophical boat. Citizens no longer see the two functions as separate and distinct.

In fact, now that I think about it, overlapping meetings is a bad thing. City managers should be attending APWA and public works directors ICMA. We’ll all play softball.