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Statesville 101 offers up close look at local government
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Published: November 2, 2009
At tonight's City Council meeting, we will graduate our second class of Statesville 101, a local government education program for Statesville citizens sponsored by the City of Statesville.
If you really want to know how a local government operates and wish that the public schools covered this in civics class, then this is the class for you. Rather than listen to friends expound on what the city government should or should not be doing, you can tell them you have attended a seven-week course on local government and state with authority that "this is why they do what they do." When you see the department heads on a city council broadcast, you will better understand their council presentations since you have met them and listened to them talk about their department's goals and responsibilities.
All of the Statesville 101 participants seem to enjoy the program, which involves tours and discussions and one-on-one conversations.
One of the aspects of local government that surprises students is the wide range of skill sets and education levels city employees possess.
In this age of "government bashing," we only hear stories of employees messing up or acting unprofessionally. The fact that we perform our daily work year after year without incident is not typically a topic of discussion. In Statesville 101, the students quickly notice that our staff is extremely well educated and trained in a number of academic fields.
Statesville's police chief and deputy chief both have master's degrees in criminal justice and are graduates of the FBI Academy; Larry Pressley, assistant city manager/engineer, and his assistant are both public engineers and hold master's degrees in public administration. The city employs three public engineers in Civil Engineering and two in Electrical Engineering. The Statesville finance director and her assistant hold degrees in accounting and have over 55 years of experience in governmental accounting. They have won the Government Finance Officer's Association Award for both Budgeting and Financial Reporting for eight straight years.
When we participate in a job fair we promote the city as an organization that employs chemists, plumbers, masons, general contractors, firefighters, police officers and investigators, small and large engine mechanics, certified arborists, recreation employees who specialize in fitness and obesity programs, refuse collectors and large equipment operators. We even have two crews that operate tiny television cameras used to search for breaks and leaks in the sewer system.
When I look at the Statesville 101 program, I recognize that the 450 full-time employees of the City of Statesville represent an amazing variety of job skills. They quietly do their jobs every day to keep the city's water pure, its waste water treated, our streets safe and repaired, and our electricity as reliable as possible.
Anyone can read up on the operations of the city and find out what the different departments do, but it's not until you meet the employees one-on-one that you realize the high quality of personnel who serve the citizens. (At one of the lowest ad valorem tax rates and most reasonable water, sewer and electric rates in the state.)
It will be the fall of 2010 before Statesville 101 is offered again. I encourage you to sign up. It's free. It's informational and a lot of fun. That's because the employees tell the story of Statesville City Government and I believe it's a story worth hearing.
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