Multi-jurisdictional
intentional regional communities are, in all cases, “Greater Communities” where
“community motive” is at work at a more than a local scale. This newsletter
provides a scan of regional community, cooperation and collaboration activity
as reported in news media and blogs.
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Top 10 Stories
Cuyahoga County on Monday awarded $180,000 to Bedford,
Bedford Heights and Maple Heights to create a consolidated emergency dispatch
center.
The merger -- aided with a $720,000 federal grant and a
$55,000 state Local Innovation grant -- was Executive Ed FitzGerald's first
step in a push to eliminate dozens of police and fire dispatch centers across
the county. The county is also paying $270,000 for Cleveland State University
to plan for other cities to consolidate.
Currently, 47 police dispatch centers and dozens of
additional fire dispatch units are spread across 57 municipalities.
"The status quo was not good enough,"
FitzGerald said at a news conference with suburban leaders. "It's a waste
of money."
Maintaining dozens of disparate dispatch operations in Cuyahoga
County is costly, especially for the smallest suburbs, according to a study
commissioned by the county.
Tiny Walton Hills spent $510 per call, according to the
study. The comparable cost to Cleveland: $12 per call.
Bedford spends $67 per call, while Bedford Heights and
Maple Heights spend $92 apiece.
…
It doesn't make headlines or lead the evening news. …
But right now, in communities all over the state, people are working together
to resolve one of California's biggest challenges: our water future.
…
The record shows that Californians have been making
steady progress over the past decades. Water managers are working to stretch
every drop, diversify their water supply sources, protect water quality and
plan for uncertainties in a changing climate. But there is more to be done,
particularly when it comes to improving our statewide system of pipelines,
canals and reservoirs that allows us to capture water in wet periods for use in
the inevitable dry times.
That system, built by previous generations of leaders,
has allowed us to prosper but it's increasingly insecure under today's
environmental rules. It needs to be modernized to improve water supply delivery
and reduce environmental impacts.
This is where a statewide perspective is critical.
Resolving long-term water supply and ecosystem problems in the Delta is not a
matter of one region vs. another. It's about recognizing that the status quo is
not working for the state as a whole and finding solutions that work for all
Californians.
… we must understand that we are one state. We can't perpetuate
the notion that our natural resources "belong" to a particular
region, or that one region's economy or quality of life is more deserving of
water than another's. We cannot be satisfied with actions that shift the
problem from one region to another or that preserve the status quo because it
benefits one region in particular. Such measures cannot qualify as solutions
over the long term.
…
True solutions to our biggest problems come when we act
as one state. We have the leaders, the knowledge and the opportunity to come
together as a state on water again. It's time to put those ingredients together
and move on solutions that improve water supply security for the entire state.
Regional cooperation is the key to continued growth in
the Denver metro area and Colorado, John Beeble, president and chief executive
of Saunders Construction told the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerceon Wednesday.
Beeble, the new board chair of the organization, said
this "regionalism" is "not easy, intuitive, or always in the
short-term interests of an individual entity."
But regional cooperation matters…because "it
protects us from the vagaries of the political winds. It matters because it is
how we ensure the sustainability of this thriving region for generations to come.
"And it matters because there is no question that
we cannot continue to see business success that we have seen in rough economic
conditions without regional cooperation and support,"…
Both Beeble and outgoing…chair…warned that Colorado and
the country face myriad challenges in the next 12 months involving everything
from potential spending cuts to dealing with the evolving health care system.
Beeble said that the way to deal with those challenges
is in a pragmatic manner, free of partisanship.
Wake up California. You are perilously close to
ratifying Proposition 31, a sweepingly redistributionist and profoundly
undemocratic transformation of your way of life, and you don’t even know what’s
at stake. Suburbanites of California, you are the special targets of Prop. 31.
Act now, or be turned into second-class citizens in your own state.
Wake up America. Look toward the regionalist revolution
on California’s horizon. In an era of looming municipal bankruptcies, this
could be your fate: robbing the suburbs to pay for the cities. The regionalist
transformation now being quietly pressed on California is exactly the sort of
change President Obama has in mind for America should he win a second term. In
California and America both, the 2012 election could open the door for a
regionalist movement in hot pursuit of a redistributionist remaking of American
life.
California’s Proposition 31 is the project of a
collection of “good government” groups, in particular, California Forward.…
PROPOSITION 31 This initiative measure is submitted to
the people of California in accordance with the provisions of Section 8 of
Article II of the California Constitution.
This initiative measure amends and adds sections to the
California Constitution and adds sections to the Education Code and the Government
Code; therefore, existing provisions proposed to be deleted are printed in strikeout
type and new provisions proposed to be added are printed in underlined
type to indicate that they are new.
PROPOSED LAW
The Government Performance and Accountability Act
SECTION 1. Findings and Declarations The people of the
State of California hereby find and declare that government must be:
1. Trustworthy.
California government has lost the confidence of its citizens and is not
meeting the needs of Californians. Taxpayers are entitled to a higher return on
their investment and the public deserves better results from government
services.
2. Accountable
for Results. To restore trust, government at all levels must be accountable for
results.
…
SEC. 7. Article XI A is added to the California
Constitution, to read:
ARTICLE XI A COMMUNITY STRATEGIC
ACTION PLANS
SECTION 1. (a)
Californians expect and require that local government entities publicly explain
the purpose of expenditures and whether progress is being made toward their
goals. Therefore, in addition to the requirements of any other provision of
this Constitution, the adopted budget of each local government entity shall
contain all of the following as they apply to the entity's powers and duties:
…
(b) The State
shall consider and determine how it can support, through financial and
regulatory incentives, efforts by local government entities and representatives
of the public to work together to address challenges and to resolve problems
that local government entities have voluntarily and collaboratively determined
are best addressed at the geographic scale of a region in order to advance a
prosperous economy, quality environment, and community equity. The State shall
promote the vitality and global competitiveness of regional economies and
foster greater collaboration among local governments within regions by
providing priority consideration for state-administered funds for
infrastructure and human services, as applicable, to those participating local
government entities that have voluntarily developed a regional collaborative plan and are making progress toward the
purposes and goals of their plan, which shall incorporate the goals and
purposes set forth in paragraphs (1) to (5), inclusive, of subdivision (a) of
Section 1.
Sec. 7. Nothing
in this article is intended to abrogate or supersede any existing authority
enjoyed by local government entities, nor to discourage or prohibit local
government entities from developing and participating in regional programs and
plans designed to improve the delivery and efficiency of government services.
…
…
Regional development approaches are increasingly being
employed around the country to build more vibrant communities, Riley said. He
said these collaborations also are important because the federal government
isn't looking to do everything for people, but be a partner in helping them
identify ways to make communities better and assist in that process.
"These regional issues, transportation, housing
patterns, all those things really do impact the quality of life in a
community," said Riley, who is one of the department's 10 regional
administrators and coordinates activities in a six-state region that includes
Indiana and Illinois. "And if we are able to get a regional conversation
about how to deploy those resources and make those decisions, we give those communities
an opportunity to move forward."
Riley said regional administrators for eight federal
agencies in January met with Gary city officials and also representatives from
the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority, Northwestern Indiana
Regional Planning Commission, and the Metropolitan Planning Council.
Conversations have continued since that time on coordinating a regional
investment strategy as part of the Gary and Region Investment Project.
…
Last Thursday's North Central Florida Regional Planning
Council meeting played to a full house, as North Central Florida's rural
counties and cities came to connect with their fellow members, the planning
Council, and listen to the Department of Economic Opportunity's Dr. Barbara
Foster's presentation called, "Planning For Economic Opportunity."
The North Central Region contains nearly 7000 square
miles. Its members include municipalities from Alachua, Bradford, Columbia,
Dixie, Gilchrist, Hamilton, Lafayette, Madison, Suwannee, Taylor and Union
Counties, as well as those counties.
While the area has abundant natural resources, other
than Alachua County, home of the University of Florida, the region has been
fiscally constrained and challenged for decades with high levels of poverty and
difficult learning environments.
Scott Koons, the Council's Executive Director said the
NCFRPC's purpose is to "address issues, concerns and problems of a multi
county nature."
…
Abstract Through a case study analysis of a regional
leadership development program, this article describes the impact on individual
and group leadership skills and how the skills are employed to benefit
individual communities and the region as a whole. Data were obtained through
surveys. Through cooperation and collaboration between and among leadership
program graduates, leadership alumni, and other regional leaders, graduates
grew personally and professionally, and built new networks that help them
advance their communities and the region. The most significant implication for
Extension from this study is the need to expand partnerships in order to better
utilize resources. Keywords: community leadership, regional leadership,
regional collaboration, networking, community involvement Beverly Maltsberger
Extension Professional Community Development Specialist St. Joseph, Missouri
maltsbergerb@missouri.edu Wilson Majee Community Development Specialist
Princeton, Missouri Majeew@missou
AN "Outback Commission" should be created to
address long-standing problems in governance in remote and regional Australia,
…
The remote FOCUS review spoke to people across remote
and regional Australia, from the Pilbara to Central Queensland and north Queensland.
Report co-author Dr Bruce Walker said successive
government approaches to remote and regional Australia had demonstrably failed,
including the current Regional Development Australia approach.
The report showed the main issues facing many remote regions
were the same, with many communities citing a lack of control and a feeling of
being ignored by policy-makers in Canberra and state capitals.
But Dr Walker said real decision-making power needed to
be given back to the communities affected, citing the government's response to
the fly-in, fly-out mining industry and Aboriginal affairs.
"If you want to get change, you've got to convince
people on the coast to understand the remote and regional areas," he said.
"From our talks, we realise the FIFO industry is no
longer just mining - you've doctors and nurses and teachers flying in and out
of remote communities.
…
With an estimated 50,000 attendees, the recent Rio+20
conference on sustainable development was the largest UN event ever held.
Despite widely reported dissatisfaction with the summit’s outcome, the
gathering was much more …
With more than 500 on-site side events and hundreds of
nearby meetings, forums and workshops, there was ample opportunity for
participants to share their responses as well as discuss new approaches to the
challenges of global development.
One such response, led by the United Nations University
Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS), is a call for the concerted effort of
multiple stakeholders to further develop collaborative learning systems that
enable transformation towards green, resilient and just societies.
… Regional
Centres of Expertise(RCEs) are regional (in the majority of cases
sub-national) networks of multiple stakeholders that focus their learning
projects on specific sustainability-related challenges framed around their
reality and geographical location.
…
On the road, so next
issue September 24, 2012 –
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Basic Geocodes -
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Geocode
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Geography
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Wikipedia
page link
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0000
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Earth
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0900
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Arctic Ocean
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1000
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Europe
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2000
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Africa
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3000
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Atlantic Ocean
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4000
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Antarctica
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5000
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Americas
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6000
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Pacific Ocean
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7000
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Oceania
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8000
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Asia
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9000
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Indian Ocean
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"Global Region-builder Geo-Code
Prototype" ©