Mark A. Glaser

LOCAL GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE THROUGH THE EYES OF CITIZENS

Citizens generally do not have a good understanding of local government and consequently have difficulty assessing performance objectively. Instead, they permit a variety of indicators and sources of information to shape their perceptions of government. This research takes a first step toward an improved understanding of citizen-government relations, especially focusing on how citizens see government. The survey results from over 1800 citizens in Orange County, Florida (including the metropolitan area of Orlando) are analyzed through a series of multiple regression models employing varied assumptions and citizen populations to better understand what drives citizen perceptions of local government performance. To effectively change citizen-government relations, local government must honor citizen values and priorities by demonstrating that it listens to citizens and acts on what it hears.

A Profile of Discontinuity between Citizen Demand and Willingness to Pay Taxes: Comprehensive Planning for Park and Recreation Investment

Growing alienation between citizens and government represents an important challenge to democracy. Resistance to taxation is one of the manifestations of this alienation. The issue is further complicated by citizen demands that exceed their willingness to pay taxes, referred to here as tax-demand discontinuity. This article uses a survey of over 700 citizens designed to provide an information foundation for comprehensive park and recreation planning to test for and profile tax-demand discontinuity. Using combined scores on summated measures of willingness to pay taxes and demand for public investment, citizens are typologically classified into nine groups that are then consolidated under three classifications of tax-demand discontinuity. Citizen-assignments include traditionalists, or those with continuity or balance between willingness to pay taxes and demand; philanthropists, those who are willing to pay taxes in excess of demand; and free-riders, citizens with demands that exceed willingness to pay taxes. Differences in assessments of local government performance are examined in relationship to tax-demand discontinuity classifications indicating that productivity alone will not resolve issues of tax-demand discontinuity. The results indicate differences in citizen subpopulations in tax-demand discontinuity.

Materials Recycling and Reverse Channel Networks: The Public Policy Challenge

Waste is an unavoidable by-product of resource-conversion processes in our economic system. Materials recycling as part of a resource recovery program supporting sustainable development is proposed to help manage this waste. A typology of reverse channel networks for recyclable materials is presented, and public policy initiatives that affect the development of these channels are discussed.

Community Policing and Community Building: A Case Study of Officer Perceptions

This research uses the responses from more than 500 officers serving a Midwestern city to understand their perceptions of themselves, fellow officers, the police department, neighborhood organizations, and the larger community in relation to community policing. Based on this data, the authors explore how community policing might be used to create a greater convergence of purpose among citizens, neighborhoods, organizations, and the broader well-being of the community. Findings indicate that officers doubt the ability of citizens to rise above their own self-interest, but they think that they and their fellow officers can do so. Furthermore, findings suggest the need for an overarching community agenda to prevent neighborhoods from becoming “civic cocoons” and to promote convergence of purpose between neighborhoods and the broader community. Finally, this research suggests that police departments that engage in transparent decision making that carefully balances departmental and community interests are better able to encourage this collaboration.

The Impact of Quality of Life on Recruitment and Retention of Key Personnel

Business retention and expansion are pointed to in the literature as being more effective economic development policy in comparison to business recruitment. The ability of a business to attract and retain this nucleus of key personnel is critical for remaining competitive. The quality of life of an area is considered to be an important ingredient for the attraction and retention of key personnel. Public sector investments in quality of life not only make the community a more attractive place to live but also contribute indirectly to economic prosperity. In this article the input from chief executive officers in over 700 businesses in Wichita, Kansas, are examined to determine the value of 10 quality-of-life attributes for attraction or retention of key personnel. Input from 6 classes of business are examined, and important differences in the quality-of-life values of key personnel are discovered. The first major conclusion is that targeting by business type is an important consideration for local economic development policy. A second conclusion is that local schools are not necessarily the key ingredient for recruitment and retention of key personnel. Well-developed community spirit building and entertainment opportunities are, in many cases, the greatest lure. Finally, effective economic development action will require cooperation between public and private sectors.

Neighborhood Participation in Community Development: A Comparison of Strategic Approaches

This study compares the ability of community development corporations to mobilize residents of low income neighborhoods to participate in redevelopment efforts. The evidence and argument show that community development corporations have not been more successful than other types of community-based organizations in (1) the degree to which organizational leadership has been recruited from the neighborhood; (2) the type of control exercised by residents over redevelopment policy, and; (3) the degree of fiscal autonomy achieved by the organization. The policy ramifications of the findings are discussed and analyzed.

Local Government-Sponsored Community Development Exploring Relationships between Perceptions of Empowerment and Community Impact

Local governments are increasingly turning to community-based organizations (CBOs) to support improvement in low-income neighborhoods. Perceptions of more than 70 community leaders and 120 citizens involved in the formation of a CBO in the Orlando, Florida, metropolitan area are used to illuminate relationships between community empowerment and community improvement. Congruent with expectations, findings suggest that both local government responsiveness and community involvement in decision making are linked to perceptions of community improvement. In contrast to expectations, findings suggest that in early stages of community development, citizen involvement in the development activities of the CBO is not strongly correlated with either the perception of community impact or the anticipation of positive change. As a result, local governments sponsoring similar ventures need to recognize the importance of information and communication as tools to secure citizen participation until such time as citizen volunteers are more fully engaged in the development process.

Economic and Environmental Repair in the Shadow of Superfund: Local Government Leadership in Building Strategic Partnerships

Increasingly rigorous U.S. environmental policy is forcing the convergence of economic and environmental concerns with the intent of internalizing the costs of environmental protection and repair Unfortunately, the costs associated with the generic application of national environmental policy often exceed benefits reaped in environmental repair This article examines the intent and dysfunction of Superfund—Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) and Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA)—as implemented by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and details a local government model to correct this dysfunction. City government in Wichita, Kansas, accepted a leadership role in the development of a partnership model that enhances the cost effectiveness of Superfund, expedites environmental cleanup, and protects the local economy.

WHEN CITIZEN EXPECTATIONS CONFLICT WITH BUDGETARY REALITY: DISCONTINUITY BETWEEN THE PUBLIC'S DEMAND FOR SERVICES AND ITS WILLINGNESS TO PAY TAXES

The tension between demand for services and willingness to pay for those services, referred to here as tax-demand discontinuity, poses a dilemma for local government that will only intensify with growing fiscal constraints. This research is based on a survey of over 1800 citizens in Orange County, Florida, the county including Orlando, to develop a seven-position classification system to define the nature and extent of tax-demand discontinuity. Citizen demographic characteristics, perceptions of the economy and perceptions of government segmented by tax-demand discontinuity classifications are used to offer guidance to local government about opportunities for improving citizen-government relations.

Redefinition of the Service Delivery Function of Community-Based Organizations

This study presents the successes and failures in the delivery of services to low income communities. Executive directors of community-based organizations throughout the county were asked to describe their most and least successful community-based service delivery projects. The service ventures then were classified based on the extent to which the community-based organization was the appropriate delivery agent. Findings show some important successes in housing and attempts to gain commitment from area residents. Conversely, resources were wasted, in some cases, on projects such as garden development. Several organizations report somewhat surprising services delivery failures in areas related to employment training and placement.