THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, August 30, 1994 TAG: 9408300419
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TONI WHITT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HAMPTON LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
At a conference on government, you might not expect to hear talk of spiritual rebirth and compassion. Talk of head-to-head competition with the private sector might sound like blasphemy.
But at a National League of Cities meeting in Hampton, bureaucrats and politicians were touting such ideals for government.
They talked about how to bring compassion into City Hall. They boasted of city businesses so efficient that the private sector was begging for their services.
They were feeling good about being government workers - a feeling some said they hadn't experienced in a decade.
Sound weird? It's just part of a quiet evolution in government, said leaders of the conference, which continues today and Wednesday.
A number of cities around the country have gradually been changing the way they do business. Experts who have been watching the changes and workers who have been implementing them met in Hampton to swap success stories. For example:
Indianapolis' sign-making department did such high-quality and efficient work that private companies began seeking its services. The city declined those offers, but did start making signs for other cities.
Roanoke has been honored for fostering public-private partnerships. The city has been particularly successful in raising private funds for public purposes such as its mounted police force and a new conference center.
Nearly 700 people from across the United States and from Canada, England and Wales came to learn more about such issues as how governments can form partnerships with citizens. The National League of Cities, a municipal organization boasting 15,000 towns and cities, chose Hampton because of its innovations in government, said Donald J. Borut, executive director of the organization.
``Hampton is an innovative community, recognized nationally for its efforts at reaching out to the community,'' Borut said. ``There's a lot of interest in the whole Tidewater area for its innovations and creativity.''
But being creative often means taking risks, Borut said, something most local governments have discouraged their employees from doing.
Over the past 10 years, he said, more and more communities began to see the need to do things differently - especially in the face of fiscal stresses - and city councils began rewarding creative ideas, even when they weren't always successful.
The leadership conference, dubbed ``Innovators at Work: Transforming the Public Sector,'' is a way for city workers to share ideas and talk about successes. It's a chance for city workers to pat each other on the back and to tell each other it's not so bad working for government, said Denise Baker, a spokeswoman for the conference.
``We were expecting 300 and we got almost 700,'' Baker said. ``We're beyond capacity. This is the largest innovators conference we've had. It shows the level of excitement and interest.''
Conference participants can choose from seminars on such topics as ``Strategies for Creating a More Compassionate City''; ``How We've Busted Out of Bureaucratic Framework''; and ``Reinventing Local Government.'' by CNB