Budget Travel’s Top 10 Small Towns

Budget Travel just released their list of the best little towns in the nation, and here they are:

CAYUCOS, CALIFORNIA (pop. 3,000)
LEXINGTON, VIRGINIA (pop. 6,867)
BREAUX BRIDGE, LOUISIANA (pop. 8,200)
TUBAC, ARIZONA (pop. 1,900)
WALLACE, IDAHO (pop. 1,000)
SAUGERTIES, NEW YORK (pop. 5,000)
MOUNT VERNON, IOWA (pop. 4,671)
JACKSONVILLE, OREGON (pop. 2,750)
ROCKLAND, MAINE (pop. 7,680)
WHITEFISH, MONTANA (pop. 7,723)

-http://www.cnn.com/2009/TRAVEL/getaways/10/19/small.town.america/index.html

I continue to be intrigued with small towns and the quality of life they provide compared to their big brother counterparts -the metropolitan areas. Having been raised in Salem, OR, I don’t consider myself a small-town guy, but I have always been attracted to the ideals attributed to small towns. But I wonder, do the attributes traditionally associated with small towns really exist, or are they just ideals dreamed up by “city-folk” and portrayed by Hollywood?

I don’t know the answer, but I hope to discover it over the course of my career. The conflict for me is deciding where to start, in a small town or in a large city. It’s a question I will continue to pose to myself and others until I’m ready to start applying for positions.

Staying Neutral in a Political Environment

I appreciate the most recent post by Wes Hare, City Manager in Albany, OR, and his example of innocently getting too caught up in the politics of a friend while he served as a young city administrator:

“Elected officials rightly expect that a manager’s decisions and actions will be guided by professionalism, ethical principles, and the will of the city council…Managers are not free to be Republican, Democratic, or Libertarian administrators; and those who subscribe to the International City-County Management Association Code of Ethics are specifically prohibited from any political activity beyond voting…Managers who stray into the political arena lack the legitimacy endowed by an election, not to mention good survival instincts.

As a young city administrator, I worked for a mayor whom I greatly respected; and when he decided to run for the county commission, he asked if I would help out with his primary campaign.  My wife and I made a small financial contribution and handed out brochures in a neighboring city.  I was not a member of the International City-County Management Association (ICMA) at the time and had not read the organization’s Code of Ethics.  Our mayor lost the election, and it was fortunate that the eventual winner probably had no knowledge of my participation in the campaign.  The city I worked for could have paid a heavy price for my ignorance if the new commissioner held a grudge every time we needed something from the county.  More importantly, my political activity invalidated my claim to being an objective analyst of public policy.  I believe it is critically important that a politically neutral, objective analysis be available to decision makers as they consider public policy.  If the city manager’s objectivity is compromised by political activity, an important perspective may never get to the table.”

This is a great example to me of unintentionally crossing political lines by simply wanting to be a good guy and help out a friend. As someone preparing to enter the city administration profession, this is a great lesson to learn now rather than later.

The Ethics Monster Rears His Head

I encountered my first real ethical dilema within my MPA studies this week. Our first mid-term (first of two, so it should actually be called a third-term, sorry) in Managerial Economics was yesterday. After the test, I was in the student lounge area when I heard a coleague say something to the effect of, “I’m she glad we reviewed that test from last year that Sally (name changed to protect the parties involved) emailed to everyone.” What?! What test form last year? What email? I must have mis-heard, right?

I hopped on my laptop and got into my email account; sure enough one of my fellow students had somehow gotten a hold of last years mid-term and had emailed it out to everyone as a “study guide.” What made things worse, all the test questions were identical to the questions on the test I had just taken! Since then I have learned that several groups of students got together a few hours before class and went over the entire test together.

At first I felt like an idiot for not checking my email the night before (I was up all night studying for the econ mid-term), but then the thought crossed my mind,”Would you have used it?” I don’t think I would have. I believe I would have felt very uneasy about having last years test to study off of. It is hard to second guess what I might have done, but I can confidently say that had I known the test questions were going to be exactly the same I definitely would not have used it. But in not knowing how much the test would change form last year to this, it poses a somewhat different spin on the issue.

In the end, I think it comes down to how close to the edge you are comfortable walking. I recall the story of a traveler at the Grand Canyon that was inquiring after a mule he could ride down to the bottom of the canyon. As he asked the first mule master he was told, “this is a very fine mule. He can walk within two feet of the ledge without getting spooked or falling.” The second mule master boasted, “My mule can easily walk within one foot of the cliff’s ledge and remains study and confident!” As the man asked a third mule master he was told, “My mule stays as far away from the ledge as possible.” The traveler wisely selected the third mule.

Though I believe it is important to  push the boundaries of creativity and continually balance risks and rewards, I think ethics is one area in business, and in life, that we are better off staying as far away form the ledge as possible.