March 14, 2008 03:09 pm
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By David Wilfong
Herald-Banner Staff
The Rockwall City Council met in a special session on Monday night to receive C3 presentations from teams comprised of city staff.
The council heard four presentations dealing with development, knowledge retention, green standards, and traffic congestion.
The C3 concept was first introduced by Mayor Bill Cecil who said he was familiar with the concept from past experience in both government work and private business.
“The purpose of C3 is to focus on the customer’s expectations and to build your processes to respond to the customer,” Cecil said.
“C3” stands for “customer-centered culture” and is a strategy designed by Rob Lawton, who has consulted with the City of Rockwall on the implementation of that strategy locally.
Cecil reported that the city staff is currently about a year and a half into the process and that the first four projects were designed to be executed in a training mode for staff.
Cecil, Margo Nielsen and David Sweet served on a city subcommittee to oversee the development of the process.
“When the city undertakes a project you have to look at what is a reasonable citizen’s expectation of how long that would take,” Cecil said.
The first presentation made by Tony Santoro of the Rockwall Fire Department. Dubbing themselves the “Developmental Dawgs,” this team looked at how the city could more quickly facilitate the needs of those seeking certificates of occupancy (COs) and other steps necessary to develop within the city.
Nielsen recalled that there were 148 steps identified in the beginning of the project, asking if that amount had been reduced. Santoro stated that it had, but City Manager Julie Couch stated that they do not have a final number yet as it was “an ongoing process.”
The second presentation detailed the cost of Knowledge Loss to the city in terms of losing employees due to retirement or attrition. It was noted that in 2004 there were more than 80 percent of the city’s professional staff that were nearing retirement eligibility. Currently that figure is down to 38 percent.
As an example, many of the maps for city service needs date back as far as the 1920s. It was reported to staff that 25 percent of the city’s service maps were either inaccurate or lacking complete information, though maps from 1986 on were quite accurate.
One of the measures taken by staff to alleviate this problem already was the use of hand-held GPS devices to “tie-down” the location of fire hydrants, valves and manholes in the city. The result was that when the city received word that the Clow company recalled parts of hydrants that were recalled, the city staff was able to identify affected units “in seconds” as opposed to “months.”
The third presentation dealt with sustainability. With the interest in “going green” that was illustrated surrounding the opening of the new “green building” concept at Toyota of Rockwall, city staff sought to identify ways in which the city could also increase its sustainability and efficiency.
A “concept plan” presented to council was the construction of a sustainable multi-purpose center on a 50-acre park on the north side of Rockwall.
Cecil stated that while the presentation was a “concept” plan, the council will be looking for ways to incorporate elements into existing facilities.
In the final presentation, the council looked at causes and possible solutions to traffic congestion. City staff reported that congestion occurs city-wide whenever there is a major incident on I-30. Possible solutions ranged from improved signage to an AM radio broadcast to inform motorists of existing projects.
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