03.04.13 Your Morning Buzz

Rose City Yarn Crawl fills 18 Portland-area knitting shops

Welcome Newest Members

Corporate Member: Ben Patinkin, President, Patinkin Research Strategies

Ben Patinkin, founder and President of Patinkin Research Strategies, has over a decade of experience providing research and strategic consulting for Democratic candidates, labor unions, conservation groups, issue advocacy campaigns and corporations. A graduate of the Riva Training Institute, he’s conducted scores of focus groups and hundreds of polls across the country working to advance progressive causes and candidates.

Individual Members

Laura Tilford, State of Kansas Department for Children & Families, Administrative Specialist

Nathan Jensen, Second Administrative Judicial Region, Administrative Assistant (Manager)

Douglas Daily, Western Oregon University, Student

Upcoming Forums

March 7: Tiffany Couch, Financial Investigation and Forensic Accounting – RSVP by Wednesday, March 6.

April 11: Greg Baker, Damascus City Manager

April 17: K.L. Wombacher, Hillsboro Hops General Manager

October 4: ELGL Annual Conference at the Kennedy School

The High Five

Why Are There No Big Cities with Municipal Broadband Networks? The Institute for Local Self-Reliance recently compiled this map of all the communities in the country that control their own access to the Internet. At best count, there are about 340 of them with publicly owned fiber-optic or cable networks, serving either all or parts of town. In these places, those residents and businesses served don’t have to spar with telecom giants like AT&T and Comcast. They get their Internet instead – like many communities do their electric utility – straight from the city.
Tax bills for the rich approach 30-year high, according to tax policy analysis – With Washington gridlocked again over whether to raise their taxes, it turns out wealthy families already are paying some of their biggest federal tax bills in decades even as the rest of the population continues to pay at historically low rates.
When mayors matter — and when they don’t – At the same time, on Friday, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder (R) declared a financial emergency in Detroit, paving the way for a state takeover of the city’s finances. Snyder’s decision provides a stark reminder that there is no equivalent of the Tenth Amendment protecting municipal authority. U.S. cities have only the powers that their states grant to them. Given those constraints, it’s important to ask: can mayoral elections actually influence how cities spend their money?
Some State Legislators Want to Work More, Not Less – Four state legislatures meet every other year instead of annually. Lawmakers in North Dakota and Texas want to leave biennial budgeting in the past.
For walkable cities, it’s not about the density – it’s about finding the right kind of density – Consider: Los Angeles is one of the densest cities in America; the godawful tangle of sprawl that is Tysons Corner – the prototypical “edge city” in suburban Virginia – is reportedly denser than downtown Richmond; the horrors of Cabrini Green in Chicago and other decrepit tenement towers were plenty dense. We need density for sustainability, yes, but it needn’t be uniformly high density, and if it isn’t people-friendly (and I’ll get into that), we will make things worse, not better.

The Career Center

The ELGL Resume Book…It’s Back – ELGL is now accepting entries for the 2^nd edition of the Resume Book. We encourage all ELGL members to submit a resume whether you are employed or you are looking for employment. Non-ELGL members can also submit a resume but members will receive priority placement in the book.

How to Create Culture in a Culture-Less Company – If “fun” isn’t the F-word you most frequently associate with your job and your company is devoid of culture like Zooey Deschanel of emotion in 500 Days of Summer, I can relate.

Who says it’s not a woman’s world? Success climbing the corporate ladder is elusive for many. But we may stand in our own way.

10 secrets of professional writers – The harder people try to write well, the worse their writing usually becomes. Here are some simple tips to follow.

Your Elevator Pitch Stinks. Here’s How to Fix It – The old, boring elevator speech is dead. Finally. Use these four tips to create a pitch that doesn’t sound like an outdated sales speech.

The World Wide Web

Talking with Potential Employers on Social Media? Follow These Tips from 4 Career Experts – From engaging on Twitter, to following up after an interview on a company Facebook page, jobseekers want to show that they know the latest tools and technologies. So how do you engage with your dream company during a job search in a way that is professional and also tech savvy? For the answers, I went to the experts.