Where I'll be during the summer months

The City of Phoenix is Arizona's capital and the sixth largest city in the United States. With over 15,000 employees, the city takes care of more than 1.4 million residents by various departments and services funded from the budget. In 1913, Phoenix turned to a council-manager form of government.

This is a link to a pdf file that will show the organizational chart for the City of Phoenix:
http://phoenix.gov/citygovernment/facts/facts/index.html

As you can see the Public is highest in the organizational chart because the Mayor, City Council, and underlying positions and departments make decisions based from and for the public. The chief administrator who operates the city on a daily basis is the City Manager; he has several managers that help in the process. Since Phoenix is undergoing management change due to two retirements, there are interim and newly placed managers.

The Government Relations department falls within the responsibilities of Karen Peters, who is the Senior Executive Assistant. She is also the director of the Government Relations department. This is where I interned for the summer and was able to see how the city interacts with the federal government, the state of Arizona, other cities and towns, tribal communities, Maricopa County, and various agencies and organizations. At the same time, the department provides grant coordination to organizations within the city.

Staff within the Government Relations department are:
Karen Peters - She is a former lawyer who has many years of experience in water law, and once was a partner at a successful law firm in Phoenix. With the help of others in the department, she is able to stay updated on all government actions that affect Phoenix and present them to the City Manager, Mayor, and Council.
Thomas Remes - He works mostly on federal issues affecting Phoenix, especially interacts with the lobbyists that we use in Washington D.C. Focus areas for our federal lobbying are: transportation, infrastructure, water, and environmental.
John Wayne Gonzales - He is the main person I worked with because he oversees the interns. John Wayne is the Intergovernmental Liaison (or lobbyist) for the department and during session spends most of his time at the State Capitol. Working mainly with state and tribal communities, John Wayne has over 11 years of experience with the department. He also oversees the tribal gaming revenue sharing that the city receives from the various tribes that have casinos.
Kathya Hidalgo - David Cavazos, City Manager, believed Phoenix could work more on finding grant funding so he had our department hire someone specifically to work on grants. Kathya is the lady who has this responsibility.
James Orlowski - James is our administrative guy who works a lot on our department budget. This summer I took Budget and Finance, and he helped explain how the budget works for our department which was tremendously beneficial. He also conducts research for the department as needed. Other than that I'm not too sure what he does since I did not work with him or Kathya as much.
Terrie Wimberly - One of the sweetest lady's I have ever met, she is Karen's assistant and office administrator to our department. From the beginning of my internship, she has helped in any way possible whether it was setting up my email or making sure my badge worked properly.