A request from above

This week Tom asked me to do some research for Jerome Miller, one of Phoenix's Deputy City Managers. Jerome is busy with overseeing several departments so I worked mainly with Brandi, his assistant, to complete the tasks assigned to me. At first this request did not seem like much fun but as time moved forward it become a project that I've become very proud of. This project and the following one both became resume builders that I can use in future internships or career. The first part of the project was to research the healthiest cities in America and where Phoenix falls into the ranks. Following my research I was asked to write an executive summary of my findings so I could present it to Council Member Valenzuela. This is what I wrote:

Briefing Council Member Valenzuela

Healthy City Rankings Review

The Issue

A literature review of electronic resources shows that Phoenix generally ranks mid-pack in terms of the “healthiest” largest city in the U.S.

AFI / The Measures

The American Fitness Index (AFI) is an initiative of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) that aims to assess the overall health and fitness of U.S. metropolitan cities. Scores are assigned by comparing various indicators to the national average and rewarding or penalizing the cities as appropriate. The scoring falls into two categories: 1) personal health indicators and 2) community and environmental indicators. The AFI report reflects a city’s preventive health behaviors, levels of disease conditions, health care access, and community resources and polices that support physical activity. The indicators that make the difference between a healthy, fitness-friendly city and one that ranks poorly is banning smoking in public places, adding parks, walking trails and bike trails, and prioritizing healthy habits. Many publications use various studies and reports, but the AFI is the most consistent report used. Forbes, NBC, Huffington Post, and other resources cite to the AFI where Phoenix ranks near the middle of all metro cities studied.

Another study is the Centrum Healthiest Cities Study which issued a “health report card” of U.S. cities. The 50 largest metro cities were tested against each other in five categories where Phoenix ranked 21st. Also, the Gallup Healthways Well-Being Index is another study to measure a city’s rank of happiness and health. The poll has surveyed more than 300,000 Americans and questions 1,000 people on a daily basis. The survey includes questions about jobs, finances, physical health, emotional state of mind, and communities. Phoenix ranks 69^th out of 190.

Phoenix

The AFI ranks Phoenix 32^nd among the 50 largest metro areas. Phoenix has the highest percentage of residents with asthma at 11.9%. Way below the average of 93.2, Phoenix only provides 71.0 health care providers per 100,000 residents. According to the AFI, 82.6% of Phoenix’s population reported participating in a physical activity in the last 30 days. With a decent amount of parkland, Phoenix fails in the number of recreational facilities provided leading to a 44^th ranking in community/environmental indicators.

Areas where Phoenix excels include: lower death rate for cardiovascular disease, lower death rate for diabetes, higher percentage of city land area as parkland, and more acres of parkland per capita.

Improvement priority areas for Phoenix are: higher percent with asthma, higher percent with angina or coronary heart disease, fewer farmers’ markets per capita, lower percent using public transportation to work, lower percent bicycling or walking to work, fewer ball diamonds per capita, fewer dog parks per capita, fewer playgrounds per capita, fewer golf courses per capita, fewer parks per capita, fewer recreation centers per capita, fewer pools per capita, fewer tennis courts per capita, lower park-related expenditures per capita, lower number of primary health care providers per capita. 

League Resolutions Sub-Committee Meeting

Today I had the chance to attend a meeting at the League of Towns and Cities. It's located next to the State Capital in an old white square building. I went with John Wayne to the Resolutions Sub-Committee Meeting where many city and town managers or government relations liaisons were present.     The topic was about the upcoming legislative session and possible 17 resolutions that may be presented to Legislature for consideration. The resolutions are issues from all over the state, where a group or single community wants Legislature to address and fix by supporting the resolution. Following this meeting, I had to prepare the documents needed for when the Mayors had their meeting at the end of August to discuss the Resolutions. It was an eventful meeting because every resolution was discussed, and in the end it with either amended, accepted, or rejected. In the end, all the resolutions were accepted or accepted after amendments were made. John Wayne explained to me that the resolutions were very tame as to what was presented in past years, and most likely all the resolutions will be accepted by Legislature. I'm looking forward to seeing how many are passed.

Nom Nom Nom

What I love about Downtown Phoenix are all the eateries. One of the ladies in the RWC was moving to another office, and we all decided to have lunch before she left. We went to Chloe's Corner, the first Downtown restaurant I've been to while interning. The menu choices were amazing and I always had the hardest time deciding what to order. During my first visit, I order the Chicken Pesto sandwich and it was so delicious. They also serve Iced Green Tea as an option and I love that! There are many other options for a quick lunch that I had a chance to enjoy including: 5R Cha Thai, any hot dog vendor, the 10th Floor Cafe in City Hall, Hoagie Factory, Chipotle, Five Guys Burgers, and a pizza shop. With Downtown expanding, there will be plenty of more options of restaurants to choose from and I cannot wait to try them out!

GRIC grants

This week I helped prepare the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) gaming revenue sharing grants. As part of the state's approval for gaming, all tribes with casinos must share 12% of their annual gaming revenues to either local or state governments. Each tribe can choose who they give their 12% to. GRIC decided to share their 12% with the City of Phoenix. The City receives the final prepared grants from City programs and local non-profits within the boundaries of Phoenix, and sends them to the GRIC grant reviewer. It was my duty to make sure there were 8 copies of the grant application and all the required documents. I then had to put them all together and have them ready for John Wayne to deliver to GRIC. We set a deadline early enough for the grants to be delivered on time. Many of the grants were over the maximum page limit but John Wayne said we had to deliver them as is, so we do not alter the documents. It was an interesting project because I was able to understand the different types of funding requested and what organizations need aid to better help the City.

What works in public works?

While waiting for John Wayne to finish a meeting with a Councilman, I sat in on the last part of the City Manager's Sub-Committee Meeting on Public Works. Three Councilmen and City Manager were heading the meeting with an audience of City employees and the public. When I first sat down to listen, the sub-committee was discussing the new change for collecting both recycling and trash. It was decided to move both collections to the same day since it would save the City money and also make it more effective. Moving from the same day collections, the sub-committee had someone come discuss the possibility of moving towards charging for plastic bag usage in stores. The speaker knew much about the topic as she discussed how well California and New York's program are working. The two main reasons for implementing such a program would be to increase revenues and become more sustainable. During the summer, I had a chance to visit L.A. and every time I went to a store I was charged 15¢ for using a plastic bag. After a while, I had to decide whether I needed the bag or could just take the items with me. I understand how this initiative could help the environment but I'm not sure what the public will think.

Meeting Our Mayor

During the first week I had the chance of meeting our Mayor and his staff. He asked about the MPA program and how I was liking the internship so far. He also asked my bosses about the meeting we just came out of and how I liked the meeting. His schedule is so busy and I had few opportunities to interact with him during my internship so I was happy we chatted quickly.

What I noticed is that he has a motivated staff and is rarely seen stressed or tense. He likes to constantly be up to date on what is going on with the City. I had the choice of two internships with the City, either with the Mayor's Office or Government Relations. I believe I made the right decision but sometimes wonder what it would have been like to intern in his office.

While with the City, the Mayor made national news from his accident playing basketball against the Phoenix Mercury team. It even made it onto TMZ, a celebrity gossip site, where the Mayor interviewed with the owner of the site. The owner tried to ask questions that would ruffle feathers but I believe he did a good job in answering all the questions in a professional manner. Our office had a laugh and joked about the Mayor's accident but it was good to see he was a good sport about the injury.

Who's it gonna be in 2012

With our department, politics plays an important role, especially during election season. Understanding who will run for Senate or House of Reps at the state level is key in deciding what issues will be affected that the City wants to push forward or change. At the beginning of every legislative session, the department meets with City elected officials in deciding where they want to go. Also, at the end of each session, the department writes an end of session report about every issue the City worked on, whether it passed or needed to be reworked into the next session. Knowing who will run in each district is important as to understanding whether they are a blue or red seat. With the unknown seats, they are colored yellow. I had to create a Legislative Race Candidates form that included all possible candidates and follow up with a Power Point map of both House and Senate to show Karen what's seats are open. Karen is a visual person so the map is really helpful in understanding who is the majority, but it is known that Arizona is a heavily Republican state. This assignment helped in my better understanding of state politics, and I am happy to say that I follow the race a little bit more.