One of the most frustrating subjects that often comes up when I talk with city leaders is the constant coffee-shop rumor mill and how devastating it can be to a town. Larry Paine, City Manager for Concordia, KS (population 5,714) has a couple of innovative ways that he tries to counter this often-negative coffee-shop chatter.
He has a blog (http://concordiacityhall.blogspot.com/) which keeps citizens informed about what is happening in the town. Recently he has been trying to hire a police chief, a frustrating experience for him. His blog relates the steps that he has gone thru and progress that he has made to date.
Concordia also has a “Tuesday Morning Coffee” for local citizens and chamber members. Larry told me, “It is designed to inform everyone about the week’s activities. It is a rumor-mill killer. Anyone can ask anything.”
An initiative that he started in the spring of 2004 at the Tuesday Morning Coffee has grown into what locals call the “Larry Paine Sign of Life List”. He has compiled a list of entrepreneurial companies that have grown in the past five years. Today he has 90 companies listed that fit his criteria of “starting a new business, expanded, built new, and those that purchased a business. We’ve found that a community that produces business growth like that is not dying.”
Some great ideas from Kansas! Try them in your town.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment