Career Advice from Tasha Logan:
What's the best career advice you've ever gotten? Don’t just look for a job. Find out what it is that you are good at and enjoy doing. Make a list, specific to you, of what it would take for you to be successful and happy as you evaluate employment opportunities.
What would be the top three tips for success you'd give someone starting their local government career? Never underestimate the value of internship experiences or the chance to work on ‘special projects’ in your field. Get to know people at all levels in the organization. Stay abreast of trends in the field.
What are your favorite job hunting tips? Networking – talking with others, professional organization announcements.
What do you think were the most important steps in the path you took that led to your current position? I made sure that I was academically prepared. Don’t be afraid to take what looks like a step back to move forward. In my case I left a fairly comfortable environment and took a slight reduction in benefits to work in the field of local government.
How did you get your current job? I worked for the organization as an intern prior to graduate school.
What are the top three web sites you find most helpful professionally? Outside of ICMA, most are specific to NC, for example – www.nclm.org
What's the most interesting book or magazine you've read recently for your professional life? I enjoy articles in PM magazine – specific to local government; Community – Peter Block – Must decipher what is realistic for your situation; The Economist; USA Today
On the value of ICMA membership
- The resources; knowing you’re part of a larger network; having colleagues who are dealing with the same things you're dealing with.
- The professional development tools ICMA provides, such as the conference keynotes.
- The commitment to excellence and personal leadership. Proper training is invaluable.
- The ability to share your experiences with those who share your commitment to providing your community with prosperity and addressing quality-of-life issues.
ICMA sets clear goals and priorities for the organization. Seeing how your professional organization does that inspires you to go back and look at your own organization. You have to set priorities and goals, and implement the council’s policies. ICMA provides the resources to help us do that.
Project Implementation Details
Downtown revitalization that honors historic preservation
We are in the process of implementing a historic downtown revitalization project. For the first time in decades, we have new houses being built around our downtown core, which surrounds the commercial district. There were several vacant lots and boarded up homes that were unsightly and created public safety issues.
The process for the commercial area was well under way with the development of a downtown master plan. A consultant had been hired to develop the plan and was willing to expand the scope to include some of the surrounding neighborhoods.
The initial conversations about the neighborhood portion of the plan came about when the chief building inspector calculated it would cost one million dollars to tear down the buildings, which we all preferred not to do since so many were historic. We wanted to make sure that people who live in the area could still afford to do so, while also preserving the historic buildings.
We have a closely knit team working together to make this huge project happen, including the building inspector, police chief, planning director, public works director, fire chief, city manager, downtown development director, and me. We also have two partner organizations – Preservation North Carolina and Self-Help. We maintain a close connection with the master plan consultant who helped develop a strategic plan for the development of the area.
We have already built three affordable homes and have sold one of them. It’s very exciting to see the structures going up, the positive changes to the area. People want to live there now. We’re all so glad the plan worked out this way. With regard to our historic structures, the renowned national publication “This Old House” has dubbed Goldsboro, North Carolina, as No. 10 in the top 16 places across the country to get a bargain on an old home.
The police chief focused on changing the perception of downtown by actually publishing community statistics that downtown has the lowest crime rate and making sure the houses under construction were not vandalized while development was in progress. We began entering into signed agreement with absent owners to enter the properties of the historic structures awaiting renovation.
Some of the lessons learned from this project were how well our team works together and how to work across department lines in nontraditional ways if necessary. We worked on being consistent in our responses and knowledgeable about each component of the project; if you call any one of us you get the same message. We had tremendous support from the council. For example, the council decided to use city funds for the project rather than a loan or other funding.
The ICMA connection – The importance of networking and teamwork that ICMA provides members with. Our team had the commitment, the relationships to make this happen internally and externally. It was a risky project, an example of the kind of decisions we have to make in local government each day, whether this was the right kind of risk to undertake and in what format or scale. It goes back to our Code of Ethics, where it talks about the worth of the services we provide and a deep connection to social responsibility.
Creating an arts academy program
This project was the direct result of ideas we heard at the 2007 ICMA conference, especially Daniel Pink and Bill Strickland’s keynotes and the field demonstration to Manchester Bidwell Corporation and its subsidiaries, Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild and Bidwell Training Center: The Pittsburgh Cultural District.
Reflecting on the impact of cultivating creativity and the arts on education and development, we decided to create an arts academy which was launched with an after school program for 30 first to fifth graders for the 2008-09 school year. It is open to anyone living within the city district and designed to provide enrichment and an engaging after school option for children who might not have the opportunity economically to attend an after school program of this design.
For the first year, the program focuses on music and art; eventually, we would like to add theater and dance. Research shows that math and language test scores go up when children are involved in arts education, so we’re hoping that this provides an enrichment that also helps them academically.
A small team consisting of the downtown director, city manager, parks and recreation director, and myself have worked together to develop and implement the program.