With an opportunity here to blog about each issue of the magazine, I usually focus on the cover, feature, and PM+ (online only) articles. For May, I’m changing up that strategy and eyeing the department articles.

Ethics Matters! includes a basic lesson on ICMA’s ethics enforcement processes, including answers to 10 frequently-asked questions on how ethics complaints are handled. It is good to learn that ICMA receives only 30 to 40 ethics complaints each year.  

I found responses to the On Point question “What is your favorite part of the community that you manage?” quite sentimental. The managers who answered that question—Sherilyn Lombos, Bill Ebel, and Kristi Luger—probably had trouble, not surprisingly, picking just one thing. I suspect you will agree that what they did write about is touching (and true).

Your Replies is PM’s version of a letter to the editor, and May’s submission from Kathryn Dodson was in response to the “Women in Leadership” article published in the January/February issue. There has been a significant “13 percent discussion” since that article was published, which noted that only 13 percent of all CAO positions are filled by women, the same percentage as in 1981. I’m glad the discussions are continuing. Look for another response in the June issue.

Speaking about what is really going on in local government, Mike Conduff (Council Relations department, “A Good Governance System”) notes that managers have a responsibility to elected officials to help them understand what they have gotten themselves into and to help them develop their governance skills.

And there is more info with department articles on “Encouraging Rooftop Solar” (Active Living), “Building Resilient Communities” (Innovation Edge), and the infographic “Local Government + Data Breaches” (By the Numbers), where we see that only 13 percent of survey respondents are very confident that their public entity has adequate protection against cyber threats.

So if you think your community story is too trivial to share in PM, think again. I know managers and their staff members have a variety of other publishing options, including social media. But the smaller “nuts and bolts” items might be just what your management colleagues can use the most in a magazine format. I look forward to considering what you have to share (bpayne@icma.org) about your community.