2011 Alliance Award Winner - Outstanding Achievement in Local Government Innovation

We now commonly hear that the financial situation of governments demands new thinking and new responses.  We can no longer use the traditional thinking that governments can raise taxes and/or cut spending.  Entrepreneurial thinking explores the solutions of raising all kinds of revenues but also looks for creative ways to change the paradigm of governments as service providers.  In Rancho Cordova, when a need is surfaced, we don’t think of ourselves as always being the service provider, but rather, we ask ourselves how we can be brokers, facilitators, catalysts and educators to help fill the citizens’ and community’s needs.

This philosophy and management style was challenged a few years ago to address the number one priority of our newly incorporated city, less than eight years old.   Rancho Cordova, an aging urban edge city, struggles to re-invent itself into the modern, complete city it aspires to be.  City government has “walked the talk,” committing to the help the community in a way that does not take the responsibility fully onto City shoulders, but works together in a transformational image upgrade effort where citizens have been tasked to do much of the heavy-lifting.  It requires moving the focus of our civic life from City Hall into the businesses, families and organizations of the community.

As a result, a community once the target of regional denigration has emerged on the other end as a center of enviable civic pride and enthusiasm.   In 2010, Rancho Cordova became one of 10 cities nationwide to win the National Civic League’s “All-America City” award for innovative and collaborative community problem-solving