« Swimming Upstream | Main | Campaign Reason »
August 01, 2007
Write for the Job
|
|||||
| As I put together my resume for
the City Manager position I'm incorporating some ideas I've been working
on for the last several years. I was a little hesitant to put these ideas
on my blog, but for a number of reasons I decided to do so anyway. Reasons Why I Am Sharing My Ideas: 1. Most of you won't understand my recommendations. They're the kind of things only us city manager types can grasp with our intricate thinking processes. But I thought you might be impressed by them, and I like it when people are impressed by me. 2. The City is likely to put on a national search for city manager talent. By making my ideas public that raises the bar on the competition. I'm basically saying, "Go big, or go home" when it comes to Chico's management. 3. If the city uses my ideas I might get to charge them for a charrette, which runs about $50K per day. First Big Idea! Back-in diagonal parking is OK. But if you really want to solve the parking problem in downtown Chico you've got to think outside the envelope. We really need to push the box on this issue. I've come up with, and patented, the concept of back-in diagonal sideways reverse parking. We can increase the number of parking spots downtown by nearly 400% (see graphic above) with this simple change. The sideways part of the plan is where much of the space savings come from. But the reverse part adds additional safety to the procedure. Advocates of the old-school back-in diagonal parking cited increased safety and greater visibility of cyclists and automobiles as a result of backing in. Building on that I've added the reversed back-in, so you can actually face oncoming traffic, thereby increasing visibility by 73.89% (trust me, I've done the calculus). Stay tuned for my guaranteed deficit reduction strategies. Which are also patented. Update: One of my regular readers, whom I like to refer to as "reader number 2" submitted the public service announcement below. It does a good job of detailing how much safer back-in diagonal sideways reverse parking is as opposed to traditional parallel parking. |
|||||
|
Posted by Lon at August 1, 2007 08:00 AM
Comments
Sorry Lon, but back-in diagonal sideways reversed parking is but a pale competitor to my own nose-down with-traffic roll angle parking.
Imagine the iconic Cadillac Ranch. Now move the cars closer together and rotate them along their X axes so that their Y axes are diagonal to the curb--this being the "roll" attribute in NDWTRAP.
The driver need merely pull out of the through traffic lane to the curb, decelerate such that weight transfer "endos" the vehicle, pirouette on the front bumper and slide into the "toaster slot" trenched at a 70% angle to the curb. Nothing could be simpler.
Parking capacity equivalent to your BIDSRP, but with the encroachment to the through traffic lanes equivalent to old-school parallel parking slots. No need to take the curbs in several feet as with BIDSRP.
Brian Ray
Future Chico City Manager
Posted by: Brian Ray at August 1, 2007 09:32 AM
Touche' B-Ray,
It looks like my clinch on the city manager position is not as clinchified as I once thought.
May the best man-ager win!
Lon
BTW: Your comment was the 900th comment to my blog. I'll be sending you out a gift consisting of a sheet of recycled paper with the words... "Your comment was the 900th comment to my blog" embossed in gold letters on the front.
Please post your address, social security number, and one or two credit card account numbers (don't forget to include the 3 digit security codes) to the blog so I can get that prize to you.
Posted by: Lon at August 1, 2007 10:11 AM
wow lon, i lauged so hard i think i would vote for you... and i'm a liberal! great blog!!
Posted by: meagan dixon at August 1, 2007 01:44 PM
Meagan,
Thanks. I hadn't actually considered running a campaign for the position of city manager. But with the popular vote backing me, and a really good resume, I might just make it.
Lon
Posted by: Lon at August 1, 2007 01:58 PM
I'm going to take a cue from the Karen Laslo Roast and say "Let's do vertical parking".
This one could replace "The Hands" at City Plaza
http://home.earthlink.net/~keefergillman/Retouched/VerticalParking.jpg
Then there's
http://www.safetycenter.navy.mil/photo/images/images-101-150/photo121-1.jpg
or this one:
http://www.lolhome.com/funny-picture-1211839525.html
Then there's this vertical parking concept, but it would require building a parking "tower" and Karen et al would never allow such a thing in our town:
http://www.westfaliausa.com/products/parking/carsafe.html
Clearly the solution for the next City Manager is to ban cars from Chico downtown altogether. Yeah, that's the ticket.
What do I get for 901?
Posted by: Anthony at August 1, 2007 02:05 PM
Anthony,
Comment 901 gets 10 years of Rush Limbaugh's newsletter, a Sean Hannity / Fox News coffee mug, and free relationship advice from Dr. Laura.
Unfortunately for you, Meagan was comment number 901, so she's the lucky winner. She'll be getting that package in the mail "right" away.
But you get a pat on the back for number 902. Way to go pal.
Lon
Posted by: Lon at August 1, 2007 02:51 PM
I am REALLY looking forward to the Rush Limbaugh newsletter! I just ran out of chips for my guinea pigs cage!
Thanks Lon! You're the best!
Posted by: meagan dixon at August 2, 2007 11:45 AM
tsk tsk Lon,
You'll run afoul of the Payne-Oman crew if you put all these cars on their sides with their precious bodily fluids running into our creeks & streams killing our little critters.
Posted by: Ed McLaughlin at August 4, 2007 01:33 PM
Hey Ed,
I assumed that by the time we finished the studies, held all of the charrettes, and set aside funding to repaint the stripes we'd all be driving electric cars.
Lon
Posted by: Lon at August 4, 2007 02:25 PM
Lon, you want to run for City Manager but here's a suggestion. Alan Chamberlain proposes a strong mayor system for an "all-growed up" Chico so why don't you just support that and then run for mayor?
You've clearly got outstanding campaign signs all ready to go already. Just substitute "mayor" for "city manager".
You've got my vote and I'll make my cat vote for you, too.
-- Greg
Posted by: Greg Fischer at August 4, 2007 05:47 PM
Greg,
Thanks for posting. There are two reason why I would like to be elected to the appointed position of City Manager. The first is that only the City Manager can provide the administrative back-drop necessary to ensure cat voting actually takes place. Some candidates get a large percentage of their votes from the university. I hope to counter that voting block by getting a lot of my voters from the litter box.
The second reason is that if I can control the City Manager position I'm pretty sure I can secure the God-King-Overlord of Chico position (simple matter of a coup). The GKOoC is quite a bit more powerful than a strong mayor would be.
I hope you and your cat are willing to support me in that effort as well.
Lon
Posted by: lon at August 4, 2007 08:46 PM
Lon, sign me and the cat up for litter box lawn signs, support for the coup d'etat and any other means necessary to make you GKOoC.
Maybe that's the change to the City Charter Alan should pursue.
-- Greg
Posted by: Greg Fischer at August 6, 2007 05:07 PM