The Blog from City Hall

My trip to the United Kingdom is over. I’m back at work. But before I get fully back in the saddle, I’ll share my final thoughts about the UK.

The scenery in London was fantastic.

Although the Brits didn’t seem to think much of their national rail system, I thought that it was very easy to use and to navigate. It wasn’t cheap, but it was effective in getting us throughout the country. I road this line north from London to Scunthorpe.

We saw a great soccer match with Scunthorpe United defeating Leyton Orient 1-0. If you’re a fan of English football, keep your ears open for the name of a young Irishman from Scunthorpe named Andrew Keogh. He’s going to be a star someday.

The English are not known for their food in this country. That’s too bad because I thought their food was splendid. See this plate of fish and chips and peas. I ate it. All of it.

The architectural detail on English buildings was impressive. I always had the sense that I was in a historic building.

When I pulled into my first British train station, I could not find a garbage can anywhere. I later found out that they don’t use public garbage cans. You just set your garbage on the floor and somebody comes by a picks it up later. Why? Public garbage cans were a favorite of the Irish Republican Army bombers of the 1960-1990’s. It reminded me that the British public has lived with the threat of terrorism at home a lot longer than we have in America.

Close circuit television cameras are everywhere. Very pervasive. This might be our future too.

It’s a little hard to see in this photo, but I saw an old man wearing knickers.

The hospitality of the British people was first rate. They were always willing to help me get to wherever I needed to go. They are proud of their history. They are interested in us and the way that we do local government in the United States. It was a great trip. Now it’s time to sort out what I learned and get back to work.

Cheers.

I may have made it home OK, but I did not complete my reports from the field. I’ve got two more to finish up. This report is about our visit to Surrey County.

This is the Surrey County Hall. It is a historic building. The palm-like trees out front made me think, for just a moment, that I was pulling up to some sub-tropical embassy somewhere instead of a County Hall in South London. It is a historic structure. It was first opened for business in November 1893. It has beautiful stained-glass windows throughout. Here’s a sample:

Interestingly, the County Council is moving County operations out of this building. The building is full of asbestos and is difficult to heat, cool, and manage in the modern age. They are building a new County Hall that will be open sometime next year.

Another reason the County Council decided to build a new County Hall is that the current Surrey County Hall is no longer located in Surrey County. It is located in the Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames, which was in Surrey County when the County Hall was opened in 1893. But a later boundary change implemented by the national government adjusted Surrey County’s political/geographical boundaries so that Kingston was moved out of Surrey County. So, now the County has a chance to moved their County Hall back into their County. And understandably, they’re going to do just that.

We met with two representatives of the Surrey County Council. That’s Councillor Andrew Crisp on the left in the lavender tie and Councillor John Carruthers on the right in the grey suit and green tie. They are both Conservative Party members. The Surrey County Council is a Conservative Council. The Council has been in the hands of the Conservative party for over 100 years in Surrey, with a brief four year break in the late 1990’s.

Councillor Crisp was the reason for our visit to Surrey. He is a participant in the ReadMyDay national project. Councillor Crisp is a talented blogger in his on right. He sees his blog as a way to engage with a citizenry that is becoming increasingly reliant on electronic means of communications. Councillor Carruthers was a bit skeptical of the whole idea of communicating via weblog, but I think he was coming around by the end of our presentation. Maybe not all the way around, but closer.

Councillor Crisp treated us to a wonderful meal of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding in the Council Dining Room on the upper level of the County Hall. Their dining hall open to Councillors-only and their guests. The food was great. The atmosphere was very formal and very British.

It was a productive visit to Surrey.

I made it back. I needed to be back home by Saturday, February 26 to attend tonight’s Eden Prairie Foundation Ball. My wife and I have been looking forward to this event for months. It should be fun.

I’ve got a couple of posts to make yet about the trip. I’ll get back to that tomorrow.

Scott and I made our presentations on civic leadership blogging to a gathering of ReadMyDay bloggers and other interested people yesterday at government building in Westminster, a borough in the heart of London.

We shared the podium with Clive Soley, Member of Parliament and longtime blogger, shown here being introduced by our colleague Milica Howell from the Hansard Society.

It was a great venue. If you look close, you can see Scott in the center of the above photo.

For more photos of the gathering at 7 Millbank Street, see the UK Photo Album.

Councils should get blogging says e-Democracy e-Government Project

A group of learner bloggers has come together to be coached by experienced practitioners from Minnesota in the USA.

Local officials blogging for readers

Some elected and appointed officials around the metro area are using Web logs to keep their constituents in the loop on just about everything from redevelopment efforts in Rosemount to where the Eden Prairie city manager was going on a winter getaway.

Official tours U.K. to talk about blog

Eden Prairie City Manager Scott Neal apparently got a big promotion this week, though his bosses on the City Council might be surprised to hear about it.

Local officials blogging for readers far and wide

Not long ago it might have been hard to find out what’s been ailing the Northfield police chief, or where the Eden Prairie city manager was going on a midwinter getaway, or the latest redevelopment efforts in Rosemount.

Toast and post
Eden Prairie City Manager Scott Neal recently brought readers of his Web log up to date on preparations for his trip to England, where he is meeting with British officials interested in government Web logs

Soccer Bloggers’ Iron Will Satisfied

Two American visitors, who are more used to footballers wearing body padding and helmets, are due to be watching the beautiful game Scunthorpe-style this weekend. Computer expert Griff Wigley and Scott Neal, the city manager of Minnesota, are visiting the country as part of a project to help civic leaders in the UK set up their own weblogs - or blogs - which are like an internet diary. Although they are not setting up blogs for civic leaders in North Lincolnshire, the Government-funded project is being led by NorthLincsNet - an organisation set up to promote the region and help get it online

Louise Alexander is a City Councillor for the Borough of Tower Hamlets. Tower Hamelts is a borough of approximately 200,000 people in 10 square mile area. It is very densely populated, and the home of some of the newest tall building commercial development in London. This is the part of London that suffered the most war damage in WWII.

Councillor Alexander is a Liberal-Democrat Party Councillor. She is in the Opposition on her Council. The Tower Hamlets Council has 51 members. There are 33 Labor councillors; 15 Liberal-Democrats; 1 Liberal-Democrat Independents; 1 Respect Party councillor; and 1 councillor from the Conservative Party.

The population of Tower Hamlets is quite racially and ethnically diverse. The largest ethnic minority group are immigrant and citizens who claim heritage in Bangladesh. In fact, Bangladeshi councillors are in the majority of the Tower Hamlets Council.

Councillor Alexander is an active blogger, and a good one too. Griff and I did our presentation for representatives of the Tower Hamlets Council and staff tonight. We had a good mix of staff and elected officials at presentation. I think this may be the first place we’ve been where we are working with a Councillor from the Opposition party in the Council. Being in the Opposition is more than being just a member of the minority party in a legislative assembly. It can affect the Councillor’s access to staff and information. It’s fundamentally different from the system I work under where I have a duty to serve all Councilmembers equally, regardless of their political tenure or affiliations.

It’s different, but it works. And it’s worked in this country for over 1,000 years.

We’ve stayed the past two nights in Black Heath village section of Lewisham. Here’s a quick look of the village on my walk around their downtown this morning. I’ll add an audio annotation of my walk at the end of this post.

Our first appointment on Wednesday was with an official from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. Griff is writing about that visit at his blog. You’ll have to see that for more details on that meeting.

But after that meeting, we got an insider’s look at the new offices of the British Home Office. They’ve been in their new offices for less than a week.

The Home Office is, by my best estimate, akin to a combination of our FBI and Department of Justice, with quite a bit of our Department of Homeland Security, all rolled into one. As you might imagine, they are the tip top in security. Tip top, I say.

We got inside the Home Office to meet with this guy:

That’s Mike Alderson holding an Eden Prairie Police Department insignia patch. Mike is with the Citizen Focused Policing Team of the Police Reform Unit of The Home Office. Mike was interested in meeting us because he has become a regular reader of two American Police Chief blogs: Chief Gary Smith in Northfield and Chief Dan Carlson in Eden Prairie. I know both of them well. I’m proud to say that I happened to have hired both of them for their current positions. They are both very good Chiefs, and I’m a good guesser.

Mike is currently involved in helping to train police officers in the UK, and actually all over the world. He travels extensively in Europe, the Middle East, and the Caribbean training police officers on what it means to be a “customer focused” police officer and department. He gave me a great Power Point presentation on the subject that I intend to share with my PD when I get home. It’s great stuff.

Mike really likes what Chief Smith and Chief Carlson are doing with their blogs. He uses screen captures of their blogs as examples of how police can connect with their communities in his presentations around the world.

You may not have realized it before, but what Gary and Dan are doing with their blogs in their respective communities is at the forefront in a coming revolution in community relationship building activities for police departments.

Chief Dan Carlson

Chief Gary Smith

We had a great meeting today with our new friends from the London Borough of Lewisham. This is Griff with Councillor Andrew Brown. Cllr Brown has been a very active participant in the ReadMyDay project here in the UK. I encourage your to check out his blog. It’s a particularly good one.

On the left is The Honorable Mayor of Lewisham Mr. Steven Bullock and on the right the leader of the leader of the Conservative Party members of the Lewisham City Council, Mr. Barrie Anderson.

This is the Young Mayor of Lewisham. His name is Manny Hawks. He is 16. He stood for election just like The Honorable Mayor Bullock. His term is coming to an end with the upcoming elections this year. He was a very sharp guy. He’s got an active weblog too. I recommend it. It’s quite well done.

Lewisham is more of an inner-ring suburb of London than Kingston, at least in the way that we use that term in the Twin Cities. It is wonderfully diverse. They appear to be one of the more innovative London suburbs, or UK cities, for that matter. There is an interesting program they’ve launched here called Love Lewisham where they have figured out a way to harness the observation skills (and mobile phones) of their citizens to assist in improving the aesthetics and public safety of their community. We may have to give this a look in Eden Prairie. It’s working wonders here.

We met up with Mary Reid yesterday. She is a City Councilor on the Kingston City Council. Officially, they are called the Royal Borough of Kingston, or RBK for short. I did a quick presentation for their Chief Executive, Director of Human Services and Councilor Reid.

Kingston has been been a Royal Borough since 1280. That’s when the King granted them their first charter to become a “city”. One of the reasons that they are a Royal Borough is that they served as the royal coronation location for kings of yesteryear. In fact, this is a photo of the coronation stone that was used to coronate the Saxon kings of England in the 900’s.

Another city, another presentation of the Key to the City of Eden Prairie to the local authority. This is presentation is to the leader of the Liberal-Democratic Party at the Kingston City Council meeting last night. The Lib-Dem’s, as they are called here, are in control of the Council in Kingston.

We’ll be meeting up with Councilor Reid and Roy Taylor later at Parliament this week.

For now, got to catch a train.

Ta.

We just arrived at our hotel here in Wimbledon after a delightful day in Bristol and Kingston.

It’s about 10:15 pm and although all the coffeehouses are closed and none of the pubs have internet access, I’m camped outside of another Coffee Republic coffeehouse and using the MyCould internet access from a bench nearby. A bit tough on the fingers for typing, as it’s around 0 degrees C.

About all I have time for is the uploading of a couple dozen more photos in the UK Trip Album and a check of email. We’ll try to audioblog more when we can.

Me with Stephen Hilton and Carol Hayward in Bristol.

L to R in Kingston: Roy Taylor, Scott, Bruce McDonald, Mary Reid

It�s Tuesday in the UK. It�s probably Tuesday in the US too. I�m writing this on the train from Bristol to London�s Paddington train station. When we reach Paddington, we will change trains and complete today�s journey into Kingston-upon-Thames. We�re rescheduled to meet with Kingston City Councillor Mary Reid and Mr. Roy Taylor who is the Director for their City�s Communnity Services operations. Councillor Reid is a prolific blogger. She had very nice things to say about Griff and me. That’s good. Oh, Roy is a blogger as well.

But back to Bristol for a moment.

We took the train down to Bristol this morning from Worchester. We gave a presentation last night to the Wychavon (pronounced �witch-avon�) District Council. There were twenty or so in attendance. A good mix of elected officials and staff members. They received our presentation warmly and were very interested in all aspects of having a weblog.

As I have in other Cities, I presented a Key to the City of Eden Prairie to Wychavon Board Chair Dave Noyes on behalf of the Mayor and City Council of Eden Prairie. It�s a gesture here that is quite appreciated.

But now let�s get back to Bristol.

It is a very historic nautical city. It reminded me somewhat of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. There were many public monuments and statutes dedicated to significant Bristolians throughout the centuries.

Bristol is a city of 450,000. It has a City Council of 70 members. The Council has a Labor Party majority at the moment. Here�s a photo of their City Council Chambers. It was large room and awe inspiring in its history.

We met in Bristol with Mr. Stephen Hilton and Ms. Carol Hayward of the corporate communication department for the City of Bristol. Mr. Hilton has been taking part in the national ReadMyDay project. That�s how we connected with him. I’ll get a photo of them up later, but for now, here’s a shot of their historic City Hall, called College Green:

Mr. Hilton introduced us to City Councillor Claire Cook.

Councillor Cook is a Labor Party Councillor and part of the Labor Leadership of the City Council. She champions issues related to youth. She is interested in starting a weblog, but had many questions and concerns that she wanted to speak with us about. We met with her for about an hour before it was time to shove off for the train to London.

And now that all from Bristol.

We catch the train for Bristol in 45 minutes. I”m blogging this from the street outside the Coffee Republic which doesn’t open till 7:30. It’s snowing lightly.

I see we made the Star Tribune today:
Local officials blogging for readers far and wide

I’m uploading a dozen or more photos as I write this… hopefully, my laptop battery will hold till it’s done, so check the UK Trip Photo Album.

We had a fabulous day in Wychavon yesterday with Anne-Marie Darroch and colleagues at the District Council. Check Scott’s blog later, as he may have an audioblog report.

We arrive in Bristol around 9 am, then depart at 11:30, with ETA of 2:30 at Kingston with Mary Reid, Roy Taylor and colleagues.

The Scunthorpe United Football Club has started a program called Study United. Study United is an educational program for local kids that uses soccer as the primary learning tool. So how does soccer work as a learning tool? Well, for starters, the program is carried out at The Iron�s local stadium, called Glanford Park. The program�s educational facilities are first rate.

Mr. Steven Wharton and Ms. Jane Laws

The Club owner and President, Mr. Steven Wharton, is very proud of the program. He shared in start-up funding of the program with the North Lincolnshire Council. He introduced us to the Centre Manager for Study United, Ms. Jane Laws who gave us a tour of the program offices and facilities. You can learn more about Ms. Laws and her staff at this link: Study United staff profiles.

Here’s a look at their facilities:

There are many computer terminals, which include web cams, DVD writers, and mucho software. There are also Power Point facilities, a Smart Board, and video making equipment. The program caters to kids who need something extra just to stay in school, as well as to kids that we would label as �talented & gifted� in this country.

The students in the program can study mathematics by studying the dimensions of the field; the flight of the ball; and the economics of a typical game day. They might study social studies by looking at the customer base of the soccer team; maps of where the players are from; and current events in the world of soccer. They can study language arts by examining the match day program; news content of local sports sections of the newspaper; and by authoring stories about the team. The soccer subject matter keeps students interested in education that might otherwise drop school all together. And sometimes players from the team drop by to urge the kids on in the program. They are encouraged to do that by the team’s manager.

Ms. Laws and our host from Northlincsnet, Mr. Fraser Henderson, struck up a conversation during the tour about ways in which they might collaborate to add value to the Study United program. In addition to their expertise in all matters technology, Northlincsnet has also developed an online e-democracy game that is targeted at getting children interested in democracy and government. It is the type of thing that would be perfect for the Study United program.

Until today, Fraser had never met Ms. Laws. Football and blogging brought them together in an odd twist of fate. Odd indeed, but fortunate for all.

I’ve been learning more about local government in the UK everyday. I had an indepth conversation the other night over dinner with our hosts from NorthLincsNet. Click the link and you’ll hear what I found out about the local government authority for North Lincolnshire: