More on Public Structures
In April 2009 the City Council created a Fiscal Policy Advisory Committee to make recommendations about the City’s long-term fiscal sustainability in protecting the public structures essential for the Eau Claire community to flourish. The 2009 FISPAC Report to the City Council found that:
“Fundamentally, City government = public structures. Public structures are the physical, organizational, and social systems that help define and connect our community, allow us to get things done, and help ensure the health and well-being of our community.“
Protecting public structures is also a key theme in the City Manager’s Budget Message for the recommended 2011 Program of Services:
“The public structures and services in Eau Claire that we have built and maintained for generations are the foundation for our community and fundamental to our continued prosperity, stability, and economic opportunities in the future. The ongoing challenge for our annual operational budgets as well as for our capital investment program is to ensure that we protect the public structures and systems essential for the well-being of ordinary community members and pass on for future generations a strong and vibrant community.”
Deciding how best to invest public resources for the community’s long-term success is challenging and difficult. Sound-bite slogans and heavily financed advertising often overwhelm the public dialogue we need as a society to understand policy issues, and make informed policy choices. But perhaps a new era is on the horizon.
No surprisingly, the role of the public sector is seen differently by different generations. Patrick Bresette, a research with the national non-partisan research organization Public Works, commented earlier this year on generational civic differences found in a Pew Research Center report, Millenials: A Portrait of Generation Next. The Millennial generation is generally defined as those born between 1980 and 2000. By 2016 the Millennials will be 100 million strong and likely to exceed the Baby Boomers in political and cultural impact. Bresette notes that the Pew report characterizes the Millennials as civic-minded and perhaps more inclined to reclaim government and the public sector as a tool for public good.
Perhaps we are on the cusp of a transition from the Me Generation to the We Generation. What might that mean for our communities?