The Team Comes Together
Tuesday December 13, 2005
I received another phone call. The other woman who had been assigned to Allen Parish was a local who has been reassigned to a parish nearer her home. She has been replaced by Chris Corbett. A planner recently hired by CDM for this effort, Chris is now living in San Francisco and has spent many years in Dubai working for various firms on various projects.
Cliff arrived tonight and Chris will be here tomorrow in time for the Government Officials Planning Workshop in the Afternoon. I have also met with Garrick Soileau (pronounced Swallow), a sergeant with the National Guard who has been assigned to our team as the State government liaison. They have been trying to identify a second guard member, but need someone who lives close by since there is know funding for putting them up in a hotel.
This afternoon, I went to Jefferson Davis Parish to assist them with their workshop. The Workshops have two objectives. The first is to hear from local elected officials what they see as the problems caused by the hurricane, the issues they see in an eventual recovery and the things about the Parish they feel it is critical to protect or restore. The second purpose is to generate buy-in from the local officials for the planning process.
A firm from New York has been hired to organize the workshops so that all workshops follow the same format, deal with the same issues and are documented in the same manner. The goal is to be able to both easily compare and contrast the various parishes and to be able to easily roll up the results into a state-wide assessment. A woman named Jenifer is this firm’s representative at the Jefferson Davis Parish and will be he person heading out to Allen Parish. She is a very competent, professional and personable woman. It turns out she was in the Peace Corp in the Philippines and worked on developing local planning capacity in general and water and sewer planning in particular. She came to love international work and asked how I managed to find such work as an independent consultant.
Although sparsely attended, the meeting went well. I was the facilitator for one of the two tables of participants. With only four officials at each table the planned three-hour session ended about 30 minutes early.
In discussions after the meeting one of the folks relayed an interesting story. At one of the meetings held the previous day, the question of Parish Treasures was raised. The sheriff who was seated at one of the tables said that a parish treasure was the fact that there was a nativity scene on the green, an open bible on the mayor’s desk and the Ten Commandments on the wall in his office. Trying to be diplomatic, the facilitator wrote “strong religious values” on the flip chart. She was quickly corrected that it should read “strong Christian values.”
As I said, I have a lot to learn.
I received another phone call. The other woman who had been assigned to Allen Parish was a local who has been reassigned to a parish nearer her home. She has been replaced by Chris Corbett. A planner recently hired by CDM for this effort, Chris is now living in San Francisco and has spent many years in Dubai working for various firms on various projects.
Cliff arrived tonight and Chris will be here tomorrow in time for the Government Officials Planning Workshop in the Afternoon. I have also met with Garrick Soileau (pronounced Swallow), a sergeant with the National Guard who has been assigned to our team as the State government liaison. They have been trying to identify a second guard member, but need someone who lives close by since there is know funding for putting them up in a hotel.
This afternoon, I went to Jefferson Davis Parish to assist them with their workshop. The Workshops have two objectives. The first is to hear from local elected officials what they see as the problems caused by the hurricane, the issues they see in an eventual recovery and the things about the Parish they feel it is critical to protect or restore. The second purpose is to generate buy-in from the local officials for the planning process.
A firm from New York has been hired to organize the workshops so that all workshops follow the same format, deal with the same issues and are documented in the same manner. The goal is to be able to both easily compare and contrast the various parishes and to be able to easily roll up the results into a state-wide assessment. A woman named Jenifer is this firm’s representative at the Jefferson Davis Parish and will be he person heading out to Allen Parish. She is a very competent, professional and personable woman. It turns out she was in the Peace Corp in the Philippines and worked on developing local planning capacity in general and water and sewer planning in particular. She came to love international work and asked how I managed to find such work as an independent consultant.
Although sparsely attended, the meeting went well. I was the facilitator for one of the two tables of participants. With only four officials at each table the planned three-hour session ended about 30 minutes early.
In discussions after the meeting one of the folks relayed an interesting story. At one of the meetings held the previous day, the question of Parish Treasures was raised. The sheriff who was seated at one of the tables said that a parish treasure was the fact that there was a nativity scene on the green, an open bible on the mayor’s desk and the Ten Commandments on the wall in his office. Trying to be diplomatic, the facilitator wrote “strong religious values” on the flip chart. She was quickly corrected that it should read “strong Christian values.”
As I said, I have a lot to learn.
posted by J Corlss at 7:59 AM
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