How do you change your organization when you are failing to meet your customer’s needs and expectations?  Today this is what many people think when they need to use county services.  Of course this is not true in all cases, and the many that gladly interact with the county staff or use county facilities prove that the culture is not without redemption.  However; when it is about helping business, when it is about innovation, we suffer in Clark County.  So I say, let’s be outcome based in our judgment and measure success in agreed upon outcomes. We don’t have to choose between the environment and business.  We don’t have to choose between being compliant to necessary regulations or being able to respond to customer needs.

Here are a few ways a leader can change expectations.  Take your current performance on permitting of projects; compare it to all the cities in Clark County. How long does it take?  What is the quality of the service delivered? Invite all of the cities to join you in an improvement activity.  Invite private sector stakeholders to join you.  Set an outcome; because time is money, set a goal to cut the permit processing time in half.  Use this group to work with county staff and create a new process and change people’s paradigms.

Inspections of projects in the field generate many complaints about responsiveness. Remember time is money.  Create a certificate of inspection for the building community.  Use County trained inspectors for quality assurance – not quality control. These trained inspectors will be the teachers and auditors with builders willing to participate.   When the builders participate they show proficiency and don’t need to wait for inspections each and every time. Proven quality control from the builder becomes compliance with random audits.  Projects go fast – quality and public safety is maintained.

We have parks that are world class.  These gems need to be shared and accessible to the public.  We have a lot of land that could be parks but we do not have the revenue to maintain them properly after they are developed.  We need to do some things differently with parks.  To charge a fee may help the bottom line for parks operations but it also creates barriers to enjoying parks.  A $40 annual fee may be steep for many people.  Currently we offer a $10 discount for 24 hours of volunteer service.  A ten dollar discount for three days worth of work seems like a high threshold to reach.  We know that different parks have different demands for maintenance based on the intensity of use. But it is fair to say that they all need maintenance.  Much of the maintenance is routine and less than glamorous. We also know that many people are loyal to specific parks and those parks do not require a fee to get into them.  I believe in the ability to tap into the volunteer pool to a much greater degree and get, landscaping, trash collection, painting, field maintenance and other routine tasks accomplished with trade of volunteer hours for the parking access.   We can easily come up with a reasonable ratio of volunteer labor hours for the parking pass reward. 

My private sector background and training makes me uniquely prepared to guide the county government through the changes necessary to be responsive and customer oriented.  My years of “Lean” experience, gives me the right training to pass on to the Clark County staff.  When employee and citizen ideas are utilized to actually accomplish the business of the county; these ideas can yield work that can be done in a more efficient manner.  Quality, consistency and proper attitude are attributes that can be re-established as hallmarks of a government that works for you. I offer you a local county government that you can be proud of and trust. I will show up for work every day and work hard to give you the service you deserve.  Vote for me, Ron Barca, Dist. #1 County Commissioner.

Thank you for your consideration,
Ron Barca for County Commissioner Dist. #1