Updated: Jul 19, 2021
Early in my professional career, I realized that under no circumstances should your boss, customers, or co-workers be surprised by anything.
So, how does that apply to my current job as your Mayor of Liberty Lake?
During my first 10 years representing you on City Council, I can count on one hand the number of times I received a call or email from a Mayor to give me a heads up on a potential bad situation or to ask for my input on something. Regular reporting to the council was minimal and quite frequently, items appeared on an agenda for approval when the council had not had an opportunity to discuss.
The day I took office as your Mayor, I decided those practices would change. I provide council and staff a regular report (weekly if warranted) of all the meetings I have attended (including high level topics), other impactful discussions & topics that have come up, and ideas for the council to consider in the future.
I have also personally called council members on numerous occasions when there is a potential negative issue coming - I have also called with good news. I would rather give someone a heads up on an issue and have it resolved than to not give that warning and have the council blindsided by an issue.
When I was Mayor Pro-Tem from 2014-2016, I never had a meeting with the Mayor. In the past, these two offices didn't have a relationship. Instead, they should be treated as collaborative. As soon as I was appointed, I set up a weekly meeting with the Mayor Pro-Tem to discuss things on my weekly report, and we also spend some time brainstorming about other potential topics.
In 2020, under Mayor Brickner, the City started to expand it's methods of pushing information to the community and of getting information from the community. Through NotifyMe, residents can sign up for various types of notifications of what is going on in the city. TextMyGov is a great way to report an issue - for example if you send "Pothole" to TextMyGov, you will be lead through some additional questions to report where that pothole is.
And, of course, my cell number is out there for the world to see so CALL ME: 513-519-8720