The Political Whore

By Lorna Bracewell
PoHo contributor

Hooray for Florida’s very own  Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen! On Wednesday, along with a bipartisan coalition of 100 House members led by Rep. Barney Frank, she introduced a revised (read: trans inclusive) version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). When passed, ENDA will extend existing Federal protections against employment discrimination to also protect gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

A version of ENDA that did not include protections for transgender people passed the house in 2007 but died in the Senate. In a recent interview with the Washington Blade, Frank was cautiously hopeful about the bill’s prospects in 2009: “Things have gotten better. The transgender community is lobbying hard.  I just need to remind people that when we have trouble doing something in New York, Maryland and Massachusetts, it doesn’t get easier when you have South Carolina, Utah and Nebraska.”

Photo: City of Somerville/Jonas A. Kahn

The National Civic League ’s 2009 All-America City Awards gets in full swing tomorrow morning in Tampa. We’re highlighting one nominated project from each of the 30 competing cities (10 will be named AAC’s). Here is Somerville, Mass., a Boston suburb:

Somerville, Massachusetts
Improved Communication

Over the past several years, the City of Somerville has increased its focus on creating a transparent, inclusive form of municipal government for all community members and through a variety of media, to create a more inclusive and responsive community. This idea includes the creation of a government management model that not only tracks administrative trends and constituent requests to increase accountability, but also provides the City’s residents with the opportunity to respond to and provide feedback on City initiatives and the annual budget process, to create an inclusive, transparent form of government. To that end, in 2004, Somerville adopted the CitiStat model of management, dubbed “SomerStat,” which institutes a series of regular forums with all City departments and key decision-makers to identify problems, assess success of service delivery and track constituent concerns, determine opportunities for improvement and, along with the City’s 311 Customer Service Center, provide data on departments’ service demand and delivery, as partially determined by residents. Somerville’s goal is to build and sustain a continuous, positive relationship and ongoing conversation between City government and community members, and all of these tools have increasingly made that goal a reality.

Thirty cities, towns, neighborhoods and communities are vying for recognition as an All-America City at the June 16-19 conference at the Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel. Each will give a short presentation on three public-private civic projects they undertook before a panel of judges names the best. Tampa is one of the finalists.

Former Tampa Mayor Sandy Freedman is the president of the National Civic League this year and a big proponent of these kinds of partnership projects. During her tenure, in 1990, Tampa was named an All-America City. Creative Loafing CEO Ben Eason is also involved, as a member of the Host Committee.