Taking it all in

One of the advantages of interning in a large municipality (yes, Peoria is a large municipality in spite of what some long time residents of the valley say) is the broad exposure to services cities offer. I have been lucky to have been encourage to tour and learn from as many of these services and departments as possible. The majority of my time has been in the budget office, followed by the city manager's office, but during my time I have experienced first hand lots of other things.

For example, I went on "ride-a-longs" in both areas of public safety (fire and police). These were both new experiences for me. I have never been in the military or anything else that would remotely prepare me for these experiences. It was definitely interesting to spend a day in the life of what these men and women do day in and day out.

I've also been out with street crews patching roads. I rode around town in a garbage truck. storm sewer, recycling, and street sweeper trucks... yep seen them all first hand. I've even see the truck that paints lines on the street. Peoria also has a traffic signal department, and what I would call a traffic command center. It is state of the art stuff, and is even a backup command center in the area for Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) should they ever need it. I've even toured a waste water treatment plant. The list goes on and on... and there are still lots of things I've not seen.

My point in bringing all this up is this. We often hear people speak disparagingly of government, sometimes rightly so. What I really wish is that more residents could understand and see the services that local governments in particular provide. These are things that play a major part in daily life, and may not be provided by anyone else. So my charge to anyone reading this is before you lump all governments together, or make claims about what government does or does not do, go out and see for yourself. See if your own municipality can't change your mind.