Balance Sheet - One of the fundamental obligations of public administrators is to do the very best we can to leave the organizations and the communities we serve in better condition than they were when we arrive. That is certainly not a knock on our predecessors; every day is an opportunity to do things better, and every improvement builds on the work that's already been done by others. As I move on to the next opportunity, I'm compelled to ask the question of whether I have met that obligation to the City of Sarasota. In the spirit of that question I make some observations:

The city itself is in excellent financial condition, and has in fact achieved the highest general obligation bond rating in its history. Thanks largely to exceptional growth in valuations the City Commission was able this year to improve some service levels without increasing millage rates, though the challenges to non-homestead property owners have also increased as their share of the overall tax burden continues to grow. Relations with our home county are extremely good.

We have adopted a citywide Continuity of Operations Plan that takes a big step beyond our traditional pre-disaster planning to guarantee the governments ability to function in the post disaster phase. Things like Neighborhood Points of Distribution (NPODS) are now a part of the vocabulary. Also on the public safety side, in the last five years we have seen a significant decrease (12%) in felony index crime rates in the city.

Downtown, Urban Planner and New Urbanist guru Andres Duany reported to us last week that our redevelopment work in the five years since the Downtown Master Plan was adopted has been "exceptionally well administered", and that we had achieved a rare combination of speed and quality with many of our downtown improvements. The adoption of those codes and zoning districts alone was a monumental step forward for the city. And although it's been said many times, it bears repeating - the long-sought downtown grocery finally materialized in the form of the Whole Foods Market.

Uptown, I also heard last week from the President of the local chapter of the NAACP, who indicated he was pleased with the progress that has been made in improving the city's interface with the Newtown Community with the opening of the Newtown Redevelopment Office and a lot of work by members of the SPD force.

On a broader scale the whole concept of Asset Based Community Development has been introduced and is at this point only very narrowly understood, but offers great promise for mining the resources of out citizens to address the issues of our neighborhoods.

Oranizationally, thanks to a lot of very high quality work by our Human Resources Department we have for our first fully developed Career Path Program for city employees, an updated and competitive salary administration system and somewhat stabilized health care benefit, a structured "Tool Kit" training series for city supervisors, and an in-house wellness nurse. We are well on the way to implementing a comprehensive building permit and review system that will serve as the platform fo much broader standardization and automation opportunities. In our Public Works Department we are also well underway with the process of seeking accreditation from the American Public Works Association, and in other departments across the city improvements in certification and training have been achieved.

We have also made a concerted effort internally to study and define what really makes a team like ours work, and have made great progresss against the dreaded "silo" way of thinking.

There have surely been adventures along the way - I doubt it's possible to move an organization and a city through as much change as we've seen in a short time without significant inconvenience. As they say, one can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. There have been many lessons learned, and in every case better systems developed for the future. I will also be the first to say that not every citizen of Sarasota is happy with every decision or occurence. It is a very difficult exercise to measure the success of something like a city based on the level of one person's individual happiness on a given day, or in a given year, as the life and evolution of a city take a long, slow path. I know there have been days downtown when nobody was happy in certain areas, and that means construction workers, neighbors, business owners, city staff and anyone else in the area. On balance however the input I have received tells me that Sarasota has improved considerably. Is that a unanimous opinion? Of course it will never be, but just yesterday I gave a downtown tour to 25 people from the City of Largo and I can fairly report that they were amazed by our improvement.

The answer to the original question is of course quite subjective. For me, I can look at Sarasota 2007 versus Sarasota 2001, both citywide and organizationally and say yes, we have come a long way on both fronts.

Finally, on a personal note I've had some great experiences sitting in the City Manager's office. I've had the honor of representing to the public some incredibly talented and dedicated people, the employees of the City of Sarasota, have met and enjoyed relationships with dozens more great people who regularly do business with city government, and have enjoyed visiting nearly all of our diverse neighborhoods.

As for that book I have in mind writing in my retirement, in the last year alone I've also been screamed at, kicked in the shins, lied to, and have met a number of characters even Carl Hiassen would appreciate. I'll not say more at this point lest the City of Sarasota come after me some day for royalties!