Nominations for the 50th Annual Civic Awards

The Municipal League began the Civic Awards in 1960 to focus attention on the under appreciated efforts by public officials, private citizens and organizations to improve local government.

Nominees are evaluated by the League’s Civic Awards Committee and approved by the League's trustees.

Honorees represent a diverse array of civic and community leaders. Last year’s honorees included:  Lisa Macfarlane, the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, John Stanton and Norm Rice.

Nominations are due Jan. 15, 2009 at 5 p.m. Winners will be announced in early February.
Download the nomination form here.

Municipal League Publishes Review of Metro Transit

The League convened a committee of citizens to review Metro Transit and recently published its report.  The report made recommendations around four findings:

• Finding #1:  Performance Measurement and Reporting
  Metro publishes few performance measures and no long-term trends.  While the agency uses performance data in its service planning, it needs to apply systematic published standards in a transparent way.
• Finding #2:  Service Allocation Policy
  Metro allocates new transit service based on a conception of equity and area coverage that isn't built on ridership demand, service needs or cost effectiveness.  Service should be targeted at activity centers, corridors, the type of demand and the best mode for each.  King County policy makers need to revisit the current allocation policy.
• Finding #3:  Strategic Plan for Public Transportation 2007-2016
  The Strategic Plan for Public Transportation and its priorities urgently need to be revisited. The plan needs a much sharper focus on a back-to-basics approach: set clear priorities to fix service problems, then allocate service to follow demand and growth-management goals. 
• Finding #4:  Clarity and Transparency
  Metro lacks clarity, accessibility and transparency in its public information.  A lack of performance measures and clear standards make for opaqueness in the decision process.

Click here to read the full report.