Re-imagine Tomorrow

A letter from MML President Ryan Spiegel:

Dear Municipal Leaders,

Imagine... developing your city's future workforce and contributing to its public safety via a citywide summer jobs program for youth.

Imagine... gathering diverse stakeholders and investing in a culture that allows a municipality to vision and plan as a community.

Imagine... thinking in terms of ecosystems to better understand how seemingly unrelated factors in a given area function and connect to promote constructive action and disrupt negative ones.

These things were done in Boston, San Antonio, and Newark as part of an effort to innovate within municipal government. It may be widely assumed that these larger municipalities can and do innovate. Let's show legislators, businesses, and constituents that cities and towns of all sizes in all parts of Maryland are creatively solving problems.

My theme for MML this year, Reimagine Tomorrow, is about doing what we do differently -- thinking up and implementing new ways to successfully challenge the status quo. We should never justify a course of action with the excuse that "that's the way it's always been done." We're here to serve and to provide programs that increase the quality of life for our residents. Some of our practices are tried and true, but even proven methods can be made a little more effective or efficient with a simple tweak. I'm asking every municipality to look at how they're doing business and share with us a program, resource, service, practice, or policy that you've implemented, or will implement in 2019-2020, that reimagines tomorrow. It might involve technology but it doesn't have to; you might be approaching economic development, sustainability, human resources, budgeting, elections, or any other issue in new and interesting ways.

Throughout Municipal Government Works (MGW) Month in November, and in December too, we will post these innovations with the hashtag #ReimagineTomorrow on MML's Twitter and Facebook pages, to celebrate Maryland's cities and towns. This will be a great opportunity to showcase our municipalities and give statewide exposure to your innovative solutions and success stories. It will also be a useful educational exercise, and I encourage you to adopt or adapt great ideas that you learn about from other cities and towns.

I invite you to provide a description of your creative program or policy, no longer than the average tweet (280 characters), and a photo and link to any information related to the program that may be on your municipal website. Here's an example:

"The City of Gaithersburg is using LASERS to measure the cracks in all its roads, helping it to optimize its maintenance schedule and budget wisely for infrastructure projects. Just another way that Md cities and towns are working to #ReimagineTomorrow"

Please send this information to MML's Engagement Director, Paula Chase Hyman, at paulah@mdmunicipal.org.

I hope that you'll join me in highlighting what our cities and towns are doing that's different, new, and creative to Reimagine Tomorrow in service to our residents. I look forward to seeing what great things are happening across our state. Thanks in advance for your participation in this effort!

Sincerely,

Ryan Spiegel
MML President, 2019-2020