Each week, City Manager Tom Aspell zips up his chicken suit, scratches around the yard for worms, gives a couple of warning ba-gocks and pops out a farm-fresh, free-range city memo. Here's what he cooked up for us this week:
dollar billz, y'all
Tom's all about the Benjamins, baby
Let's give a round of applause for the folks who hold the purse strings to our fair city, which was recently awarded a certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting by the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada, for its comprehensive annual financial report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2010. “The certificate of achievement is the highest form of recognition in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting, and its attainment represents a significant accomplishment by a government and its management,” Tom writes.
out with the old
Many (fire)hats
Tom also thought you should know that Battalion Chief Aaron McIntire has been promoted bureau chief for emergency medical services and professional standards in the Concord Fire Department.
“Chief McIntire has served with the Department since 1998 as a firefighter/paramedic, paramedic lieutenant, and captain,” he writes. “He has served as a battalion chief, in charge of one of the department's four battalions, since 2008. In his new role, he will oversee all of the fire department's training and professional development programs, and will also serve as the department's safety officer.”
hooray for technology!
The library meets smart phones
“Do you forget your library card all the time? Does your library card get lost amid the dozens of cards you carry around?” the city manager coyly asked. How did you know, Tom? Are you following us around again?
“If you have a smart phone, the answer is in sight! The library has a barcode scanner that is able to read your library card barcode on the screen of your smart phone,” he explained “Scan your library card barcode into your phone using a barcode app and then present your smart phone to the library staff when you want to check out material.”
pushing up daisies
And then trimming them very carefully
Jim and Minxie Fannin, preservation consultants from Fannin & Lehner, recently came to Concord to conduct training on the conservation process for cleaning and resetting monuments in the Old North Cemetery, Tom tells us, with four members of the Friends of the Old North and four city staff attending.
“Eight monuments in the Old North Cemetery were cleaned and reset during the training. City cemetery staff and members of the Friends of the Old North will continue to clean and reset monuments using the techniques they learned,” he wrote.
