By Christine Burns
On behalf of the Executive Committee, I would like to wish each of you a happy and early spring. May your plowing budgets be on track and your salt supply low as we enter into these longer, warmer days.
As your president for the year, I’m going to focus on three Cs: Commitment, Communication, and Collaboration.
My commitment to the MME membership is advancement of the Strategic Plan adopted back in 2020. The board is fortunate to have Nicole Klepadlo on board as a consultant from the Nonprofit Spot. Nicole will be assisting the board with the implementation of the Strategic Plan.
My second goal in 2023 is communication. Those who know me well, know that I can be a bit sarcastic at times and that trait probably isn’t going to change during my presidency. I’ll just apologize in advance for my caustic wit; I may not always be able to tell you what you want to hear or how you want to hear it, but I do promise to respond in a timely manner. It astounds me how many phone calls, emails, and texts come in on a daily basis that are related to this position, but I promise to respond as quickly as possible to all that cross my desk.
Committee chairs who gladly accepted their charges back in January have started looking ahead, and for that I am thankful and appreciative. Plans are already underway for the summer conference to be held in Frankenmuth on July 25-27. The location for the dinner held at the annual ICMA Conference in Austin has been secured (Moonshine Bar & Grille). We hope that you plan to attend both!
Plans are ongoing for a Board retreat in late March; the board and committee chairs will gather, dust off the Strategic Plan, and review what’s been accomplished thus far. They will look ahead at what tasks remain and undoubtedly tackle those issues identified in the plan as being a top priority.
A new agreement was executed with the Michigan Municipal League that clearly defines the roles of each organization. The agreement with the MML had not been updated since 2001; it was long overdue. The board is also looking at changing our insurance policy to add a Directors and Officers rider.
Finally, collaboration. It’s the premise that we can all work together to better the profession and each other. Steel sharpens steel, right? One of the ways that can happen is through the appropriate use of the listserv and the sharing of knowledge. An orchestra can be electrifying when everyone is playing in harmony, but just one person playing out of tune ruins the performance for musicians and audiences alike. My hope is that 2023 will be an uneventful, yet educational, year of listserv utilization.
Christine Burns
President, MME
Manager, Spring Lake
Chris has more than 30 years of experience in local government. She has been the Village Manager in Spring Lake since 2012. Chris graduated from Central Michigan University in 1990 with a BS in Business Administration, majoring in management and then went on to earn her MSA in Public Administration from CMU in 2006 (Fire Up Chips!). She is a member of Michigan Municipal Executives (MME) and the International City/County Management Association (ICMA). She has served on the MME & MML Board of Directors and has been on the Michigan Municipal League’s Workers’ Compensation Board of Directors since 2010, serving as its vice-chair in 2017 and 2018 and its chair in 2019 and 2020. She and her husband Bill have two children and one grandchild. In their free time, they enjoy flying, home renovations, and time with their grandson. She can be reached at christine@springlakevillage.org.