To: George D. Di
Ciero, City and County Manager, Broomfield, Colorado
Cc: Charles
Ozaki, Deputy Manager, Broomfield, Colorado
From: Alison
Miller Richards, Membership Programs Manager, ICMA
Date: June 13,
2008
Re: 2008 ICMA
Award for Career Excellence in Honor of Mark E. Keane
It gives me
great pleasure to inform you that ICMA’s Awards Evaluation Panel has
selected you as the recipient of the association’s 2008 ICMA Award for
Career Excellence in Honor of Mark E. Keane. The nomination was made by
Charles Ozaki. Congratulations on your outstanding professional
achievement!
ICMA’s Annual
Award for Career Excellence in Honor of Mark E. Keane recognizes an
outstanding chief local government administrator who has fostered
representative democracy by enhancing the effectiveness of local elected
officials and by consistently initiating creative and successful
programs.
ICMA will
recognize your professional achievement through several activities that
will take place primarily in conjunction with our 94
th
Annual Conference in Richmond,
Virginia, September 21-24:
*
Announcement of recipients in the ICMA
Newsletter and on icma.org
*
Invitation of nominated member recipients
to a Saturday night Leadership
Dinner preceding the Conference
*
Conference badge ribbon to designate award
recipients
*
On-stage recognition at the Conference
*
Invitation of nominated member recipients
to Wednesday awards reception
following the Conference’s Closing General Session
*
Commemorative plaques to each nominated
member that receives an award
*
Publication of commemorative awards
booklet with the October issue of Public
Management (PM) magazine
*
Listing of awards received in Who’s Who
online member profiles.
Award
Category: The Award for Excellence in Honor of Mark E.
Keane Nominee: George D. DiCiero, City and County
Manager, Broomfield, Colorado
Broomfield, Colorado, U.S.A. is a home-rule, council-manager, combined
city and county government with a remarkable manager at its helm in the
person of George DiCiero, who, in 2008, will celebrate 40 years of
creating, planning, managing and effectively building a masterpiece of a
community that her residents call “Hometown USA!”
In 1968, DiCiero
came to a small, newly incorporated, statutory city of 6,500 people and
1.5 square miles, and took the reins as its manager. He has carefully
and successfully guided Broomfield through its seasons of growth in area
and service levels with careful research, planning, and effective
administrative management, all the while advising and supporting
changing city councils. He has dedicated himself to building Broomfield
into one of the most exciting, livable, safe, well-planned and
well-managed communities in Colorado, if not the nation.
Now at over 33
square miles with a population over 50,000, Broomfield is a combined
city and county government - a feat which required a statewide election
to accomplish - with a mission statement that says:
Working in
partnership with the community, the City and County of Broomfield
provides excellent services in an efficient, respectful and courteous
manner to enhance and protect the quality of life and environment of
Broomfield citizens.
This is and has been
George DiCiero’s unwritten leadership philosophy. For nearly 40 years,
he has lived it and modeled it for his staff. It is a testament to him
that it was the staff who, embracing the concept, actually coalesced it
into this statement, and added an impressive list of guiding values to
the equation. The City Council’s endorsement of the statement has
solidified elected officials and administrative staff into a cohesive,
effective team with the community.
Realistically, there
is no way to condense DiCiero’s stellar 40-year career into a few
pages. A brief list of the accomplishments over which DiCiero has
presided include: implementation of a home-rule charter, establishment
of an administrative organization; developing departments, finance
policies and management structure; establishing development review
policies that assured high quality residential and commercial
neighborhoods, overseeing administration of budgets which grew from a
few hundred thousand dollars at the outset to over $253 million in 2008,
overseeing a growing asset base and providing for its ongoing
maintenance, securing financing for capital projects and successfully
incorporating county government functions into a combined - and reformed
- city and county organization within a three-year window that
culminated when Broomfield became the City and County of Broomfield
officially in 2001. DiCiero has fostered and nurtured economic
development efforts, overseen the continuing updates of Broomfield’s
Comprehensive Master Plan, authored a critical Long Range Financial Plan
to guide policies and development so Broomfield’s fiscal health does not
suffer as it builds out. His management results in annual budgets with
surpluses and reserves to protect against economic downturn, and his
recommendations help the community and elected officials to thoughtfully
manage future land use designations in a manner that currently projects
a positive ratio of revenues to expenditures at build out.
He does all of this,
and more, with an ear toward the community’s desires, and a willingness
over the years to educate, coach and support eight mayors and nearly 100
city councilmembers. DiCiero recruits and empowers high quality staff
members who are stars in their professions. He takes pride in their
awards and recognition, and even their accession to administrative
leadership positions in state government and the private sector. He
continually brings out staff’s most creative, thoughtful and effective
efforts.
In his early years
with Broomfield, “quality of life” were the watchwords DiCiero adopted.
It was and is imperative that the values and goals of existing residents
calling Broomfield home not be compromised by new growth and expansion.
Broomfield has had a master plan since the 1970s. Through all its
changes, additions and improvements, balanced growth has been a key
component. DiCiero has been a key player with elected officials in
strategically making growth “work” for Broomfield by achieving most of
the goals outlined in Broomfield’s 1998 Strategic Plan and by
establishing new strategic and master plan goals written into
Broomfield’s 2005 Comprehensive Plan for build out of the community.
Retail development to bolster sales tax revenues that pay for amenities
for residents, commercial and industrial development to bolster job
opportunities, housing developments to insure a reliable workforce,
transportation improvements to insure a healthy business climate and
safety for residents and visitors alike, acquisition of open space,
greenbelt and park areas through development agreements, and most
recently new development to provide wholesome entertainment
opportunities for Broomfield and the region have all been accomplished.
Broomfield now has a very strong and diversified economic base that
places it near the top of every revenue-producing category.
When residents
approved a sales tax funding source for open space and parks purchases
in the early 1990s, public and private collaborative efforts led by
DiCiero and elected officials have resulted in the acquisition of over
6,767 acres of publicly owned open land and easements and the setting
aside of 901 acres of privately-owned, permanently open land. These
results rank Broomfield as having one of the highest ratios of open land
in Colorado and put Broomfield well on its way to achieve its target of
40% open land at build-out.
In semi-arid
Colorado, water is a valuable resource. Early in his career with
Broomfield, DiCiero recognized the importance of securing a reliable
water supply for existing residents, and a supply adequate enough for
the future. The Broomfield City Council recognized this too. It
authorized DiCiero to find and purchase water rights, giving him the
financial and legal tools to do it, going so far as to put it in the
Broomfield Municipal Code. When the safety of Broomfield’s water supply
became compromised by the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant immediately
upstream of its storage reservoir, DiCiero and key staff members amassed
a coalition of water users in the region to seek a way to forever sever
the connection between Rocky Flats and the water storage facilities in
Broomfield and other jurisdictions that served over 250,000 people. For
Broomfield, this resulted in the complete replacement of half of its
water supply. The effort required the support of the Congressional
delegation, acquisition of grants from the Department of Energy, and the
construction of a new storage reservoir and water treatment plant fed by
a pipeline carrying water from a reservoir holding pristine runoff from
the Colorado Rockies - the “rooftop” of the nation. Today, thanks to
DiCiero, the foresight of elected officials and support from residents,
Broomfield has rights to enough water to support itself through to
build-out, is currently building a second reservoir to provide for
drought protection and a recreational amenity for the community and is
also participating in a large reservoir to firm up junior rights.
DiCiero understands
without equivocation the importance of citizen input into the workings
of government. Early on, he carefully structured the city’s
decision-making processes to include the public. Citizen committees,
boards and commissions actively provide added breadth to outcomes for
healthy governance. Public input has expanded over the years and
continues. DiCiero, a firm believer of transparency in government, has
worked with countless advisory groups to be certain that the ship he
steers enjoys favorable winds politically - something very much
appreciated by elected officials. The success of these efforts and the
confidence the community and elected officials have in DiCiero are
illustrated in: citizen passage of a funding package for construction
of a new interchange to provide easy regional access to a new retail
district, citizen passage of a financing package to build a new
municipal complex, maintenance facilities and recreational facilities;
citizen passage of a lodging tax to be used for landscaping improvements
and maintenance at key gateways to the city; citizen support for ongoing
lobbying efforts to state and federal agencies for improvements to an
old interchange that is the nexus of four major highways, citizen
passage of a sales tax to raise revenues for open space purchases and
park improvements and maintenance, and its reauthorization; a vote
exempting Broomfield, as a home-rule entity, from a statewide initiative
that requires citizen approval of all financing packages and eliminates
surpluses and reserves for governments in Colorado. Citizen confidence
in government and citizen approvals at this magnitude reflect positively
on DiCiero’s financial and administrative competency. That hundreds of
residents apply for positions on Broomfield’s advisory boards,
commissions and committees each year is a testament to Broomfield’s open
government. Each year, the council expresses regret that there cannot
be an appointed position for all who apply.
Until November 2001,
portions of Broomfield lay in four different counties. One crowning
achievement is the overwhelming citizens’ endorsement empowering staff
and elected officials to pursue efforts to become a combined city and
county and, after the statewide election passed handily, that energy was
directed to creating the new form of government. DiCiero’s guidance and
energy led staff and community representatives to “think outside the
box” to find ways for the new city and county to provide new and
innovative services. Innovations borne of this process include a new
version of health and human service delivery that avoided stove piped
services and created integrated services allowing access at any entry
point, a Central Records Office that avoids duplication of resources and
provides a one-stop counter for residents seeking information on
properties, property taxes, property records and voter services;
combined municipal, county and state courts in a single location with
electronic-filing the norm, and a police department that takes on
sheriff’s detention and civil responsibilities that also works in a
mutually supportive way to coordinate human services cases under the
single umbrella of the City and County Manager’s Office.
Broomfield is
recognized professionally by local, regional and national entities. The
city’s newest recreation center received Recreation Management
Magazine’s Great Expectations Award for innovative architecture, its
most prestigious recognition. The wastewater treatment plant expansion
received the environmental Project of the Year Award for medium-sized
communities from the American Public Works Association. The plant was
also honored as the best operated plant for its size in North America by
the EPA. The joint Broomfield-Westminster purchase and preservation of
an historic farmstead received the Denver Regional Council of
Governments’ Metro Vision Award. For eight consecutive years, Broomfield
has received the Government Finance Officers’ Association Distinguished
Budget Presentation Award, and for 13 consecutive years has received
that organization’s Excellence in Financial Reporting Award. Over the
last 19 years, Broomfield communications efforts in print, Web,
photography and video production, have been recognized by state and
national organizations. Six times over the past ten years, Site
Selection Magazine has selected Broomfield to be among the top ten
economic development programs in North America for netting the largest
relative number of new jobs and capital investments for our size.
Broomfield’s retail buildings have increased by 3.5 million square feet,
commercial/industrial buildings have increased by 4.9 million square
feet, total number of jobs has increased by 24,857 and capital
investments have totaled $2.5 billion. Last year Broomfield was
featured in a joint publication by the National Association of Counties
and the International Council of Shopping Centers as a community that
has successfully developed retail in a secondary market. These are all
the result of DiCiero’s empowerment of staff, and his encouragement of
them to excel.
DiCiero uses an integrationist model of management. His organizational
structure centers authority and responsibility in the single chief
administrator and the administrator’s aides, with departments organized
by their major purposes. DiCiero encourages innovation, creativity,
fiscal responsibility and personal accountability among all his staff -
and it works. He instituted a customer-service model, which the staff
refers to as “the Broomfield Way,” long before it became a widespread
culture in government. It represents his own friendly, inquisitive,
“can-do” attitude. His management style is open, creative and
immediate. He understands and values the abilities of people who can
connect with others and embraces the concept of teamwork. All
departments actively work to mutually support one another, with each
receiving great benefits in return.
George DiCiero has received recognition for his efforts over the years,
including: Boulder Valley School District Service Award, Broomfield
Chamber of Commerce Local Government Community Service Award, and
Distinguished Local Government Award from the Denver Federal Executive
Board, to name a few.
We
are three former mayors of Broomfield who are very appreciative of the
extraordinary work George DiCiero has consistently done over many years
and wish to enthusiastically endorse him for the Mark E. Keane Award for
Excellence. George’s accomplishments in helping to create a sustainable
Broomfield community are exceptional.
