Elected Official's Little Handbook: A Portable Guide for Local Government Legislators (Little Handbook Series)

Congratulations, youve been elected to a local government office in your community - city council, board of supervisors, school board or special district. Your euphoria lasts about as long as your first meeting. During the election campaign you distinguished yourself from others by upstaging opponents, making promises about increasing services and lowering taxes, and even attacking the existing governing body and its policies. Confrontation and rhetoric worked well. As soon as you take your new seat, you are thrust into a world that requires a different set of skills and understandings. Within days, you discover that virtually every tactic that brought you success during the election campaign backfires in your quest to become an effective governing board member. While you are givensome slack, you are soon ostracized if you continue to rely upon campaign rhetoric. The confrontational mode is counterproductive and turns colleagues off.