Foster Shipping out to Nashville

[XLFD]

Ludington City Manager Mitch Foster is heading south this weekend to the home of country music, Nashville, Tennessee.  While he's not slated to belt out some classic Johnny Cash songs at the Grand Ole Opry, he does have an engagement with a worldwide crowd at the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) conference held between October 20-23.  Let's hope he's not charging his travel expenses to the city without council's explicit approval.

Foster went to his first ICMA conference before he got out of college and got officially into the city manager trade.  In Engaging Local Government Leaders (ELGL) Foster effuses about the yearly event and admits that it allows him the time to reconnect with other lovers of local government in a personal manner to right his internal ship.  He points out that ICMA is going through a generational transition, and extols engaging in civil conversations about how the two organizations can better support members and work together even with disagreements.  Foster should make a favorable showing as a representative of Ludington. 

ELGL events will be represented at the ICMA on Monday October 21, and feature GovLove episodes over hot chicken, a civicPRIDE mixer honoring the LGBTQ civil rights movement, and ending with bocce ball and Tennessee beverages at a digital afterparty.   Enjoy your beers among peers while you can, Mitch, for the next Monday night and beyond there may be some high waters and rough seas for that internal ship.

[Du Wright]

Interesting ... Were Mitch Foster's conferences approved as part of his contract? I hope he learns to reset the civil discourse of civic discussions, how to listen to public comments, and encourage them and that the city will learn to engage it's citizens and not ignore those comments they don't like to hear, but rather learn to understand the criticism as well the back slapping.

[XLFD]

Great question, I did locate Foster's city manager agreement with the city in the February 11 council packet, it followed the same template as John Shay's, almost:

Unless he gets express approval from the city council beforehand to cover those expenses, which he hasn't received, Mitch needs to foot the bills for this conference  This could get interesting.

[Du Wright]

Thanks, XLFD for that research!

[Freedom Seeker]

When I first read the title to this post, I thought maybe Foster has had enuf of Ludington already and was looking for a new job. What better convention than that to make contacts? Now that reality has probably started to sink in, with what has gone on before in infrastructure neglect and the overwhelming debt in Ludington, I couldn't blame him if he shipped out permanently. Meanwhile our Council for the most part is clueless, has been clueless followers of an agenda that has put the city in huge debt, the city attorney doesn't counsel, and does a 30-something manager have the wisdom, experience and fortitude to really help Ludington, or is he a back-slapper going along with the party-bunch spending like drunken sailors and putting all facade and parties first in importance?

[AQUAMAN]

With the kind of salary our City Mgrs. of recent are making, Foster should have no problem paying for this himself, pocket change. Thanks for the heads-up again X, yes it will be interesting to see how the expense of the convention plays out in the end plus one week's leave after he just starting working here, really not fair to locals.