GovManagement.com: public management in state, local and federal government

News, analysis and resources
on management in state,
local and federal government

Subscribe to our free daily e-mail newsletter:

Management news in your inbox:
Subscribe to GovManagement Daily

Quotable: Posted Recently

“I joked with my friends that I couldn't wait to move down here and learn to say 'y'all,' but it hasn't happened yet. I usually say 'you guys.'”
Joshua Katz, a 28-year-old New Jersey native and doctoral student in statistics at North Carolina State University, who has found himself in the international limelight thanks to his detailed online maps that illustrate speech patterns across the nation, which drew 30 million page views in the first week after being posted on a campus blog and then being linked from the social news site Redditt and from BusinessInsider.com
>> Raleigh News & Observer | Posted June 13, 2013

“We have a concern that children are losing their connection to the outdoors.”
National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis, on a new Park Service project that has recruited "Sesame Street" Muppet monsters Elmo and Murray to visit national parks in six short videos that encourage children ages 3-5 to experience the great outdoors and to apply scientific skills of inquiry to learn about natural settings
>> AP/Yahoo News | Posted June 12, 2013

“It's starting small and starting simple.”
Navy Lt. Ben Kohlmann, among those preparing an experiment in 3-D printing to be conducted in Norfolk, Va., and San Diego, beginning with custom-designed plastic parts such as clips, brackets and gas caps, while the Navy envisions more ambitious future applications for the technology, such as making ammunition
>> Military Times | Posted June 11, 2013

“Some will just call it Crackpottopia.”
Steve Mazurana, a longtime Greeley, Colo., resident and former political-science professor at the University of Northern Colorado, on a proposal by commissioners of eight northeastern Colorado counties--united by interests in oil and gas regulation, gun control, transportation, and agriculture--to break off from the state and form a new state to be called North Colorado
>> Denver Post | Posted June 10, 2013

“It's symbolic and 200 years late, however then and now it's the right thing to do.”
Woullard Lett, a member of the Manchester, N.H., NAACP, on legislation being signed today by New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan posthumously emancipating 14 slaves who fought in the Revolutionary War and who petitioned state lawmakers for their freedom on Nov. 12, 1779, arguing that the independence from Great Britain being sought by colonists should be extended to them as well because "public tyranny and slavery are alike detestable to minds conscious of the equal dignity of human nature"
>> AP/Concord Monitor | Posted June 7, 2013

“We understand when they hurt and bleed, we all feel that pain.”
Dallas Fire Department Lt. Nick Ravelo, who was among hundreds of firefighters from Dallas, San Antonio, Fort Worth and other Texas communities who sacrificed their days off to fill in at Houston fire stations so Houston firefighters could attend a memorial service for four firefighters who died fighting a motel fire last week
>> Houston Chronicle | Posted June 6, 2013

“I only have a month to ruin the university, and I better get on it.”
Ohio State University President E. Gordon Gee, announcing that he will retire July 1 but saying he isn't departing because of his jokes about "those damn Catholics" at Notre Dame and jabs at other schools, adding that "I have regrets when I have said something that I shouldn't have, but I have no regrets about having a sense of humor and having a thick skin and enjoying life"
>> Columbus Dispatch | Posted June 5, 2013

“They laughed at me.”
Janna Eikel, who retired recentlly after serving nearly three decades with the Kansas City police department, where she pioneered the use of new technology to pry open some of the city's oldest viable cases but who, at 5-foot-1, initially was rejected for joining the force because of a height restriction that later was repealed
>> Kansas City Star | Posted June 4, 2013

“The culture of the federal workforce is one where I don't think you can underestimate that if you don't keep reminding the voters but also the federal workers that we're watching, this will happen again.”
U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, the California Republican who chairs the House Oversight Committee, which will hold a hearing Thursday on a forthcoming inspector general's report finding that the Internal Revenue Service spent $50 million on conferences between 2010 and 2012
>> The Hill | Posted June 3, 2013

“I think there are many who think of judges as politicians in robes. In many states, that's what they are.”
Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who opposes the election of judges, making a plea in a lecture at Illinois' Elmhurst College for preserving the impartiality and independence of the judicial system
>> Chicago Tribune | Posted May 31, 2013

“I don't go to the governor's office and spin myself around in the chair.”
Massachusetts Secretary of State William F. Galvin, who will be thrust into the role of backup governor when Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Murray resigns next week and who has won praise for staying out of the limelight and tending quietly to the necessary functions of the office while previously serving as acting governor
>> Boston Globe | Posted May 30, 2013

“It's hard to feel good about coming to work every day when you're embarrassed, frustrated and uncertain about the future.”
An unnamed longtime employee of the Utah attorney general's office, saying morale has plummeted and the work environment has deteriorated, with employees worrying about retribution and job security, amid federal and state investigations into multiple accusations of ethical misbehavior on the part of Attorney General John Swallow and his predecessor, Mark Shurtleff
>> Salt Lake Tribune | Posted May 29, 2013

“You will need to not just deal with these debilitating, insidious and destructive forces but rather you must be the generation of leaders that stop it.”
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, addressing graduates of the U.S. Military Academy in commencement ceremonies at West Point, calling sexual assault in the military a "scourge" a day after President Obama delivered a similar message at the Naval Academy
>> Reuters | Posted May 28, 2013

“He doesn't run around with his hair on fire. He's very thoughtful about what he says. That commands a lot of respect.”
R. David Paulison, a former administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, on the calm demeanor of Albert Ashwood, who as Oklahoma's longtime director of emergency management is handling his 36th major disaster, the tornado that cut a 17-mile swath through the metropolitan Oklahoma City area leveling hundreds of homes and leaving dozens dead, is known as a mentor and coach among disaster managers nationwide and is now leading the National Emergency Management Association's efforts to reform how federal disaster funds are administered
>> Stateline.org | Posted May 24, 2013

“You can take what he does from an objectivity point of view to the bank.”
Former U.S. Rep. Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican, referring to the Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration, J. Russell George, whose audit uncovered the targeting by Internal Revenue Service workers of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status and whose public-service career has included stints working for former Sen. Bob Dole, as a New York prosecutor, as a staffer in the George H.W. Bush White House and as the chief counsel of a House oversight subcommittee, where George won plaudits for his impartiality from both sides of the aisle
>> National Journal | Posted May 23, 2013

“It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us, in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counter-terrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed.”
President Obama, pledging to redouble efforts on his failed first-term campaign promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorism suspects
>> McClatchy Newspapers/Miami Herald | Posted May 22, 2013

“I've been to maybe a handful of palm readers in my life. Just for fun.”
St. Louis Alderman Shane Cohn, who has introduced a bill to repeal a 1913 law that banned psychics and palm readers from the city--not, he says, out of love for the occult but to clean up and modernize the city's legal code
>> St. Louis Post-Dispatch | Posted May 21, 2013

“Thank you very much, President Sullivan. You are way better than that last president, Teresa Sullivan. She was terrible. I am so glad that they cut her loose. Good riddance, I say!”
Comedy Central star Stephen Colbert, the speaker at the University of Virginia's pre-commencement "Valedictory Exercises" recognizing top students and favorite professors, referring to the tumultuous events of last summer when the university's governing board ousted Sullivan and then later reinstated her
>> Washington Post | Posted May 20, 2013

“While the court finds these businesses to be nefarious magnets of mischief, the court doubts several square inches of fabric will stanch the flow of violence and other secondary effects emanating from these businesses.”
San Antonio federal Judge Fred Biery, in an opinion peppered with double entendres as well as references to famous writers, the Bible and a contortionist, denying a request by strip clubs to stop the city from enforcing a new San Antonio ordinance requiring entertainers to use bikini tops instead of pasties, saying the clubs "seek an erection of a constitutional wall and "clothe themselves in the First Amendment to provide cover against another naked grab of unconstitutional power"
>> San Antonio Express-News | Posted May 17, 2013

“It was pretty much a proctology exam through your earlobe.”
Karen L. Kenney, the coordinator for the San Fernando Valley Patriots, one of the conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status that were the objects of extra scrutiny from the Internal Revenue Service and which received an IRS questionnaire containing 100 questions 19 months after the group had submitted its application to the agency along with a $400 check to fast-track the process
>> Washington Post | Posted May 16, 2013

“Your meter expired; however, we saved you from the king's tariffs. Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Please consider paying it forward.”
Wording on a card placed under the windshield wipers of cars in Keene, N.H., by a group dubbed Robin Hood of Keene that patrols downtown armed with video cameras and pockets full of change to fill expired parking meters, six of whose members have been sued by the city on charges that the activists are harassing city employees
>> New Hampshire Union Leader | Posted May 15, 2013

“At no time did the officer violate any of my constitutional privileges and even gave me a juice box after I said I was thirsty.”
Review of the Arlington County, Va., Detention Facility posted on Yelp, the restaurant- and business-rating website that increasingly is being used by inmates and defense attorneys to rate lockups around the country
>> Washington Post | Posted May 14, 2013

“Try coming to the grocery store with me and see how you will be able to shop and buy your spinach and your milk and not be asked about a pothole or be asked about a streetlight out or complain about something that happened in the news.”
Detroit city council President Charles Pugh--who receives a base salary of $76,911 a year plus health care, a pension, a city-owned car filled up with city-paid gas and a city-issued cellphone--defending the council against critics who say the council, which consultants have recommended be made part-time with members' aides slashed to one each, is bloated and overpaid
>> Detroit Free Press | Posted May 13, 2013

“Seriously, we will never get the government we want if all we do is tear it down.”
Max Stier, the president of the Partnership for Public Service, hailing Public Service Recognition Week as something of an antidote to an acronym he has coined, "FBATT," which stands for "fed-bashing all the time"
>> Washington Post | Posted May 9, 2013

“Jack assured me that he is going to work to make at least one letter legible in order not to debase our currency.”
President Obama, joking about Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew's loopy, illegible signature, which the president's former chief of staff reportedly is practicing to improve before it is affixed to the nation's currency
>> Fox News | Posted May 8, 2013

“We really are just in the baby steps. This can go wherever we want it to go. The sky is the limit.”
Jim Diss, Scottsdale, Ariz.'s purchasing manager, on the city's sales of surplus and unclaimed items--ranging from a jukebox and barber's chair to jewelry and computers--via silent online auctions, which have brought in $160,000 in revenue in just nine months
>> Arizona Republic | Posted May 7, 2013

“Diligently serving without the expectation of fanfare, they enforce our laws, teach our children and lay a strong foundation for our nation's progress.”
President Obama, in a letter commemmorating Public Service Recognition Week, thanking federal-, state- and local-government workers and describing them as "committed to a cause greater than personal ambition"
>> Federal Times | Posted May 6, 2013

“We greatly appreciate the federal employees who are so important to our region, and we want to show our solidarity with those public servants who enjoy the sport of golf.”
Brian Knapp, chairman of the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority, on "Furloughs to Fairways," a 30 percent discount on greens fees the authority is offering to furloughed federal workers at its three golf courses
>> FederalDaily | Posted May 3, 2013

“These are all very hardworking people. They have a dream. They want to make their dream a reality.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger, speaking at the University of Southern California think tank that bears his name and invoking his own rise from bodybuilder to movie action hero to California governor in arguing for reforming the nation's immigration system
>> Los Angeles Times | Posted May 2, 2013

“It's going to look like a phone book.”
John Arntz, head of the San Francisco Department of Elections, on the ballot guide that will be mailed to voters this fall that is expected to run to more than 500 pages, thanks mostly to a referendum on the height of a waterfront luxury condo development, with a city law requiring that the guide contain the full text of the referendum as well as documents from Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors hearings and copies of studies relating to the development
>> San Francisco Chronicle | Posted May 1, 2013