Roundtable Report - July 2007

The final report from the July 2007 Roundtable on Leadership and Administration is now available.

This Roundtable was devoted to a CPAP community effort to strategize and guide our future forums on developing and understanding leadership and administration. Stepping outside the scholar/practitioner format we have followed for the Roundtable, we asked three CPAP doctoral students to lead this Roundtable discussion with specific audience engagement.

CPAP’s very own Susan Maybaumwisniewski framed and moderated a discussion with CPAP PhD students Maria DiPasquantonio and Jeff Stern, followed by breakout discussions with CPAP students. The report also reflects the reporting out from the breakout groups.

CPAP is glad to share this resource with interested students and scholars. Feedback or questions about the report are encouraged and may be submitted to this blog posting.

Ethics Question from Matthew Worner

My father is a city council chairperson in Mayville, North Dakota (ND). Currently, Mayville, ND and Portland, ND (which is two miles away) share police. Through its municipal budget, the Mayville (population - 1800) city officials hire the police and Portland (population = 700) pays Mayville under the terms of a service agreement. Because of the nature of small towns in North Dakota, and specifically, Mayville and Portland, "everyone knows everyone... the Hatfields and McCoys... everyone is related to everyone." Portland officials have recently decided to opt of this service agreement for cheaper services with the County Sheriff, who resides 15 miles away in Hatton, ND.

So, here's the public affairs (or ethics) question of the day... what happens if there is a violent crime incident in one of the Portland bars? The Sheriff that serves Portland is much farther away than Mayville City Policy and may take longer to respond (because the Sheriff could be half way acrocss the county). Knowing Portland police services are now the responsibility of the Sheriff, are the Mayville City Police obligated to respond to the violent incident if they receive a call? If they are not legally obligated to respond, might it be in effective political move if they do not respond? Ethically, do the Mayville City Police have a responsibility to act if they know in good conscience that the County Sheriff may not be able to respond as quickly as they could?

I think Mayville should respond in this instance because politically, it would be horrible not to respond since everyone knows everyone here and a civil war could basically break out between the two towns... and ethically, we have the responsibility to take care of the lives of others... we can talk about money later.

Give me your thoughts :-)

Matthew Worner - DHS OIG - MPA 2008