After three weeks working as an intern at city hall, the place is feeling a little more homey to me. Scarecrows decorate the sidewalk in front of the building, with one scarecrow even posed as a road surveyor overlooking Johnson Drive from his stance.
I got an even more personal feeling for the local government after I received a tour of city hall and met some new faces around the building on Wednesday, Oct. 12. City clerk Keith Campbell gave me a tour of the almost maze-like inner workings of city hall.
For those of you who haven’t visited the building, it is basically divided into two spaces. A generic foyer opens to doors on your right and left side. From there, no clear central space exists.
My tour began with the right side first, where various departments are scattered throughout random hallways. Sprouting from the maze, the office of business liaison Eric Ely stands out. More of a section of a wide hallway than an office, Ely’s space wins the award for most work-in-progress office. Campbell warned jokingly not to touch the tack board which essentially separates Ely’s office from the hallway because it might fall down. I laughed at the joke until a few drops of water fell into Ely’s strategically placed trash can from a ceiling that is missing a few large pieces of tile.
The tour continued through a back hallway that led to the upper left side of the building. I don’t know how we got there, but various staff members including those in the finance department and the city’s tech people materialized in front of me.
After that, a series of stairs led us to a group of staff engineers. At this downstairs level I saw the largest table, a drafting table, in the office of one of the city planners.
From there I was led past a workout room (the thought of these people dressed in business casual dress working out amuses me) and past a hallway with rooms sprouting off of it dedicated to file storage. Different policies determine what records the city must keep but by the looks of the rooms, most things are not lightly thrown away.
As the rest of the rooms became a blur, the familiar right side of the foyer where my work space is located after an easy walk straight down the hall came into view. Campbell asked me if I had any questions and told me I’d know where to find him. Little does he know that if I can hardly find the bathroom in this place, I certainly won’t know where to locate him anytime soon.
Another city mystery I am determined to find out is where everyone parks. They certainly don’t park out front where only a few cars occupy the lot. Maybe their cars are buried away somewhere just like their office spaces.
Although I am still a little helpless on a few of these topics, things are looking up: today I exited comfortably through the employee exit. It was a miracle I could even find the door…
