At the City of Winters, we always carried a mantra that the City needed to be an “integral part of the community.” That meant maximum participation throughout the entire town with the schools, community organizations, service clubs and with every day citizens. We saw a huge influx of folks into the volunteer fire department, the establishment of explorer programs in public safety, our assistance to groups like the friends of the library, etc.
A common theme of success was always doing things which involved young people and working to bring them actively into our organization. Thus, in 2008, the City of Winters Internship was born where we hired local college students to work at the City in a paid internship.
Here are the mechanics of the program:
- Five Interns working as a group for 25 hours, five days a week for 12 weeks.
- A comprehensive introduction to local government including interviews with all departments, ride-alongs with the police, sit-alongs with dispatch and participation in “drill nights” with the volunteer fire department.
- Each intern is assigned four projects from various departments. There is a “group” project which must be completed by the entire group.
- Each intern is required to give formal presentations on one of their projects to both the Planning Commission and City Council. This included the presentation of recommendations and voting by each body.
- All interns were required to work one day a week with the public works department doing job shadowing in various tasks in water, wastewater, parks and streets. Throughout the summer they participated in park mowing and maintenance, tree trimming and fleet maintenance.
- The program included coaching and mentorship on resume development, developing and writing staff reports, analysis on presentation skills (think American Idol Judging by staff) then interview skill preparation and practice.
The program was open to all City residents who had completed one year at either a community college, four year university or a trade technical school. Interns were allowed to come back for two years and of the 28 participants over the 10 years, every intern returned for the second year.
Municipal government needs to prepare the next generation of professionals and this program was highly successful in making that happen for many!