Matt Schelly

Oh, I wanted to add that our attrition was a combination of retirements (which usually meant managment or upper levels), one new child (we do not allow part-time or remote-access employment), one firing (due to some unrevealed severe infraction), and people hired away into new jobs elsewhere (these were interesting to me since it meant some…[Read more]

By the way, for those of you who may not know (I didn’t), Olmsted, the son of a Connecticut merchant, dropped out of college (supposedly due to sumac poisining) and his father bought him a farm on Staten Island in 1848. He had previously been employed as a seaman, merchant, and still as a journalist, which apperantly led to his 1850 trip to…[Read more]

I’ve been slowly reading Walks and Talks of an American Farmer in England, I skipped the “at sea” portion and I am only up to page 92., but it quite fascinating to hear Olmsted describe the English landscape as he first observes it and then knowing what he achieves later in his life. It is available in full view on Google Books.

I am in the public sector (community planner for a county) and we have had a hiring and wage freeze for two years. We might get a 2% increase for 2011. We have lost, through attrition, about 15% of our workforce (20% of our planners, including management). Our work assignments have shifted to more planning and fewer project reviews. So, the…[Read more]

Has anyone found some good webinars or video pieces about village and small town design/planning?