OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Politcal Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the political frame
2. Apply the political frame to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

The situation that I profiled in my submission for module one was a description of when
the City Manager of a local municipality decided to move the Diversity Office from one
department to another. The Diversity Office was set up to implement programs resources
and services for all residents regardless of their status. The department was originally
held in the Community Services department which encompassed the Housing Authority
and Community Revitalization divisions. The City Manager made the decision to move
the Diversity Office into the City Manager's office after a summer of social justice
protests as well as the societal and organizational rise of diversity, equity, and inclusion
being at the forefront of organization decisions. This additionally meant that the office
staff was cut from 4 to 1, as well as allocated budget being stripped and the office’s
budget was absorbed by the City Manager

2) Describe how the politics of the organization influenced the situation.

Mesa, Arizona is Arizona third largest city and the largest city other than Phoenix, in the
greater PHX metro area. It is comprised of over 500,000 people and is also one of the
most well known politically conservative cities in the state and nation. According to the
most recent census, Mesa has an approximate white population of roughly 72%.
Additionally, the make-up of City Council is heavily representative of the faith-based
community that had been integral in Mesa’s founding. Recently, Mesa was noted as the
most conservative city in the United States. Despite this, Mesa also has a large and
notable minority population throughout its borders. As the 2020 Census affirms, the
growth of the minority population in Mesa measn that diversity initiaives are becoming
more of the expectations as opposed to the exception. Still, the City Council and City
Management has slow walked the implementation of such initiatives and they are wary f
going to full into the institution of diversity for fear of alienating the still ostly
conservative voter base.
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 3) Recommend how you would use organizational politics for an alternative course of
action regarding your case.

In evaluating how the municipal politics play into managerial decisions, the course of
action that would be reasonable stems from current trends and future. Number one, the
movement of the Diversity Office was primarily motivated by the social justice
movements of 2020. With that in mind, city management has the community support
necessary to begin approach DEI in a more meaningful manner. Undersatdning that DEI
is a somewhat new and hot-button topic for municipalities, it is understandable that the
city manager would want a more direct line of sight on what the office is producing.
There have been other department who are working on city mangemment initiatives that
are not housed directly in the City Manager’s Office. They were housed within their
applicable departments, given allocated budgets from those departments and have a
modified reporting system to the City Manager. Local government is all about the
communication between electeds and city management. This route would only work if
there is that modified communication avenue and access to the DO by electeds.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about this frame.

In this situation I feel like it would've been appropriate for both myself and my coworkers
who were directly affected from this decision to use the mechanisms and processes
already in place to make sure that our voices, opinions, and experience are included in the
decision making process. Well it is unreasonable to expect that executive management
would follow any recommendation from any employer, it is within the tenets of proper
organizational management that even executives should commiserate and be receptive to
the input of their personnel. I would ask both my direct supervisor and department leader
ship to provide us with a form to make sure that we are consulted not for a Dictation, but
for our subject matter expert tease. It is often the case that the people that know how to
do the job the today, are the ones best suited to create a path on how to do the job
tomorrow.

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 Reference or References