Magazine: Reed among Public Officials of the Year

It’s been pointed out that we blog a lot about City Hall here, so I’ll keep it short. You may have heard that our mayor would be featured in Governing magazine’s 2011 Public Officials of the Year issue. Well, as you can see, not only did he make the cut, an economical list of eight, but he also made the cover and occupies prime real estate on its website. OK, so it’s not exactly the cover of Time, but where policy wonks and bureaucracy nerds are concerned, Governing is their Rolling Stone.

In a brief, glowing profile, the magazine cites Reed’s push to overhaul the city’s ruinous pension plan, and his administration’s apparent success at guiding the city budget from a looming deficit to more than $70 in cash reserves in two years. Here’s a sample:

Reed is a Democrat, but his pragmatic, bipartisan approach — which he attributes to his 11 years in the state Legislature — has earned accolades from leaders on both sides of the aisle. Reed “genuinely puts what’s in the best interest of the city or the state ahead of politics,” Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, a Republican, told Roll Call earlier this year. “I think that’s really the defining attribute of a statesman.”

Governing’s other public-sector rock stars are: Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe; Matthew Goldstein, chancellor of the City University of New York; Dearborn, Mich., Police Chief Ron Haddad; Judge Lee E. Haworth of Florida’s 12th Judicial Circuit Court; Nigel Jacob and Chris Osgood, co-chairs of the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics in Boston; Utah state Sen. Dan Liljenquist; and Joanie Mahoney, county executive of Onondaga County, New York. As you can see, Reed is the only mayor on the list.

(Note to haters: For a pleasant change, instead of telling us how much we suck for blogging this, why don’t you direct your comments to Governing and tell them how much they suck. Or, better yet, please explain why you think Reed is a terrible mayor.)