Last night I attended a Town Hall meeting about our upcoming fire millage election on August 2^nd.  While of course the focus of that presentation was about fire service, after the meeting I got the chance to talk to a couple of residents about city services in general.  I was honored to hear some very positive comments from these residents speaking about the caliber of our personnel and the quality of the service we deliver.  We also talked about things like how well the roads are maintained and the new diverging diamond interchange at I-75 and University Drive.  I was driving home and thinking about these totally unsolicited comments that were offered up by residents of the community.  One man told me that he’s lived here for 38 years and he’s enjoyed being an Auburn Hills resident the entire time and has always been glad that he lives here.  The conclusion that I came to was this — as an organization, you can tout how good you are all you want, but the greatest measure of good service is not what is said by the service provider, but rather what is said by those who are the recipients of your services.  As far as I’m concerned, the most important measure of how we’re doing as a city was proven to me last night by the most important measure of all . . . citizen opinion.  While I know we can’t make everyone happy all of the time, we’ll certainly continue to try our best to do so.  Good or bad, we always welcome your feedback.

Tom Tanghe, City Manager