Urban Legends

City government in-plants have to be fast, flexible and politically savvy.

By Mike Llewellyn

IT WASN'T too long ago that brush fires were gorging themselves on Southern California scrub and turning the nation's attention to the seemingly endless struggle firefighters had set before them.

As the nightly news broadcast eerie aerial shots of glowing fire lines snaking their way across mountainsides, in downtown San Diego, uncomfortably near the blazes, Mayor Dick Murphy put in a call to the city manager's office. If the mayor and other city leaders were to decide how to address the wildfires, they had to work from the same report. And the city manager had to get that report fast.