I work at a national association that represents the needs of cities on Capitol Hill and conducts research on issues and best practices in municipal governments

An interesting topic I hear bubbling up from both elected officials and city staff is the issue of their own work-life balance needs. From the perspective of local leaders, it is not simply that they are trying to carve out a balance between work and life but that their constituents have an expectation of 24/7 access.

Local elected officials and municipal staff members have an odd mix of local celebrity and citizen expectation to add to their plate. They have to juggle this along with the normal work-life struggle.

Especially in smaller communities where local elected officials are often volunteers, they must balance a busy volunteer role with a work role and family. When they visit the local grocery store on Saturday, for example, they may find a constituent walking up to them to discuss unfilled potholes. This same expectation is also felt by city managers or other staff who are often well-known in smaller communities.

As we strive to find new ways to move this conversation forward, perhaps finding a way to acknowledge elected or appointed officials' own concerns about dealing with work-life balance may help work-life advocates. It might be interesting to enhance efforts for solutions developed at the local level and to find ways to encourage more cities to develop programs that encourage more flexible worksplaces–such as Houston's Flex in the City program.

From conversations my organization has had, we see that the federal government does appear to be looking closely at local programs as examples of replicable initiatives. It might be another way to come at this never-ending dilemma.
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Just some fast facts: As of January 2009 only 11 of the mayors of America's largest cities were women and only 36 of the 246 cities over 100,000 population had female mayors.

Since there is a great push to increase the number of local electeds who are women, one wonders what extra challenges they face in the work-life arena?