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Table of contents | Cast of characters  t rains a lot in Trillium, Oregon, but not enough to douse the political, personal and literal fires that surround the man in the hot seat, Ben Cromarty, Trillium’s city manager.
When the voters award themselves a tax cut, Trillium must find a way to make do with less. A proposal to reorganize the fire department — to make it more efficient and less costly — quickly escalates beyond a dry policy debate. It divides the community, pitting council members against each other, the firefighters against the city, and business against business. In the middle of it all is Ben Cromarty, struggling to keep the city from consuming itself — and to keep his job. The conflict over the fire department — and over Trillium’s future — plays itself out in political intrigue, legal wrangling, personal vendettas and sundered friendships. Before it is over, the city’s troubles are splashed across front pages, its political structure is shaken to its core, Cromarty’s family faces danger, and a self-inflicted assault on Cromarty’s marriage threatens to pull his personal life into the public crisis. The entire contents of Playing with Fire, a novel drawn from the real experiences of public managers, are online on Governing.com. Click here to read Chapter One.About the author:
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Illustration: Paul Salmon |
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A suburb of Portland in the shadow of the snowy Cascades, Trillium has come a long way from its sleepy days as a sawmill town. The population is bursting. High-tech businesses are moving in. All of the urban pressures that beset growing suburbs everywhere are challenging the city. And the citizens are getting cantankerous.
Scott Lazenby, city manager of Sandy, Oregon, since 1992, was born in Delhi, India, in 1954. He has lived in Algiers, Peoria and Geneva. After graduation from high school in Hong Kong, he spent a year working, skydiving and motorcycling in Australia. He holds a B.A. degree in physics from Reed College and an M.S. in public management and policy from Carnegie Mellon University. Before coming to Sandy, he held city-government positions in Vancouver, Wash., and Glendale, Ariz. He is currently working on a science-fiction novel. He can be reached by e-mail at