RIVER CITY JOURNAL: FOREVERY NOBLE IDEA, THERE IS A NOBLE PRIZE

* The city employee who had the best idea so far deserves the best reward. And I know what it is.

Yes, I've been whining about all the street work here in River City.

Yes, the newly paved streets have fewer jolts than before.

Yes, I think the new traffic signals that rely on sensors in the street are the slickest thing to come out of the $20 million we've spent in the last five years on street improvements.

No, I don't think the city should stop until every traffic signal within the city limits is replaced.

I don't know whose idea it was to spend some of my money for traffic signals with sensors. But I can tell you this for sure: That person ought to be named City of Cape Girardeau Employee of the Decade.

Whoever this person is deserves more than being named the city's top employee. This wise and considerate employee also needs to win prizes. Cash too.

If I were in charge of employee incentives at City Hall, I'd be scrambling for ways to make the person who had the idea for more traffic signals with sensors to get some sort of special recognition every working day between now and 2010 or retirement, whichever comes first.

Most of all, I'd be sending the message loud and clear to every other city employee that anyone else who comes up with an idea as good as putting sensors on all the signals in the city will get a raise and a free pass on speeding tickets for a decade.

That's what I'd do.

That's how much I like traffic signals with sensors.

As a matter of fact, city employees with that much moxie deserve something really, really special. I've been trying to think of something a prize that would make a city employee sit up and think, Gosh, having good ideas is worth the effort.

Or something like that.

I did have one idea for a special reward for the city employee who understands how lives are changed by traffic signals with sensors. I think it's a pretty good idea. I think it's the kind of idea that would make a city employee want to try harder, to do an even better job, to have an even bigger idea.

And it wouldn't cost anything.

See, there's the key to employee incentives. The ideas that employees have ought to enrich your employer, whether it's the city or a business or a factory or even a university. But it's really neat if the best reward for such a major employee contribution doesn't cost anything. Not one red cent.

Which is why I think my plan for rewarding the city employee who dreamed up all those traffic signals with sensors is such a good idea.

Heck, my idea might be good enough to win a prize too. And I'd be tickled to death to get the reward I have in mind for the best and brightest city employee. That's how I know it's a darn good deal.

Maybe you've already thought of a really great reward for someone with enough on the ball to say, Let's get rid of those balky stoplights that work on a timer and replace them with traffic signals that change based on which way the traffic is going.

Maybe you've even thought of the same idea I had.

That's OK.

A good idea is a good idea, so there's no sense quibbling over who had it first. It doesn't matter. Anyone with an idea this good should get special notice even if someone else has already had the idea.

Here's what I'd do:

If I had a city street department and a city engineering department and a public works department and a police department at my disposal, I'd send someone around to that top employee's house every workday morning. I'd have that someone go up to the top employee's front door and knock. I wouldn't have that someone ring the doorbell, because that might roust some of the sleepyheads in the top employee's household, and there's no need for that. When the top employee came to the door, the someone I had sent to the top employee's house might offer to make a fresh pot of coffee and a few muffins.

But that's not the grand prize. Nosiree.

The big magoolah would be a piece of paper about the size of a regular letter. The someone I had sent to the top employee's home would hand the piece of paper to the top employee. It would be worth the trip just to see the top employee's face light up. Sometimes the biggest satisfaction comes in such small bundles.

After that, the top city employee's day would be a breeze. All the cares of the world would pretty much evaporate like morning dew on a September morn.

That's the way life ought to be. We ought to be treated like the top city employee for the rest of our lives. Then we'd all die happy.

Oh. You want to know what was on the slip of paper.

Not much.

Just a map of how to drive to work without running into any street construction.

That's all.

But, wow! What a prize!

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.