PM Magazine, May 2021

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Engaging Residents for an Equitable Future 12

Facilitating Inclusive Outreach 26 Building Community Resilience in Bangladesh 30

Preeti Shridhar, deputy public affairs administrator of Renton, Washington (left) and Dr. Linda Smith, pastor of SKY Church

Community ENGAGEMENT MAY 2021 ICMA.ORG/PM

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MAY 2021 VOL. 103 NO. 5

CONTENTS

Access the May special supplement, Mental Health at Work, at icma.org/mentalhealthatwork.

Read more on page 6.

F E AT U R E S

12

Engaging Our Community for an Equitable Future

18

The Art of Community Engagement Be present, tell your story, and be an active participant in conversations with the community Jason Grant, Nikki Brown, Trevor Johnson, Shane Sears, and Amir Wenrich

22

Difficult Conversations Lead to Stronger Communities Local government plays an important role in a community’s healing process Michael Herbert and Lindsay Jacques

26

How to Facilitate Inclusive Community Outreach and Engagement Thoughtful planning, careful consideration, community research, and a strong commitment to listening goes a long way Sheryl Trent

30

Building Community Resilience in Bangladesh Working to prevent violent extremism by focusing on vulnerable youth Lee Gerston

Asif Himel/Shutterstock.com

If you want to be inclusive and communicate effectively with diverse audiences, you have to make it part of your community’s DNA. Preeti Shridhar

30 D E PA RT M E N T S 2 Ethics Matter!

What’s on Your Wall?

4 Letter from the Executive Director

Graduating to a Career That Makes a Difference—Local Government

6 Mental Health Awareness

Supporting Employee Mental Health When Reopening the Workplace

32

8 Women in Leadership

Nine reminders for fostering innovative volunteerism and community spirit Laura Goddeeris and Lindsay Jacques

10 Assistants and Deputies

Volunteerism in the Time of COVID-19 and Beyond

36

Transforming a Police Department’s Reputation How one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities changed its rapport with the community Christina Cook

40

Stimulus Funding for Maximum Impact Three ways community engagement can help local governments in their federal funding investment strategies Assaf Frances

44

Leadership in Local Government, Part 5: The Leadership Sauce The indispensable ingredient of leadership Ed Everett, ICMA-CM Cover image: Photo by Ashish Keshwani Photography

Firefighter for a Day

36

Mentors Make Me a Great Assistant City Manager

47 Professional Services Directory

International City/County Management Association

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Share your thoughts on PM magazine by emailing us at pm@icma.org.

Submit an article proposal to pm@icma.org or learn more at icma.org/writeforus.

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ETHICS MATTER!

What’s on Your Wall?

Four steps to advance ethics

BY MARTHA PEREGO, ICMA-CM

During this period of remote work, we’ve

MARTHA PEREGO, ICMA-CM, is director of member services and ethics director, ICMA, Washington, D.C. (mperego@icma.org).

learned a lot about what adorns the walls of offices and homes. Walls—the physical ones—are mini-testimonials to who we are, as well as what we value and hold dear in our hearts. Treasured family photos, artwork, and religious symbols often grace the walls of our homes. They serve up comforting memories and tell the inhabitants’ life story to those who visit in person or virtually. Think of all the outsiders who have had a glimpse via Zoom of your home life and what adorns your walls.

Walls at work are testaments to our life as well. They are filled with credentials, professional accomplishments, and even memorabilia that tell a bit about our humanity.

A diploma, an award, or recognition by peers; a thank-you from a former staff member; community recognition; or perhaps the ICMA Credentialed Manager certificate or an ICMA service award. Each is a source of pride.

They remind you of the journey, the value of hard work, and your commitment to public service. For a visitor, they convey the message that a highly skilled, dedicated professional occupies this space. On a bad day, these testaments may encourage you to push onward.

Is the ICMA Code of Ethics hanging on your wall? If not, it should be! A commitment to the principles in the Code is the quintessential definition of what it means to be a professional manager. It reflects your commitment to the highest standards of honor and integrity in both public

and personal conduct so that you can merit the respect and confidence of staff, elected officials, and the public. It is an affirmation that while those credentials, competency, and work ethic are essential, the work must be centered and guided by values to be done correctly. Committing to the values of the Code is a distinguishing quality. Others may have a similar title and educational credentials, but do they adhere to the highest set of ethical standards?

Hanging the Code in a visible location serves as a reminder to always incorporate the values outlined in the Code in our decision making and conduct. It can also introduce the Code to others—be they staff, residents, or elected officials. Beyond hanging the Code on your wall, consider these three additional steps you can take to advance ethics.

Set the tone with elected officials and candidates. While many of the tenets of the Code are

important to discuss with your elected officials, the most critical is your commitment to political neutrality. In what seems to be a never-ending campaign season, have a dialogue about why you stay out of politics and how that enables you to excel in your role. Being upfront about your stance can be helpful. It can give you a gracious way to decline your neighbor’s request to fund her campaign for school board. Or when you must explain to the reporter why you simply cannot comment on whether your mayor would make a good state legislator.

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ICMA Creating and Supporting Thriving Communities ICMA’s vision is to be the leading association of local government professionals dedicated to creating and supporting thriving communities throughout the world. It does this by working with its more than 12,000 members to identify and speed the adoption of leading local government practices and improve the lives of residents. ICMA offers membership, professional development programs, research, publications, data and information, technical assistance, and training to thousands of city, town, and county chief administrative officers, their staffs, and other organizations throughout the world.

Public Management (PM) aims to inspire innovation, inform decision making, connect leading-edge thinking to everyday challenges, and serve ICMA members and local governments in creating and sustaining thriving communities throughout the world.

Code of Ethics

establish common values that align with yours. One city manager made it a condition of employment in hiring department directors.

Define the values for your organization. The foundation for

Build a unified leadership team. You recruit and promote smart, talented, and technically proficient department heads and assistants. And then you invest considerable effort to create a unified team to lead the organization. Hopefully, department directors and assistants on your team come with a strong understanding of public sector ethics. Perhaps this is a result of their membership in ICMA or in another professional association that has solid ethical standards. While the ethical climate has vastly benefitted from a focus on ethics by the professional associations that support the specialties within local government, there is still a lack of uniformity of values. You might be surprised to know that staying out of politics is not addressed in the ethical standards of other professional associations.

Adopting the ICMA Code of Ethics as the gold standard for your senior leadership is one way to

2020–2021 ICMA Executive Board PRESIDENT

Midwest Region

Southeast Region

Clint Gridley City Administrator, Woodbury, Minnesota

Laura Fitzpatrick, ICMA-CM Assistant City Manager, Chesapeake, Virginia

James Malloy, ICMA-CM Town Manager, Lexington, Massachusetts

Molly Mehner, ICMA-CM Assistant City Manager, Cape Girardeau, Missouri

PRESIDENT-ELECT

Victor Cardenas, ICMA-CM Assistant City Manager, Novi, Michigan

Troy Brown City Manager, Moorpark, California

Mountain Plains Region

PAST PRESIDENT

Michael Land, ICMA-CM City Manager, Coppell, Texas

Jane Brautigam, ICMA-CM City Manager, Boulder, Colorado VICE PRESIDENTS

International Region

Stephen Parry, ICMA-CM* Chief Executive, Gore District Council, New Zealand Robert Kristof City Manager, Timisoara, Romania Chris MacPherson Chief Administrative Officer, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

Hanging the ICMA Code of Ethics in a visible location serves as a reminder to always incorporate the values outlined in the Code in our decision making and conduct.

Raymond Gonzales Jr. County Manager, Adams County, Colorado Dianne Stoddard, ICMA-CM Assistant City Manager, Lawrence, Kansas Northeast Region

Christopher Coleman, ICMA-CM Town Administrator, Westwood, Massachusetts Teresa Tieman, ICMA-CM Town Manager, Fenwick Island, Delaware William Fraser, ICMA-CM City Manager, Montpelier, Vermont

having a healthy, productive, and ethical culture rests on a shared set of core beliefs and values. Do the heavy lifting to develop organizational values using an approach that engages all your staff. This will reduce ambiguity and provide clarity to staff on what is expected and what is right. If your organization already has a code of ethics, is it still viable and does it influence conduct?

Is there still clarity and agreement on the core values that drive behavior and critical decisions?

How do you know?

What we believe shapes how we behave. Think about the benefit of staff rowing in the same direction based on a shared set of behaviors.

Remember that organizations or teams with shared values produce the best results.

At the risk of contradicting the advice offered in step one, values hanging on the wall do not change behavior, culture, or outcomes. To achieve those goals, values must be practiced daily by all and reinforced by leadership. As L.P. Cookingham noted in his advice to new managers: “Keep a framed copy of the City Managers Code of Ethics in your office. Read it once in a while. Always abide by it.”

Michael Kaigler, ICMA-CM Assistant County Manager, Chatham County, Georgia Nate Pagan, ICMA-CM City Manager, Owensboro, Kentucky West Coast Region

Edward Shikada, ICMA-CM City Manager, Palo Alto, California Peter Troedsson, ICMA-CM City Manager, Albany, Oregon

ICMA Executive Director Marc Ott Director, Equity & Social Justice and Membership Marketing

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Roxanne Murphy Assistant City Manager, Valdez, Alaska * Appointed to serve unexpired term following resignation of Sue Bidrose

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LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Graduating to a Career That Makes a Difference— Local Government Encouraging our next generation of leaders

BY MARC OTT

Typically, my PM column speaks to the issues and challenges facing

municipal and county leaders, but for the May issue, I thought I would address this column directly to the students and young professionals who stand on the precipice deciding their future direction. ICMA is fortunate to now have 127 student chapters—20 of them outside of the United States—and nearly 2,000 student members.

Approaching graduation is one of those pivotal times when one experience or one individual has the potential to radically alter preconceived plans. Grads may be considering working in the private sector, for a nonprofit, or even for the federal government.

If you are driven But if you are looking for the best way to impact the lives of individuals every by the desire to day, there is no better profession than local government management. That is make a difference definitely a piece of advice I would give to in the quality of my younger self.

people’s lives on a daily basis, no other career comes close to local government management.

MARC OTT is executive director of ICMA, Washington, D.C.

The Best Career You Never Heard Of

I was not aware of the profession of city or county manager until I was in my last semester of graduate school. I knew from a young age that I wanted to fix the disparities that I saw around me growing up. I thought the way to make that happen was to become a lawyer—to have command of the rules, regulations, and laws that hold people back, as well as propel them forward. Before graduating and heading off to law school, I had the good fortune of getting an internship in the city administrator’s office in Southfield, Michigan. He put me to work researching and responding on his behalf to citizen complaints and inquiries, attending meetings, and working out in the community with the various department heads. For the first time in my life, I could see how the work that I was doing affected the everyday lives of people.

That internship led not just to a career but to an incredible journey.

This profession offers a way to help correct the inequities that exist in cities, to include rather than exclude, and to tap into the potential that lives within each individual citizen if they are given a chance to participate. My 30-plus year career as a practitioner included a variety of positions in a wide range of communities—large and small, wealthy and impoverished—which culminated with my appointment as city manager of Austin, Texas. Our team there set an aspirational goal to become known and recognized as the best managed city in the United States. The entire organization became energized by that vision, and each department—from waste management to public safety—set the wheels in motion to make it happen. It was a thrill for all of us when Austin repeatedly topped the “best cities” lists of all types, including “best managed.”

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Tackling the Most Compelling Issues

I won’t tell you that the path of local government management is easy, but I will tell you that it is exceptionally rewarding. Local government managers bring not only our education, skills, and experience to the job, but we also bring our passion. And if you choose to pursue this career path, fasten your seat belt! When you look around at the most compelling issues of the day, you will find local government directly in the center of things. Local government leaders must be prepared for the blistering pace of change. This past year alone, in addition to keeping library services available to learners of all ages and the water safe, local government managers have tackled unprecedented challenges from navigating their staffs, residents, and local businesses through the COVID-19 pandemic to bringing racial equity and social justice best practices to our local institutions, especially law enforcement.

This type of leadership of course requires sound management expertise, but you must also bring creativity, flexibility, and authenticity to this role. And most of all courage. It will take courageous leaders to transform the cities, counties, and towns of this world. If you are a student or recent graduate, I sincerely hope you will reach out to an ICMA member or our outstanding membership staff to learn more. If you are driven by the desire to make a difference in the quality of people’s lives on a daily basis, no other career comes close.

To ICMA’s Member Practitioners

Please share this article with a high school or college student in your circle, or better yet, tell them your story. In addition, we have a list of other ideas for attracting the next generation to local government on our website at icma.org/what-are-icmas-next-generation-initiatives. Help us encourage a new generation of leaders.

PROFILES OF LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT IN ACTION “I find my ICMA-CM voluntary credential encourages me to advance not only my professional development, but requires me to stay on top of relevant trends, innovation, and best practices in local government management.

I appreciate the review and feedback on my annual report to ensure I am aligning my development activities to advance my management skill sets.”

Rebecca L. Fleury City Manager City of Battle Creek, MI Credentialed since April 2016

Demonstrate your commitment to professional development and lifelong learning. Join the growing number of those who have earned the ICMA-CM designation.

ICMA Credentialed Managers are viewed with growing distinction by local governing bodies and progressive, civically engaged communities.

For more information, visit icma.org/credentialedmgr

View a list of credentialed managers and candidates at icma.org/credentialed

M AY 2 0 2 1 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | 5

MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS

Supporting Employee Mental Health When Reopening the Workplace Psychologists recommend offering flexibility about where, when, and how work is done.

As employers plan to reopen their workplaces, they’ll need

to make decisions on how to redesign their offices to prioritize worker health and safety. It’s equally important that leaders incorporate into those plans how to support the emotional and mental well-being of employees, who likely face new concerns, stressors and demands brought on by a return to office life.

Employees who suddenly moved to remote work as COVID-19 spread experienced a loss of control over many aspects of daily life. They coped with high levels of uncertainty about their personal, professional, and financial future. Phasing workers back into the office may create new uncertainties about personal safety and how to adapt to new routines.

For some employees returning to the office may be a welcome opportunity. They may have worked in a makeshift office with uncomfortable furniture and poor technology or felt isolated from colleagues. For others, such as those who are caregivers or concerned about their health, leaving home to return to the office can increase stress and worry.

Organizational leaders can look to psychology for strategies that help employees feel less apprehensive about returning and more optimistic about the office environment. Psychologists recommend that employers ease uncertainty by giving each employee control and decision-making power over where, how, and when they work.

Prepare for the return by supporting employees now. Recognize that every employee had a different experience and reaction to the pandemic and remote work, each facing unique stressors. Employers and leaders can set a tone that emphasizes concern for employee well-being by offering compassion, honesty, and openness. Check in with employees and actively listen, so they feel heard. Communicate consistently to reduce employees’ uncertainty and build emotional support.

Take an individualized approach. Now is the time to think beyond one-size-fits-all approaches to how employees work. Managers and employees will lead the most effective strategies for returning to the office and adapting to changes. Provide autonomy to managers and direct supervisors to help employees develop individualized plans. Employees returning to the workplace may need new approaches to routines that 6 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | M AY 2 0 2 1

they have lost; supervisors play a role in helping staff structure their day.

Managers also play a key role in supporting mental health and well-being and are the front-line of recognizing employee mental health struggles. Provide managers with the training and resources that they can use to help their staff. For example, improve mental health literacy with psychological first aid or training in how to talk about mental health. Let them know how to work with the employee assistance program as a tool for connecting employees for services.

Empower employees with work flexibility.

Employers can create a favorable environment by encouraging employee control over decisions about where and when they work. Consider if the employee can continue to work remotely or set own working hours.

Employers can also consider providing a dedicated flex hour, beyond lunch, that is devoted to outdoor activities, recreation, or exercise. This extra time can serve as a coping strategy to help people recharge and transition from remote work to office work.

Involve employees in discussions about their workspace. Talk with them about what might change

and what they need. Employees who are informed and participate in decisions about their own space have greater psychological comfort in the workspace. This engagement helps them adapt to changes that employees can’t control, such as requirements to promote physical distancing.

Employers can solicit input regarding individual workspace needs, such as task lighting, sound-masking devices, and flexibility to rearrange furniture.

Leaders are role models and help set examples.

Employees look to leaders during a crisis. Acknowledge that returning to the office isn’t a return to the way people previously worked. Organizational-wide policies and practices may need to adapt and change with the uncertainty of the pandemic’s effects. Prepare to be flexible, consistent in communications, and a role model for showing support and encouraging individual control and decision-making.

Reprinted with permission of the American Psychiatric Association, apa.org/topics/covid-19/employee-mental-health.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, an important topic for our readers after a challenging year in local government. Read more in PM’s special supplement, “Mental Health at Work,” at icma.org/mentalhealthatwork.

Employers Are Increasing Support for Mental Health Large employers are boosting mental health resources as they recognize the strain the pandemic has put on their employees.

Two-thirds of employees report that poor mental

health has undercut their job performance during the COVID-19 pandemic, and 40% of employees are battling burnout, according to a survey by mental health benefits provider Lyra Health and the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions.1 Employees may be working relentlessly amid economic uncertainty with few social outlets, and possibly juggling childcare to boot, eviscerating any separation between work and the rest of their life, says clinical psychologist Renee Schneider, PhD, vice president of clinical quality for Lyra Health.

Meanwhile, working from home can make it difficult for supervisors to detect emerging mental health strain, Schneider says. “When we were in the office, we would see each other every day, and we don’t have that same type of interaction now,” she says. “So sometimes employees can go for a while before the manager learns that there’s something going on.”

Paying more attention to employee mental health is becoming a bigger part of the conversation in today’s workplaces. Even pre-pandemic, employers were already learning to be more proactive in identifying symptoms of depression, anxiety, and other disorders. Nearly half of large employers train their managers to recognize such issues, and an additional 18% plan to begin to do so in 2021, a 2020 Business Group on Health survey found. Plus, 54% of employers will offer free or low-cost virtual mental health visits in 2021.2 In recent months, more employers have invested in software training programs and digital tools to teach managers how to pick up on subtle and often virtual cues of employee distress, says Anne Richter, RN, MBA, coleader of North American health management practice for the human resources consulting firm Willis Towers Watson. “Helping a front-line manager develop those skills in very, very short order has been a clear focus as a result of the pandemic,” she says.

Schneider touts the decision by Pinterest, a Lyra Health client, to offer COVID-related paid leave to better support families. Employees who may have lost childcare or who are caring for an ill family member can now take advantage of that emotional backstop for as long as four weeks, she says.

BY CHARLOTTE HUFF

Both Schneider and Richter believe that this heightened mental health awareness will outlast the pandemic. “Now we’re thinking about our employees as whole people, not just what they do with the 8 or 10 or 12 hours that they are at work,” Richter says. “What are they struggling with at home that bleeds over into the workplace, and vice versa?”

Reprinted with permission of the American Psychiatric Association, apa.org/ monitor/2021/01/trends-employers-support.

ENDNOTES

https://www.lyrahealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/LYRA-NA-Employee-MentalHealth-Report.pdf 2 https://www.businessgrouphealth.org/en/who-we-are/newsroom/press-releases/large-usemployers-accelerating-adoption-of-virtual-care-mental-health-services-for-2021 1

Workplace Strategies to Promote Wellness • Training managers to schedule video calls with employees whenever feasible to look for signs of anxiety or other emotional strain rather than only catching up by phone, says Anne Richter, of Willis Towers Watson. “Did you actually look at them?”

• Providing education that a seemingly work-related change, such as missing deadlines or turning in subpar work, may signal other concerns, says Renee Schneider, PhD, of Lyra Health, who advises that supervisors take a direct approach and ask employees regularly how they are holding up.

• Establishing a central mental health services contact, one who can even make appointments, Richter says, so employees don’t have to figure out where or how to get care.

• Boosting the number of mental health visits that an employer will cover. “They’re seeing that employees really need a full dose of care,” Schneider says.

• Delaying job evaluations or not tying evaluation results to consequences such as pay, says Schneider, a move that she applauds. “During this pandemic, additional stress is not what we need.”

• Offering mental health days, a move that Schneider says all employers should consider if they don’t already.

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WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP

Firefighter for a Day

A city administrator with a burning desire to experience the world of firefighting

BY KATHY LAUR

When I received an email from a fire district chief

KATHY LAUR, MPA, is city administrator of Tonka Bay, Minnesota.

in a neighboring city inviting a number of nearby city administrators and councilmembers to participate in a live burn, I couldn’t answer fast enough. This was an opportunity to take part in real firefighting training in a real burning house. When would I ever have a chance like this again?

It sounds a bit crazy, I know. Why in the world would a city administrator with zero knowledge of firefighting volunteer to put themselves in possible danger? Well, in my case, I’m the daughter and sister of two former firefighters. I grew up in a neighborhood with a half dozen firefighters. It wasn’t uncommon to have friends whose dads were firefighters and for those friends to grow up to be firefighters, too. I was taught to respect these brave men (and there were only male firefighters back then). For me, it was never something I aspired to be because at the time I didn’t think girls could grow up to be firefighters.

Of all the partnering cities invited to the live burn, only Councilmember Lou Dierking of nearby Excelsior stepped up to join me. Of the dozens of firefighters participating in training that day, Lou and I were only two of four females taking part in the live burn. The other two women, Fire Marshal Kellie Murphy-Ringate and firefighter Sandy Dostal, were there to make sure Lou and I knew what to expect and to explain the process as we went along. They were also our safety nets if at any time we felt anxious or unsafe, and wanted to get out of the burning house sooner rather than later. We had a safe word (“dog food”) and an arm signal in case we couldn’t be heard. Fires are loud.

The day before the burn, we were introduced to the self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) equipment. If you’re a scuba diver, then you know this is how you breathe underwater. Lou and I had never been scuba diving. The SCBA worn by firefighters is heavy, surprisingly so, and we hadn’t even put on the turn-out gear yet. Then we were fitted for boots, pants, jackets, hoods, helmets, and gloves.

The morning of the burn, we loaded the gear onto one of the fire rigs and went to participate in a briefing much like you’d see on shows like Emergency, Chicago Fire, and the movie Backdraft. But this is the last reference I will make to these Hollywood depictions because they are nothing like the real thing outside of the briefing. Fire District Chief Curt Mackey explained how the training exercise would look to the firefighters and that there would be five different groups of them going in to knock down the fire. After the briefing, we drove to the house in Shorewood where the fire would take place.

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(Left to right): Firefighter Sandy Dostal, Excelsior Councilmember Lou Dierking, Tonka Bay City Administrator Kathy Laur, and Fire Marshal Kellie Murphy-Ringate.

According to Shorewood City Administrator Greg Lerud, the old farmhouse came on the market several years ago, and the city had its eye on it for some time for a storm water pond. Shorewood has significant stormwater issues in the western part of the city, and as road improvement projects take place, it’s necessary to add storm water management, but they needed a place to provide rate and volume control. The farmhouse was ideally located, so the city purchased it and offered it to the fire department for training purposes.

Lou and I walked around the house with MurphyRingate while she explained that the A painted on the house was for the front, B was the side, C was the back, and D was the other side of the house. She pointed out the exits and their importance during a fire, along with other factors crucial to fighting fires. After this bit of explanation, we got into our approximately 75 pounds of gear. Murphy-Ringate took us into the house to point out where we would be and what we could expect to see. She and Dostal would be behind us through it all.

In the corner of the house’s dining room, there was some hay, wood, and cardboard. While we knelt in the opposite corner, a firefighter starter the fire. Cardboard kept being added to get the fire really going. In the meantime, I watched in awe as the flames got bigger and bigger and traveled up the wall and across the ceiling. Smoke filled the living room next to the dining room. In the house’s

entrance, the smoke formed a line dividing the room in half—the upper half thick with smoke and the bottom half with some visibility. Now I know why I was taught to crawl to safety in a fire. I was especially conscious of my breathing during this experience. My brother told me my breathing would increase as I got anxious, but I never felt that way. I was calm. I had the utmost trust in the gear I was wearing and the equipment on my face and back. I also knew Murphy-Ringate and Dostal had my back and I would be ok.

Then it happened, my nose itched. Of all things! Meanwhile, the firefighters came in low and on their knees to knock down the fire with little bursts of water so as not to get too much steam in the room. They do that to avoid a steam burn to their skin through the turn-out gear. Turn-out gear has a vapor barrier. They moved from the dining room to the living room.

It was time for Lou and me to exit. Luckily, Dostal helped me get back on my feet. Being down on my knees, with the weight of the equipment, I would have had to crawl out the door without her.

One of the things I noticed about the fire was that there was no black smoke. Murphy-Ringate explained that it was because there was no furniture or carpet in the house, so therefore no petroleum. It was a “clean” burn, meaning only white and gray smoke. Another interesting thing I learned was that in

The men and women of the fire department that do this as a parttime job, and hold down “regular” jobs and have families, are simply amazing.

order to get much of the smoke out of the house, firefighters opened the front door and sprayed the hose out the door. The smoke inside the house rushed out the door. Chief Mackey explained that this is a phenomenon called hydraulic ventilation.

They use the fluid power from the handling to ventilate the space to remove smoke and heat. It makes the space more tenable and increases the chances of making a rescue during a primary search.

The men and women of the fire department that do this as a part-time job, and hold down “regular” jobs and have families, are simply amazing. They have ongoing training throughout their time with the department, and let me tell you, it’s not easy.

They don’t do it for the money either; they do it because they love the work. We all need to be grateful they do.

For Lou and me, our firefighting experience lasted three and a half hours. We didn’t have to worry about clean up or any of the other uncool messy duties after the fire was out.

We got to go home and tell our families about the experience.

Now I have a greater appreciation for firefighters and the importance of their jobs, bravely risking their lives for their community. And now I get to talk a little shop with my dad and brother.

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M AY 2 0 2 1 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | 9

ASSISTANTS AND DEPUTIES

Mentors Make Me a Great Assistant City Manager A mentor is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction.

—John C. Crosby

BY CORI BURBACH

Throughout my career, my best

mentors haven’t been “assigned” to me through any formal program, but they have played critical roles in my journey in becoming an assistant city manager. And I hope someone will say that about me someday soon.

Personal and Professional Growth

I have sought out mentors in my organization who could help me with my career goals, but just as importantly, to help me in figuring out how to balance my personal and professional growth. I started My mentors provide my career with the cities of Dubuque, access to experience Iowa, and Lancaster, Wisconsin, through ICMA’s Local Government Management from communities Fellows program. Identified as a “future large and small, leader,” I had built-in opportunities to professional paths have monthly lunches with my bosses I haven’t taken, and to work directly with our department heads. I learned the most from the two and mistakes I don’t assistant city managers I worked with have to make daily. When I think about how much I for myself. learned from these two women, it makes me a little teary sometimes. Along with my mom who is a city clerk, they taught me about worklife balance, managing a public meeting with a toddler at your side, and explaining to your kids that when mom gets home late because of a budget meeting, it’s because she’s helping to create a better community for them to grow up in.

Challenging My Way of Thinking

CORI BURBACH is assistant city manager of Dubuque, Iowa.

My coworkers and peers have become my mentors in the subjects I’m not an expert in, and where I need someone to challenge my way of thinking. I will never forget having coffee breaks with our newly hired community engagement coordinator. One time I told him, “My brain hurts by the end of our conversations, but I’m thinking about my job in a completely different way now.” Our organization has a long way to go on our journey toward diversity, equity, and inclusion, but I can sense my own growth from having difficult conversations with many of

10 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | M AY 2 0 2 1

our leadership team members. If you haven’t yet, find a mentor who thinks about things completely differently than you and see what you can learn.

A Different Perspective

I continue to seek excellent mentors and friends through my ICMA connections. I can count on my Leadership ICMA cohort to counsel objectively and listen to the things I need to run by someone outside of my organization or community. They provide access to experience from communities large and small, professional paths I haven’t taken, and mistakes I don’t have to make for myself.

Giving Back

So now I’m looking for opportunities to mentor others within my organization, as well as those I know who would make great city managers, assistants, or department heads someday: · I talk about the mechanics of city council and department head goal-setting when I facilitate our new employee orientation. If you’ve seen Hamilton, you know the reference to the “room where it happens.”

Staff feel empowered to step up when they understand how they fit into the bigger picture. · I speak at a local political science class to talk about job opportunities and why I love local government so much. · I invite young leaders inside and outside my organization to coffee, and ask them if they would ever be interested in my job. · I pay particular attention to young parents, young women, and others who are trying to navigate their roles in the workplace and at home. I lend them an ear, or assistance holding their baby when they bring them to a public meeting, or whatever else they need.

Mentorship has been—and continues to be—crucial to my career development every step of the way. I encourage everyone to seek out opportunities to mentor others or to find a new mentor for yourself.

PUBLIC SERVICE

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ENGAGING OUR COMMUNITY for an

BY PREETI SHRIDHAR

EQUITABLE FUTURE If you want to be inclusive and communicate effectively with diverse audiences, you have to make it part of your community’s DNA. 12 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | M AY 2 0 2 1

I

t was 2006, and I had just moved from Seattle to the suburban city of Renton. The city’s claim to fame at that time was that every 2.2 seconds somewhere in the world a Boeing 737 that was made in Renton takes off or lands!

Renton was primarily a manufacturing town. That December, soon after I had started working for the mayor of Renton as their communications director, we were hit with what was known as the Chanukah day windstorm. We experienced severe cold weather and the region lost power for several days. Even The Seattle Times couldn’t publish their daily paper.

This was before online and social media as we know it today. We were still relying on the newspaper, television, and radio as our primary means of communication.

In the midst of the storm, I got a call from the fire department’s public information officer. He told me that we had two fatalities in Renton due to carbon monoxide poisoning. Two immigrant families had moved their barbecue grills indoors for warmth, and

there were 15 other instances of this in our area. Tears poured down my face as I desperately wrote a press release for translation into different languages to provide critical information to our community.

For the first time in history, The Seattle Times asked The Tacoma News Tribune to print its front page in various languages with a critical message about the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning, urgently asking community members not to bring their grills indoors.

This incident was a big wakeup call for me. The Renton School District recognizes over 90 languages spoken in our community, yet we had no systems in place to provide information or communicate with these residents. I realized that we needed more than just translations; we needed to find ways to engage the community in our outreach. It was about priorities: connecting and

building partnerships on key issues and being ready when emergencies arose.

Being an immigrant myself, coming from a minority community that was one of the fastest growing groups in the Puget Sound area, and speaking a few different languages gave me an edge. I did not have a budget, and this was not my work plan. But I was given a significant amount of freedom and was able to work with Emergency Management where there was some flexibility.

Formation of the Mayor’s Inclusion Task Force

With the help of an AmeriCorps intern, we recruited members of various ethnic groups to form what later became the mayor’s inclusion task force. Today this is a much easier task with the internet and search engines. But in those days we went to churches, religious organizations,

M AY 2 0 2 1 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | 13

community centers and libraries where groups would reserve meeting rooms, and even local ethnic restaurants to check out community groups.

We had to use imaginative and creative ways to find our members.

By 2008, we had created an extensive network of community leaders who would represent various ethnic groups and act as a liaison between their communities and the city. The 30-plus members represented various groups, including African Americans, Chinese Americans, South Asian Indians, Sikhs, Somalis, Vietnamese, Sudanese, Filipinos, Latinos, Ukrainians, LGBTQIA+, seniors, various faith communities such as the Muslim community, and youth groups.

External Focus: Initial Emphasis with Priority on Emergency Preparedness, Health, and Safety

Initially, we focused on emergency management

services and educating our community on critical services. We also partnered with our fire department, focusing on safety and health management efforts, such as providing blood pressure and blood sugar services to our community. We provided emergency preparedness training, distributed emergency preparedness kits, and translated critical information into several different languages.

Some of our most successful efforts were the Renton Heart Month campaign, working with the Sikh Temple; Saint Anthony’s Catholic parish, which was frequented by the Latino community; and the Filipino community. We also worked through ethnic media outlets, including radio stations, with targeted minority communities with tailored outreach messages.

Over the years the accomplishments increased and the task force’s influence spread to many areas. Some of the highlights include:

• Providing emergency preparedness training, kits, and over 1,000 DVDs to various non-Englishspeaking households.

• City firefighters coordinating with the community liaisons to provide free blood sugar and blood pressure screenings to members of their diverse communities.

• Offering free summer lunch to children from minority groups, non-Englishspeaking communities, and low-income families.

• Appointing members from the community liaison groups to serve on key citizen task forces.

• Targeting ethnic media— newspapers, radio stations, the local Hispanic TV station—to provide news releases and information.

• Assisting small and minority businesses—nearly 115 businesses, 45 percent of which were minorityowned—through the formation of Renton’s Small Business Development

Center, in partnership with Renton Chamber of Commerce and Renton Technical College.

• Hosting a variety of community forums throughout the year with members of diverse communities.

Photo by Ashish Keshwani Photography

A Bold Step: Renton Builds Inclusion into its Business Plan

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Every time I spoke about inclusion I would start with these words: “If you want to be inclusive and communicate effectively with diverse audiences, you have to make it part of your DNA—who you are and the way you think and act.”

As my responsibilities in the city expanded and I assumed the role of deputy public affairs administrator, I was charged with updating Renton’s annual business plan and mission

Photo by Ashish Keshwani Photography

statement. With our changing demographics, we were one of the most diverse cities in our area and a minority-majority city. Making inclusion part of our business plan and mission statement seemed the obvious choice. We took the bold step, and in 2012, the city’s most important strategic document, its business plan, proudly declared: “Building an Inclusive City with Opportunities for All!” Identity-Focused Outreach: Renton African American Pastors, Latino Community, Vietnamese Community

With the help of the mayor’s task force, the city achieved several successes for different community groups. Here are some examples: • Changing the swimming times at our aquatic center to

accommodate the needs of the Muslim community.

• Re-purposing and providing surplused computers for Somali youth and tutoring purposes.

• Successfully targeting outreach through ethnic media to different community groups.

Task force members were ambassadors to our community, provided input to the mayor, and informed their members about critical city information.

However, each group had varied needs and it was certainly not one size fits all. This became even more apparent after 2014, when the nation was rocked by the incident in Ferguson, Missouri, after the fatal shooting of 18-year-old African American Michael Brown by the police.

On Martin Luther King Jr.

Day in 2015, I was approached by a local church pastor who asked if we would speak at their celebration and include the police chief. Through this request and with the assistance of this pastor, we developed RAAP, a partnership and long-lasting collaboration between Renton African American pastors and the police department. Over the years, RAAP, the city, and the police department have worked on various issues, reached out to the youth and the community, found ways to help the community feel safe, and worked to build trust and empathy. We still have a long way to go, but we have an effective foundation. Last summer, when our nation was devastated by the death of George Floyd, the city, police department, and community came together as a group

for a dialogue about the recent events.

Renton also has a large Latino population, which comprises nearly 15 percent of residents. With the change in the federal government administration, there was a significant increase in fear among this group about their immigration status. Concerns about local police reporting undocumented immigrants to Immigration and Customs Enforcement were very real among the community. To address these concerns, we partnered with the Renton Police Department to create a Latino community forum, which included a bilingual sergeant; a well-respected deacon, who was a member of our task force; and a Latino councilmember.

The question of whether Renton should declare itself as

M AY 2 0 2 1 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | 15

Photo by Ashish Keshwani Photography

a sanctuary city was discussed.

Some members felt such a declaration would put a target on the city and would increase scrutiny, while others wanted the security. A consensus was reached that the mayor would proclaim Renton as an “inclusive city.” We had the proclamation translated into Spanish and distributed among our Latino businesses and residents.

We began developing a similar relationship with our Vietnamese community, another one of our larger minority groups in Renton, just before the start of the pandemic.

represented their communities, and contribute their ethnicity’s favorite dishes to the social’s potluck. There was only one rule: you could not sit at the same table as your community and mingling was a must. The city provided the venue, and the social was a tremendous success with groups learning more about each other, participating in icebreakers, and discovering other cultures.

The event brought together this wonderful kaleidoscope of

Celebrations and Festivals

A huge part of our success with our diverse community groups has been our celebrations and festivals. But here again, we took a slightly different approach. Our first festival came about due to the inclusion task force’s desire to have a community social. There was so much diversity among the members that they wanted to get to know each other. The plan was simple: each member would invite a group of their representatives to the social, organize performances that 16 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | M AY 2 0 2 1

unique people in Renton!

This first social was the start of several years of the Renton Multicultural Festival that opened its doors to the community. Once again, what defined the festival and made it different from other celebrations and festivals around the region was involving the audience and having them learn and participate in different cultural practices. How amazing to see an audience full of Rentonites wearing turbans that the Sikh community provided for them and dancing with the lion dancers from the International District!

Other groups celebrated as well. From Black History Month to Cinco de Mayo to Juneteenth, our festivals and the common language of celebration were the glue that brought our communities together.

Building an Inclusive Infrastructure

Over the years our efforts expanded, and we added an emphasis on investing in our

infrastructure within the city of Renton. We hired the services of an expert consultant who conducted a comprehensive assessment, provided training (still ongoing), reviewed various city policies, and formalized the role of the mayor’s inclusion task force members. One of the most important outcomes was the creation of a Renton Equity Lens, which task force members played a key role in shaping.

A very important product of this equity lens was the human resources equity tactical plan that addresses anomalies in our hiring practices. While the demographics of our population were changing, our employee base did not reflect the changing population and we were intent on making changes to eliminate and reduce implicit bias.

To be successful required a holistic approach. I worked hard with the Human Resources department and an HR Inclusion Tactical Plan was created that approached

recruitment at every level: outreach, expanding opportunities, anonymous applications, interview panels, and changing culture. Figure 1 shows the results from 2017 to 2019.

These results clearly indicated that a comprehensive, long-term approach to hiring and recruitment will bring change. Ultimately this diversity will be visible throughout all positions and leadership levels.

Such a workforce strengthens its ability to provide effective and appropriate services that will support equitable and inclusive access to services.

Communities, COVID, and Census 2020

What happened in 2020 with COVID-19 and its impact on our communities of color was unprecedented. But our task force members came to the aid of their fellow community members during this time of extreme pressure and significant need. I’d like to highlight two specific issues:

Census 2020: We had several challenges: this was the first time the census was being conducted online; it was a time of extreme distrust; we had the greatest number of minority members in our population; and Renton was one of the most undercounted cities, which had huge financial impacts and implications.

Now add COVID-19 to the mix! The mayor’s inclusion task force members and other census ambassadors came to the rescue. Their dedication and hard work in getting information out about the census and the importance of being counted was amazing.

We have completed our census, and thanks to these amazing volunteers, Renton is one of the highest counted cities in the nation.

COVID-19: Task force members provided supplies and volunteer services at our hospitals, organized food drives and distribution, and assisted in many other ways. The outreach care and philanthropy of

these community members is beyond compare.

Moving Forward: Equity and Empowerment Commission

While we have had tremendous success and accomplishments with the mayor’s inclusion

Vacancies Filled — City of Renton The data compiled in 2019 compared to 2016 demonstrate an increase in diversity in filling positions by a significant amount when looking at ethnicity, and by a slight amount when comparing gender.

Vacancies Filled — Gender

Vacancies Filled — Ethnicity People of Color represents all people of non-European ancestry

Female Male

61%

63%

37%

2016

2019

39%

People of Color

18% White

68%

82%

32%

task force, we’ve received requests from the public to consider creating a more formal Equity and Empowerment Commission. This new commission would evaluate city policies and expand priorities to be more equitable.

Commission members would advise and work with the city council on achieving social justice and racial equity.

They would also focus on eliminating disparities and advocate for systemic change.

We are currently working with the mayor’s inclusion task force to determine how this commission will evolve and if we will develop the two groups to complement each other.

Clearly, in today’s complex world, there is room for several options. Our focus is to be at the table and work together toward our common goal.

2016

2019

PREETI SHRIDHAR is deputy public affairs administrator of Renton, Washington.

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The Art of

Be present, tell your story, and be an active participant in conversations with the community

COMMUNITY

Engagement

ver the past ten years, the five of us filled key roles in the Office of Communication in Prince William County, Virginia. During that time, we facilitated a dynamic shift from a traditional public information office to a strategic communication office focused on citizen engagement. While each of us have been promoted to new opportunities, in this article, we reflect on our time together to share some lessons learned in our transformation from public information to citizen engagement.

BY JASON GRANT, NIKKI BROWN, TREVOR JOHNSON, SHANE SEARS, AND AMIR WENRICH

Be Clear About the Goal

If you want to engage the public on an issue, start with articulating the goal. What do you ultimately hope to accomplish? Do you want citizen input? Do you want them to shape policy? Or do you just want to inform them about an issue?

Strategic communication requires a clear articulation of the desired outcome. How to accomplish that goal requires creativity and insight into what motivates your audience to engage.

A great example is the dreaded request for a press release.

Every public information officer has faced that moment when a department head or elected official asks for a press release to go out. Certainly press releases are easy enough to craft and distribute, but when we would ask, “what is your goal for putting out the release?” they were often baffled. “I want to get the word out about this,” was generally the response. But if you want to reach the public, a press release isn’t going to cut it. Let’s face it, 18 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | M AY 2 0 2 1

when is the last time you sought out a press release from an organization other than the one you work for?

Instead of a press release, write the news article you would want to come from the release. Write it in AP style and be strictly informative without trying to persuade your audience one way or the other. Use quotes from elected leaders or staff.

Again, write it as a reporter would write it. Then, publish these articles on a news section of your website. And most importantly, send the article to your local news media outlets, and tell them they can use the content as they wish. What we found is, more often than not, the media outlets ran the articles exactly how we had written them. Remember, they need content, and they have probably had to cut back on the number of reporters they can hire. Free content professionally written to inform about an issue is welcomed by most online outlets.

Create a Personality

If you want to increase public engagement, then your content is going to have to be more engaging. Start with a persona. If you speak like “government,” you are going to lose the public.

Think about the character and personality of your community and create a voice that can break through the noise and reach your target market. For larger organizations with multiple departments and agencies, you may have to prepare personas for each department that are somewhat unique. Ultimately, the personality should come through in your content and tone.

Don’t be afraid to use contractions or firstperson voice. Speak to the audience directly.

If you’re reading this sentence, you see what I

People become more engaged with government when the government is seen as people serving them instead of an impersonal bureaucracy of rules and protocols.

just did here. You won’t lose the audience. Instead, you might get them to continue reading, which is ultimately the point, right? If you are too formal, too much like “government,” you aren’t going to encourage public engagement. So, be uniquely you and take some risks!

Take Risks

Too often, government organizations are afraid to try something that might be too far out there because of potential backlash from the public.

However, in our experience, the vast majority of the public enjoys seeing creative messaging from their government. If the only thing keeping you from messaging to the public is a fear of backlash, then you are missing out on opportunities. Some things M AY 2 0 2 1 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | 19

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will fall flat to be sure. But other efforts will be wildly successful. Let the data and response tell you what is working and what isn’t. Track the analytics and listen to the responses. Ultimately, that is what should direct your future messaging.

One example of taking a risk that we weren’t sure about was when our Office of Emergency Management asked us to produce a public service announcement (PSA) about an emergency preparedness

20 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | M AY 2 0 2 1

kit. They wanted folks to know what needed to be in a preparedness kit and think about creating one. We knew that if we wanted people to watch the video and remember it, we needed something unexpected. So, we created a spoof newscast with a news correspondent rapping about what needs to be in a kit. We weren’t sure about it. And honestly, there were those in the community who asked why their tax dollars were being spent on this type of material. But what the data showed us was that people were engaging with the content. They were liking it, sharing it, and most importantly, they were remembering what needed to be in a preparedness kit.

Showcase the People in Government and the Community

Taking risks gives you the opportunity to present creative communication. It pushes you outside of the stereotypical government communication that most of the public tunes out. Yet, the one element of the content that truly engaged the public was showcasing people in government and the community. Instead of talking about a business, show the business. Instead of sending out a notice about a park opening, show people enjoying the park.

Talk with them. Get reactions from the community and share those reactions.

Consider your communication in today’s COVID-dominated world: do you send out a notice of testing sites and vaccination clinics? Or do you take a photo of a site, talk to people who work at the clinic, and get comments from residents about how easy it is to get a test or about potential side effects of the vaccine? Do you follow up with them and see how they are doing after their second dose and find out what types of A still frame of the emergency preparedness PSA video developed by Prince William County. activities they plan to do now that they View the video at https://youtu.be/0R0xtNblVbs. are vaccinated?

These are the types of activities that the public will engage with. They want to hear from and see people in message and have a true sense about what might work. Don’t be afraid to take risks, and always be true to the identity you set for their community. They become more engaged with government the organization. Ultimately, there is no silver bullet to reaching when the government is seen as people serving them instead of the public. The most we can do is be present, tell our story, and an impersonal bureaucracy of rules and protocols. If you want to be an active participant in conversations with the community. engage with the public, give them people to engage with.

Only then will the public see government not as a bureaucracy, but as a member of the community and an equal voice with the In-House Talent Matters people. Only then will we be able to truly engage with Most of us never worked in local government prior to joining the the public. communication office. In fact, the thought that there might be an opportunity for a graphic designer, a newspaper journalist, a video producer, or a web developer and social media manager in government really never crossed our minds. What we all can attest JASON GRANT is the director of advocacy for ICMA to is the fact that working for local government provides a genuine and former communications director for Prince sense of purpose that we were looking for but never really found in William County, Virginia. He has more than 20 years the private sector. There are lots of folks with the skills and abilities of experience in community engagement, strategic needed to develop content that will help engage the community. communication, and professional writing.

The goal of local government is to seek them out.

NIKKI BROWN is the assistant to the county When newspapers were shuttering their print editions, we hired executive for Prince William County, Virginia. She a local journalist who was also a professional photographer. We reviewed our contracts instead of spending money on vendors who has more than 20 years of experience in strategic communications, as well as community and didn’t really know our message. We were able to add a position employee engagement. and hire an online communication manager to make certain our social media and web messaging was as effective as it could TREVOR JOHNSON is the marketing and be. Lastly, as turnover occurred and we had opportunity to fill communications director for Prince William County vacancies, we hired individuals with specific talents to enhance our Economic Development, where he creates effective communication initiatives. We brought on a graphic designer and marketing strategies and crafts compelling stories that we hired video producers who were used to working in the private showcase the county as a prime business destination. sector in creative, fast-turnaround environments. Ultimately, we SHANE SEARS has more than 20 years of experience built a team that was able to perform the work that we often had to rely on others to carry out for us. We did so not by adding positions in strategic communications and video production.

He previously worked in broadcast video production or increasing the budget. Rather, we reimagined how we used the and currently works as an employee engagement resources already available to us by building a team that could specialist for Prince William County. produce content that would reach the community.

Be Active in the Community

Overall, public engagement is an art. If you are going to communicate in a specific medium (video, graphics, print, social media, etc.), then you need to make certain you have people with the talent to execute it effectively. Always focus on the goal of the

AMIR WENRICH is the assistant director of marketing and communications for Prince William County Parks and Recreation. He has over 17 years of experience in the direct marketing and communications field specializing in content development, advertising, and graphic design.

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DIFFICULT

CONVERSATIONS Lead to

STRONGER COMMUNITIES

BY MICHAEL HERBERT AND LINDSAY JACQUES PHOTOS COURTESY OF DAN BORELLI

22 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | M AY 2 0 2 1

Local government plays an important role in a community’s healing process Separation from our community and family, devastating financial impacts, rampant inequities exposed in our systems. Community healing after disastrous events, such as those that have occurred over the past year, is a critical but an often overlooked aspect of recovery. While these skills may be outside the typical “toolbox” of a local government manager, local government can play an important role in convening and facilitating the healing process, and some managers have called for help from an unexpected source—artists.

Before the pandemic, Michael Herbert, town manager of Ashland, Massachusetts, worked to address one of the toughest challenges a

Photo by Justin Knight Photography

I now look at my role not just as an administrator, but more as a community leader.

We tend to focus on the technical aspects of our work and lose sight of why we got into public service in the first place. I wanted to do this job to help develop a genuine spirit of community throughout the town.

position and talents as an artist, the town collaborated with Borelli to help catalyze community healing and address these unseen issues.

Borelli aided the town in utilizing storytelling and art to shed a light on the hidden pollutants that still impacted Ashland’s water supply.

The project incorporated colored streetlights throughout the town that highlighted where and how the contaminants were concentrated.

Borelli also created an art installation near the old factory site, a stainedglass structure that served as a place of healing for the community. With support from the town government to realize these installations, his work reignited a culture of resident activism that is pushing the EPA to expedite cleanup.

We interviewed Michael Herbert to get his take on what it was like to work with an artist on a community healing effort and how the lessons learned have been applied in the wake of COVID-19.

ICMA: How did this project help tell the story of your community and help you move forward?

community can face. Years of corporate dumping in the 1970s left Ashland, Massachusetts, with an EPA-designated Superfund site that they are still recovering from over 40 years later. A study in 2006 revealed that the spike in rare cancers in town were connected to the contamination that continued to threaten the population. Much of the community was seemingly resigned to living with this reality, until a developer broke ground to build apartment housing on the site and an outcry began.

Angry residents filled Town Hall meetings in protest, armed with years of pent-up frustration and resentment that made plain the unaddressed trauma in the community. Dan Borelli, a local artist who witnessed firsthand the devastating impacts of the contamination, had been studying it and building relationships throughout the community for years. Understanding his unique

MH: When I first heard of Dan’s project, I asked myself, “why would we want to highlight something that was so bad about the town?” The community had worked hard to overcome the reputation of being dirty, sick. No one wants to be known as the first Superfund town where kids lost their lives, but I soon realized how important this was as part of our history and the impact it continued to have on the community.

If we can intentionally address our past and the challenges that come with it, we can become a model community who can overcome even the hardest of circumstances and make that strength and resilience a part of our story too. We decided we weren’t just going to try and forget because that was no longer working for us. We were going to embrace our history and take it a step further…this bad stuff happened to us, but we took it and used it to make us stronger as a community.

This kind of work in local government isn’t exactly conventional. Was there an “a-ha” moment that persuaded you and others that this was worth the investment?

By far, the thing I found most powerful to change perspectives were the stories. For aspects of this project, we moved away from the traditional role of local government and I had some trouble at first with myself and later with certain staff coming along. We M AY 2 0 2 1 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | 23

I have a deeper respect and understanding of the ability of art to elicit so many different feelings and responses from the onlookers to powerfully unite the community.

learned from Dan, the artist, and started talking about stories as opposed to numbers, and that was really critical. It’s the difference between “a cancer cluster developed in this area and 90 percent exposed over a 10-year period developed this kind of cancer” and “Kevin Kane and David Keddy lost their lives to these chemicals.”

I think in any form of advocacy you must be able to tell a story instead of just recounting data and facts, and I think Dan was essential to telling that story and had the ability to show people the bigger picture: that we still had an immense amount of pain in our community that needed attention to heal. He showed us how badly we needed to have the discussion.

In Ashland, we have open town hall meetings, which can lead to great debate. We can get questioned for hours about spending $2,000 on a ream of paper, but as we moved away from data and more toward anecdotal storytelling we found an unprecedented level of agreement. Dan’s projects are unique in that they’re not just painting and sculptures, but they directly connected to the heart of the community. Nobody ever debated if the healing garden looked good or was worth the money spent. I can tell you that nobody has ever asked me once: “what does that cost?” The work we did with Dan had a way of transcending those conversations and people saw the value clearly.

The town made a significant investment as a direct result of Dan’s project in that we eventually purchased 180 acres of the contaminated land. Something that originally was so divisive allowed us to all come together in the end and it resulted in a tighter-knit community. When you have 400 people at a New England-style town meeting pass a purchase of that level almost unanimously, you know you’ve done something right.

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What are some of the critical areas of success that made this “risky” project worth it?

We own part of the land now and are creating a multi-modal path that connects to downtown. We were able to attract a regional YMCA community center and age-restricted affordable housing where it was safe to do so, something our town desperately needed. The town is flourishing because we brought this up and worked together to create positive outcomes and take control of our community narrative.

But beyond those easily seen successes, we addressed a deeply seeded wound in the community and took responsibility for it. While the town wasn’t necessarily responsible for the decisions that resulted in the contamination, by engaging in the conversation we were able to make huge investments in the social cohesion of the town. We turned that pain into strength. I built authentic relationships in the community and made friends out of those who initially wanted to see me fired.

The value to our community really hit home when I saw two residents who nine times out of 10 are at each other’s throats in town hall meetings agree on something. Intangible rewards were staggering, town citizen satisfaction survey responses increased by 20 percent regarding the overall direction the town is taking, confidence in town government, and belief that the town was honest.

To what extent has engaging in this work changed the way you consider new problems or projects? Has your experience using these strategies helped you in managing the COVID-19 crisis?

I have a completely different view of my work and the town.

I now look at my role not just as an administrator, but more

as a community leader. We tend to focus on the technical aspects of our work and lose sight of why we got into public service in the first place. I wanted to do this job to help develop a genuine spirit of community throughout the town. Engaging in this work is the difference between “administration” and leadership. I learned how important it is to be willing to immerse yourself in the history and be a part of it, because so often administrators come from outside and need to do the legwork to understand where the community is coming from.

We have the ability as local government officials to reach a wider audience. We can use our platform to discuss why things are important, why we should support them, and how it fits into the larger picture. I now focus on not shying away from the uncomfortable or hard topics, but proactively try to address them head-on and have the trust from the community to do so. In the wake of this particularly difficult year, it has become clear that these relationships contributed to our community’s resiliency and served us well in handling the myriad of challenges we faced together, including widely spread misinformation, restrictions and closures, and vaccine distribution. As we begin to come back together physically as a community, we are hyper aware of the value of communal spaces, such as the healing garden or our springtime farmer’s market, and their vital role in stitching our community fabric back together.

What advice would you give to other local government managers interested in working with nontraditional partners to tackle difficult conversations?

This is the kind of stuff that is not taught in MPA programs— but neither is handling COVID-19. It is something that is an

unconventional skill set or area for local government managers to dive into, and it requires a leap of faith because you won’t have complete control over the process. I am a self-professed control freak, so this was very hard for me to do. But after going through this project, I now have a deeper respect and understanding of the ability of art to elicit so many different feelings and responses from the onlookers to powerfully unite the community.

So my advice would be to take all your preconceived notions about the arts and artists, throw them out the window, and be open minded about working with them on your toughest issues. Be willing to step outside of your “typical” duties. Don’t just look at the bottom line of the finances or the administrative details needed to engage in a project like this. Look at how it ties into a community and helps tell the story, and try to see it as an opportunity to invest in your community wellbeing.

Find like-minded managers and lean on them for support. While this was one of the most impactful and meaningful experiences of my career, there were times when it was incredibly difficult. A manager in the town next to me talked me off the ledge and really helped get me through the hardest points. The mentorship he provided to me was invaluable to get through this successfully.

Finally, as the American Rescue Plan brings new dollars into your community, intentionally involve artists in your recovery efforts.

Invite local artists and cultural institutions to share their ideas on how they can play a role in healing past trauma, reinvigorating downtown spaces, or community engagement moving forward. I promise the dollars invested here will pay returns for decades in increased community social capital.

This interview was conducted for the new ICMA resource, Problem Solving Through Arts and Cultural Strategies: A Creative Placemaking Wayfinding Guide for Local Government Managers.

Download the guide, including a detailed case study on Ashland, at icma.org/creative-placemaking.

LINDSAY JACQUES is a senior research associate, research and policy, at ICMA (Ljacques@icma.org).

MICHAEL HERBERT is town manager of Ashland, Massachusetts.

Meet the Artist Dan Borelli is an Ashland native and independent artist. His practice intersects identity, ecology, and publics, and aims to use art to disrupt power structures so a more just, equitable, healthy, and beautiful world can emerge.

Dan Borelli currently serves as the director of exhibitions at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Connect with Dan:

danborellistudio@gmail.com www.danborelli.com Instagram: @danborelli

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How to Facilitate Inclusive Community Outreach and Engagement

Thoughtful planning, careful consideration, community research, and a strong commitment to listening goes a long way

BY SHERYL TRENT

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We all know

that it can be especially challenging right now to have inclusive community engagement and outreach. Not only are there the traditional concerns of apathy, time constraints, and conflicting priorities, but the pandemic has created additional barriers for our communities: • Access (equipment, transportation, internet service).

• Mandated safety protocols for attendance and spacing.

• Comfort with virtual settings.

As the world continues to grow more diverse, it is more important than ever to take the time to be deliberately inclusive in our community engagement strategies.

Inclusive means “not excluding any of the parties or groups involved,” but even more so, to make participants feel welcome, valued, and included in our work.1 Numerous studies have shown that inclusivity results in better outcomes: more creative ideas, strengthened communication, robust support for results, and deeper relationships.2 So how do we continue to foster and facilitate inclusive community engagement even when faced with ongoing and unique challenges? With a deliberative and intentional focus on thinking inclusively.

There are four general levels to community engagement: inform, consult, collaborate, and empower. Consulting, collaborating, and empowering are all examples of being more inclusive. Many local governments already do an amazing job of informing their communities with inclusion in mind—examples would include printing materials or creating documents in multiple languages. Consulting with your community is also an approach that is often used in engagement— surveys and community meetings are good examples.

However, if inclusivity is truly a goal, there needs to be a focus on collaboration and empowerment with the community, which often means changing an approach or even sharing decision making.

Facilitation as a Tool for Inclusivity

As leaders and managers, we all have tools in our toolbox to use during community engagement. Using facilitative techniques is one of the most meaningful tools local government can use to foster inclusion and create a process for community engagement that is welcoming and results in stronger support.

Facilitation is a tool that inherently creates inclusivity—as a facilitator you are a guide, a motivator, a bridge builder, a cheerleader, and an active listener.

Facilitation is a very different approach from the way most community engagement is designed. Instead of presenting, a facilitator will ask questions. Instead of telling the community what might happen, a facilitator will create opportunities for the community to tell us. Instead of presenting a conclusion, a facilitator guides the participants to reach a consensus-based decision.

Recently I had the opportunity to conduct an inclusive community engagement process. Because

INFORM

CONSULT

Providing balanced and objective information through various channels.

EXAMPLES: • Media: Newspapers, TV, Social Media • Print Materials: Brochures, Fact Sheets • Website

EXAMPLES: • Resident Panel • Networking • Community Survey • Focus Groups

• Open Houses

COLLABORATE

Obtaining input and feedback from community members to help identify needs and assets, set priorities or make decisions.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Partnering with community members in an ongoing, interactional process of planning and decisionmaking; community members provide advice, innovation and recommendations that are reflected in the final outcomes.

EMPOWER

Providing support to enable community members to define issues and create solutions.

Community members lead and control the process.

EXAMPLES: • Community Coalitions

EXAMPLES: • Advisory/Steering Committee • Policy Roundtable

• Citizen Committees • Neighborhood Associations

• Consensus-Building Events

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the core approach was to include as many people and businesses as possible in the project, we started by designing some questions before designing the process—in essence, allowing the participants to tell us what participation would look like (also known as “creating the table”). We asked the question, “What would the practice of inclusion in our strategic plan process look like to you?”

The feedback had some common themes: • Meeting people where they are (literally and figuratively).

• Not just creating a seat at the table, but allowing others to help design the table.

• Listening to learn, improve, and understand.

• Partnering with existing established groups in the community to help with the process (faith based, language based, service based, specific agencies focused on serving populations).

• Designing multiple opportunities to engage (social media, online surveys, mailed/postcard surveys,

A great facilitator is a guide, a mentor, a motivator, a bridge builder, and an active listener. small group meetings, videos, pop-up white boards, sticky notes, online platforms).

• With intention and integrity, invite people to lead so that staff and boards are truly reflective of the community.

Steps in Creating an Inclusive Process

When designing a community engagement process that has a focus on including people, it is helpful to work in steps, always thinking of the question, “What would inclusivity look like?” #1 Determine the outcome of our engagement: Are you trying to inform your community about an important event? Encourage feedback or participation?

Develop a deeper understanding on a specific topic? Create support for a specific action? #2 Know your community demographics: Who lives in your community? Where do they live? What languages do they speak? How do they currently receive important information? Do they have a learning preference (reading a printed newsletter or social media)? What are the barriers to their engagement with you?

Are there areas or groups that you normally do not engage with that should be a part of this process? #3 Evaluate the resources that your community has available. This might mean physical meeting spaces (libraries, businesses, community centers, service organizations, faith-based locations); communication platforms (social media channels, virtual meetings, website engagement, newsletters, billing inserts, message boards); opportunities (events, school, or sports activities); and potential partners.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT TOOLS

• • • • • •

Informal

Formal

White Boards Flip Charts Online Survey Postcard Surveys Sticky Notes Social Media

Establish a community advisory committee

Public workshops and community meetings Availability of the consultant team at public events, board meetings, and other public functions

Regular updates to city council, staff and the planning commission

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IMPLEMENTATION

Communicate Progress

➤

Apply a diverse and effective approach to communicating the progress of the plan and inform the community of engagement opportunities.

#4 Identify the barriers to participation: What access does your community have to transportation, the internet, public meetings, interpreters, childcare (so they can attend uninterrupted), and so on. When you find barriers, develop potential solutions that can encourage participation. #5 Prepare your tools and techniques that you plan to use: On-site visits, printed materials, social media posts, webpages, radio, television, newspaper, surveys, personal interviews, text announcements, billing inserts, newsletters, presenting at meetings or events, focus groups, task forces, advisory groups, sticky notes, or white boards. #6 Create a written process for your engagement and outreach at various levels. Do not panic here—your process does not have to be a policy; think of it as a guidebook or short manual on what to do and when. Do not forget to ask people in the community if you have missed important points, opportunities, or barriers.

Integration

➤

Develop goals, projects and strategies that integrate the common themes from the community engagement feedback.

Establish a foundation for long-term support and commitment to action and results.

#7 Draft your specific outreach and engagement plan for your audience using all of these steps. Make some graphic mockups of your messaging and photos/graphics. Do not forget learning preferences: make sure you address visual, audio, and even kinesthetic learning styles.

Now is the time to come full circle back to the initial question that was so intriguing: what would inclusivity look like?

Take that specific outreach and engagement plan and ask the very people you are trying to reach if in fact it would encourage their participation and make them feel welcome and included in your process.

Allow them to suggest improvements to your plan, even if those improvements might make you stretch or feel uncomfortable.

Now that you have a plan to engage with your community, how can you facilitate that engagement to be inclusive?

Remember that facilitation is 80 percent listening and 20 percent presenting. And one of the critical factors in being a good listener is to facilitate great questions.

The Approach to Inclusive Facilitation

Facilitation that is focused on being inclusive is created intentionally. For every hour of a meeting, crafting the facilitation process might take two or more hours. Setting some ground rules is always helpful, such as: • Every idea is a good idea.

• Respect the speaker, even if you disagree with the idea.

• Everyone will have an opportunity to speak if they want.

• All are equal in the room.

• “None of us is as smart as all of us.”3

Facilitation is 80% listening, 20% presenting.

Once ground rules have been determined, engagement activities and great questions can be designed. Both questions and activities should focus on inclusion, which means the technique should: • Recognize neutrality: gender, race, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, income, and different abilities.

• Realize that everyone has a perspective that they bring to the table that is valuable.

• Treat every answer with respect and dignity.

• Create the space and time to have a full discussion.

• Allow for full expression of cultural differences.

• Integrate with different thinking preferences (writing, speaking, drawing, watching).

• Meet participants where they are (questions for a team of engineers may be phrased differently than questions for a group of grade school children).

• Build stronger relationships and understanding.

How to Ask Inclusive Questions

Great questions are based on the foundation of inclusive facilitation and follow the ground rules. Crafting great questions that will promote involvement and engagement is an art and a science. The best inclusive questions have these elements: • They are open ended.

• They are designed to spark imagination.

• They are easy to understand.

Here are some examples you can adapt to your own meetings: • Imagine (insert the outcome here: vision, successful ballot measure, etc.)

• What will it look like?

• What will it feel like?

• What will you see?

• What do you want to preserve, no matter what else happens?

• What else?

• Anything else?

• If you could wave a magic wand…

• If money were no object…

• How can we make the biggest impact on _____?

• What are the obstacles you see that might get in our way?

• What would be the most helpful to you?

• What can we improve?

• What else should we know that can help you?

Summary

just makes good sense. And with facilitation as a tool and a technique, your results can change from apathetic to excited, limited to expansive, and from frustrating to encouraging. With some thoughtful planning, careful consideration, community research, and a strong commitment to listening, every community engagement opportunity can be inclusive and welcoming. Making a few small changes in the process and the questions asked during community engagement will drive better understanding, deeper support, and a caring community.

ENDNOTES

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/ dictionary/english/inclusive 2 http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/ wp-content/uploads/2016/05/ki-civicengagement.pdf 3 https://www.facebook.com/ watch/?v=1088048054968043 1

As we all shift and adapt to new circumstances, we have new opportunities to engage with our communities. Being inclusive in that engagement

OTHER RESOURCES FOR RESEARCH 10 Tips for Inclusive Community Engagement icma.org/blog-posts/10-tips-inclusive-communityengagement

More about Inclusive Community Engagement inherit.eu/inclusive-community-engagement/

SHERYL TRENT has over 28 years of local government experience and is the owner of SBrand Solutions (sheryl@sbrandsolutions.com).

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Building Community Resilience in Bangladesh Working to prevent violent extremism by focusing on vulnerable youth

S

ince August 2019, ICMA has implemented a new program in Bangladesh, the Community Resilience Initiative. The program, which concludes in May 2021, is funded by the U.S. Department of State and focuses on countering violent extremism by building community resilience, particularly improving the well-being of their youth. To accomplish this, a sustainable, communitybased, multidisciplinary intervention program was designed for vulnerable youth in the pre-criminal space in two communities in Dhaka, Bangladesh. There is

BY LEE GERSTON

interviews1 among various key stakeholders, experts, and service providers; a poll of 365 Dhaka youth; and 10 focus group discussions.

These were supplemented by dozens of outreach and consultative meetings, as well as review of relevant research, publications, and open-source materials by the project team.

The results of this research showed that while there are many projects and efforts aiming to prevent and counter violent extremism (P/CVE) in Bangladesh, they are mostly focused on awareness-raising, peace-building, educational, and capacity-building efforts.

growing concern about violent extremism in Bangladesh due to several incidents in the past decade.

ICMA’s approach to building community resilience in two neighborhoods—Sayedabad and Uttara—is predicated on engaging and connecting community members through various avenues. Engaging with the community includes working with youth role models who serve as mentors to 60 younger counterparts, as well as local professionals in a range of disciplines, to create a multilayered initiative.

At the outset of the program, ICMA conducted 30 semistructured key informant

A Community Resilience Initiative program activity meeting

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Uttara bus stop, one of the busiest in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Community-Based Groups

Operating in the absence of precedent in Bangladesh and as a part of ICMA’s approach to using existing community resources, ICMA established two community-based governance groups to help guide the direction of a first-ofits-kind intervention program.

The first is a Strategic Advisory Committee composed of five to 10 multidisciplinary

professionals with nationallevel recognition who advocate for policies and practices aimed at the prevention of violent extremism (PVE) and well-being of youth, assist in foreseeing and mitigating program risks, and inform program staff about concerns related to government and other important stakeholders and advise them accordingly.

The second group is a Multidisciplinary Practitioner Panel composed of 10 to 15 varied practitioners living or working in the target communities, including educators, PVE practitioners, youth programming specialists,

Asif Himel/Shutterstock.com

There seemed to be an absence of any systematic and wholistic intervention programming for prevention of violent extremism focused on the individual in the pre-criminal space.

psychosocial service providers, psychologists, school counselors, social workers, local religious figures, and training experts. They review progress on intervention efforts, contribute to programming content, bring lessons learned on intervention for PVE into their own institutions and professions, and advise the ICMA program team on additional existing community facilities or services that could be accessed for the benefit of the youth.

Mentorship

While these two groups provided strategic guidance on the program, a cadre of approximately 30 youth role models (mentors), aged 21–30, provide mentorship to the program’s 60 mentees.

Forming mentor-mentee relationships within the same community is another significant step in ICMA’s approach of using community resources to engage with the community. The mentors— recruited directly out of the target communities—provide mentorship to younger mentees and pass along skills they’ve learned both through their lived experience and training provided by ICMA and its partners. Mentors and mentees jointly attend biweekly meetings based on themes such as goalsetting, decision making, conflict management, problem solving, and coping with emotions and stress. These meetings are supplemented by one-on-one meetings between the mentees and a local psychosocial service provider.

Most importantly, the mentors serve as peer companions, giving mentees a sense of community that they may have previously lacked.

Encouraging Results

Three months into the pilot program, initial results are already promising. Nearly half of the mentees have expressed a decrease in frustration. Ninety percent of the mentees now feel that they are part of a group that values them, a 22-percent increase from the start of the pilot. Eighty-three percent of mentees now feel they have peers who help them feel better when they are feeling sad, anxious, or frustrated—a 26-percent increase from the start of the program.

By enhancing their positive social support network, connecting vulnerable youth to community resources such as peer mentors who are successful adults in their community, ICMA is helping to foster resilience in these communities and put youth on a better path. And by piloting this program in the most challenging of environments, ICMA can modify the pilot program to assist municipalities around the world build community resilience by implementing similar programs.

For more information about the project, visit icma.org/ programs-and-projects/ community-resilience-initiativecri-bangladesh.

ENDNOTE

Key informant interviews are qualitative in-depth interviews with people who know what is going on in the community.

1

LEE GERSTON is a senior program manager in ICMA’s Global Program Management team, and manages the CRI Project in Bangladesh (Lgerston@icma.org).

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32 |

Photo courtesy of the city of East Lansing, Michigan. Note: This photo was taken in March 2020, before mask mandates were in place.

Volunteerism in the Time of

Photo courtesy of Mayor Pro Tem Jessy Gregg

COVID-19 and Beyond

Nine reminders for leveraging local interest and assets Throughout a year dominated by crises and worrisome headlines, examples of volunteerism provided an enduring sense of hope and community spirit. The approaches themselves were not always new, just applied to unprecedented challenges.

In this list, we reflect on a year of tracking innovative adaptations of services and activities, and what they should remind local governments about sustaining a culture of volunteerism even in a post-pandemic future.

1 Provide opportunities for remote/ virtual volunteerism.

While this approach existed pre-pandemic—think virtual phone banking for political campaigns as one prominent example—the widespread virtualization of daily life shifted expectations of what could be done remotely and increased flexibility of scheduling.

Local governments can highlight skills-based or selfguided tasks that volunteers can complete remotely and/ or on their own time rather than a prescribed site and time. Most of the examples in this list lend themselves to remote or virtual participation, but one recent trend is the tapping of tech-savvy residents to assist with scheduling vaccine appointments for older residents, as was done in numerous areas including Greenburgh, New York, and Revere, Massachusetts.1 Ongoing opportunities could include conducting wellness checks on vulnerable residents by phone, assembling essential supply kits for families, or adopting community areas for cleanup and beautification.

BY LAURA GODDEERIS AND LINDSAY JACQUES

2 Consider local creativity and culture as assets.

Many people cultivated new hobbies while spending more time at home, and activities like crafting or cooking are often therapeutic escapes from daily stress. An East Lansing, Michigan, city councilmember and owner of a M AY 2 0 2 1 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | 33

local small fabric business helped organize volunteers to produce and distribute cloth face masks to first responders, health care and shelter facilities, essential workers, and schools. The volunteer sewists produced more than 11,000 masks within just the first few weeks of the COVID crisis, eventually doubling that amount along with other forms of personal protective equipment.2 As yet another remote volunteer opportunity, and a complement to nonperishable food donation, local governments have identified service providers able to accept home-produced meals. Consider highlighting flexible ways that community members can apply their natural talents and interests in making, growing, fixing, or performing toward the greater good. In addition to meeting acute needs or augmenting existing services, their handiwork can even provide resources for fundraising efforts.

3 Leverage legacies of local expertise.

Retirees and others with in-demand technical skills were a critical part of the COVID-19 public health response, administering tests and now vaccines. While some health care volunteer initiatives were coordinated by states or professional associations, local governments like San Mateo County, California, urged retired doctors and nurses to volunteer early on, even as details about their assignments were still being confirmed.3 With approximately 10,000 new baby boomers reaching retirement every day, local governments can focus especially on engaging

this talent pool in service opportunities, promoting a healthier and more connected lifestyle. The Springfield, Missouri-based “Give 5” program, recently featured during the 2021 ICMA Regional Conferences, provides additional lessons in opportunities and impacts (give5program.org/ springfield).

4 Facilitate matchmaking through virtual platforms.

More than ever before, prospective volunteers look for these opportunities online. Third-party sites like Volunteermatch.org can help lend visibility to your needs.

But local governments can establish their own portals, such as those set up by Ramsey County, Minnesota,4 or Montgomery County, Maryland,5 that help those looking to serve find the best match for their time, abilities, and interests, whether with the local government or with nonprofit partners.

Depending on community size, simple tools like social media or online forms could be used to capture and match this information.

These tools have been used especially effectively by grassroots mutual aid networks (mutualaidhub. org), which grew over the last year to promote neighbors helping neighbors and to fill gaps in service, particularly to vulnerable populations. Local governments can review these examples to help consider how to support or complement these types of networks and exchanges in their own communities.

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5 Be proactive about donations.

Shelter-in-place orders led to an extreme season of spring cleaning and purging, and communities took advantage of this by targeting specific types of donations. In partnership with local nonprofits, the city of Elyria, Ohio6 held a technology donation drive and offered follow-up classes to help bridge digital divide issues. Even in times of relative normalcy, it is worth keeping a running inventory of donations your local government and/ or its nonprofit partners could most use (and advisories about things that cannot be accepted), along with guidance on where they can be dropped off or collected. For financial donations, consider whether and when it would be strategic to facilitate matching campaigns targeting local entities that can help generate additional momentum and stretch dollars further.

6 Utilize volunteers as trusted messengers.

Particularly within segments of your community that may face language or other cultural barriers to engaging with local government, volunteers can help bridge those gaps in communication

by offering translation or interpretation assistance. (This can be especially helpful in an emergency situation like COVID where time is critical, but when considering ongoing, sustained language needs, local governments should consider additional steps to verify and potentially compensate for these services.) Recent efforts like the city of Toronto’s Pink Band Aid Campaign,7 asking community members to share a photo of the pink band aid received with their vaccine and encouraging their loved ones to sign up, provide models for relatively simple ways to build a volunteer-based campaign around a local issue.

7 Embrace interest in addressing equity and other emergent priorities.

Boards and commissions have long been a traditional, if more formal, means of volunteerism.

This year’s intense spotlight on racial inequities and police reform had local governments across the nation establishing new types of task forces, boards, and commissions to address these issues hand in hand with residents. The equity committee of Pflugerville, Texas, established in July 2020, appointed volunteers to two-year terms to help

ensure the conversation and work would continue beyond 2020.8 As local governments look to emerge from such a transformative crisis, this is a good time to consider whether new advisory bodies might enhance efforts of your governing board and staff.

8 Rethink potential for volunteer-based service delivery.

Almost overnight, the beginning of the pandemic saw government facilities shut down—including critical services like animal shelters.

With their shelters closed, Dallas Animal Services asked volunteers to foster animals and only accepted new intakes in emergency situations.9 After a few days with the animal, many decided to formalize adoption and could do so

through a virtual process. This community- and volunteerbased model led to lower sheltering and other costs. Are there opportunities like this in your community?

9 Embed a culture of giving back.

While the impacts of 2020’s crises have been far-reaching and multifaceted, the mantra that “we are all in this together” continues to resonate. Local governments can think about how to institutionalize such an ethos in future programs and policies. As one example, the Movers and Shakas program10 capitalizes on the pandemicdriven rise in telework and incentivizes economic development through relocation to Hawaii, but also requires that program participants commit to volunteering at local nonprofits.

Internally, local governments can consider establishing or updating employee volunteer policies, which could require or incentivize community service, or even just make special effort to regularly identify and communicate opportunities to pitch in on specific activities.

Has your community found an innovative way to engage volunteers in services or activities over the last year?

Share your story with us at pm@icma.org.

ENDNOTES AND RESOURCES

https://icma.org/blog-posts/seniorcitizens-digital-divide-and-covid-vaccineregistration 2 https://www.facebook. com/cityofeastlansing/ photos/2987957847931442/ 3 https://climaterwc.com/2020/03/20/ san-mateo-county-seeks-retired-medicalprofessionals-to-volunteer-for-covid-19response/ 1

https://www.ramseycounty.us/yourgovernment/volunteer 5 https://www.montgomerycountymd. gov/volunteercenter/volunteers/ covid19.html 6 https://www.cityofelyria.org/events/ technology-donation-drive/ 7 https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/ uploads/2021/03/8e7c-TPH-Playbookfor-the-for-COVID-19-VacinationProgram-Public-Final-F....pdf 8 https://www.pflugervilletx.gov/citygovernment/boards-and-commissions/ board-and-commission-applications/ equity-commission 9 https://www.bedallas90.org/home/ covid-19/ 10 https://www.moversandshakas.org/ 4

LAURA GODDEERIS, AICP, is director of survey research, ICMA (Lgoddeeris@icma.org).

LINDSAY JACQUES, MPA, is senior research associate, ICMA (Ljacques@icma.org).

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Transforming

a Police Department’s Reputation

BY CHRISTINA COOK Photos courtesy of Buckeye Police Department

How one of the nation’s fastestgrowing cities changed its rapport with the community

As you head northwest from Phoenix to Los Angeles, the last city you encounter is Buckeye, Arizona. While Buckeye may be another dot on the map to many, it is in fact the nation’s second-fastest growing city and has been for the past decade. According to the 2019 census report, its population has increased by a whopping 56.6 percent since 2010.1 As the city’s population has grown so has its need to keep pace with a diverse, ever-expanding community.

Just a decade ago, the Buckeye Police Department had a slew of challenges facing it: a lack of transparency, accountability, and the right technology to manage its fast-growing community were most notable. But over the past ten years, with the right blueprint in place, the Buckeye Police Department has mapped its way to a successful transformation with steady changes to enhance transparency, drive accountability, and create an open-ended conversation and relationship with its community.

Keeping Pace

In 2012, Buckeye was adding an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 residents per year, and its police department was actively seeking 36 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | M AY 2 0 2 1

to strengthen the backbone of its workforce to best serve its growing community.

Establishing and implementing sound policy is an essential part of equipping police officers. Good policies help police officers make the best possible decisions in crucial situations and establish expectations for professional and ethical conduct.

Additionally, they make sure law enforcement agencies comply with laws and industry standards. They also contribute to a culture of accountability by creating clear expectations, which helps police departments build trust in the communities they serve.

The Buckeye Police Department recognized the importance of policy and began charting a path toward

a better protected agency and community. Its combination of simplified policy management and training, accreditation, and enhanced transparency has proved to be a winning formula.

Laying the Foundation

Ed Goodman, accreditation manager, spent more than 25 years at the Rolling Meadows Police Department before retiring as assistant chief of police and taking his talents to Buckeye in 2014 to help advance the police department.

Goodman recognized just where the Buckeye Police Department sat in its evolution of policy management and in its relationship with the community. His first priority was to shore up the way the

Good policies contribute to a culture of accountability by creating clear expectations, which helps police departments build trust in the communities they serve.

department created and managed policy.

“When I joined the Buckeye Police Department the first thing I did was change the way we were creating, tracking, and attesting to policies, training, and industry standards,” said Goodman. “I enlisted the best document and policy management system out there—a cloudbased compliance software that would allow our team to collaborate in the development of policy, share updates in real-time, and bring our training online.”

While shifting to technology was the first step in helping the Buckeye Police Department enhance its policy management game, it wasn’t the only one. Goodman remarks that creating policies

in a collaborative manner and looking at policies as living and breathing guidelines are crucial elements to transforming an agency’s success, as well as its reputation within the community.

“We don’t write policies in a bubble. We get local stakeholders involved. Our police association weighs in by reviewing all of our policies and our management team voices their opinion on the creation of policies.

For example, if we are developing a traffic policy, our traffic officers are involved,” said Goodman. “These are evolving documents that can be tweaked as our community changes.”

But Goodman also says it’s not just the development of

M AY 2 0 2 1 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | 37

strong policy that has changed the way the Buckeye Police Department works with its community.

Police accreditation was first introduced in the United States in 1979, when the four major law enforcement associations—International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE), National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA), and the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF)—sought to create a credentialing body. The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc. (CALEA®) was formed.

Since then, CALEA has created a comprehensive set of standards to ensure law enforcement agencies are held to the most effective and responsive policies, as well as the highest level of ethics and professionalism.

According to the Buckeye Police Department’s website, “because the process is so

Photo from ICMA Archive

An Added Layer of Accountability

rigorous, only three percent of law enforcement agencies nationwide choose to become accredited by CALEA.”2 Yet the impact accreditation can have on a community is dramatic. In addition to demonstrating the commitment of an agency to professionalism in the field, according to CALEA, it “assures the community that law enforcement is committed to the highest quality of service and that its policies and procedures are effective, responsive, and current.

Accreditation also commits an agency to programs of direct benefit to the public, as well

38 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | M AY 2 0 2 1

as specific procedures to cope with unexpected man-made or natural disasters.”

After several years of working toward its goal of accreditation, the Buckeye Police Department was accredited by CALEA in 2016, and received reaccreditation in 2020. Three years later, the Buckeye 911 Dispatch Center was also accredited, making the Buckeye Police Department the first dual CALEA-accredited agency in Arizona.

As Goodman put it, “This put us in a leadership position within the community— and across the nation. Our

community now has stronger faith that we are governed by the gold standard in public safety policies and procedures.

Additionally, we now have several law enforcement colleagues from across the country coming to us with questions about best practices in law enforcement.”

A Culture of Openness and Transparency

Openness and transparency aren’t typical traits the general public uses to describe their local law enforcement agencies. But in recent years, technology has played a key role in helping local

government agencies embrace a more open relationship with their communities.

In 2018, the Buckeye Police Department learned of a new capability within its cloudbased compliance software system that would allow it to enhance its relationship with the public. This new publicfacing documents feature would enable the Buckeye Police Department to ensure its residents had access to the most current policies and procedures at any time, from anywhere— the same ones its officers reference daily.

“Through the use of publicfacing documents, we’ve been able to provide quick access to our available policies to the community, other law enforcement agencies, the media, and attorneys with little to no staff time,” remarked Goodman. “By having our policies available in an open, easy-to-access format, we are demonstrating our commitment to transparency to these stakeholders, as well as our desire to continually improve our practices.”

Not only did the use of public-facing documents prove to be key in improving the Buckeye Police Department’s relationship with the community by walking the walk of transparency, it also became a crucial element in pushing information to the community when COVID-19 hit the United States in early 2020.

“As soon as any new COVID-19 information came in—and it was coming in in droves—it was made available to the community,” continued Goodman.

This feature also proved to be pivotal in 2020 when the election took place as a means to ensure safety and

crowd control during an unprecedented time.

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Within the past decade, the Buckeye Police Department has addressed its challenges head on, improving its transparency and accountability—and most notably, its relationship with its community—with the right systems and processes, and the technology to simplify its management. And while the growth of this evolving city continues at a rapid pace, the department is now well-equipped to handle any challenges that come their way.

“We are so much better than we were 10 years ago,” Goodman said. “Come back and take a look at this agency just five years from now — we’ll be so much better. A key element of our success has been the role of technology and the groundwork CALEA has played in helping us to improve.”

ENDNOTES AND RESOURCES

https://www.census.gov/library/ visualizations/2020/demo/fastestgrowing-cities-2010-2019.html 2 https://www.buckeyeaz.gov/ residents/police/law-enforcementaccreditation#:~:text=The%20 Buckeye%20Police%20Department%20 is%20now%20the%20first%20dual%20 CALEA,in%20the%20state%20of%20 Arizona.&text=The%20Commission%20 on%20Accreditation%20for%20Law%20 Enforcement%20Agencies%2C%20Inc. 1

CHRISTINA COOK is marketing manager at PowerDMS, a cloud-based policy management platform that helps government and public safety organizations with transparency, accountability, risk and liability reduction, increases organizational efficiency, and helps save lives. www.powerdms.com

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STIMULUS FUNDING for Maximum Impact

BY ASSAF FRANCES

Three ways community engagement can help local governments in their federal funding investment strategies

40 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | M AY 2 0 2 1

The historic, $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 provides about $350 billion in direct funding to state and local governments. The stimulus package is largely considered to offer tremendous and muchneeded relief to cities and counties nationwide,1 and in comparison to the federal support provided via the CARES Act in 2020, this bill is much more flexible and thought to be better designed to ensure that communities of all sizes receive support.2

Although the relief package authorizes significant flexibility in spending, the resources it offers are still limited and the need is immediate. Tensions are already emerging between local governments’ medium and long-term growth allocation strategies, and what their residents would like to see funded today. Local governments that have a robust community engagement strategy in place will be able to: 1. Allocate funding more equitably and with the biggest impact by better understanding expressed community needs and priorities.

2. Get residents and council on board with medium and long-term growth funding strategies.

3. Better measure the impact of their spending decisions.

Let’s dive into each of these use cases.

1. Incorporate community input into allocation decisions to ensure all community members’ needs are met and that funding is spent equitably and with the biggest impact.

Ensuring that all corners of the community are being heard from when it comes to allocating resources is impossible without a set civic engagement strategy in place. Additionally, good resident feedback data, whether organic or proactive, is invaluable when allocating funds.

Organic feedback is broad-reaching and can give a sense of residents’ most pressing needs and priorities, while proactive

feedback involves actively seeking feedback by engaging with residents. Although vastly different, together the two form a holistic and granular view into your community members’ most urgent needs and wants. Understanding directly from residents what they need enables local governments to drill down accurately on how and where to invest resources so that stimulus funding can be distributed to address the various needs of community members.

A great example of proactive engagement for nuanced investment comes from the local government in Decatur, Illinois.3 In 2020, the city ran very specific community surveys in order to build a well-informed grant program around the allocation of its CARES Act funding, including setting specific parameters for business relief grants that reflected the expressed needs of its residents.

After the city announced how it would be distributing grants— based on survey responses—the city tracked organic discourse to measure how its allocations were met by the public. By honing in on what residents needed, the city confidently allocated funding—with 57 percent positive feedback on its federal spending decision making.

2. Get residents and council on board with medium and long-term growth funding strategies.

Local governments will certainly be making some funding allocation decisions to invest in medium and long-term growth that don’t necessarily seem to align, on their face, with residents’ immediate needs. Examples might be investment in infrastructure projects, data tools,4 plugging budget holes (a spend that the CARES Act didn’t allow for), or improving basic services. An agency that has the foresight and knowledge on how it needs to prioritize stimulus funding must still be able to effectively communicate both the what and the why.

Tracking organic resident discourse, measuring levels of resident satisfaction, and understanding why residents may be pushing back as local governments begin disbursing funds will help local governments better respond to their community members and get them on board with allocations.

M AY 2 0 2 1 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | 41

Local governments that can continuously track resident sentiment levels and adapt to results will be more impactful and be better positioned to stretch limited budgets effectively.

Consistent civic engagement encourages local government leaders to adjust and refine messaging and communication, and having a continuous feedback loop can help increase transparency as well as confidence in leadership. For example, when finalizing their FY2022 budget strategy, the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, leveraged both organic resident feedback and survey responses to make initial and ongoing budgeting decisions.5 They again leveraged the feedback when communicating these decisions with residents, much to their satisfaction.

With residents aligned, getting council on board with investment recommendations will also be easier. Resident input data can be a powerful tool in aligning council with policy and budgeting recommendations6 because councilmembers often hear from a smaller, non-representative slice of the community.

Using broader community input can play a pivotal role in helping councilmembers see the bigger picture.

3. Measure the impact of funding decisions with good performance management.

Impactful and equitable stimulus allocations require oversight metrics, and good performance management should also include resident sentiment. A continuous resident feedback loop can help local governments measure the effectiveness of programs in the year ahead and sentiment trends can help local governments adapt when necessary. Measuring resident sentiment and satisfaction levels is also key for understanding if residents and their local leaders are on the same page, as well as good indicators about the levels of confidence in the prospects of the community and what’s to come.

Ultimately, for resident sentiment to be useful for performance management, it must be timely and there must be a consistent and ongoing way to measure it. Local governments 42 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | M AY 2 0 2 1

that can continuously track resident sentiment levels and adapt to results will be more impactful and be better positioned to stretch limited budgets effectively.

In Conclusion

How local governments decide to invest in their communities is dependent on a few factors, but one of the turnkeys to effective funding allocation is their ability to continually understand their community members’ needs, as expressed by residents, both broadly and immediately.

For more ideas on how you can provide effective and equitable relief with stimulus funding using the right community engagement strategy, visit Zencity.io.

ENDNOTES AND RESOURCES

https://zencity.io/blog/good-omens-the-biden-administration-will-drive-localgovernment-forward/ 2 https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policy-topics/public-finance/how-willstimulus-package-aid-state-and-local 3 https://zencity.io/case_studies/how-decatur-il-incorporated-surveys-into-its-cares-actfunding-allocation-work-with-city-council/ 4 https://www.govtech.com/budget-finance/Data-Driven-Ways-to-Maximize-CityBudgets-Post-Pandemic.html 5 https://connect.chattanooga.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/FINAL-ChattanoogaFY-2020-Budget-Input-Report.pdf 6 https://zencity.io/guide_report/say-yes-to-data-using-resident-feedback-data-to-getyour-council-on-board/ 1

ASSAF FRANCES is director of urban policy and partnerships at Zencity, where he manages special research projects, the company’s engagements and relationships with industry, state, and national government organizations. Zencity is a community insights and analytics platform that provides actionable data to local government leaders based on their residents’ input. Using advanced AI and a team of analysts, Zencity collects, aggregates, and analyzes both organic feedback and direct input from everywhere residents are talking about their city or county and its services online.

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Leadership in Local Government, Part 5:

THE LEADERSHIP SAUCE

The indispensable ingredient of leadership

BY ED EVERETT, ICMA-CM

T

his is the fifth article in the 2021 series on leadership, which began in the January 2021 issue. The concepts and ideas discussed in previous articles are important and necessary; however, without the essential “leadership sauce,” one can never become a truly transformational leader.

Let me give you an analogy to better describe what I mean. Great chefs know that a good meal is composed of wonderful ingredients properly prepared, but what makes a dish truly memorable is the sauce. Similarly, leadership has many important components, but the leadership sauce, which I’ll describe in this article, is the indispensable component of effective leadership. The sauce is spread over the previously discussed leadership components, allowing a dynamic and transformational leader to emerge.

The ingredients of the sauce are essential, yet personal to each leader. The best way to develop your leadership sauce is to experience and learn from both your successes and failures.

Ingredients of the Leadership Sauce Let’s examine each of the six main ingredients in the leadership sauce. #1 Passion

This is a powerful force and essential to leadership. Passion should not be confused with outward emotions or lots of activity. Rather it is a powerful, internal driving force. No effective leader can be successful without passion.

Leaders don’t do the hard work of changing things for the better because they are “supposed to” or because it is “expected.”

Rather, true change happens because a leader deeply feels the importance of the change and is driven to pursue that change.

Passion drives determination, persistence, and urgency.

Without passion, it is very difficult to remain determined when no one else can initially see your vision. Without passion, it is nearly impossible to persist against the array of obstacles and barriers that are unavoidable around important change. Passion is what fires the urgency that is frequently essential.

Passion isn’t learned or developed. We all have passions, but many of us do

44 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | M AY 2 0 2 1

not recognize them or are afraid of our own passions. You cannot fake passion. Leaders must understand their specific passions and how best to express them.

Passion in the workplace is a positive and inspiring force.

Passion is contagious. When someone exudes excitement, it influences others to try harder and reach further. When channeled properly, passion is one of the most powerful motivators, and can: • Help sharpen one’s focus.

• Stimulate creativity, innovation, and hard work.

• Enhance the desire to pursue excellence.

• Bring energy and enjoyment to work. #2 North Star/Set of Values

All effective leaders know their North Star and the values that guide them. Your North Star is your personal mission statement. It’s a fixed destination that you can depend on in your life, even as the world changes around you.

A leader’s North Star is in their heart and soul, as well as in their head.

Your North Star helps define what you do, and values help define how you accomplish that purpose. Values provide the

framework within which you can test decisions, accomplish tasks, and interact with others. All great leaders can easily articulate their values. They intuitively know their bottom line—the line they will never cross.

Although leaders may emphasize somewhat different values, their values must always be grounded in the greater good. Equity, fairness, common ground, civility, trust, empathy, and compassion are all examples of leadership values. The specific values that a leader emphasizes are important; however, more important is that the leader believes deeply in their values and is personally committed to them.

Values are the engine behind an organization’s culture. They help organizations determine a range of acceptable behaviors, defining for leaders, employees, and residents alike which actions are encouraged and which are unacceptable. A local government’s values create helpful boundaries that show staff and residents where the organization will go and where it won’t go. #3 Integrity

Integrity is one of the core leadership values, perhaps the most important. Simply defined, integrity is an adherence to a code of values, and the practice of being honest and showing a consistent and uncompromising adherence to strong moral and ethical principles and values.

Integrity is primarily learned in childhood or not at all. Integrity is very personal. It is yours and yours alone. No one can take it from you or force you to give it away. Only you can give away your integrity, and if you do, it is exceedingly difficult to regain.

Your integrity is defined by your values and your values are defended by your integrity.

Passion is contagious. When someone exudes excitement, it influences others to try harder and reach further. #4 Political Astuteness

#5 Courage

Robert Kelley defines political astuteness as “the ability to manage competing workplace interests in order to promote an idea, resolve conflicts, and most importantly, achieve a goal.” It is about knowing how to get something done within a specific environment versus having an aspiration to get something done.

All great leaders have learned how to be politically astute. It is primarily learned through mistakes and failures. It requires an understanding of the social, cultural, organizational, and political environment in which leaders operate. It is about being able to read people and situations, knowing how to communicate effectively and acting accordingly.

Too often innovative and creative ideas are lost because of the inappropriate timing of their implementation. Political astuteness helps a leader know when to: • Act with urgency and when to be patient.

• Lead and when to follow.

• Compromise and when not to.

• Hold firm even if that might lead to getting fired.

This is an incredibly important ingredient of the leadership sauce. I have discussed it in a previous article in the series, “Leadership in Local Government, Part 4: Fear and Courage—The Leadership Duality.” Courage is the biggest antidote to the risk aversion that cripples our profession. #6 Trust

Trust is a complicated and nuanced concept. All great leaders are trusted by others and have earned that trust based on how others experience their leadership. Unlike integrity, which is yours to hold dear or give away, trust is something others give to you. However, like integrity, once you lose trust, it is exceedingly difficult to regain.

Trust is not only based on your words and deeds, but how you implement those deeds.

Others will only trust you if they see that your words and actions are consistent and that you act based on your stated values. Trust and integrity are intimately related. Without integrity, you will never earn someone’s trust.

Trust is often earned during periods of conflict and disagreements that are resolved in equitable ways. You can’t go out and seek trust, but rather, trust will find you if you deserve it. Trust me on this.

Exercise

1. Of the six key ingredients of the leadership sauce, consider the following: • Which ones have you effectively developed and used?

• Which ones have been more difficult to develop and use?

• Are there other key ingredients that should be included?

2. Think about a situation in which you observed a leader demonstrating multiple ingredients of their leadership sauce. What was the situation, what action(s) did the leader take, and what was the result or outcome?

Summary

The leadership sauce is absolutely indispensable to leadership. The sauce is a big part of why leadership is an art and not just a set of skills. Are the ingredients of the leadership

sauce developed by nature or nurture? The answer is a large dose of both.

Every effective leader has to develop their own sauce.

Practice is essential to improving one’s leadership: The more you practice, the more you will create your own leadership sauce that will make you a dynamic and transformational leader.

Leadership is a journey.

Great leaders learn from their individual journeys.

Unfortunately, many folks go mindlessly through their journey and do not become leaders.

If you possess passion, a North Star/values, political astuteness, courage, integrity and trust, you will be an unstoppable and powerful leader.

I passionately hope to see more chefs in local government experimenting with their own leadership sauce. I stand ready to help anyone in developing their leadership sauce.

ED EVERETT, ICMA-CM, is a consultant and former city manager, Redwood City, California. In 2007, he received ICMA’s Award for Career Excellence in Memory of Mark E. Keane. (everetted@comcast.net)

M AY 2 0 2 1 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | 45

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