PM Magazine, July 2020

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COVID-19 Recovery in Remote Australia 10 Placemaking for Small Towns 14 Evictions in Suburbs and Small Communities 24

SMALL TOWNS & RURAL COMMUNITIES

Burnie, Tasmania

JULY 2020 ICMA.ORG/PM

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JULY 2020 VOL. 102 NO. 7

CONTENTS

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F E AT U R E S

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Out of the Fire and into the Pandemic Taking on COVID-19 in Australia’s regional, remote, and small local governments Local Government Professionals Australia

The importance of placemaking for small towns Laura Allen, ICMA-CM, Berlin, Maryland

20

A Small Town with an Impressive Climate Strategy

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D E PA RT M E N T S

A municipality in Denmark is on track for becoming self-sufficient in renewable energy by 2023 Jens Peter Hegelund Jensen, Ringkøbing-Skjern, Denmark

2 Ethics Matter!

It’s Election Season…Again?

24

6 Women in Leadership

The Struggle for Suburbs and Smaller Communities

The Importance of Values-Based Leadership

Evictions and poverty outside the central city Elaina Wolfe-Johns, Cincinnati, Ohio; and Tom Carroll, Silverton, Ohio

7 ICMA Awards

30

9 Insight

Continuing the Legacy: ICMA Awards First Winners of Judy L. Kelsey Scholarship

COVID-19 Equity Framework and Rapid Response Tool

Stronger Together Making the case for consolidating rural fire services Jeremy Mitchell, Champaign, Illinois

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From Sleepy to Chic

Photo from LGPA Australia

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48 Professional Services Directory

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Safely Climbing the Smarter Cities Mountain (Part 2) Creating a cybersecurity-first culture for a zero-trust smarter city Barry L. Schalkle, JD, CPA; and Cyrus Olsen, PhD, Cyber Security Warriors, LLC Cover image: RUBEN RAMOS / Alamy Stock Photo

2 International City/County Management Association

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A small island takes town meetings online C. Elizabeth Gibson; Janet Schulte, PhD.; and Julia D. Novak, ICMA–CM

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Taking Steps Toward Economic Recovery through Community Engagement

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ETHICS MATTER!

It’s Election Season…Again?

BY MARTHA PEREGO, ICMA-CM

Social distancing has added another layer of

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

complexity to the voting process here in the United States and will alter candidate campaign strategies.

Yet some things remain the same. Come August, the national party conventions will take place, virtual or not, to move presumptive presidential candidates to the party’s official nominee. By Labor Day, election season will be in full throttle.

This season always presents a unique challenge to those who chose public service, specifically local government, as a profession. Your work provides a ring side view of how a representative democracy functions. In a tripartite deal, residents get to select their elected leaders at all levels of government, elected officials get to lead and set policy, and the professional staff work to the success of it all by serving as nonpartisan conveners and critical sources of objective and independent guidance.

On a personal level, you do get a voice. You can vote for the candidates of your choice and voice your opinion on the issues. You may not have voted for that elected official or support their positions on the issue, but in your official capacity, you do need to work with them—and do so in a way that doesn’t compromise your role or cross that sometimes-blurry line into the realm of politics. It brings to mind a member’s

story about Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s remarks at an ICMA conference in the late 1960s. He said how great it was to be addressing the largest group of non-politicians who are engaged in politics!

As we move into the high season of campaigning, here is some advice for navigating the most common election experiences.

Voting: ICMA members share with their fellow citizens the right and responsibility to vote. If you live in a state with closed primaries, you are permitted under the ICMA Code of Ethics to register with a political party for the purpose of exercising that right.

Candidate Endorsements: In order to be effective in doing your work on behalf of your local governments, do not endorse any candidates running for any city, county, special district, school, state, or federal offices. Activities to be avoided include public statements of support, yard signs, and bumper stickers, as well as more subtle signs of support, such as appearing on the dais of a campaign rally with the candidate or posting a selfie on social media wearing the candidate’s campaign gear. These activities constitute an endorsement.

Financial Support: Whether it is for an individual seeking elected office, an incumbent running again, a political party, or another organization that makes direct donations to candidates, members should not make

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July 2020

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financial donations. All donations, regardless of how modest, are a matter of public record with both names and occupations listed.

While the donation may be tiny in the grand scheme of things, you are publicly stating your support for the candidate.

What about other fundraising events like private parties hosted by supporters or going as a guest to an event? All of these efforts, whether a direct appeal or not, are intended to generate financial support for a candidate. For that reason, they should be avoided. The election guideline in the ICMA Code of Ethics states that members shall not make financial contributions or participate in fund-raising activities for individuals seeking or holding elected office.

2019–2020 ICMA Executive Board PRESIDENT

Jane Brautigam* City Manager, Boulder, Colorado PRESIDENT-ELECT

James Malloy* Town Manager, Lexington, Massachusetts PAST PRESIDENT

Karen Pinkos* City Manager, El Cerrito, California VICE PRESIDENTS

International Region

Tim Anderson Chief Administrative Officer, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada Sue Bidrose Chief Executive Officer, Dunedin City Council, New Zealand Robert Kristof City Manager, Timisoara, Romania

Candidate Debates: Forums or debates sponsored by independent organizations provide everyone the opportunity to learn more about the candidates and their positions.

For that reason, you can attend as a private citizen or staff member. What’s important is to keep a low profile and be prepared to respond if someone at a local event tries to draw you into the debate. Practice saying, “I am just here to learn more about the issues and have no comment.”

Candidate Rallies: While highly political, there is an argument that they are an opportunity to hear more about the candidate’s position on the issues. Sitting on the dais behind the candidate is not a good idea. A lower profile in the back of the venue is a better choice.

Issues: The guideline on personal advocacy of issues makes it clear that ICMA members do not lose their right to express their opinion. Members share with their fellow citizens the right and responsibility to voice their opinion on public issues. Members may advocate for issues of personal interest only when doing so does not conflict with the performance of their official duties.

If you want to advocate for a position, you can do so. First, make it clear that the opinion you offer is your own. Second, don’t use

Midwest Region

Southeast Region

Wally Bobkiewicz* City Administrator, Issaquah, Washington**

W. Lane Bailey* City Manager, Salisbury, North Carolina

Clint Gridley* City Administrator, Woodbury, Minnesota Molly Mehner* Deputy City Manager, Cape Girardeau, Missouri

Laura Fitzpatrick* Deputy City Manager, Chesapeake, Virginia Michael Kaigler* Assistant County Manager, Chatham County, Georgia

ICMA Executive Director Marc Ott Director, Member Publications

Lynne Scott lscott@icma.org

Managing Editor

Kerry Hansen khansen@icma.org

West Coast Region

Newsletter Editor

Kathleen Karas kkaras@icma.org

Michael Land* City Manager, Coppell, Texas

Maria Hurtado* Assistant City Manager, Hayward, California

Graphics Manager

Delia Jones djones@icma.org

Design & Production

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Raymond Gonzales County Manager, Adams County, Colorado

Edward Shikada* City Manager, Palo Alto, California

Northeast Region

Peter Troedsson* City Manager, Albany, Oregon

Mountain Plains Region

Heather Geyer* City Manager, Northglenn, Colorado

Matthew Hart* Town Manager, West Hartford, Connecticut Christopher Coleman* Town Manager, Westwood, Massachusetts Teresa Tieman* Town Manager, Fenwick Island, Delaware

* ICMA Credentialed Manager (ICMA-CM) ** Serving the region from a different location as is permissible in the ICMA Constitution.

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public resources, including your official title, to support a personal stance. Third, focus on the issue, not the candidate. Lastly, you can join and/or make a financial contribution to an issue-oriented advocacy organization. You can march in a protest or rally, or participate in a campaign designed to raise awareness. You can put a bumper sticker on your car (just not on a city-issued one).

In the current climate where every issue is highly politized and partisan, taking a stance can seem very political. For that reason, it’s wise to consider the consequences of speaking out. It’s not a reason to stand down or stay silent. Just something to consider.

Family Activities: What do you do if your kids want to put up a yard sign? Or protest? Or your spouse wants to make a financial donation? The Code only applies to the conduct of the member. Your spouse can make a campaign donation, even from a joint account, if they sign the check. The yard sign or bumper sticker on the family car are stickier issues to address. How would anyone else know that it is your spouse or child who supports the candidate and not you? Best to have that candid discussion with family about how their political activity can affect you.

On a personal level, you have the right to vote for the candidate of your choice. On a professional level, whether an elected official was your choice or not, you need to work with them in support of your community. That county commissioner, state representative, or congressman that represents your local government and the residents will be your ally in bringing needed support during a natural disaster or assistance on legislation. Publicly engaging on behalf of or in opposition to an elected official will restrict your ability to serve your official position. Some may respond, “But I live in a city or state that is all one party, so what’s the harm in engaging?” Just because it is nonpartisan or dominated by a single party, doesn’t equate to the absence of party politics or party factions. In every campaign, there are winners and losers. Don’t bet that you will always select the winner. It’s best to exercise your right to participate in the democratic process while observing a politically neutral stance.

PROFILES OF LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT IN ACTION “ ICMA-CM is the International Gold Standard for local government managers. It recognizes the true professionals in our career field and encourages them to continue developing their skills.”

Frank E. Feild, ICMA-CM Fitzgerald, Georgia

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

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JUST RELEASED A PM MAGAZINE SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT

RACIAL AND SOCIAL JUSTICE This late-breaking special edition, “Moments of Change: Leading with Courage and Commitment for Racial and Social Justice,” includes: • Observations and commentary from local government leaders • Resources for addressing the needs of your community • Ways to take action

Read the digital edition or download a copy at tinyurl.com/PMSupplement

WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP

The Importance of Values-Based Leadership

BY HEATHER BALSER, WITH EMILY HOGAN

What does it mean to lead during an unprecedented crisis?

What does it mean to lead

HEATHER BALSER is city manager of Louisville, Colorado (heatherb@ louisvilleco.gov).

EMILY HOGAN is assistant city manager for communications and special projects of Louisville, Colorado (ekropf@louisvilleco.gov).

As we shift while female? This is a fascinating from response question and one that I would have to recovery, responded to at the beginning of I’ve seen an 2020 like so: it can be challenging, overwhelming frustrating, character-building, and display of completely rewarding. There are many teamwork and obstacles women have faced over unity across time in our profession and navigating our towns these roadblocks takes patience and and cities. determination. You’ll want to rely on your female colleagues to help navigate and support you.

Has this changed in a post-COVID world? I think the pandemic has brought managers, both male and female, together.

We’re fighting the same battle every day to keep the public safe, keep staff employed and engaged, and keep critical operations going despite financial impacts. We’ve had to look to one another during these unprecedented times to consider reopening scenarios, budget adjustments, safety protocols, and many other important decisions.

As we shift from response to recovery, I’ve seen an overwhelming display of teamwork and unity across our towns and cities.

Managers across the Denver Metro Area have banded together to serve our communities to the best of our abilities. Instead of answering the question of what it means to lead while female, I’d like to respond to this question instead: what does it mean to lead during an unprecedented crisis?

You must be adaptable, empathetic, prepared, resilient, transparent, trustworthy, and willing to fall down, get up, and try again. ICMA identifies these as the critical components to effective crisis leadership and I couldn’t agree more. Ralph Gigliotti writes of the “importance of knowing one’s core values and using these” to guide your response in a crisis.1 In fact, values-driven crisis leadership can actually result in a stronger organization and community.

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In 2018, the city of Louisville adopted its first strategic plan and the “ICARE” core values, which stands for innovation, collaboration, accountability, respect, and excellence. I’ve seen each of these values displayed on a daily basis by our staff throughout the pandemic. While this skill set is incredibly important, I’ve also seen the need for additional transformative leadership skills during this time of crisis.

These new, transformative skills include a focus on human well-being, strong leadership, ethical awareness, consensus decision-making, and information sharing. It’s my hope that as we navigate our way through the pandemic and beyond, we’ll continue demonstrating these new skills while maintaining our commitment to the ICARE values.

And when we make it to the other side of the public health crisis, we’ll be stronger and more resilient. If we can continue to look toward values-based leadership and embrace this new skill set, we will have successfully led during a crisis.

ENDNOTE

https://icma.org/articles/article/6-critical-components-effectivecrisis-leadership 1

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ICMA AWARDS

Continuing the Legacy

ICMA Awards First Winners of Judy L. Kelsey Scholarship ICMA is pleased to award the first Local

Government Management Fellowship Judy L. Kelsey Scholarship to two current fellows.

ICMA is happy to announce the first two winners of the Judy L. Kelsey Scholarship, which was established in August 2019. This award is named in honor of Judy Lyn Kelsey, a pioneer in the local government management profession and long-time ICMA member, who generously gifted $108,941 to ICMA in the disbursement of her estate. With her gift, ICMA established the Local Government Management Fellowship Judy L. Kelsey Scholarship to assist emerging women leaders who have been accepted into the ICMA Local Government Management Fellowship (LGMF) program, which places a fellow in a manager’s or department head’s office in a Auria Malachowski Ashley Wooten council–manager community.

Kelsey attended the University of Southern Ashley Wooten is currently serving as a fellow in the California, graduating with a master’s in public administration. city of Chamblee, Georgia. She completed her master of She served as city manager in several California cities, public administration degree at the Hauptmann School including Eureka, Atherton, and Fountain Valley. She was one of Public Affairs at Park University in Parkville, Missouri. of the first women to serve on the ICMA Executive Board In addition to her ICMA membership, Ashley is also a as vice president. She served a two-year term from 1976 member of the National Forum for Black Public to 1978, after the membership adopted a Administrators. Ashley’s goal is to become a constitutional amendment that allowed The award is named city manager, and she also hopes that she is greater representation of women, minorities, in honor of Judy Lyn able to empower other young women to pursue and young professionals. She also served Kelsey, a pioneer in local government. as president of the Municipal Management the local government The scholarship, totaling $5,000 for Association of Southern California from each individual, is awarded to winners to 1972 to 1973. In addition to becoming a management profession augment their salary and defray personal trailblazer in local government management, and long-time expenses, including living expenses, student she was a seasoned traveler, developing lasting ICMA member. loan payments, or personal/professional friendships around the world. development expenses.

This year’s winners of the Judy L. Kelsey Ashley and Auria were selected by the Award are Auria Malachowski and Judy Kelsey Scholarship Selection Subcommittee of the Ashley Wooten.

Local Government Management Fellowship Advisory Auria Malachowski is current serving as a fellow in Sarasota Board, which is made up of LGMF alumni. Also on the County, Florida. She graduated from the University of Central subcommittee was a representative from the League Florida with both a master of public administration degree and a of Women in Government. The committee read and master of science in criminal justice degree before being placed as scored essays from 10 applicants on four areas of criteria: a fellow. Auria has not only been an active member of her LGMF demonstrated financial need, understanding of the award, cohort, but she has also been active at ICMA events, including demonstrated commitment to the local government serving as a panelist for a session at the ICMA Southeast Regional profession, and a description of their intended use of Conference. After her fellowship concludes, Auria hopes to the award. secure a permanent position with Sarasota County, preferably Congratulations to Auria and Ashley. We look forward to working on emergency management issues, as this has been a seeing all they will accomplish in their careers! focus of her work.

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UNITE A DIGITAL EVENT SEPT 23-26, 2020

BRINGING THE COMMUNITY TOGETHER ICMA’s new digital event, UNITE, will bring the local government community together from across the globe to connect and learn from each other, as well as from the dynamic content delivered by their peers and thought leaders in the profession.

WHAT THE DIGITAL EVENT OFFERS • An all new, and easy-to-use online digital event platform.

• A digital exhibit hall and the ability to meet one-on-one with exhibitors.

• Opportunities to connect and network with your local government peers, experts, partners, colleagues, and friends.

• Inspirational keynotes and featured speakers by leaders from the world stage.

• 100+ education sessions to view ondemand during the four-day event and for 90+ days after its conclusion.

• Stories from your peers that will help support transformation in your organization and community.

ATTENDEE PRICING FOR UNITE Registration includes access to all online education and a library to review on-demand sessions. Group rate pricing is available, visit the UNITE website for more details. *$300 instant rebate pricing available to ICMA members from July 8–August 26.

ICMA MEMBER

$499 $199*

REGISTRATION OPENS WEDNESDAY, JULY 8 For more information about UNITE: A Digital Event, please visit icma.org/unite.

NONMEMBER

$999

INSIGHT

COVID-19 Equity Framework and Rapid Response Tool from the San Antonio Office of Equity

ICMA continues to update icma.org with helpful resources for COVID-19 response

and recovery efforts, as well as social justice resources for equity and inclusion. We wanted to highlight one particular tool that we found to be especially helpful for local government leaders during this time: the San Antonio Office of Equity’s COVID-19 Equity Framework and Rapid Response Tool. Here’s a look at what you can find inside: As the coronavirus pandemic continues to unfold, we do not want to see old patterns play themselves out again. Historically marginalized communities are often left behind in crisis responses and as the result of decision-making that isn’t rooted in equity.

There is potential for crises such as COVID-19 to exacerbate existing racial and economic disparities in our city. While anyone can contract the virus, its impact will be most deeply felt in Latinx, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and low-wealth communities. The decisions made by the city during this crisis will have impacts both now and long after it ends.

At the City of San Antonio, we are committed to equity, and now more than ever, equity must be everyone’s job, and be embedded into every decision made in every department. To facilitate consideration of racial equity, this tool should be used to examine how Latinx and BIPOC communities will be affected, both short-term and long-term, by a proposed action or decision of the city during the COVID-19 crises.

Instructions: Have this tool available during any meeting where decisions are being made related to COVID-19 response. Before a

decision is made, answer the questions listed below. Include staff with a variety of experiences, backgrounds, and skills at the decisionmaking table and include them in the decision-making process. Identify groups and individuals most likely to be impacted.

Which action is being analyzed?

Who participated in completing this analysis?

1. What are the racial and economic equity impacts of this decision?

2. Who will benefit from and/or be burdened by this decision? Is this support or relief prioritized for the people and communities who need it the most and are already marginalized (lower income, disabled, communities of color)?

3. Is this accessible regardless of ability or status?

4. Will this effort help rebuild toward a just, equitable, and sustainable future?

5. Are there strategies to mitigate any unintended negative consequences of this decision?

Visit icma.org/SA-equity-tool to access the full COVID-19 Equity Framework and Rapid Response Tool and to learn more about how to implement these steps within your own local government.

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OUTOF THE FIRE AND INTO THE PANDEMIC

BY LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROFESSIONALS AUSTRALIA

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uch like the United States, Australia is a diverse nation of large proportions. Spread across nearly eight million square kilometers of land (about 70 percent of the size of the United States) that ranges from remote desert and regional farmland to forested residential and urban sprawl, local government in Australia serves diverse communities. As such, responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have been varied by necessity. This has been particularly stark for organizations serving regional and remote communities, as well as those on the peripheries of cities. To make matters more complicated for Australian local government professionals, the coronavirus pandemic has hit amid a stage of recovery from some of the worst natural disasters the country has seen in recent history.

While the rest of the world welcomed the new year with fireworks, Australia battled unprecedented bushfires that ravaged the environment and households across the country, leaving no state untouched. Local governments were on the front lines of supporting those affected and continue in this role, and the pandemic has only exacerbated problems in the recovery effort—both socially and economically. From this starting point, we trace the key issues facing Australian local governments and the communities they serve through the lens of three local governments sitting outside of Australia’s main urban centers.

While responses have been varied, regional and smaller local governments face many of the same broad challenges and successes that are, in many cases, unique to Australia.

Leading Through Disasters

Australian councils, and particularly those in regional areas or even heavily forested areas, have a back catalog of natural disaster experience to draw from in the design of their business continuity plans. These commonly occurring disasters have built resilience into many local governments that face everything from drought to

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To make matters more complicated for Australian local government professionals, the coronavirus pandemic has hit amid a stage of recovery from some of the worst natural disasters the country has seen in recent history.

flooding on the one hand to bushfires and cyclones (or hurricanes) on the other. Back in 2014, the shire of Mundaring fought through 21 days of bushfire that burned through nearly 400 hectares (about 988 acres) of land and housing. This experience had readied the council to deal with the current crisis of COVID-19.

Back then, “the whole organisation went into what you might call a war-footing.

So we all had that sense of purpose about what we were trying to do and why we were there, and having to think differently and adjust,” says Jonathan Throssell, CEO of the shire.

For context, the shire of Mundaring is a heavily forested area—half made up of state and national parks—located about half an hour from the center of Australia’s most westerly capital city, Perth, in Western Australia. And like many Australian communities, residents are spread out.

“It’s always been a challenge for us in terms of ensuring that we can provide services to a very dispersed population over quite a large land area,” explains Throssell.

While Mundaring’s council services 40,000 spreadout residents, an even smaller council of just over 2,000 residents spread across 65,000 square kilometres (or 25,000 square miles) on the other side of the country is equally no stranger to natural disasters.

The shire of Carpentaria is located on the Savannah Way in North West Queensland in the southeastern region of the Gulf of Carpentaria, an area prone to extreme weather events like cyclones. The leadership team, including CEO Mark Crawley, leaned on the experience and procedures used in dealing with these prior disasters to flip the switch on ready-made response plans to the current crisis.

“Council and the local disaster management group took an early decision to close inward and outward travel to non-essential travelers and we implemented a permit system, so basically members of the public who wished to travel into and out of Carpentaria Shire log onto our website and they can fill out a permit online or they can download the fillable form and apply for a permit,” explains Crawley.

“It’s something that we’ve had in place for cyclone events in the past, so it’s not something that’s brand new because of COVID-19. We’ve had restricted road travel during cyclone events in the northwest and we’ve had a permit system in place for quite a few years.”

“For the pandemic, we added questions to the permit form in relation to health—the typical questions people are asking in relation to COVID-19—like whether you have been overseas or what your plans are J U LY 2 0 2 0 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | 1 1

Jonathan Throssell, CEO of the shire of Mundaring, Western Australia, at the Local Government Professionals Australia National Congress in Darwin, Northern Territory in August 2019.

in relation to self-quarantining and isolation.”

Regional communities with a similar experience of recurring natural disasters have had plans like these ready in the wings, though some communities have been more at risk than others.

In the rapid escalation of the coronavirus pandemic, Crawley has had to lead a community with a particularly vulnerable population through uncertainty.

In Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and people living in remote communities have been at greater risk from COVID-19 than the average population, with higher rates of health issues, less access to health care, and a heavier reliance on outreach services. As such, restrictions have had to be

Photo from LGPA Australia

Protecting Vulnerable Communities

much quicker and much more severe. However, Australian local governments do not always have the authority to lock down communities, with main arteries going into and out of regional communities typically falling under state government jurisdiction.

These council areas have avoided the brunt of

the physical impact of the virus though, and the most vulnerable communities become those that face a real outbreak which have otherwise been few and far between for Australia. On Easter Sunday, the Tasmanian State Government closed two neighboring hospitals in a bid to stem a severe outbreak of

coronavirus, isolating 1,000 medical and support staff. This grew to a two-week mandatory isolation of 5,000 residents in the community of Burnie to contain the outbreak.

For context, Burnie is a relatively small coastal city on the northwest coast of Australia’s island state, Tasmania. It is home to about 20,000 people altogether, but quickly became a focal point for media attention with restrictions on movement described as some of the toughest in Australia. While we move past the quarantine period, local governments like this are casting their minds to recovery, with particular pressure facing regional and smaller councils that rely on tourism to see money flow into the local community.

Recovery

Photo from LGPA Australia

Council Offices at Shire of Carpentaria in Queensland, one of Australia’s most remote local government areas.

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Like many coastal cities, tourism is a big part of the local economy in Burnie, and a longer-term concern as the pandemic draws on.

“A massive issue is tourism for Tasmania,” explains Burnie City Council’s General Manager Andrew Wardlaw, “and the early issue with the first restrictions was that tourism just dried up.

[Tasmania] was the first to close its state borders, and [since] we’re an island it was probably easier for us to do.”

“But Burnie is a port for cruise ships in Tasmania. As [the pandemic] was escalating, a lot of questions were being

Peter Bellingham

Normanton in the Shire of Carpentaria in Queensland, Australia.

asked about cruise ships, and as we come out of the other side of this, cruise ships are obviously going to be a question mark on everyone’s tongues and that’s going to impact us going forward because we were getting around 35 cruise ships a year. That will impact åour local economy because that might change for a few years until that industry rebuilds.”

Financial Pressure

Exacerbating the recovery effort is the hit to council finances on the back of the pandemic. The pandemic has led to closures of community services run by councils across the country, and the financial

hit is being felt in all Australian councils, big and small.

“We’ve estimated the cost over six months, and it’s a fair impact for a smaller local authority and the figures would be exponential for our larger metropolitan councils,” says Mark Crawley of Carpentaria.

The bigger financial implications are not yet so evident in the short term at other councils like the shire of Mundaring, but Jonathan Throssell foresees financial stress much longer term, compounding over the next decade.

“What we won’t really know until after the end of

You can join LG Professionals Australia for intimate conversations with local government leaders across this spectrum as they grapple with the challenges of managing the COVID-19 pandemic on the Local Government COVID-Cast.

To explore the unique impacts these have had on a diverse range of councils and how they are being overcome in real time, tune into the weekly podcast here: https://lgprofessionalsaustralia.org.au/ lg-online/covid-cast/

the financial year is precisely what the direct cost has been.

The principal impact is going to be for the next financial year and beyond,” he explains.

“We’re going to have to adjust all our programs over the next ten years because of this one year. We were in a really sound financial position before this—this just smashed us.

And it will do for at least a decade. But we’re not on our own there, we know that.”

Aiming for recovery in the community and for the local government organisation in tandem is a balancing act that will have long-term implications in the sector.

Throssell continues, “So, like many other local governments, our council resolved to direct me to prepare a budget that has no increase to rates fees and charges. But equally, to look at other relief measures [for ratepayers].”

“My overall budget is about $50 million, to provide context. A million and a half dollars we have to find in savings in order to deliver no increase in rates. At the same time, council is also really careful that they didn’t want that to be delivered

at the expense of jobs. So we’re having to find a way of delivering services in such a way that won’t increase costs, but will actually reduce them to get to zero. That is in year one, but that then has a compounding effect across our long-term ten-year plan where we will face a gap of over $8 million that we’re going to have to find at the end of this in year ten.”

There are many more issues facing local government in Australia amid the pandemic, and while overall themes do seem to emerge, the most poignant is how particular and unique many issues seem to be for each region and each type of local government.

LG PROFESSIONALS AUSTRALIA is the national component of the peak body representing local government professionals, focused on developing organizations and the broader local government sector to build better communities around Australia. (https:// lgprofessionalsaustralia.org.au)

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Morgan Pilz, Bayside Gazette

From

Sleepy to Chic

BY LAURA ALLEN, ICMA-CM, CPFO

THE IMPORTANCE OF PLACEMAKING FOR SMALL TOWNS J U LY 2 0 2 0 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | 1 5

Josh Davis, Bayside Gazette

You know it when you see it. A great community. One that is welcoming and intriguing. One that makes you come back for more. As a city manager, I found it fascinating to travel to other communities and see how they created a sense of place.

To see how they used their open spaces and their facilities, or how they didn’t.

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was voted America’s Coolest Small Town in a contest sponsored by Budget Travel magazine. The tiny town became a statewide source of pride, and what I refer to as “an overnight success, 30 years in the making.”

I

Morgan Pilz, Bayside Gazette

History

n 2013, shortly after I became the town administrator in Berlin, Maryland—a small rural community (population 4,500) near the state’s major tourist destination, Ocean City—the mayor explained how essential it was for the town government to maintain the social fabric of the community. In 2014, Berlin

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries were not kind to Berlin. The town burnt down three times before brick was required to be used for reconstruction in 1904. The town was primarily a stopover location for travelers heading to Ocean City. The population hovered between 1,200 and 1,400 during this time, and a stagnant economy resulted in businesses closing. It took private and public investment to turn the town around. The key turning point was when the ten wealthiest families invested $1.5 million to restore the Atlantic Hotel. This 14-room, historic building became the focus of the town’s renaissance.

Public investment followed. The mayor and council protected the historic downtown, resulting in 47 buildings placed on the National Historic Register.

The town installed Victorian streetlights to complement the architecture, relocated utility wires, created an economic development department, and partnered with the state of Maryland to provide façade grants to local businesses interested in upgrading their buildings.

In 1999, the movie Runaway Bride was filmed in Berlin, followed by Tuck Everlasting in 2002. These movies created another reason for people to visit our small community.

How Do You Create a Sense of Place?

For Berlin, Maryland, a matter of survival became a source of community pride. The town developed a strong sense of place over time, through trial and error. However, you can use the Project for Public Spaces Model as a basis if you want to take a more systematic approach.

In evaluating thousands of public spaces around the world, Project for Public Spaces has found that to be successful, communities generally share the following four qualities: they are accessible; people are engaged in activities there; the space is comfortable and has a good image; and finally, it is a sociable place: one where people meet each other and take people when they come to visit.1 According to Project for Public Spaces, placemaking is: • Community-driven.

• Visionary.

• Function before form.

• Adaptable.

• Inclusive.

• Focused on creating destinations.

• Context-specific.

• Dynamic.

• Transdisciplinary.

• Transformative.

• Flexible.

• Collaborative and social.

Placemaking is not: • Top-down.

• Reactionary.

• Design-driven.

• A blanket solution or quick fix.

• Exclusionary.

• Car-centric.

• One-size-fits all.

• Static.

• Discipline-driven.

• One-dimensional.

• Dependent upon regulatory controls.

• Project-focused.

Sociability

Looking at the town of Berlin, let’s focus on the portion of the Project for Public Spaces model that focuses on sociability.

Berlin holds approximately 49 events from May through December. While the mayor and council take their stewardship responsibilities seriously, they give the staff leeway to try different ways of serving the community. For example, the economic development department facilitated a road closure and public works support for a fundraising dinner for a local nonprofit. The town has a very active street life and several events are scheduled for evening hours, such as the Fourth of July fireworks, Christmas parade, and New Year’s Eve ball drop. The town creates opportunities for people to gather using partnerships with local property owners to host farmers’ markets and a lunchtime concert series. Berlin has an active volunteer program, with approximately 44 members who staff the Welcome Center, support events, and serve as ambassadors to visitors.

Comfort and Image

Focusing on the comfort and image section of the Project for Public Spaces Model, Berlin has a number of elements that make it a comfortable place to live. In addition to a low crime rate, the town is very walkable, bikeable, historic, and charming. Berlin has a strong environmental ethic and in 2012, became the first Certified Maryland Sustainable Community.

It runs the largest spray irrigation wastewater facility in the state and established a stormwater utility in

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2013. The town hosts an annual Take Pride in Berlin Week, engaging residents, nonprofit organizations, and volunteers in cleaning up local parks and creeks.

Berlin’s Approach

Project for Public Spaces has 10 strategies for transforming cities through placemaking: • Improve streets as places.

• Create squares and parks as multi-use destinations.

• Build local economies through markets.

• Design buildings to support places.

• Link a public health agenda to a public space agenda.

• Reinvent community planning.

• Utilize the power of 10+.

• Create a comprehensive public space agenda.

• Start small and experiment, using a lighter, quicker, cheaper approach.

• Restructure government to support public spaces.

Berlin used four of these: • Build local economies through markets:

The town increased the number of events to draw

visitors from Ocean City to Berlin and established a farmers market.

• Restructure government to support public places:

The mayor and council established an economic development department, starting with a part-time employee and increasing the department to two full-time employees to support the events and needs of the business community. Berlin has over 10,000 followers on its Main Street Facebook page, its own form of social media placemaking.

• Utilize the power of 10+: The town created partnerships with nonprofit organizations, local businesses, and other governments to use streets and private spaces in multiple ways to draw visitors and create opportunities for residents to connect.

• Start small and experiment: Town employees have a tremendous amount of support from the mayor and council to try different approaches to meet the needs of the residents and business owners. The mayor frequently told me, “You can’t fix what you don’t do.”

That attitude created an innovative atmosphere.

Results

The public and private investment has paid off. The town’s assessed valuation has increased, retail sales were up 30 percent, and homes are selling faster. The town has attracted new development as well. I have since moved on from my position as town administrator, but I look forward to seeing Berlin continue to grow and prosper as one of America’s unique small towns.

LAURA ALLEN, ICMA-CM, CPFO, is the former town administrator of Berlin, Maryland. She is a member of the Government Finance Officers Association Board of Directors. (arunningnomad@aol.com) ENDNOTE

“What Makes A Successful Place?” Project for Public Spaces, https://www.pps.org/ article/grplacefeat 1

Courtesy of Project for Public Spaces

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An Impressive Climate Strategy For a Small Danish Municipality

By Jens Peter Hegelund Jensen

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Ringkøbing-Skjern is on track for becoming self-sufficient in renewable energy by 2023.

One of the biggest global challenges in the coming decades will be the transformation from fossilfuel dependency into self-sufficiency by the use of renewable energy. The Danish municipality of Ringkøbing-Skjern will reach the 100-percent target by 2023.

The scene is set in Ringkøbing-Skjern, a coastal municipality at the windswept shores by the North Sea in Scandinavia. The municipality has approximately 57,000 inhabitants (38 per square kilometer) and a surface area of 1,500 square kilometers (579 square miles). Gross domestic product per capita is US$66,000— a remarkable 23 percent above the Danish average.

Ringkøbing-Skjern was formed in 2007, due to a structural reform in Denmark, uniting five municipalities. From the very beginning, sustainability, renewable energy, and environmental protection became the uniting forces among politicians, organizations, innovators, businesses, and citizens alike. It was no coincidence that these topics mattered a great deal to us. Vestas, the energy industry’s global leader in sustainable energy solutions, was founded in Ringkøbing-Skjern. In the 1970s, Vestas began to produce wind turbines, and since then renewable energy has been a proud part of our local DNA and history.

One of the first important tasks of the then-newly elected city council in 2008 was the formulation and implementation of a very ambitious energy policy.

Our ambition was to become self-sufficient in renewable energy by 2020. With our history in mind, it was obvious that we wanted to be a role model for other municipalities around the world—for a better and greener world.

During the 12 years from 2008 to 2020, we experienced many successes but also a major setback. The deployment of 20 large coastal wind turbines in 2020 was crucial to our ability to cross the finish line in time, but unfortunately they were delayed. The coastal wind farm will be able to supply electricity equivalent to the annual electricity consumption in 170,000 Danish households. The Danish state owns the wind farm, but the production of green electricity has a positive impact on our energy accounts, as the city council has welcomed the wind turbines within our municipal boundary. The consequence of the delay is that we will not reach the target until 2023. It’s no disaster. Imagine if we had done nothing at all back in 2008—that would have been a disaster.

The Energy Council and Secretariat

As previously mentioned, the city council adopted an energy policy in 2008. It was named Energy2020 and the policy contained the political ambitions and visions.

It was an important point of departure, but even an ambitious policy cannot stand alone. We set up an energy council and an energy secretariat. There are 18 members of the energy council. Just two members are city council members, Photo from Ringkøbing-Skjern

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Photo from Ringkøbing-Skjern lhphotos - stock.adobe.com

the rest are representatives from the public utility companies, businesses, and organizations.

Although the energy council is set up by the city council, it has been important from the outset that the energy council should include professionals with the ability to advise. The energy council concluded that the following should be focused on if the ambition to become 100-percent self-sufficient in renewable energy was to be realized: wind energy, solar energy, biogas, green transportation, and energy-efficient buildings.

Soon after, the energy secretariat was set up. The energy secretariat facilitates and coordinates processes and tasks, helping all interested parties with guidance and inspiration. The secretariat is also responsible for information and preparation of the strategic energy plans, as well as following up on the energy accounts.

Strategic Energy Plans

The strategic energy plans are the masterplans. The first strategic energy plan was adopted in 2010 and it covered the period from 2011 to 2014. The plan included the first concrete steps in the long-standing efforts to become self-sufficient. The deployment of wind turbines requires long-term physical planning and many hours of dialogue and cooperation with local stakeholders. Local acceptance is crucial. In addition, it is important to establish stability and security for investors, developers, and producers, which also requires long-term policy targets.

The second strategic energy plan was adopted in 2015 and covered the period from 2015 to 2018. A strategic energy plan contains many elements and in practice, it may be difficult to start all elements of the plan immediately. In 2015, we were more than 2 2 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | J U LY 2 0 2 0

half way toward the objective of making Ringkøbing-Skjern 100-percent self-sufficient in renewable energy. Our local actions are, however, often heavily dependent on national framework conditions, which can either boost or slow down the results. Lack of impact in one focus area will require a higher ambition level in other focus areas. Therefore, the first strategic energy plan had to be revised and exposed to new priorities.

The revised strategic energy plan was also a result of the city council having just adopted a new vision called Nature’s Kingdom, which states that our nature is the source of the good life. Our desire for sustainability and self-sufficiency was emphasized even further in the vision of Nature’s Kingdom.

The third and current strategic energy plan was introduced in 2019 and it covers the period from 2019 to 2023. This strategic energy plan contains not only plans for how we will become self-sufficient in renewable energy, it also includes a newly adopted plan for how we will become fossil-free. The Danish government has decided that Denmark must be fossil-

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free in 2050, but we aim to achieve this already by 2040.

The current strategic energy plan is based on a revised energy policy adopted by the city council in 2019.

Ringkøbing-Skjern is fully committed to the United Nations’ 17 global goals, and the energy policy and the strategic RuZi - stock.adobe.com energy plan are no exceptions. When it comes to our strategic energy plans, such global goals as “affordable and clean energy,” “industry, innovation, and infrastructure,” “responsible consumption and production,” “climate action” and “partnerships for the goals” must all be taken into account.

There are several key objectives in the strategic energy plan, the most important of which are: 1. Efficient use of energy.

2. Electrification (green electricity for heating and industry).

3. Sustainable transportation.

4. Electric storage and smart energy consumption.

5. Efficient use of biomass.

6. Ringkøbing-Skjern as an energy lab.

our population is only one percent of the country’s population.

Carbon dioxide emission has been reduced significantly. The carbon dioxide emission per capita was 11.7 metric tons in 2007, while in 2019, it was reduced to 1.9 metric tons per capita. Denmark’s largest onshore wind farm is deployed in Ringkøbing-Skjern. The wind farm, which was funded by local investors, generates enough electricity to cover 57,000 Danish households’ annual energy consumption. We have a total of 26 hectares (over 64 acres) of solar power plants and a further 1,000 hectares (2,400 acres) are planned. The number of domestic oil burners has been reduced by more than 50 percent.

There is no doubt that our efforts have reduced human impacts on the environment and climate—for the benefit of future generations and for the benefit of local businesses. It is worth mentioning that the green energy sector in RingkøbingSkjern consists of approximately 60 companies with a total of 4,000 employees.

These six key obejctives contain more than 50 concrete efforts. It would not be appropriate to review them all in this article, but the main efforts are: • Heat consumption will be reduced by 20 percent by 2040.

• All home heating oil burners are converted to renewable energy by 2030.

• Development of green business models.

• The heating sector is electrified and we use the area’s own green electricity.

• The municipality’s own fossil-fueled vehicles will be replaced by electric vehicles by 2025.

• Public and private transportation will be fossil-free in 2040.

• We will research, promote, and apply the most effective energy storage methods.

• District heating uses 100-percent renewable energy in 2035.

• We will investigate, promote, and use biomass for fertilizers, energy, materials, animal feed, food, and pharmaceuticals.

• We will create a basis for large-scale protein production for animals and humans.

• We will develop green, sustainable tourism.

• We will create the world’s most innovative and best-known event for electric vehicles.

Conclusion

It has taken a great deal of work and support from the city council, businesses, organizations, and citizens to get to where we are today.

Renewable energy accounted for approximately 70 percent of Ringkøbing-Skjern’s energy consumption in 2019 (households, businesses, and transportation). That figure rises to 100 percent when the delayed coastal wind turbines are deployed in 2023.

Currently, we are more than 150-percent self-sufficient when it comes to renewable energy solely from wind turbines and solar energy. Ten percent of the renewable energy produced from wind turbines in Denmark is produced in Ringkøbing-Skjern, although

Climate change and increasing ressource scarcity are global challenges. The challenges are not easy to solve, but difficulty is no excuse for inaction. Since 2008, Ringkøbing-Skjern has had a strong political focus on sustainable development and the use of renewable energy. Today, 12 years later, we can almost see the finish line. By 2023, we will be able to produce enough renewable energy to cover all consumption by our citizens, businesses, and transportation. And that’s because we have gone wholeheartedly into the process of developing green, sustainable solutions. It is obviously not enough to formulate and adopt a spectacular and ambitious energy policy; the implementation of the policy requires an enormous amount of work. Hundreds of wind turbines have been planned and deployed. Thousands of households have replaced their oil burners with greener solutions. We have convinced many companies to invest in sustainable solutions in order to reduce the energy consumption, to the benefit of their businesses and the environment.

The good news is that our long-standing focus on sustainable solutions is worth the efforts. Today we are among the leading municipalities in the world in the field of renewable energy, but our efforts do not stop at the municipal boundary. We do not want to keep our efforts and knowledge to ourselves. In fact, we would be very pleased to share everything with anyone.

Our children and future generations deserve a greener planet.

A planet that does not depend on fossil fuel. A planet where the human climate footprint is reduced as much as possible.

JENS PETER HEGELUND JENSEN is city manager of the municipality of Ringkøbing-Skjern, Denmark (jph.jensen@rksk.dk).

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EVICTION

BY ELAINA JOHNS-WOLFE AND TOM CARROLL

Outside the Central City

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A

s the United States suddenly

shut down its economy due to the novel coronavirus in March, people from diverse political persuasions called for a temporary stay on evictions and forbearance on mortgage payments. This made great sense—millions were suddenly out of work and could not afford to make rent or mortgage payments. And because of the need to shelter in place to slow the coronavirus’s spread, keeping families in their

S

POVERTY’S CAUSE AND EFFECT IN SUBURBAN AND SMALLER COMMUNITIES

Ezume Images - stock.adobe.com

homes was essential for “flattening the curve.”

But the call for a moratorium on evictions was a bit surprising because of the historically privileged status offered to homeowners over renters in the United States. The public’s embrace of avoiding evictions in 2020 is in part the result of the growing awareness that evictions are not just a result of poverty, but are in fact also a cause of poverty. Being evicted generally starts a downward spiral for families, leading to job loss, homelessness, the loss of personal possessions, and lost educational attainment for school-aged children.

The new public focus on evictions stems primarily from the work of sociologist Matthew Desmond and his Pulitzer Prize– winning book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. Desmond’s examination of landlords and evictions in Milwaukee offers compelling stories and alarming statistics about the ways that evictions devastate families for many years and cause lasting harm to fragile neighborhoods.1 Indeed, it is through inequitable processes like eviction that families and neighborhoods are kept in poverty.

With Desmond’s recent book shining a policy spotlight on evictions, many large cities like Cincinnati have begun to look for ways to reduce evictions. Providing stable, affordable housing is the keystone to any strategy to end poverty.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, eviction prevention initiatives were being approved and implemented in cities throughout the United States, such as Philadelphia, Dayton, Cincinnati, and Cleveland.

However, as states reopen economies, the forbearance on evictions will likely end this summer. With months of unpaid rent and likely continued high levels of unemployment, the United States is expected to experience a wave of evictions as several months of stayed evictions are processed at once.

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Table 1: Demographic Characteristics and Eviction Filing Rates of Hamilton County First Suburbs

Hamilton County Total % % Families in First Suburb Population1 Black1 poverty1

Eviction Filing Rate, 2014–20172

Terrace Park

2,350

0.1%

3.6%

0.49

Indian Hill

5,876

1.4%

1.8%

0.71

Montgomery

10,663

2.8%

1.8%

1.18

Madeira

9,091

1.4%

1.0%

1.72

Newtown

2,658

5.3%

5.6%

2.21

Deer Park

5,688

5.4%

3.0%

2.45

Amberley

3,780

10.3%

1.6%

2.5

Mariemont

3,429

1.3%

3.3%

2.69

Blue Ash

12,150

7.8%

1.6%

2.93

Fairfax

1,707

5.7%

7.6%

3.14

Sharonville

11,348

9.7%

8.4%

3.63

St. Bernard

4,355

16.4%

10.9%

3.71

Evendale

2,859

3.9%

1.8%

3.85

Glendale

2,228

15.0%

4.4%

4.67

Wyoming

8,535

14.1%

1.8%

4.94

Addyston

1,040

5.7%

14.6

5.13

Cheviot

8,318

11.5%

16.6%

5.8

Greenhills

3,596

14.4%

6.5%

6.21

UNITED STATES

6.3

Golf Manor

3,549

60.4%

18.7%

6.56

Norwood

19,796

10.3%

11.9%

6.6

Silverton

4,767

59.2%

13.3%

7.61

Springdale

11,228

34.9%

12.5%

8.16

Reading

10,286

9.8%

5.5%

8.17

3394

0.4%

11.8%

8.7

Cleves HAMILTON COUNTY

8.7

North College Hill

9,307

53.5%

15.1%

9.94

Lincoln Heights

3,337

87.7%

45.7%

10.18

Lockland

3,459

31.9%

30.5%

10.71

903

27.1%

13.4%

10.88

Woodlawn

3,319

53.8%

9.7%

11.31

Forest Park

18,703

59.5%

13.1%

12.97

Elmwood Place

1,907

20.5%

35.3%

14.86

Mount Healthy

6,076

38.4%

10.0%

18.82

843

1.4%

7.4%

23.91

Arlington Heights

North Bend

Notes: 1 2018 American Community Survey 5-year estimates; 2 Mean number of evictions per 100 renter-occupied units.

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Evictions are not just a problem in larger cities. As we show using court records from Hamilton County, Ohio (which includes Cincinnati), evictions occur quite frequently in smaller communities and suburbs as well.

Professional local government managers would be wise to develop a deeper understanding of evictions in their communities and work together to develop policies and programs that reduce their overall frequency and impact. The poverty-inducing problems that stem from eviction are not limited to the urban core. Understanding evictions and finding ways to reduce their occurrences is vital to assist families experiencing poverty, and essential to smaller communities trying to sustain or rebuild economic resiliency.

Suburban Poverty in Hamilton County

Poverty has grown rapidly in America’s suburbs for the last 20 years. Brookings Institution scholars Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube established in 2013’s Confronting Suburban Poverty in America that for the first time in American history “... more Americans live below the poverty line in suburbs than in the nation’s big cities.”2 Poverty, so often imagined as a largely inner-city or rural problem, is now deeply embedded in suburban America. Kneebone and Berube show that by 2010, one in three poor Americans could be found in suburbs, and suburban poverty was growing faster than inner city or rural poverty.

Between 2018 and 2019, ICMA funded a research fellowship with Tom Carroll that included an in-depth examination of Hamilton County’s inner-ring suburbs.

Carroll’s findings showed that in the decade following the Great Recession of 2008, recovery among Hamilton County’s first suburbs was uneven. A handful of first suburbs near Cincinnati

Map By Doug Lockhart

rebounded nicely and returned to prosperity within six years of the 2008 Recession. Most of these first suburbs were premier communities before 2008—home to the Cincinnati region’s Fortune 500 executives, well-paid professionals, and established-wealth families.

But the research also indicated that some Hamilton County first suburbs remained remarkably worse-off even a decade after the end of the Great Recession. Many modest middle-class and working-class communities saw deep declines in their total tax bases, increased poverty rates, and a loss of residents.

As the middle class became smaller, so too did the number of middle-class communities.

The decade following the 2008 Recession was one of stark suburban divergence within the Cincinnati I-275 beltway, and

this bifurcation of suburbs into stable or declining is occurring in other American metropolitan areas, too.

At the same time as Carroll’s ICMA-funded research on first suburbs, Johns-Wolfe partnered with community organizations to examine evictions filed in Hamilton County between 2014 and 2017. Her study showed, among other things, that the eviction filing rate of 8.7 per 100 renter-occupied units in Hamilton County was above the nation’s average of 6.3. Additionally, among a sample of filings from 2017, fewer than 1% were decided in favor of the tenant.3 This study’s findings caused numerous civic leaders in Cincinnati to discuss what could be done to reduce evictions. And while Hamilton County leaders also took notice of the high rate of eviction

revealed in this study, smaller communities have had very little discussion about evictions as a public policy problem.

The lack of discussion in suburbs is not because evictions are uncommon outside Cincinnati. Instead, it is because there is a perception that evictions are uncommon outside Cincinnati. Table 1 shows the average eviction filing rates from 2014 to 2017 in the 33 first suburbs studied as part of the ICMA research fellowship.

Fifteen of the 33 smaller first suburbs in Hamilton County have an eviction filing rate above the national average of 6.3% per year. Ten of the 33 first suburbs have an eviction filing rate equal to or greater than Hamilton County’s overall average of 8.7%, and eight of the 33 first suburbs have an eviction filing rate above 10%

annually. The community with the highest eviction filing rate in Hamilton County—an astonishing 23.91%—is North Bend, which is home to only 857 residents.

Consistent with scholarly research, evictions in Hamilton County tend to be more common in communities with greater percentages of residents who are black and/or below the poverty line. And many of these first suburbs with high rates of eviction are also those that have experienced population losses, spikes in poverty rates, and shrinking tax bases. Evictions and suburban decline generally go hand in hand.

Policy Implications

Carroll’s ICMA-funded research showed that a growing number of inner-ring suburbs should be concerned about the suburbanization of poverty

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maintenance or high rates of public safety runs? City managers need to dig deeply into this area to understand the contours of evictions in their area.

Beyond this, ICMA members should examine ordinances and programs that level the playing field between landlords and tenants. Desmond notes 90% of landlords are represented by attorneys in eviction cases, and 90% of tenants are not.

Partnerships can be forged with legal aid societies and housing advocates to prevent evictions. Nonprofit partners might be able to provide rental assistance programs to bridge a suburban family suffering a small temporary financial setback. It is far cheaper to avoid homelessness than it is to rehouse a family after they are evicted.4 Evictions are expensive for landlords, too.

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and its causes. Many suburbs that were once solidly in the working and middle class of the United States are declining at an accelerating rate.

If suburban leaders should be increasingly concerned about the rise in poverty, suburban leaders should also be concerned about evictions.

Evictions are not just a result of poverty, but they cause it. The ability of local governments to arrest or reverse decline is dramatically hurt by a high number of evictions.

The first thing for local government leaders to do is to understand evictions.

Desmond’s book and website (EvictionLab.org) are excellent places to start. Then, they should gather data on the rate of evictions in their communities and compare it to county or peer communities.

Is your community’s eviction filing rate greater than the national average? How does your community’s eviction rate compare to neighboring and peer communities? Are a few landlords responsible for most of the evictions in your community, and does your municipality have other problems with these particular landlords, such as property

POVERTY, SO OFTEN IMAGINED AS A LARGELY INNER-CITY OR RURAL PROBLEM, IS NOW DEEPLY EMBEDDED IN SUBURBAN AMERICA.

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Local government regulations such as rental registration programs and rental inspections will ensure better housing conditions. Suburban leaders need to examine ways to create affordable housing so that communities are welcoming to all. We must rewrite our zoning codes to ensure these ordinances provide a mixture of stable and quality low-income, workforce, and market rate housing.

Smaller cities will increasingly face Wall Street landlords with a financial incentive to evict and then raise rents. When banks found themselves in possession of literally tens of thousands of single-family homes after the 2008 Recession, Wall Street hedge funds (called Real Estate Investment Trusts, or REITs) pooled money and acquired discounted houses from overwhelmed banks.

REITs have a higher rate of eviction than your traditional landlord.5 Your community may well already have singlefamily homes that are no longer available for purchase, but instead are owned by large, sophisticated, and distant corporations.

Eviction prevention has become a big city public policy focus. As a society, we are now starting to understand evictions are extremely damaging not just to families, but to the communities where they take place. But suburbs and smaller communities—especially those facing decline—are not at all immune to evictions and their lasting negative consequences.

Stable housing for sheltering in place has proven to be vital in response to the global pandemic. But stable and affordable housing has been and always will be a key part of

community stability even long after the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided. We hope this brief analysis of evictions in suburbs in one urban county sparks a broader conversation about how local governments can promote policies to reduce evictions for the good of both modest-income families and challenged communities.

ENDNOTES AND RESOURCES

Desmond, Matthew. 2016. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City.

New York: Crown.

2 Kneebone, Elizabeth and Alan Berube.

2013. Confronting Suburban Poverty in America. Washington, D.C. The Brookings Institution.

3 Johns-Wolfe, Elaina. 2018. “You are being asked to leave the premises”: A Study of Eviction in Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio, 2014-2017. http://thecincyproject.org/wp-content/ uploads/2019/10/Eviction-Report_ Final.pdf.

4 Finn, Kevin. In-person interview, November 27, 2019.

5 Raymond, Elora, Duckworth, Richard; Miller, Ben; Lucas, Michael; and Pokharel, Shiraj. 2016. “Corporate Landlords, Institutional Investors, and Displacement: Eviction Rates in SingleFamily Rentals.” Community & Economic Development Discussion Paper No. 04-16.

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ELAINA JOHNS-WOLFE will be an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Missouri–St. Louis in Fall 2020. She will receive her PhD at the University of Cincinnati, and her research focuses on urban sociology, specifically of housing instability, gentrification, housing discrimination, and the spatial distribution of health inequities. (johnswem@mail.uc.edu) TOM CARROLL is the village manager of Silverton, Ohio, a first suburb bordering Cincinnati.

He recently completed a research fellowship with the International City/County Management Association. (t.carroll@silvertonohio.us)

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STRONGER Together

BY JEREMY MITCHELL

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Saturday, 1600 hours

Dispatch: “Attention Fire Department X, respond to a report of an apartment fire at 1234 Shady Drive, fire seen in a ground-floor apartment.”

1603 hours

Dispatch: “Second page for Fire Department X, also Fire Department Y and Fire Department Z, respond to 1234 Shady Drive for the working fire in an apartment…getting several calls.”

1605 hours

Dispatch: “Fire Department X, County Sheriff’s is on scene reporting fire through the front window extending up the side of the building.”

1607 hours

Chief Y: “Dispatch, Chief Y is on the air. I’m en route; is there an engine company responding yet?”

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Dispatch: “You are currently the only fire unit responding to this call.”

Making the case for consolidating rural fire services

Chief Y: “I understand. Please call two more departments for personnel.”

A scenario very similar to this recently happened in my area—and situations like this are increasing locally and nationally among volunteer fire departments. In this case, “Chief Y” turned out to be the first unit on scene; he was able to complete a size-up (a quick evaluation of the building, fire conditions, and life safety risk) and verify that there was no civilian life hazard. The actual fire attack began 15 minutes after the initial dispatch when two combination departments, each with a travel distance of over 10 miles, arrived on scene. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that for these rural fire departments, most of their volunteer members were engaged in the fall harvest and unable to respond.

While hindsight is always 20/20, the last item worth considering about this fire is that a full-time fire station staffed by three firefighters is located within two minutes driving time from the fire. This is just one example of why it’s time to consider consolidation of rural fire services. In this article, I will conduct a “thought experiment” discussing some of the benefits of consolidation using my county as our example.

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Case Study: Champaign County, Illinois

Located in east central Illinois, Champaign County is home to 25 fire departments, made up of fire services of all kinds: career, combination and volunteer, aircraft rescue and firefighting (ARFF), advanced emergency medical services (EMS), hazardous materials response, and special rescue.

There are six fire departments in the county, which are either full time or offer some type of combination staffing—larger, generally self-sufficient communities.

They are excluded from our study, leaving us with 19 fire departments serving a population of approximately 23,500 people and cumulative budgets of $2.7 million.

On average, each department serves a community of 1,286 people with an average budget of $142,105, although depending on the population and tax rates, county department budgets can deviate as much as $30,000 higher and lower. Champaign County’s rural communities are remarkably homogenous, consisting mostly of single family homes, multi-family

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With fire service consolidation comes greater consistency in planning and response because all of the players will be following the same playbook.

residential units, schools, and small businesses devoted to supporting agriculture, the largest sector of the local economy. A 2018 report found that approximately 70 percent of the emergency services call volume involved vehicle rescue or EMS, while the departments experienced a slightly higher than national average incidence of actual fire calls, approximately 15 percent of total responses. Average response time from dispatch to the arrival of the first unit on scene was 10 minutes.

Why Consolidate?

The salient point arguing in favor of fire department consolidation is whether the local fire department can effect a timely response with an appropriate number of competent staff. For a number of county departments, this is not the case. NFPA 1720, Standard for the Organization and Deployment of Fire Suppression Operations, Emergency Medical Services Operations, and Special Operations to the Public by Volunteer Fire Departments, states that for a “typical” response to a 2,000 square-foot single-family home, the fire department shall place six fire suppression

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personnel on scene within 14 minutes, 80 percent of the time.1 Note that I say fire suppression personnel; I recall a house fire in an occupied home to which I responded with a driver and an EMT, with only myself to fight the fire. As I read Section 4.3.2 of NFPA 1720, placing six personnel on scene means an incident commander, a driver, and four personnel trained and capable of performing primary search and fire control. Clearly, the standard wasn’t met in this case or in our opening scenario.

The fire department’s primary responsibility and primary focus is on the prevention and suppression of fire. If the fire department is incapable of assembling an effective response, it must know how to access the necessary resources and integrate them into an effective plan. With fire service consolidation comes greater consistency in planning and response because all of the players will be following the same playbook, so to speak. In fact, developing that playbook (i.e., rules and regulations, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and incident management systems) is much easier if a few people—a consolidated fire department’s command staff—only have to do it once.

Conversely, as things currently stand in Champaign County in our study, 19 departments are struggling to develop 19 different plans with 19 differing degrees of success in implementation.

The differences in plans, and in effectiveness of service delivery, are rooted in perceived differences among the county’s villages. The county’s homogeneity works in favor of planning for emergency response; for a house fire in a given village, an incident commander should be able to count on this particular resource from his station, followed by these and those resources from the next closest stations. This will allow him or her to prioritize tasks based on conditions and first arrival, and have a workable incident action plan immediately. The same resource allocation would be dispatched in another community as the consolidated department’s standard working fire response.

Another building block of a consistent and effective response is apparatus, of which there is a wide variety in Champaign County, including pumpers, pumper tenders, tenders, light and heavy rescues, and water towers. Apparatus purchasing is reactive, either when another vehicle becomes

Photo from Jeremy Mitchell

inoperable or based on what the membership wants instead of actual community need.

However, at a minimum, a pumper, pumper tender, and some type of initial attack/ light rescue will see these departments (serving an average of 1,200 people) through the vast majority of their calls for service.

If these departments consolidated they could develop common apparatus, which increases familiarity even when working with companies from another station, and also will save on cost when a larger department orders several apparatus following a vehicle replacement plan versus several smaller departments trying to secure funding and place orders for their own equipment. The same SOPs, calling for the same equipment and the same complement of personnel increases operational effectiveness, which is another way of saying civilians and

responding volunteers are safer and fire losses are reduced.

This helps save minutes on scene and mitigates a built-in flaw in the volunteer-service delivery model: firefighters have to travel to their stations and wait for an adequate number of crew to begin response. In Champaign County, that amounts to four to five minutes, and as an incident commander, you have to accept the fact that those are precious minutes you don’t get back when thinking about the possibility of flashover or survivability profiling. However, some of the uncertainty is eased if an incident commander knows what specific resources are on the way and expected within 14 minutes of dispatch.

How Would It Work?

A consolidated Champaign County fire service has to start at the top; the new chief would be in charge of 19 fire stations, dozens of apparatus,

and hundreds of volunteer firefighters. Even for an accumulation of small, rural departments, it is enough work for a full-time administrative level officer. The chief needs a full-time training officer as well, since teaching new SOPs and ensuring task-level competency will drive consistency and establish the expectations of the new organization.

Operationally, the county would be split into four districts: three districts with five stations assigned, and a “short” district with four.

These officers would have considerably more work to do than an average volunteer, but less than a full-time employee; their jobs would be classified as “full time/part time” and be compensated by some kind of stipend. The district chiefs would be responsible for operations, vehicle maintenance, and facilities working with their station captains (the former volunteer chiefs), who supervise the

baseline station assignment of pumper, pumper tender, and initial attack/light rescue.

Based on risk assessment and population distribution, other equipment would be assigned to the district stations, such as spare apparatus, rescues, or elevated stream pumpers. This ultimately results in a lower total operating cost since at any one time only a handful of departments need a spare or the use of a specialized resource and nearly all calls for service— medical, MVC, outside fire, and service calls—can be handled by one or two correctly staffed apparatus. The same principle applies to loose equipment, hose, and PPE since most fire departments do not use valuable time and money trying to maintain a full complement of their own equipment.

Personnel Benefits

The benefits of consolidation are apparent when discussing physical assets and emergency response, but they extend to personnel administration as well. Having a paid/combination staff will enable development of job descriptions, training objectives, and objective promotional processes. In this way, volunteers will have a “career ladder” similar to fulltime firefighters. If they choose to move residences within the county, there would be no starting over as a probationary firefighter because they could simply be assigned to another station.

The issue of EMS-only personnel or semi-retired members who prefer driving or performing scene-control activities is its own can of worms. If a volunteer fire department is consistently able

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to place four firefighters trained to the Firefighter I level on a pumper within four minutes of receiving an alarm, then it’s less of an issue. But on both operational and administrative levels, it’s much easier for managers to not have to think about which personnel can ride which apparatus, or who has what certification. Suppose you were the first due chief in our opening scenario: Would you rather be left wondering how many personnel were on responding vehicles, and what their capabilities were, or would you rather just “know” that nine personnel trained to the Firefighter I standard are responding, being supervised by three officers trained to Fire Officer I? Obstacles to Consolidation

Consistently effective and safe operations, lower operating costs, better management, and personnel retention—it would seem that rural fire department consolidation in Champaign County is a no-brainer, but the idea faces substantial opposition for several reasons: Ego: A consolidated fire department requires an act of political suicide by 19 village boards or fire protection district boards. Consolidation also requires 19 people to relinquish the title of fire chief, a goal that many have sacrificed for over a period of years. In Illinois, currently the state with the most subunits of local government, this act of dissolution and reconstitution seems inconceivable when they can enjoy their own fiefdoms.

Pride: “We’re better than they are at auto extrication.”

“Those guys don’t like interior firefighting.” Champaign County firefighters are

no different from their counterparts elsewhere; based on their interests and natural talents, some departments pride themselves on their own unique skills or services over others.

But supposing risk analysis reveals that the department on the edge of the county with the heavy rescue needs a tender apparatus—and that its heavy rescue would be of more use if it was moved to a town closer to the highway? Would that fire department’s membership acquiesce, or would they refuse to consolidate and continue focusing on an aspect of service that’s less necessary for their local community? Would these firefighters put aside pride in “their” fire departments and have faith that they were becoming part of a larger, better whole? The step from many small fire departments to a larger county department seems small to an outsider, but it is fraught with meaning for longtime volunteers, and those relationships will have to be managed delicately if a change takes place.

Past practice: Among these 19 fire departments, some get along very well, some do not, and very few get along with the paid departments in the county. “We don’t like them” is an admittedly stupid reason for fire departments not to collaborate on adequate response, but it happens.

The attitude goes both ways, however, as many career firefighters express distaste for working with the volunteers.

The abridged fire at the beginning of this article might not have been extinguished by the three-person career-crew located much closer than the volunteers, but if all this crew did was respond and spend their on-board tank in an

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exterior attack, the fire would have been held in place while the volunteers were en route.

There is a substantial body of literature discussing culture change and “blending” when fire departments consolidate, and putting aside old grievances and prejudices is a real concern.

The new organization must realize the opportunity to create newer, better relationships within the department (people not used to working together) and without (people used to another service delivery model).

Misperception of need:

Related to that pride in unique service is a community—and its fire department—not fully understanding the risks it faces or what resources are needed. While NFPA 1720 states that volunteer fire departments “shall participate” in development of community risk management plans (including evaluation of fire risk), in practice few volunteer fire officers do given time constraints and lack of training.

Risk assessment is another important administrative task, regardless of department size, that falls by the wayside along with incident management and SOP development. The village of 500 people with a 15-person department might not understand why it’s not advisable or perhaps even feasible to maintain a fleet of five vehicles when instead it would be better served to plan operations around a single resource and four to six firefighters, with neighboring stations filling out a fire response.

Support services:

The consolidation of Champaign County fire services as described creates a substantially larger organization

needing an administrative framework in order for it to reach its full potential. We previously covered a paid chief and training officer, and compensated district chiefs, but a cadre of additional instructors are needed to deliver the training program; again, perhaps not full-time personnel but they would need to be classified as something other than volunteers.

Something else not discussed to this point is the utter lack of fire code enforcement in rural Champaign County and the variable quality of fire and life safety education in the rural communities. NFPA 1720, in Annex B, recognizes fire prevention and fire and life safety education as “management goals” of the volunteer fire department and acknowledges that staffing and response are only two components of community fire protection; volunteer fire departments also must apply fire and building codes to “limit loss of life and property.” A consolidated fire department, in good conscience, must also provide for fire code enforcement and life safety education, which would require additional staff, either full time or in another type of regular capacity.

Past experience in Champaign County shows that when volunteer firefighters attempt to enforce burn ordinances or fireworks bans, or address violations of the Life Safety Code, they are ignored or treated with derision because the public believes a volunteer has no kind of binding enforcement mechanism.

Having compensated fire code and life safety professionals

Jeremy Mitchell

A sustained public education program is a cost effective way for fire departments to reduce the number of calls for service while also reducing casualties and fire loss. This is particularly important in rural America where staffing and travel time for firefighters become safety issues.

provides another career path for members of a consolidated department and hopefully serves to keep them interested and active in their department.

Diehards among the rural departments will decry administrative “bloat,” but the ultimate goals are reduced incidence of fire, lower property loss and injury rate, and fire control using fewer resources. An appropriately staffed and supported administrative component better helps this type of department meet those goals.

An Imagined Future

Imagine the opening scenario, but with a fire response from a consolidated fire department with consistent equipment, personnel, and operations.

Think for a moment how different the outcome would be: 1600 hours

Dispatch: “Attention Station 4100, Engine 4251, Engine 4351, and Rescue 4371, Chief 4001 and Chief 1001, respond to the report of a working fire in the ground-floor apartment at 1234 Shady Drive.”

1601 hours

Chief 4000: “Chief 4001 is en route to 1234 Shady Drive.”

Chief 1001: “Chief 1001 is en route as well.”

1604 hours

Station 4100: “Dispatch, Engine 4151 is responding to Shady Drive. We currently have no other personnel at our station.”

Engine 4351: “Dispatch, Engine 4351 and Rescue 4371 are responding.”

Dispatch: “Dispatch has that, 4151, (4351, and 4371. Chief 4001, County Sheriff’s Office advises that they are on scene and the fire is venting from a groundfloor window.”

Chief 4001: “10-4. Is Engine 4251 on the air?”

Dispatch: “Negative, no response from their station.”

Chief 4001: “Chief 4001 has that. Please dispatch an additional engine and rescue from District 5, and Chief 5001.”

1609 hours

Engine 4151: “Dispatch, 4151 is on scene at 1234 Shady Drive. It’s a working fire in a two-story wood

framed apartment building with fire auto exposing from a groundfloor window. 4151 will have a line off for a transitional attack and will be moving into the fire apartment for primary search.”

Chief 4001: “Chief 4001 is on scene on Shady Drive, and will be assuming Shady Command.

Engine 4151, I understand you’ll be performing a transitional attack. Engine 4351 upon your arrival I want you to secure a water supply for 4151; Rescue 4371, you’ll be performing a primary search of the apartment above the fire apartment.”

Because the engine companies operate out of identical apparatus (bought on the same purchase order), the driver/operators work together seamlessly to establish a water supply.

Because of previous training according to department SOPs, the rescue company knows their job will be primary search of a multifamily dwelling, and Chief 4001 knows he will have help at the command post when Chief 1001 arrives. One station was not able to staff an

engine company as originally dispatched, but Chief 4001 knows he can draw the exact same resource with the exact number of personnel, similarly trained, from a neighboring district and integrate them with no difficulty into his incident action plan.

Within a 10-minute window, the new department is able to place 14 personnel on scene and control a serious dwelling fire. All because the five fire stations included in our new scenario agreed that they are stronger together than they were apart, and with their neighbors and fellow firefighters, took the courageous step to consolidate.

JEREMY MITCHELL is an assistant deputy fire marshal for Champaign, Illinois. He also manages the fire prevention services consultancy, GTC Fire Prevention. (gtcfire@outlook.com) ENDNOTE

https://www.nfpa.org/codes-andstandards/all-codes-and-standards/list-ofcodes-and-standards/detail?code=1720 1

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Taking Steps Toward

Economic Recovery through Community Engagement

BY C. ELIZABETH GIBSON; JANET SCHULTE, PH.D.; AND JULIA D. NOVAK, ICMA–CM

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A Small Island Takes Town Meetings Online

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N

o man is an island, but the town of Nantucket is. Thirty miles off the mainland of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, the 55 square mile island provides critical services to approximately 17,000 year-round residents, 56,000 seasonal residents, and thousands of additional visitors during the prime tourist season. The COVID-19 pandemic hit the island economy very hard and drove an early influx of seasonal residents from all over the country who came to the island to shelter in place.

The island has unique vulnerabilities because of limitations with its health care infrastructure.

The town government through its Select Board and Board of Health, in conjunction with the Nantucket Cottage Hospital, were quick to put important orders in place to protect the health and safety of residents and visitors. Some of the actions the town took to protect the island were more stringent than state orders. However, these more stringent orders had a disproportionately adverse impact on the island, as did statewide restrictions that did not take into consideration the unique environment on the island.

For example, if you lived on the mainland and needed art supplies for your child’s remote learning projects, you could purchase those at a store like Target. There is no Target, or anything similar, on Nantucket—so rather than local small businesses being allowed to provide these essential supplies to residents, people on the island were forced to use mail-order services. This situation created a delay in getting needed supplies and a lost opportunity for the small businesses that make up the only retail on the island to be of service to their community.

Likewise, much of the construction and landscaping trades industry is dependent upon commuters traveling by ferry from the mainland to the island. While these workers are a vital part of the Nantucket economy, the risk associated with potentially increasing community spread on a small island with limited health care facilities prompted swift action, and all but emergency construction and repairs were halted. Such a decision is a micro-version of the tradeoffs between lives and livelihood—a decision the town

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did not make lightly, but has helped minimize the spread of COVID-19 on the island.

The Nantucket economy is heavily dependent on tourism. Hotels and inns closed for all but essential workers, and short-term rentals were not permitted.

As with much of the country, restaurants have been closed and gatherings of more than 10 individuals discouraged or even banned. Because of the unknown future for businesses that depend on tours and charters, plus the cancellation of long-planned weddings,

vacations, and popular events, local businesses grew increasingly concerned about their long-term viability.

For many, their livelihood for the year is earned during the short summer season when Nantucket is a major tourist destination.

The town’s director of culture and tourism was asked to pivot her responsibilities to support economic recovery efforts that were initiated by the town in conjunction with the Chamber of Commerce and local business community.

An Economic Recovery Task Force was formed, and their first task was to conduct community roundtable meetings with various sectors of the local economy. Several affinity groups were created: • Arts, culture, and nonprofits.

• Construction, landscaping, and trades.

• Health, human services, and childcare.

• Retail, fitness centers, and personal care.

• Tours, charters, and activities.

• Restaurants, events, and entertainment.

• Transportation.

• Accommodations.

GROUND RULES • Wait to be called on by the facilitator.

• Say your name each time you speak.

• Mute your microphone when not speaking • If you would like to add comments, please use the chat feature.

Comments will be included in the meeting notes.

• Facilitators will keep strict time limits.

• Meeting notes will be provided.

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In the time of COVID-19, community meetings are anything but business as usual. The town reached out to The Novak Consulting Group, now a part of Raftelis, to determine the best way to engage with local businesses. Eight roundtables were convened using the Zoom online meeting platform, and more than 230 people participated in productive discussions to share their ideas for how the town could support various sectors of the Nantucket economy through orders, actions, or advocacy.

Meeting invites were sent using Eventbrite (an online event management site), so the facilitators knew (approximately) how many people to expect. Some sessions had more than 50 participants. The meetings required a carefully planned agenda and adherence to ground rules. The facilitators set very clear expectations about participation—and the participants were great about adhering to them! The Zoom platform allowed for the efficient use of breakout groups where meaningful discussions could be held

on specific topics. A combination of large group discussions and breakout groups, followed by report outs, allowed each person to share their piece in this series of interactive, onehour meetings.

A town resident who was a former marketing vice president for a major beauty brand shared this comment on the virtual meeting platforms: “…I have attended more than my share of facilitated brainstorming; the ones you have conducted this week are the very best both in organization, ability to elicit good comments/ ideas, and speed of the visual facilitator’s recap.”

The results of the sector meetings were funneled to the Economic Recovery Task Force that met twice to review the complete report and content from the sector meetings and develop specific, actionable recommendations.

They presented their recommendations to the Select Board on May 20; 26 recommendations for town action fell into three categories: communication, permitting, and public spaces. The ideation required creativity and reimagining how the town could support its business community. Town staff, who have been working long, long days during the pandemic, were challenged by the town manager to suspend judgment, listen, and imagine an environment where traditional permitting rules and uses for public spaces were suspended in order

for the town’s businesses to have a chance to survive. An email to town staff assigned to support implementation said, “We have all been working extremely hard these past eight weeks, and it would be easy for us to hear a new idea and want to explain why something can’t work or isn’t practical. Our posture needs to be one of breaking down barriers and exploring how we can help…. Our job as town staff is to work collaboratively with the task force to bring forward recommendations to the Select Board that we will ultimately be tasked with implementing.”

Local governments have long been yearning for a way to end the public participation expectation of “three minutes at the microphone.” Being forced to imagine an entirely new way to engage with a community that needed its local government created a way to do just that. A new way to engage with our communities is one of the bells that will not be “unrung” as we return to traditional ways and places of work— we now have new tools for public meetings.

C. ELIZABETH GIBSON is the town manager of Nantucket, Massachusetts (lgibson@nantucket-ma.gov).

JANET SCHULTE is director of culture and tourism, Nantucket, Massachusetts (jschulte@ nantucket-ma.gov).

JULIA D. NOVAK, ICMA-CM, is executive vice president for The Novak Consulting Group, part of Raftelis (jnovak@ thenovakconsultinggroup.com).

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Safely Climbing thehe

SMARTER CITIES MOUNTAIN

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M

anaging your local government’s cybersecurity, regardless of size or technological maturity, will be much like a climbing expedition on Mount Everest. You and your team assume a lot of risk and work tirelessly with little assurance of success due to uncertainties, relying on your confidence in each other for the summit journey. The ascent to smart city status requires ceaseless activity, no matter how good you are; you need a team of “climbers” with skills, mutual trust, and an unflappable dedication for success. And you? You are the expedition leader.

When Edmond Hillary climbed the summit of Mount Everest on May 28, 1953, he worked as part of a team alongside Tenzing Norgay, his Sherpa or master guide. An oft-forgotten fact is that Sir John Hunt, the expedition leader, climbed the mountain on May 26 to 8,350 meters (1,634 short of the summit) with Sherpa Da Namgyal to pave the way for success. Hunt and Namgyal anticipated needs, including external and internal risks, depositing a cache of critical supplies and equipment on the southeast ridge of Hillary’s ascent route. They were managing risk for the expedition’s success. That same day, the first of Hunt’s two assigned ascent parties failed to summit due to hypoxia and exhaustion. Hillary and Norgay were the second, but as a team, all succeeded.

Transformation around a cybersecurity first (CSF) culture calls for a local government manager to be an effective expedition leader. Activities include assembling the team, building mutual trust, making risky decisions, engendering unflappable cooperation across departments and city stakeholders, and directing departmental routes for teams.

Then you must climb alongside those teams to empower success and manage risks proactively.

Execution Leadership

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BY CYRUS OLSEN, PHD., AND BARRY L. SCHALKLE, JD, CPA

In our first PM article, “Urban Cyber Terrorism and Risk Management,” in the June 2020 issue, we argued that to become a smarter city, the local government leader’s role is risk management and leadership, rather than technological mastery. Cultural transformation requires execution leadership, not armchair sponsorship. This article is about climbing the smarter city mountain with your team, and successfully leading the expedition. Some of this article might seem technical, so bear with us. As your “Sherpas,” we will shoulder the burdens alongside you to the summit.

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To illustrate execution in a concrete manner, we will show a smarter city use case of a single department. An ascent team is represented by the water department,1 which is an essential service and revenue generator for many, if not most, cities. As part of the broader utilities group, the water department must manage the dangers of a zero-trust architecture (ZTA) and protect operations from porous cyberattack surface vulnerabilities. The team is responsible for execution and implementation of cybersecure water services.

Imagine a nation-state group assigned the task of infiltrating city infrastructures. Its mission is opportunistically to develop urban cyberattacks on cities inflicting damage on targeted nations. To understand a potential attack, we use a process called kill chain analysis.2 A ‘kill chain’ analysis is used to describe critical stages of a cyberattack and breach to understand vulnerabilities and potential compromising activity. This type of analysis specifically examines covert cyberattack behaviors, targets, and methods for exploiting vulnerabilities in even well-defended infrastructures.

ways to envision this is to think like an attack team and understand the enemy’s methods. General Sun Tzu in the Art of War aptly said, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.”

Cyberattackers have sophisticated tools and are often well trained. A state-sponsored attack can be assumed to employ the most advanced methods available. These include machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) methods used to automate and accelerate attacks. An imagined attack would take the following sequential pathway. (Due to its highly sensitive nature and for security purposes, the descriptions below are limited, but a more detailed white paper is available upon verified request to either of the authors.)

Phase 1: Reconnaissance—Automated tools allow attackers to target individual city workers with social engineering methods .5 Phase 2: Intrusion—Using intelligence from Phase 1,

Tierney - stock.adobe.com

In our use case, attackers funded by a nation state are intent on creating cyberterror by shutting down and corrupting a water utility department for a suburban city adjacent to a major metropolitan area. We use kill chain analysis to understand the anatomy of an attack on the sensor-enabled and software-controlled intelligent infrastructure of a smarter city and its water supplies. However, this type of cyberattack on industrial control systems applies broadly to any sensor-enabled or intelligent infrastructure.

This scenario is presented because the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned in March and April 2018 that Russian government-sponsored actors were specifically targeting the water sector and other critical infrastructures as part of a sophisticated and multi-pronged intrusion effort.3 These behaviors are typical of cyber warfare and cyberterrorism, as evidenced in the April 2020 attacks on Israel’s water infrastructures.4 How a Cyberattack Unfolds

What does an attack on a smarter city look like? Where are the vulnerabilities in an automated, intelligent infrastructure? One of the 4 2 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | J U LY 2 0 2 0

attackers create and opportunistically deliver convincing and targeted emails (i.e., spear-phishing attacks) to city personnel.

Clicking on these official-looking emails launches and executes downloading of malicious code onto validated devices used to perform city work. The process is intermittent to avoid too much activity at one time. Attackers are patient, looking for any small tear in the security curtain.

In this use case, a third-party vendor is targeted and, amidst operational pressures, the augmented staff member clicks on it, since it appears official. The attackers gain access to an authenticated device used by the vendor. They have been “speared” by the “phisher.” The intruders are inside your network.

Phase 3: Establishing a Malicious Control Channel Inside the Operational Technology (OT) infrastructure—Next,

attackers plant malware on the device establishing a call-back command channel to their own server using remote access trojan (RAT) malware code. Looking like normal communications during operational activities, the attackers use the credentials of the speared city worker. This code is sophisticated and automated and avoids

detection. Using stolen credentials, the attackers can now exploit the city’s network.

Phase 4: Privilege Escalation—The attackers mine files and emails for other passwords or secrets, creating a list of unencrypted secrets. An access surface is mapped and includes machine-tomachine privileges exposed to the intrusion through its original user’s credentials and administrative privileges.

Phase 5: Lateral Movement—With privileged access established and control codes silently placed on devices in authorized platforms using internal user’s credentials, the attackers move laterally around the IT and OT networks. They are looking opportunistically for known software and hardware vulnerabilities, opportunities catalogued from past exploits, many remaining undetected in other cities.

In our use case, attackers specifically target assets controlling water levels, sewage flows, and water quality telemetry. Attackers look for industrial control systems— the “brains” controlling

Most communities rushing to secure the dream of a smarter city are under-investing in their detection, response, and recovery risk management. operational infrastructures of these systems. Your city’s water brain becomes infected with a mutating virus more deadly to your infrastructure than COVID-19 is to humans.

Phase 6: Exfiltration and Control—This sets the framework for urban terrorism. Attackers exfiltrate data in an ongoing basis patiently awaiting the time for maximum disruption and terrorization. The attackers weaponize their knowledge.6 The city “leaks” information slowly and quietly to the attackers.

This methodology was used to take down Ukraine’s power grid, and in the Saudi “Triton” malware attacks. Attackers used vendor vulnerabilities on unpatched machines. They were intent on bringing down the power grid and causing destruction using fail-safe relay failures.7 IT and OT Risks

The scenario just described reflects existing dangers in controlautomated infrastructures. Operational technologies are not safe in a ZTA world. In the world of automated IT operations, hybrid cloud infrastructures, and machine-driven supply chain integration,

an entire ecosystem is exposed to well-funded and determined attackers using the most advanced tools available. One-way or white-listed OT routers, or firewalls between IT and OT, are nowhere near enough to protect even the smallest of cities.

What risks should managers prioritize in this scenario?

Communities need to carefully consider every risk element of their smarter city journey. They need to not only ensure sound defense against IT risks and the network, but also efficient detection with indicators of compromise. Investments in response and recovery assets and processes are also critical.

Investments include people, assets, and services. Additionally, managers must minimize a community’s risk profile and reduce overall time to detection.8 Smarter Cities and Porous Attack Surfaces

Machine learning and artificial intelligence applied by attackers against known weak defenses significantly increases risk. Most communities rushing to secure the dream of a smarter city are under-investing in their detection, response, and recovery risk management. Whether they are on the smart city journey or not, local government managers need to consider new ways of thinking about cybersecurity investments.

Consider the county where the executive is responsible for hundreds of thousands or even millions of people and has multiple teams independently pursuing intelligent upgrades.

Such upgrades may include tunnel ventilation systems for transportation, multiple wastewater treatment plants in a separate department, and stormwater and potable water under another department. This county has several industrial control system “brains” that do not talk to each other. The risk is that no single leader is coordinating the journey up the smarter county cyber mountain or managing the inherent risk of a porous attack surface like the one previously described.

Next, consider another manager whose city is rushing toward a well-publicized vision of a smart city by implementing advanced metering and sensor-driven telemetry for lighting, traffic, mass transit, and water management. However, the city power grid is provided by a regional third party and the city water source is controlled by a metropolitan water district, both requiring integrated engineering. In the drive towards smart city implementation, risks of creating a porous attack surface are extremely high unless there is a reasoned strategy for sensor placement, control policies, detection capabilities, and cybersecurity close to their operational context. Funding decisions require validated assurances that the infrastructures can support a secure smart city implementation.

Consider smaller cities that have system brains controlling some portion of their infrastructures, but are dependent on collectives for their water supplies, power, or services. These groups cannot afford to climb the mountain alone, but are just as vulnerable.

All of the above scenarios represent vulnerabilities within city infrastructures and accelerating risk from state-sponsored and well-funded attackers. The future of automated technology within cities of all sizes is indisputable and it will significantly increase cyber risks.

J U LY 2 0 2 0 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | 4 3

Climbing Safely: The Role of the Local Government Leader

Managers Lead Risk Management Efforts

Just as Lord Hunt did not ascend the summit, but enabled the success of Edmond Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the local government manager must lead and enable coordination of an effective zero-trust architecture (ZTA) risk-management strategy. Leadership empowers departments to think differently and ask questions about smart city attack surfaces. The manager must drive dialogue and enumeration of risk in a reasoned and visible plan across departments, but the task is complex.

Often leadership requires embedding cybersecurity expertise close to operations and centralizing cyber-risk policies, procedures, and processes with accountability mechanisms. Leadership requires climbing yourself. Leaders need to understand what policies should be enforced and what metrics hold department leaders accountable. Successful leaders anticipate organizational needs, structures, and governance, and they place appropriate resources along the climbing route.

Operational departments and IT organizations are often plagued by historical roles and responsibilities that conflict with their smart city objectives, rewards, and plans. With this comes organizational and technical challenges for getting dialogue and data to be useful across functional boundaries. In our June article, we suggested the POP TOP™ methodology for driving the smart city journey (People, Organizational structure, and Policies and procedures, integrating with Technologies, Operational planning, and Projects). Figure 1 is an enhanced version of that model showing the addition of the delivery execution engine across departmental planning and project allocation decisions. Local government managers own the “POP”; departments and teams own the “TOP.” FIGURE 1 |

Local government leaders own risk management inherent in a ZTA ecosystem. Figure 1 details the ZTA ascent planning approach introduced in the June article. Risk management will require shaping your leadership team’s composition, thinking, and vocabulary: P (people), O (organizational structure), and P (policies and procedures outlining governance accountability).

It is the departments that will summit the mountain as a team.

Managers ensure delivery of supplies (i.e., resources) at critical points along the route to ensure “the highest probability of success with the least amount of risk.”™ Managers oversee two critical activities. See Figure 1.

First, managers can mandate and allocate resources to enumerate risk and priorities in the current security ecosystem. This includes enumerating risk associated with trusted and untrusted third parties.

Cyber insurance is not a risk management plan in ZTA ecosystems.

Often, cities and counties will find they cannot credibly identify all internet-facing applications, or credibly quantify the access and authorization subject to multifactor authentication (MFA). Yet most cities today are using cloud services, have vendors with personal devices accessing data, and many other open portals that might be present and creating hidden and untenable attack risks.

Secondly, managers should identify and specify cyber policy responsibilities and accountabilities by role. Clearly specified, accountable roles and responsibilities will discipline evaluation and identification of linkages to the smart city vision as a collective effort.

Each department must address accountability both within its own functional boundary areas and across interconnections with other departments in this process. Accountability should be centralized and under a direct report to the manager. It often requires a dedicated role or even a team,9 which can include outside experts. Cyber-risk accountability needs to be led by or report directly to the manager.

A Cybersecurity-First Master Plan Delivery TM

ASSESSMENT EVALUATION

Fact-Based Identification

Departmental Planning & Delivery

1. Current Security

2. Smarter Evolution

3. Recommendations

Infrastructure

Vision

Gap Analysis

Monitoring and Reporting

Priority Applications Cloud Strategy/Vulnerabilities

Metrics Policies

Data at Rest

Data in Motion

Ecosystem Interfaces

Federal State Local Organizational Departmental

Security Operations Reporting Structures

Standards

Organization

Network Segmentation

Information Technology Operational Technology

4 4 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | J U LY 2 0 2 0

Leadership Team Security Telemetry and Monitoring Cyber Education

Prioritized Targets Risk Priorities Project Mapping

5. Departmental Projects

Objective Review

Governance

Procedures

REMEDIATION

4. Budget/Resource Mapping

ENUMERATION

Execution

Departments Execute ZTA Cybersecurity

Execution is where transition from POP to TOP occurs. For example, in the water department’s case, enumeration included assets held in the maintenance application, identification of historical responses to events, GIS-mapped (geographic information systems) locations for physical-access points, along with network segmentation detail, device information, and quantification of information and telemetry available for a smarter city ZTA. Target profiles for remediation will emerge from TOP detail.

Local government leaders should assign responsibility for climbing the ZTA mountain to departmental leadership.

Departmental teams, accountable to the manager, should drive fact-based target profiles for detailed execution planning.

Departmental vision; priority application identification; cloud vulnerability assessment; network segmentation planning; security operations telemetry and processes; metrics and reporting structures; operational leadership within the departments; security monitoring and detection; and most of all cyber-education needs and gaps require identification, quantification, and prioritization. Only then can each department map its own ascent route or 15-year plan.

For example, Figure 2 illustrates the type of requirements that can drive concrete recommendations about smart city water delivery technologies or prerequisites required along the ZTA ascent route.

The local government manager must drive, adjust, and mediate risk decisions with resources and funding for departmental projects along the departmental route. Like Hunt’s role in depositing supplies for Hillary, the manager must equip departments with essential resources for implementing ZTA tenets, which will ensure a coordinated journey to the summit.

FIGURE 2 |

Those tenets are: 1. All data sources and computing services are considered resources to be managed.

2. All communication is securely protected.

3. Access to individual city resources is granted on a per-connection basis.

4. Access to resources is determined by policy, with “least privilege” access defined and enforced.

5. All owned and associated resources are in the most secure state possible and monitoring ensures they remain in the most secure state possible.

6. User authentication is dynamic and strictly enforced before access is allowed.10 Equipping departments to implement ZTA tenets will be equivalent to Lord Hunt’s leaving a cache of equipment for Edmund Hillary.

A ZTA approach also needs to balance civil liberties and personal privacy with accelerating technologies. Much work remains to be done here, especially in the shifting sands of a global pandemic and the lessons from exploitation by nefarious actors in the COVID-19 events worldwide. Every city will face the paradox of managing evolving technological advances in conjunction with civil liberties. Needs for responsible determination of privacy, civil liberty policies, and enforcement will only increase. The local government manager must lead the conversation about this paradox.

Detailed discussion is beyond the scope of this article, but the responsibility remains integral to smart city cybersecurity conversations.11 Will cities exchange feudalistic authority for security and abdicate individual rights to AI algorithms and technologies in the hands of experts? With threats like COVID-19, will we find our paths to responsible smarter cities that are both secure and civil, being equitable and just? Can our technologies be mediated by our values as citizens?

Planning ZTA Ascent Route

Assessment: People, Organization, Policies (POP) — Technologies, Operational Skills, Projects (TOP) Current State

Identity

Scope

POP-TOP™ Assessment • • • • •

Identify Protect Detect Respond Recover

Industry Best Practice • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Source: WaterISAC: 15 Cybersecurity Fundamentals for Water and Wastewater Utilities (6/3/2019)

Perform asset inventories Assess risks Minimize control system exposure Enforce user access controls Safeguard from unauthorized physical access Install independent cyber-physical safety systems Embrace vulnerability management Create a cybersecurity culture Develop and enforce cybersecurity policies and procedures Implement threat detection and monitoring Plan for incidents, emergencies, and disasters Tackle insider threats Secure the supply chain Address all smart devices (IOT, IIOT, Mobile, etc.)

Participate in information sharing and collaboration communities

Roadmap

Gaps • Key/secrets management • Identity and access management controls • No prescriptive guidance for cybersecurity-first practices • No clear organizational owner identified for cybersecurity-first transformation • Systems are isolated and fragmented across departments

Future State • Intelligent K/SM capabilities across environments • Clear ownership for cybersecurity-first transformation • Secure SCADA with segmented networks • Skilled team for cyber-first response • Automation of data acquisition and analytics • Strong guidance on hierarchy of cybersecurity-first practices by departments

• Foundations (requirements and remediations) • Funding (prioritization) • Execution integration (15-year plan)

J U LY 2 0 2 0 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | 4 5

FIGURE 3 |

A Cybersecurity-First Plan

TM

Four Concrete Steps to Improve Cybersecurity-First Culture Security Through Adaptation and Resilience Execution

Security Through Strategy and Alignment

Set the Bar

Assess Baseline

Educate Leadership

Monitor cybersecurity telemetry and IAM data Plan and test POC integration opportunities Execute high value data integration and data quality projects Measure KPIs

• Establish risk-based and business-aligned cybersecurity master plan – 15-year horizon • Identify and protect prioritized/valuable assets • Align architecture and capability to budgets and projects • Align identity management technologies/skills/policies

Security Through Controls

• • • •

Set access standards, policies, and protocols Conduct outside assessment to quantify baseline risk Secure essential systems and cybersecure hygiene practices Quantify data quality and integration management risks

Security Through Behavior

• • • •

Develop cybersecurity-first awareness across ecosystem Lead from the top – CAO and department heads Leadership accountability/measurement – credible threats Mandate cybersecurity education for third parties

Call to Action

Figure 3 illustrates concrete steps for managers as cultural transformation leaders in a smarter city evolution. The manager’s cyber education role is the most important. Cyber education includes funding cyber educational resources like phishing exercises across departments, emphasizing ZTA language in communications, holding impromptu discussions about good digital hygiene practices, inquiring about multifactor identification for high-risk applications, and usage/monitoring detection.

Included are conversations about privacy and technology. Cyber education must be both formal and informal, but most of all personally modeled by the manager.

Next, local government leaders must continually inquire about controls for cybersecurity policies at all levels, including physical security, digital security, and architectural requirements. Query your leaders about threat intelligence capabilities and data access policies, and identity access management compliance with best practice.

These questions alone will begin the development of a vocabulary for cultural transformation into a ZTA ecosystem.

Third, the manager needs to set the bar for performance. It will take constant review of departmental execution against vision, ZTA tenets, and responsible privacy principles to ensure success. Cyberrisk management is why cybersecurity needs its own leadership role, reporting directly to the chief administrative officer, not the IT department. This role is necessary, having both responsibility and authority for policy and cybersecurity risk management. That role is the eyes and ears for the manager across the organization and may need to include third-party expertise.

Lastly, accountability requires clear metrics, which are necessary to measure progress towards success. Key performance indicators are required for ZTA cybersecurity. Indicators measured and reviewed continually, visualized and reported throughout the organization and within departments, ensure adaptive movement and adjustments to a changing threat surface as technological changes occur. Remember, what you measure can be managed.12 © Copyright 2020 by Barry L. Schalkle, JD, CPA and Cyrus Olsen, PhD 4 6 | P U B L I C M A N A G E M E N T | J U LY 2 0 2 0

• • • •

CYRUS OLSEN, PHD, is a co-founder of veteran-owned Cyber Security Warriors, LLC and is an organizational capabilities physician and infrastructure consultant focused on secure digital transformation and responsible automated machine learning. (cy@cybersecuritywarriors.city) BARRY SCHALKLE, JD, CPA, is a co-founder of veteranowned Cyber Security Warriors, LLC and has been focused on risk mitigation consulting for most of his career. (barry@cybersecuritywarriors.city) ENDNOTES AND RESOURCES

A similar effort was undertaken by a city of over 100,000 in the Pacific Northwest to build for a 15-year SCADA (authors: please spell out acronym) master plan.

1

Developed by Lockheed Martin, the Cyber Kill Chain® framework is part of the Intelligence Driven Defense® model for identification and prevention of cyber intrusions activity. The model identifies what adversaries must complete to achieve their objective. https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/capabilities/cyber/cyber-kill-chain.html 2

3

https://industrialexchange.us/insights/combatting-cyber-attacks/

https://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-attempted-cyber-attack-on-israeli-water-and-sewagefacilities-report/ 4

“Social engineering” refers to manipulating human assets with fake emails and other methods, the most common being “phishing,” where the attacker targets a person using social media discovery and sends an official-looking email containing malicious code anticipating it will be opened, launching the attack.

5

6

https://www.cyberark.com/threat-research-blog/anatomy-triton-malware-attack/

https://www.wired.com/story/russia-ukraine-cyberattack-power-grid-blackoutdestruction/, https://www.zdnet.com/article/cybersecurity-the-key-lessons-of-the-tritonmalware-cyberattack-you-need-to-learn/ 7

Mean time to detection (MTTD) is a powerful metric when used correctly. The focus for this effort is examination of the city’s identity and access capabilities and security operations defenses. The local government manager will most likely need a “Sherpa” to guide them.

8

Some corporations have entire organizations reporting to the CEO or COO with a chief information security officer role responsible for cybersecurity risk. Today, in the emerging risk permeated environment, a new role of chief risk officer is rapidly emerging. Cities need to consider this workload and staff accordingly.

9

Adapted from NIST publication Zero Trust Architecture: https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST. SP.800-207-draft 10

The section 3.6 in NIST.CSWP.04162018-CS Framework-042018 v1.1 points out that “privacy and security have a strong connection.”

11

Hubbard and Seiersen, (2016) How to Measure Anything in Cybersecurity Risk, John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken, NJ. The Identity Defined Security Alliance (IDSA) is a good place to look for discussions on identity metrics for ZTA. www.idsalliance.org.

12

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