A (3:14)

I mean, I feel like Edward has a lot more experience and mileage, so I just feel like maybe I want to give him, like, home court advantage, you know, But I'm happy to chime in.

C (3:26)

You know, Alex is right in, right in theme with this whole topic, because this is the type of thing on the surface, and I have lots of thoughts on this, but on the surface, what a great way to distract away from all the things that you're doing in City Hall. We're not going to talk about the big problems. We're not going to talk about the financial crater or filling certain job roles. We're going to pick some things in our community that are pretty simple things. Fixing park benches, fixing water fountains. And then we're going to mobilize four of our city departments to advocate and cheerlead these fixes. It's kind of like the, the Roman Colosseum where, you know, Rome is burning, but we're going to throw, like, some Christians in the ring with tigers to, to kind of bypass that. That. That is my kind of initial read of this, when I, when I first saw it, was like, here's a great way to shift that conversation in a completely different direction. And you mobilize the whole city to talk about fixing little things as opposed to some of the other deeper issues the cities face.

A (4:43)

Yeah. You know, and, and I will say too, that I think there's, I'm with Carly, like, I do. I'm a sucker for community engagement. So there's a piece of you that's like, you got thousands of people to interact with a thing that needs participants and citizens to care about it. Great. And then to your point, you then look at what the things are and you're like, you know, well, we, we kind of should have a plan for some of this already. So. But I will say that I, I, I am, I do have a sensitivity towards finding something that makes citizens care. And there are times where the big problem is too much of a albatross large thing that a citizen sometimes has a hard wrapping their arms around it. But they get the basketball court that's been missing the net for three years. Like, they get. I see that and I get that. So I think it's one of those things where it opens up a discussion about, you know, municipalities Ability to recognize that you have to do both. You have to be responsible with your own capital infrastructure, but you also have to realize that you should find a way for citizens to get involved where they can to maintain that healthy citizen pride. So. So I'm. I'm kind of torn, which is why I'm excited about this conversation. Because you love it, but then you're like, but I want more, you know, so anyway, that's my. That's my initial hot take on. When I first saw it, you know what? I thought about it, and then I forgot, Carly, if it was you or Edward that mentioned the departments, right, the four departments kind of coming in and saying, we got this project, we got that project. You know, so I'm like, okay. I mean, I like the engagement, you know, but. But I do think it opens up a conversation about, you know, are we really thinking about maintenance of infrastructure? Oftentimes we stop at the initial construction, and we do not spend enough time thinking about O and M. So. So, yeah, that's. That was my hot take when I first saw it.

B (7:10)

Y. Y. And Edward, I thought of you. I was excited when. When I found this story, I. I was like, you know, Edward's the person that I need with me on this. In this conversation, you know, does it reinforce the city's obligation that. To fix things, or does it kind of run the risk of, like, making. Making it seem like not the city's core obligation? And I think that's. That's why I started with, like, why do you think this city did this? Is it really about maintaining the public infrastructure, or is it about. Is about something else and this is just, you know, a means to an end.

C (7:52)

Yeah, I. I mean, the trap that people could fall into this is you're just trivializing all of the different things. It's kind of like the. You know, my background's in architecture, and I love to look at cities, all the folks that go to Detroit, to look at all of the buildings that are decaying. Like, there's an actual kind of tourism industry of folks that like to go see that decay. So when you go into this, you kind of are trivializing all these pieces. But then, like, I started to dig deeper into it because I said, okay, first I thought it was such a polished approach that it's something that I think every mayor across North America should look at this and say, why aren't we doing this Mayor municipal madness piece? Because we're mobilizing our community. We're talking about things that I am sure the parks Commissioner and the sports commissioner. They don't want to sit and talk about those little things. They're working on the billion dollar roadway project. They're working on the $100 million sports center. So they'll have to come out for these pieces. From a management side, this is where if you are really vested in this from a management side, this is probably one of the most strong towns things a community could do. Because you are shifting the conversation and saying, look, we, we, we are probably good at all those big things. We're not good at the small things. Where does it really make a difference when we start looking at these small things? And if I look at anything on the list like repair and repaint park benches was like one of the first things knocked off the list. We could be restructuring in our conversations with our staff. When we're looking at repainting park benches and just saying, look, we need to get that into our cycle of work. We need to not wait for a citizen complaint. We're being empowered by the mayor. This is one of the top 16 things that they think we should be doing. This is not a hard thing we could have a summer intern or a volunteer do with paint. Why aren't we doing that? And by doing a lot of those small things, that builds up to not only increasing public trust in the work we do in municipalities, but it also starts to snowball effect of okay, now we're not just going to paint benches, we're going to find the broken ones or we're going to identify where we need benches because we would like to be painting those in the future. So from a kind of a structural management thing, if you're truly serious about this. And I think from looking at all of this, Mondavi is, I think this is a great way to go and change the entire conversation you have internally with staff on taking on these projects.

A (10:54)

Yeah, well. And to that point, Edward, I also see this as communication of not straightforward priorities. But you, you know, we got a prioritization matrix here that even when you start to look at, you know, community space fixes kind of one because of the their particular idea being the one that was ultimately selected. But you can look at what was the highest ranked park fix, what was the highest ranked street fix, what was the highest ranked sports fixed. And if you want a proactive administration, mayors that's always connected to the citizenry, then when they give you and they tell you what they want, do it

C (11:45)

repeat like, you know, everywhere there's a trash pickup now or illegal dumping pickup, you Better believe every elected official should be there.

A (11:56)

Okay. Okay. You know, and I don't know if they, if I don't know, I don't know if sometimes like I'm not elected official, so I don't know it. Right. I don't know if they like, see that, if they make that connection that they told us what they wanted, man, I probably should, should do what they said they wanted.

B (12:16)

Yeah, yeah. I, I, I think that, you know, we're gonna link the, the story from the news in, in the show notes and I think that, you know, one of the things that I noticed in the couple articles that I read about this was they made a point every time to say they were going to fix all of these. And this was just, and this was just a way to get to celebrate the mayor's first hundred days and get him out, out with the people prioritizing a fix that the people said was important. Right. But they were, they were quick to say, we're, it's, all of these are important. It's our job to fix these and we're gonna, we're gonna fix them all. This is a prioritization mechanism, I guess you could say, Alex, as somebody who, you know, I know your track record of really doing a great job in everything that you do, engaging the community. They, they got about 20,000 votes here in a, in a city of 8 million people. So certainly, certainly I think that they are probably excited at the same time that they're thinking, okay, we could, we got more out there, there's more to tap into. You know, how do you, how do you generate, or how do you think about generating excitement and how do you think about what are your benchmarks for when something is successful at engaging the community?

A (13:35)

Yeah, no, I mean, I think that, number one, you know, I don't know if they meet the statistically significant number based on the population density. I just, I just don't know what that percentage would need to be. But I do think that when you get a response, you know, number one, that's the hope, right, Is that you get people to engage with the information that you're putting out and you're seeking to understand.

B (14:05)

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A (14:37)

And then number two, not only are you hoping that they engage with it, but you're hoping that they, they stick around for the completion of the campaign. And you know, there were multiple rounds, right? You know, there was the vocal voted out, round one, voted things were vote out around two, round three, and then there was the runner up, right? So, so, I mean, there were a couple things that had to happen that signals there is a cohort of people who care enough to stick in your community engagement campaign on these particular items. And, you know, in a perfect world, right, you would, you would create all those pinpoints of, you know, where did we get responses, you know, because most part, submission software can tell you, you know, what district a response came in on, and you create a heat map and you start to understand what portion of the city, of the area is our most engaged portion. And now you start to back into. I have like a, a cohort of folks, a cohort of residents, a cohort of citizens that I can go to, not only just when I'm trying to, you know, kind of level check what type of projects should we do if we only have X amount of dollars, but I can also go there when I'm trying to expand cultural opportunities, when I'm trying to get more feedback on amenities that we can provide. So it starts to be a base that if you, if you take care of it, can provide feedback in an ongoing way. And I always tell people that how. Here's the thing, here's the trick that the mayor, Mayor Mondana needs to be thoughtful about is community engagement. My, my rule is how you started on a project is how you continue it in a project. So if it began with community engagement, it must continue with community engagement. So my question will be, how do you, how will you continue to have people be engaged with not only just prioritizing, you know, maintenance opportunities at highly used public assets, but, but with how well we took care of the one thing you said that you wanted us to do. So anyway, so those benchmarks are where the response is coming from. How are we cultivating that and using them for other things that we need engagement on, and how well are we at keeping them engaged throughout the duration of the campaign that we ask them to give feedback for?

B (17:06)

I love that. You're exactly right. Because to me, when I looked at this story, it's less about the success of this and more if this is, you know, something that helps build more trust and more engagement with his Administration and within his community. Right. That was. That was the thing that stuck out to me. And, you know, one of the. I think the. The first kind of question I asked and we talked about a few things, is why do you think the mayor did this? And I, I think the mayor did this because the mayor has demonstrated so far that he really wants to stay connected to the people who live in New York and call New York home. And this was another way to get their attention in a way that could build that connection, not for everybody, but for, you know, 20,000 folks who are. Who are paying attention. And their primary interaction with government is, you know, the dumping ground that won or the basketball goal that needed to be fixed. And, you know, they are seeing, you know, in our words, at strong towns, a small step of their. Their local government working for them. So I think that there's you know, there are some certainly, you know, complicated, I guess, maintenance implications to this, this contest. But the engagement piece is. Is really. Is really quite, quite interesting. Edward, you've worked in cities, and I'm curious, you know, how you think about, like, the normal system, city or many cities, I should say. Alex and I live in a community that uses a 311 type system. New York City has a 311 type system. I know many, many other places do. How does, how does this community balance? Like a 311 system, which I think you see problems get addressed, but you also see problems kind of linger, right? Like, how could you use a contest like this to build support and engagement for your normal operations of maintenance and that sense of like, like these are our core responsibilities to our community?

C (19:27)

Well, when I think about the 311 systems or the, you know, the online reporting, those are things that we feel really good about in local government, right? It's an orderly way. It. We can put in a work order, somebody can get an alert, we can prioritize it, we can knock them off the list. As a citizen, we think citizens like it because it's a way for them to complain what's not on Facebook. But the responses on it are like, okay, ticket received. We've heard what you've done. We're taking action. And that's all you hear. As a citizen, maybe you'll see the thing changed, but there isn't that engagement. What I see here is that there are millions of people that know that there's an illegal dumping site that needs to be cleaned up. There are millions of people because, yeah, only 20,000 people may have participated in that survey, but the New York Times. Every national news organization is sharing this crazy story.

A (20:28)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

C (20:30)

What I see about it for engagement, that. And as we've worked on this, like with our community action labs, cities are working really hard to do this stuff every single day. But it's hidden in the shadows. We don't celebrate it, we don't get news stories about that type of work. We rarely ever report that to our elected leadership. So something like this, when we look at these pieces going out and showing that the item is actually fixed. So if you have a 311 system, actually give the report of the picture of the basketball hoop fixed or the spray paint removed, go and show where the new trash can is. And for cities, especially smaller cities, what I found is that in the small community I worked in, if we put public works on our Facebook page, like somebody in public works working, filling a pothole, picking up trash, moving snow on our social feeds, those went like off the charts. Everybody liked it, they shared it. They knew who the person was. They were thankful that that work was being done because the feedback loop of government was occurring. So yeah, I mean, I think that is that kind of takeaway and follow through that we forget at cities. We're just so busy doing the things. So something like this, doing it. So it's not just receiving but also sharing. I think the next piece to this, the mayor got probably a thousand people that showed up at that press conference. He had a marching band and a girls, you know, if you watch on his page there, these girl cheerleaders and all people in costumes, all their types of crazy stuff as part of that event, starting to show people that they can be empowered to do this work as well. So it's illegal dumping. We shouldn't just have a phone number to call. If you get a community group that wants to go out and clean up the junk. You know the broken window philosophy. If a community wants to clean it up, they can get stuff in bags. But maybe getting the bags to the dump is a hard thing again, how do we partner as a city to do the thing that we're really good at? All of our cities have trash removal. We have different contracts for that. We can get it to the dump. It's getting that first step moving forward. That's something like this on all these items. How could we start to empower citizens to take on some of this themselves? Not that we're asking them to defer what government's doing, but we're asking them to be engaged as citizens in our community.

A (23:11)

That's really good. You know, there's, and I think, I think New York City has a similar program, but a lot of neighborhood programs include some type of, you know, improvement district that could be a formalized structure, a formalized way that empowers a neighborhood group, group to, you know, get some resources and have some ability to execute projects with built in municipal support. Sometimes it's informal. Right. It's just, you know, relationships that the department has the authorization to enter into with neighborhood groups. But I, I do love that end. Thought you just had, Edward. Because I do think that once again, I'm curious. I would, you know, if they mapped right what some of these fixes were and if they overlaid that with some type of neighborhood governance structure. I'm curious to know, are there built in already? Right. Capacity engines that could execute some of these projects? And it flips from like a March Madness of picking one to more of a March Madness. We fund them all. And it's less about which one fix can we do and it's more about, you know, which neighborhood could be focused on that has eight fixes. And you know, you just start to have this snowball effect. But I do think that's a really good idea of how do we use this information to enable citizens to be a part of maintaining their own backyard, their own front yard? Because I do think a lot of people would jump on that and would really enjoy it.

B (24:45)

Do either of you think that there's things that should be considered as far as, like, you know, this was, you know, a campaign to focus attention. It was a winning vote getting campaign. Are there things that, like, what are the things that a mayor's office or a city hall can do to make sure that they're the things that maybe won't get the most votes but are still true needs can get attention? Like, like you, you can't only fix the things that win the popularity contest. Right. Which again, this spirit of this contest was to fix everything and just kind of bring the mayor in for the winning item. But the, but you know, if you're trying to think of how you sort of like build a community, what about the things that need fixing in a community but maybe don't have the broad popular support that some of these items? And Alex, I feel like that's a question right up your, your alley.

A (25:50)

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, you know, the, the, the, the pieces that I feel always, you know, maybe gets, gets left out are definitely going to be, you know, some of the, some of, some of the infrastructure things and Because a lot of maintenance programs are complaint driven. It's just the way it works in a lot of municipalities because they don't have enough people to just fully manage all of it proactively. So they almost have to rely on a reactive complaint management program. But really those things that neighbors and residents have accepted as norms in their community, but it's below the level of service or the quality infrastructure that really they should be experiencing. So, you know, I don't know why I'm forgetting the name of the book. If I said it, you all would know it. But there's one of these books that talks about pats and notes and just different ways that a, that a person interacts with their neighborhood. And these paths, right, are all the dirt trails that take you to where the resident wants to go. It's not the sidewalk, it's not the three million dollar bike trail that takes you to the big loop, right? It's the dirt path that brings you from Miss Susie's corner store to like the back way to get into the park, you know, but, you know, so, but, but you see the footpath, you see how the, the grass doesn't grow anymore because that's the way we get around in the neighborhood, you know, but those types of things, being able to kind of go in, but that requires being on the ground. Okay, that requires being in, in touch and in the loop. But, but those types of things are the things that need help. But we'll never kind of make it, I think to the large scale for two reasons. Number one, it's hyper local, it's super special to the person that lives near it, but it doesn't really beat the drum for the, you know, the community at large. That's number one. And number two, the person that lives near it has accepted its current state as good enough. They wouldn't even say, you know, I need this, this path to be, you know, you know, maybe gravel or I need this path to be paid. Like, they wouldn't even say that because for them they've accepted it being a dirt path for generations. It was a dirt path when my mom walked. It was a dirt path my grandma walked, you know, so, so I think that those things that are hyper local, yet hyper important to how people move around, that mobility connected type of infrastructure, to me, that's the type of stuff that I always saw is just at the bottom of the list or never makes it on list. And so, and, and I would love, you know, for, for, for those types of things that could improve neighborhoods in a lived experience to kind of make its way into these types of broader conversations.

B (28:37)

Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And I think the point about the things that you've accepted as just the way things are, I, I find that a lot at, you know, I find myself, every time I use a. A restroom in a park that's clean and has toilet paper, I find myself surprised. Right. And whereas, like, is that really, you know, is that really what we should. What we should accept? And so, you know, but. But probably in the spirit of this competition, not the thing that would get the most votes, you know, so a thing that needs. Needs some. Needs another way to get our. Our time and attention as. As community.

C (29:23)

Well, with some of that, what, What I found is when you start to collaborate with those that we would otherwise say are complaining, when we actually sit with residents and we start to respond how they're using the city, we start. We start asking what. What is the struggle? So at certain times, we'll talk about humbly observing where somebody is struggling. Well, just asking somebody, like, what's going on here, Observing what's happening and then being honest with them. Like, it is so hard to go and get a sidewalk, like 50ft of sidewalk. It's way easier to go out and get a grant for two miles of sidewalk. But the small segments where the desired path is that we could improve that when we start to talk to residents. This happened to me many times where it's like, oh, the reason there's not a sidewalk here is not a budgetary issue. It's because Ms. Ruth, that owns that property, won't give us an easement. Of course she's not going to give one to government. But if she knows this for the kids in the neighborhood, and the kids in the neighborhood say, Ms. Ruth, will you give them five feet for a sidewalk? Done. But this is that kind of conversation. I think cities are afraid to say where they are struggling to take on these projects. And we can't just say it's a budget or staffing issue. We really need to kind of like, be honest what the things are that are preventing us from doing that. And then when citizens are willing to do some things, even if it's not to the standard, there are things that at City hall we could just allow them to do. And we just, you know, it's not going to be perfect. It's. But it's going to be embraced by the community until we get the time to do that next step. And, you know, all of these sorts of things of having that broader conversation and about taking that on. When we ask folks, what is something that you can actually do with it? Most of, most of the time when I talk to the public, so I'm not allowed to do that because the city is going to do it. And the city's like, well, we don't have the time, resources to do it. We wish somebody would do it for us. Okay, so we've got to shift how we're talking about this so we can empower residents to take on that step and embrace it.

A (31:47)

Well, and then, you know, I would also say that it's very likely. I don't know if it's in the case of New York City. Right. But in other parts of the country where you experience these types of conditions of infrastructure, you know, it's probably in communities where not everyone has the extra time as a citizen to take on project management, you know, of these types of things, you know, so the other question becomes, do cities see the development of projects on the periphery as worthy of investment? Because sometimes the only investment we see is the hard scale capital infrastructure project. But there is investment in the people who would go into the area that needs that type of care and development of a project. You know, do you value tactical solutions? Do you value a guerrilla approach? Right. You know, how are people experiencing the edges of your policy? You know, we know your core market. We know that the big road's coming in. We know it's going to be multimodal. We know that. Right. But the edges in the neighborhoods, right. When that path ends and you get into the neighborhood, Right. How are they experiencing your policies? And do you see it as valuable to invest in the people, infrastructure to help people on the periphery have a good experience too? And I feel like something like this elevates where those folks on the edges are and where are those impacts on the edges? And how do we kind of turn up the volume on, on going there?

B (33:22)

That's great. So I have one more question to close with and then we'll, we'll do the down zone. So I'll start with Edward and, and then ask Alex to close us out. Edward, if you were advising the mayor, how, what would you advise him to make sure that this project help build trust in the community and the community's ability to, to support ongoing maintenance.

C (33:48)

I, I would celebrate what this is and I would announce immediately the next 16 projects and I, what I would do, but I would do 16 projects in each one of the four divisions. So we're going to make it like Bigger and when, because I'm sure behind the scenes staff are like, well, I don't know how we're going to do the resources. I don't know, like if this is what we want to do. And it's like we're going to identify these things that are the top of the list everybody's complained about. They're all in your areas. As mayor, I'm going to provide the COVID for you because I'm going to ask residents to vote and everything's going to get a vote. So as we see that, we're going to build that up to provide that kind of COVID So getting that momentum going, I think you do a couple of these and it's no longer a voting. Like we're going to shift our language on it. We're going to shift our approach and we're going to see lots and lots of these small projects just get underway.

B (34:49)

Yep, yep. Alex, any thoughts? What would you advise the mayor? How do we build on this?

A (34:55)

Mayor, you know, I don't know if it would be that different from Edward. I would say that, you know, this should be seen as, as a response that requires more investment. So whether you use it as a way and a method of engagement, you copy and paste the approach, but on different solutions that require feedback and prioritization. But then also, how do you let this inform you on prioritization? We said it at the top of the call, right? All the things need to get done. So this can't say what will and won't, but it can say in what order, you know. And then how do you start to connect that with soft engagement and programming and how do you start to let what people have going on in their day to day life inform kind of what these fixes are? So, yeah, I would definitely say like you've tapped into a method of hearing from folks and you've oriented people on how to communicate what they want to see. Don't waste the lesson, okay? Run the wheels off of this thing. Like do this, you know, as often as you can. Allocate money in the budget. These fixes are all very, very economical. Allocate money in the budget, get it done. I mean, I'm, you know, that's just, that's what I would say. Don't waste this lesson. And you've trained people on how to communicate to you now use that training, reinforce it, do it again. You're only going to get more, more participation.

B (36:34)

Yep, that's great. Well, you guys know, I think we always close with the down zone. Which is one thing you're reading consuming today that you'd like to share with our listeners. So it's Alex's first time as a guest here, so I'm going to ask Edward to go first, set the tone and Edward, share something with us.

C (36:55)

Well, I just came back from the Grand Canyon.

B (36:57)

Oh, that's great.

C (36:58)

And on the south rim are these beautiful historic buildings from the 20s. And I picked up a book to learn more about it. There is an architect, her name is Mary Coulter, and there's a book that is written about her work. Mary Coulter, Builder upon the Red Earth. Incredible book if you want to geek out about a female architect designer battling the big railroad giants to get beautiful architecture built. If you like traditional architecture. It's incredible because it's not a copy of something of old and new, but incredible book. And then have the opportunity to walk through some of these buildings and see what she was battling for from a design perspective and an architecture perspective. And just to think of that power that she was wielding in the 20s just mesmerized me. So yeah, Mary Coulter is somebody to really take a look at if that you want to geek out on 1912 traditional architecture.

B (38:00)

Absolutely. Alex, how about you?

A (38:03)

Well, I made a note on many.

B (38:05)

Yes, me, I know, me too.

A (38:07)

I mean I actually have two. I actually want to go back just for those who's listening. So the book that I was thinking of earlier but I couldn't remember the name on is Kevin Lynch's five Elements of a City. And he talks about paths, edges, districts, nodes and landmarks. And so it's a really good read, tight read, but. But I would recommend anybody go and go and look up Kevin lynch image of a city. It's just a really good way to just think about places in a tactical way. But what I'm reading right now is how how big things get done by Bent Fliv Berg and Dan Gardner. It's a really good book. He basically analyzed 16,000 projects from 20 different fields across 136 countries and wanted to learn how many projects actually complete on time, on cost and and delivers the benefits that they initially said they would. So if you want to know how we're doing as a world with delivering big projects and what the percentage of our success rate is, this is the book that you want to go and buy. You know, I don't want to give you the secret sauce here, but. But there's. It's a really good, good book. Good read. His motto throughout this whole book is the way to speed up is by slowing down. So anyway, that's what I'm reading and that's what I would recommend other folks to hop in.

B (39:35)

I love that the way to speed up is by slowing down. I, I couldn't agree more. Sometimes. That's great. That's great.

A (39:42)

Yeah.

B (39:43)

Well, well, my down zone is a, is also a, a plug for, you know, we're in the spring season here and we are preparing for the national gathering coming up here pretty soon. And so Both of you two will be presenting at this year's national gathering May 18th through 20th in Northwest Arkansas. And that is filling every day of my days right now. So hope to see all of our listeners there or at least a good chunk if you are interested. Haven't gotten your ticket yet. It's gathering.strongtowns.org we would love to, love to see all of our listeners there. So that's, that's what's on my plate right now. It means my reading is not, not where it needs to be. But I, I'll pick it up after May 20th again. So I want to thank you guys both for coming, I do, because this was our March Madness answer. I also want to congratulate West Dallas, Wisconsin again on their Strongest Town Award and thank you both for, for joining us. And on behalf of all of us at Strong Towns, take care of yourselves and take care of your places. Thanks so much.

A (40:54)

Let me show you what I'm about to do. This episode was produced by Strong Towns, a non profit movement for building financially resilient communities. If what you heard today matters to you, deepen your connection by becoming a strongtowns member@strongtowns.org membership.