Category: Careers

First off, congratulations for looking at a picture of a sidewalk and thinking “that looks interesting” – you may be in a small but important group of people!

The truth is, sidewalks (like many local government services) are often overlooked or forgotten about because they aren’t the flashiest topic. However, a lot of foresight and planning is put into these sidewalks by people, like the engineers in Salisbury, so that the citizens they serve can get around a little bit easier. For example, sidewalks are built on a 2° slant so that stormwater will run into the gutter, instead of collecting in a puddle that hungrily awaits your brand new shoes. Further, the incline of a sidewalk ramp cannot be greater than 8° for wheelchair access. Oh, and the truncated domes that stick out right before a crosswalk – those help people with vision impairments know when they are about to cross the road. Admittedly, I think most of these features are required for ADA compliance; however, I felt it was worth pointing out the small details that go into making everyone’s commute a little easier. Sidewalks – you don’t think about them (or their features) until they aren’t there.

Just so that you don’t think life in Engineering is all about sidewalks, I’ll move on to some GIS (Geographic Information System). You may recall that I used GIS while with the Planning Department. Well, here it is again, and in case the message hasn’t come across – GIS IS HELPFUL IN MANY WAYS TO LOCAL GOVERNMENTS, SO GO LEARN HOW TO USE IT! Seriously, if you can take a class, you should. I plan on taking one next spring myself.

Ironically, one of my GIS projects involved…drumroll please…SIDEWALKS (right when you thought you had escaped). The Engineering department is updating the GIS Sidewalk layer to show sidewalks that have been added since the last aerial imagery was taken by Salisbury in 2014. Using the newer aerial imagery from 2018, I traced out every new sidewalk on public streets that I could find (cross your fingers that I got them all), which can then be viewed for various purposes, like tracking sidewalk cleaning.

For my other GIS project, we move slightly off the sidewalk…and onto the curb. Actually though, I used the aerial imagery (and Google Street View when harder to see) to highlight every Salisbury street that has a curb or gutter. This layer (pictured below) will eventually be used to help with street cleaning, insuring that every known curb/gutter and corresponding drain are free of debris so that the stormwater system can work properly.

Engineering may not be in my wheelhouse, but I certainly enjoyed my time in the department. At the very least, it made me appreciate the little things that make a town better for the people that live in it. And yes, I do like sidewalks! What gave it away?

This week was one for the books. For everyone who has watched “Parks and Recreation,” we all remember the moment Leslie Knope explains the feeling of town halls and although there was no yelling, there were many moments full of folks caring for their community.

The week was all about taking the budget from proposed to adopted in the City of Durham. It started with budget work sessions on Wednesday and Thursday. These lasted all day and consisted of each department explaining their upcoming budgets, as well as highlights from the previous fiscal year. It was a great opportunity to learn more about what different departments have planned for the coming year. City Council members use this time to understand what is in the proposed budget and ask a variety of questions. This helps ensure they can answer questions that arise from constituents. A photo from the event can be seen below.

After this finished, it was clear that the Council had more information they wanted to discuss about some items in more detail before making a decision. So they will be holding another work session this Thursday to dive deeper on a handful of topics they will decide to fund or remove from the proposed budget. I will be sure to update everyone on these discussions next week.

I am excited that I will now be working on a multi-departmental project about fees in the City of Durham. The team working on the project has not decided which fees to look at, but we are in the brainstorming stages. Once this is decided, we will dive into the data and look at the equity of fees, and what changes could be made to benefit residents that need it the most. Updates will come on this initiative, but I am extremely excited to learn more from our findings.

In other exciting news, Durham reached their Participatory Budgeting goal and in the first year of voting had over 10,000 residents vote on how they want to spend $2.4 million! The votes are still being tallied and the winning projects will be  announced later in June, but it will be great to find out the winners and see the implementation of these projects. I am assisting in tallying the votes, and have loved watching the democratic process.