Category: Local Government

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Week Six: Hallee Haygood or Mark Brandanawicz?

Hello everyone!

This week I spent a lot of time talking about city planning, so it only feels appropriate that I dive more into my dual degree with y’all. I originally applied as a dual degree with City & Regional Planning on top of Public Administration because of my senior thesis. I wrote about how city planning impacts the anxiety and depression levels of residents in neighborhoods of Chicago. The findings I discovered during this project furthered my love of using planning to affect the lives of those living in a community. So when it came time to apply for graduate school, a dual degree felt like a necessity.

Many of us know about the planning department from “Parks & Recreation,” and the most boring character on the show, Mark Brandanawicz (pictured below). Although he may appear like he hates his job, most planners are extremely passionate about the work they do. Most folks only hear about the zoning work that planning departments do, but  right now the City of Durham has a unique project going on. They are working on an update to Durham’s “Comprehensive Plan”, which will analyze  the infrastructure of the City and plan for growth in the future. I have the opportunity to work on this with them, and will keep everyone updated on my progress as it continues.

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Durham’s Comprehensive Plan hasn’t been updated in thirteen years, so the City is ecstatic to make changes to the original. These plans are essential to the future of Durham because they ensure that going forward, plans are already in place for improvement, and not all decisions are made on the fly. Additionally, this forward-thinking plan allows for more voices to be included in decisions because there will be more opportunities for discussion.

One of the benefits of being a dual degree student is that I can examine initiatives through an additional lens. For example, dockless scooters came to Durham this past week, and the differences in my degrees changed my analysis of the project. The MPA side of me was focused on the permits that would need to be approved for dockless transportation, while the Planning side was considering the changes to the general transportation system that this would cause, and what it implies for the future. Dockless transportation, such as scooters and bikes, will impact planners and the way they develop and zone the City going forward. Don’t worry, our trip was documented, and proof that I rode a scooter in heels can be found below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For those of you considering a dual degree in Public Administration and City & Regional Planning, I highly recommend it. I realize I am slightly biased, but the dual degree has allowed me to take advantage of opportunities both programs offer. For example, this upcoming semester, most of my courses will be in the Planning department, and focusing on community development. I believe that these classes will pair well with my MPA courses, and allow me to be a better public servant in the future.

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HUMAN RESOURCES

Toby Flenderson from HR in The Office

I know it may be hard, but try and ignore the impression of HR you got from Toby on The Office (okay, maybe I made it harder by putting a picture of him, but how could i not?). Not only is the Human Resources department more lively, they are also seen and used as a crucial asset by all of the departments in the City.

One of the topics that stuck out to me this week was benefits, which can be a bit of a problem for the City. For example, many people applying to jobs with the City don’t realize or don’t place importance on the great benefits that come with the job. The impression is that many people look at the pay and don’t apply or don’t accept the job because they are only focused on what they take home at the end of the pay period, missing the usually great benefits. This has unfortunately led to a few vacancies, which may require different methods of advertisement in the future. If there is one takeaway: look at benefits as much as you look at pay, because a job could have better perks than you realize.

That moves us on to interviewing! In addition to their daily tasks, each HR staff is a liaison for a few departments with the City and will help out with interviews. While departments can come up with their own question, they will sometimes ask HR for assistance in formulating questions or even style of interview. For example, we met with one department and tossed around some ideas for an interview process involving a supervisory role. One neat interview round idea was to have the applicant run a meeting, while the interviewers all took on personas that the applicant would have to deal with while presenting.

The department also started Salisbury University, which is a form of internal training. The six levels of training that involve an increasing number of classes allow internal staff to learn more about the organization and about being a leader, which ideally leads to promotion further down the line. I viewed this as another perk of the job, as leadership training and the skills it teaches add value to an employee, giving you a better chance at promotion or even skills that you could use in another organization should an opportunity arise. Plus, it shows that Salisbury is investing in its staff, which is a great environment to be a part of.

Last but not least – SWAY (the Salisbury Way). This is the new culture the City of Salisbury is trying to create for itself, and is a customer service oriented culture. In addition to encouraging staff to go above and beyond their duties, SWAY has various committees dedicated to workshopping ideas and spreading SWAY around the City. While SWAY is admittedly still in an early phase with kinks being worked out, it is already making Salisbury a better place to work and live. In one project, City staff could go visit and learn about different departments, which increases their knowledge base and builds a community. My personal favorite (which I think is SWAY related) is the Community Engagement Fridays, when a group of City staff go around a selected neighborhood and ask for feedback in person from citizens, as well as distribute flyers for any upcoming events. This is a great way to connect to citizens, especially if they can’t use the internet or come by the office. SWAY is hard for me to explain, but I definitely feel it when I am here.

City of Salisbury Employees walking a neighborhood during Community Engagement
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Relationships…in local government?

So, this won’t be a gossip column talking about local government romantic relationships (well, more specifically Chatham County romantic relationships). But instead, I want talk about a key theme I have learned from conducting 18 interviews and attending 10 community meetings since being at the County Manager’s Office. Drum roll, please….

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RELATIONSHIPS MATTER…A LOT!

In Chatham County, I am an outsider asking for an insider scoop from community members about the County’s history and how we create a better Chatham County. I have been fortunate to find that community members have, generally, been willing to share and be vulnerable with me. But they also want the same in return, which is reasonable. Usually our interviews start off with everyone sitting down, awkwardly making small talk and then they hit me with the “so where are you from?” On face-value, this question is simple. But I always take this as a loaded question. I answer imagining that folks want to know who I am, where I come from, why I am here, and if I am truly invested in the community. I have to take the time to be genuine and explain my answer to folks before they are typically willing to open up to me. That is me…building trust and that relationship.

So far, I have learned so much about the County and the individuals that live, work, and play here. More importantly, I am beginning to learn why some of the challenges exist in the County, who folks trust and don’t trust, and how the community would like to see that trust be improved. Want to know the number 1 thing that folks have mentioned they want to see improvement on? ….here goes.

man doing jazz hands

TRUST: Building relationships in meaningful ways with the community.

I want to be clear, it is not that public administrators do not support communities or build relationships at all – we definitely do! But we don’t always do it the ways that our communities are most receptive and understanding of. Government is complicated as is! So often times, we, as public administrators, show care and concern for our communities through our budget by funding road improvements and supporting more school staff. This is definitely important, but the public doesn’t always perceive this as support or even caring for the community. They see this as our job (and it is)! Sometimes, the public wants public administrators to listen, be vulnerable, and show up to their community events. Doing this, we also have the opportunity to explain the decisions we have made, manage expectations, and share information about government processes. This type of relationship building, beyond BOC meetings, obviously takes time, energy, and resources, but I think it could improve the public’s relationship with local government. Obviously, everyone is not going to like us or approve of all of our decisions, but maybe we can encourage more civil discourse and increase communication by building stronger community relationships.

Disclaimer: Relationship building and trust is not an issue specific to only Chatham County. It happens everywhere, in every city, county, and state. It is something that we as public administrators can always improve. So, let’s keep truckin’ along!

guy walking giving two thumbs up

See ya at the next post!

 

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Week Five: The Final Countdown

Welcome to my weekly blog about life here in the Durham Budget & Management Services Department! This budget adoption season Council made a variety of changes to the proposed budget. The department is currently working  on updating the budget to align with their decisions.

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City Council held a special Work Session on Thursday, because there were a variety of choices still to be made around the budget. This additional session was to make final decisions on two main items: 1) whether or not to add more police officers to DPD and 2) if part-time city workers not making the Durham livable wage of $15.46 an hour should have their pay increased over time or all at once. These discussions have been forcing me to think back on my time in class this past year. For example, in Public Administration Institutions & Values, we were constantly discussing where residents place their values, and how this will vary no matter where you work. The values of the Council members were obvious in these decisions, focusing more on equitable pay and less on policing, but it also calls into question the values of the community. Opinions on social media have shown that for many, this does not express their values, and folks appear to be frustrated with the decision.

This meeting was very special to me, as it was my first time appearing on the Durham local news, pretending to know what I’m doing. You can see the article for yourself here. As you can also see in the screen grab, a request to add 18 additional officers to the Police Department was denied by Council. The proposal was to add the officers so that the beat schedule would allow for shifts to be less lengthy, which would hopefully improve quality of life for officers.  After it was clear that a majority of Council members did not support the positions, the Mayor attempted to offer a compromise and bring it to nine officers. However, this still was not what a majority of the Councilors wanted, and in turn four Council members voted to remove the 18 officers from the proposed budget. The impacts of this decision will be seen in the next fiscal year. In the article hyperlinked above, you can see the City Manager discussing how plans will likely be pivoted going forward around this subject.

After making this decision, the Council discussed whether or not the city’s part-time workers would have their hourly pay increased to $15.46 an hour. The Human Resources Department recommended steady increases over time, which would be about $180,000 this year. However, the Council decided to increase them all this year, which will cost an additional $650,000 for FY 20.

Although the budget process took up a large part of the week, there were several other projects I was able to work on. As many of you may know, there was a gas explosion in Durham about two months ago, and all of the departments related to the accident attended a session to discuss responses to this occurrence. One topic brought up was how online communications to constituents could be improved. As social media grows, more cities need to have plans for publishing information in emergency situations.

This upcoming week I will be working on a few different projects. One meeting I am looking forward to is with the Director of the Planning Department to discuss my dual degree. In my next blog I plan to dive further into the dual degree of Public Administration and City Planning, so stay tuned.

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I LOVE IT WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER

That’s right. It was my week with Planning! I had an amazing time with the many people and jobs that make up the Planning department in Salisbury. But before I continue, a trivia question: Why can a parcel of land within a certain airport zone NOT have a stormwater pond? The answer is at the end of this post, with the hope that you will accidentally read the whole thing while scrolling down.

I started the week learning a little more about the Comprehensive Plan, which lays out goals for the future quality of life and development in Salisbury with steps the City can take to reach them. The last Comprehensive Plan done by the City was in 2001, so they are due for an update. I had the opportunity to seek out the most recent data from the US Census Bureau in order to measure progress toward community goals. This data included measures such as housing affordability in relation to income, education levels, and employment levels and types. While the Comprehensive Plan is just a guideline, it is the first step in shaping the future of Salisbury.

Zoning is, of course, a very crucial part of planning. Zoning determines what type of development can occur in a certain area of the city and is the reason you don’t find a large industrial park in the middle of a residential neighborhood. One thing I didn’t realize about zoning was how specific the Land Development Ordinance (LDO) can be. For example, a residential zone not only requires a residential unit, but it can be broken down into different types of residential units with a certain number of parking spaces and a certain setback from the road etc. depending on the category. I definitely have a greater appreciation for zoning, knowing now that a lot of thought and planning is involved in simply making the environment around me make sense. Click here to see the current zoning map and some other awesome maps made with GIS (an essential in a planning department and life).

Something that makes Salisbury unique are the national and local historic districts of the City. Driving through downtown, it would be hard to miss the fact that Salisbury cares about preserving its past, with faded Cheerwine murals on worn brick buildings and period houses lining some residential streets. In fact, the local historic districts’ require that owners get permission before making any changes to the exterior of their building, all the way down to approving period colors of paint for historic houses in which people currently live. It sounds burdensome for business owners and homeowners alike, but the citizens love it and I’ll admit that I do, too.

A Brick Company building in the old industrial district repurposed into a retail store.
An old Cheerwine advertisement
Period House that is still in use
The Salisbury Train Station

I would like to mention an amazing program put on by the Planning Department: BlockWork. Through this program, citizens can submit applications for the city to pay for and help clean up a neighborhood block, with the hope of improving property value and encouraging others to clean up their own blocks as well. A large group of volunteers will come out and, with permission, put new paint on the side of houses, clean the landscape, rebuild sidewalks, and even repair a few roofs. It’s a great way of reaching out to the community and helps the City and its neighborhoods look better one block at a time.

Volunteer putting together fence for BlockWork

While I would love to keep going about my week with planning, I have promised an answer to a trivia question and I will deliver. Parcels of land within certain airport zones (yes, Salisbury has a small airport!) cannot have a stormwater pond because those ponds attract geese, which can then fly up into planes taking off and landing. Just another example of an easy-to-miss yet crucial development ordinance that your local government planners are taking care of for you!

Thank you for making it to the end, even if you just scrolled down for the trivia answer! Come back next week for a little Human Resources, and maybe some more local government trivia!

My favorite coffee shop in Salisbury! Koco-Java
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The Nitty Gritty of MSW/MPA in Local Gov

Welcome back to my blog posts!

Last week was a fairly short week for me given Memorial Day and being out of town on Friday, so I figured I would take a different spin on this week’s blog post. Let’s talk about the nitty gritty of PWEs as a dual-degree student with the School of Social Work.

First things first, my experience as a dual-degree student has been challenging, but rewarding! Both degrees open doors to many different opportunities. Generally, I think the public is often confused about what social workers (outside of therapists and CPS caseworkers) and public administrators really do. But that confusion provides me with an opportunity to engage with folks about my career goals and the versatility and flexibility of both social work and public administration. For me, the best part of studying in both fields is that it provides me with complementary skills that are necessary for a macro social worker dealing with systems and a public administrator working with people. It is definitely the best of both worlds.

In addition to gaining those extra skills, you also gain some extra experience as a dual-degree student with social work. To ensure that my PWE counts towards both degrees, I have to put in a little extra work. So, I put together a list of some of the key differences that I have noticed thus far in:

A social worker interested in local government?!

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Most people’s reaction when I tell them my career goals

As a social worker, people expect that you will want to do non-profit work or work in a Department of Social Services, both of which are great experiences. However, that just wasn’t what I wanted from my PWE. Also, it didn’t really align with my career goals of working in an equity department in a local government. So, I kept my fingers crossed hoping that I would hear of a PWE that could utilize my social work skills in a local government setting. (Shout out to Chatham County!) I was very fortunate that Chatham was looking for someone with a social justice background. Going a non-traditional route challenges me in many ways. I have a lot to learn about navigating local governments, but it also gives me a unique opportunity to share my academic knowledge and skills around working with diverse populations, disparities, and community engagement.

A couple extra hours

Another key difference is that I am required to work a few extra hours. Ok, I think a few might be an understatement. I am actually required to work a little over 600 hours to complete program requirements. My hours count towards both degrees, but the School of Social Work actually requires more hours. Normally, social work students have their PWE (or field placement as we call it in the social work world) throughout the school year, so they are working a significant amount of hours 1 to 3 days a week. Since I am doing my PWE (field placement) during the summer, I am still required to work the same amount of hours. So, I will work quite a bit more hours during the summer compared to my fellow cohort members and blogging buddies…AKA I get to spend more time at Chatham County.

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My excitement for being with Chatham County an extra few weeks.

Double SUPPORT

Aside from being able to spend more time working with Chatham County, I also get to the support of TWO supervisors in Chatham County and TWO faculty members at UNC-Chapel Hill. I regularly meet with my immediate supervisor in the Manager’s Office and have once a week meetings with my social work supervisor in the Department of Social Services. With both supervisors, I get to talk about how I see both of my degree fields interacting and supporting each other. I also get the support of Susan Austin in the School of Government and Robin Sansing in the School of Social Work. They both help me frame experiences and reflections to support my academic progress. Honestly, it’s a pretty cool set-up.

a gif of Leslie Knope from Parks & Rec with a big smile
I am one lucky person!

Even though dual-degree with social work requires a little extra work, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I love my degrees and how perfectly they interact to support me during my PWE with Chatham County and my career goals.

Thanks for sticking around! I look forward to updating you more next week!

 

 

 

 

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Week Four: “I Hear People Caring Loudly at Me”

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. 

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Making the City Manager Pay His Taxes

Even the best public administrators make mistakes, which is why it is important to surround yourself with excellent staff (and summer interns of course). My shining moment in my week with Finance came after reading through the proposed budget, when City Manager Lane Bailey walked in and asked me if I had any thoughts. I mentioned my interest in an “Animal Tax” in the budget ordinance that charges $1 per dog, and went on to explain my real concern – that cats were not being charged, too (clearly the tax was created by a cat lover). At this moment, City Manager Bailey realized that he wasn’t aware of this tax and had not paid it for his own dog, pulling out a dollar and handing it to the Finance Director. It was certainly a close call, but thankfully an MPA intern was there to catch the oversight.

On a more serious note, I had some interesting conversations about the budget with finance staff throughout the week. One question I had was why more line-item detail was put in this years’ budget compared to last year. Apparently, a council member (or multiple) requested more information compared to last years’ budget, which mostly had totals for different departments and funds. This prompted another discussion about how the council members shape the budget details and priorities, and specifically how these areas can change with changes in elected officials. This is especially true for Salisbury, as all 5 council seats come up for election at the same time every 2 years, meaning the council could actually be 5 new and completely different people from cycle to cycle.

Another interesting part of Salisbury’s budget is the inclusion of capital replacement funds. That is, the budget already allocates money to replace capital assets when they reach their designated use life, without departments having to request new funds whenever a piece of equipment gets old. For example, when a computer is 4 years old (not sure on the lifetime assigned to a computer but go with it) funds are already there to replace that computer without requiring a department to complain about a slow computer and send in a request for new computers in their next budget. You may have the same question I did – what do you do with the old computer? The City of Salisbury utilizes a website called GovDeals.com, which allows local governments to sell equipment to anyone (YES, EVEN YOU!) and make some money back for the City. Supposedly one municipality used the site to sell a whole water tower for $2, but they saved the $50,000 it would have cost them to tear it down as the buyer is responsible for picking it up (I don’t really know how the process of taking a water tower works because I doubt it fits in a truck bed, but I assume the buyer paid for it to be taken apart himself).

I would like to end by mentioning a tougher meeting I attended with Finance this week. Essentially, a department was getting feedback on potentially requesting an expensive but important backup generator setup. The setup would cost nearly $80,000, but would be the backup if the power and first generator went out at the location, potentially providing power to crucial systems during an emergency. Further, the setup would also provide power to the designated Emergency Operations Center that houses those systems, which is a crucial location to have power in emergency situations. It is tough to spend a lot of money on something you hope you never need to use, and while the decision seemed to be in favor of the project, the question then becomes about when you pay for it, especially around fiscal year end.

That does it for Finance Week. Feel free to check out Salisbury’s proposed budget here, and check back later to see the adopted budget (fun fact: Salisbury’s adopted budget includes an Addendum that lists changes between the proposed and the adopted budgets).

Come back next week for Planning!

As a reward for making it through this long post with no pictures, here is my current fav restaurant in Salisbury, Yummi Banh Mi:

Yummi Banh Mi – Vietnamese Streetfood Restaurant

 

 

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Diggin’ Some Roots…

It’s week three and I am hitting the ground running! I found my two favorite Pittsboro coffee shops and a restaurant that sells an amazing strawberry red velvet cake. So, I think it’s safe to say that I finally feel like I am getting into the swing of things out here in good ol’ Pittsboro, NC.

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Davenport’s Cafe Diem: they have my favorite matcha latte’s and serve as an amazing place to meet and chat with community members

Before I dive deep into what I’ve been up to over the last few weeks, I figure I should provide some context to the Human Relations initiative that I am working on with Chatham County. So, prior to starting my internship the County Commissioners expressed a desire for wanting a Human Relations entity. The County then created a Human Relations Task Force to establish a framework for the entity, which they are now hoping will be a community-led Human Relations collaborative.

One of my key tasks for the summer is to learn about the County through engaging with community members. The hope is that I will be able to identify some challenges that the Human Relations Collaborative will be able to rally around and tackle. Two weeks ago,  I started meeting with Chatham County community members to get a better understanding of the community. So far, I have completed 14 interviews. Each interview is semi-structured with four main areas of exploration:

  1. the interviewee’s connection to the community
  2. the challenges the County is facing
  3. how the interviewee envisions a human relations body addressing those challenges
  4. additional contacts that may be interested in participating in this work

So far, I have been handwriting notes during interviews and then transcribing them into an excel document so that I can code them to find key themes. I am very excited to see the outcome!

My weeks haven’t been filled only with interviews…I have also attended some community meetings as well. I’ve met with the Public Health Department, Better Angels, faith communities, and I can’t wait to do more! Last week, I went to a community lunch hosted by St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church. Their mission is to provide a healthy, appetizing meal at no cost to all who come to us hungry. The community lunch had a great turn out with even better food! I was able to talk with people involved at the church as well as a local artist and a farmer. This lunch gave me the opportunity to meet people from all over the County.

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St. Bart’s Community Lunch Logo: another great meeting place

If there is anything I know about community engagement, it is that you first must listen to and learn from the community. While at the community meetings, I am often just listening and taking notes of comments and concerns and looking for key themes.

Through the interviews and meetings, I have learned quite a bit about the history of the County and some of the challenges it faces. For me, the best part about this process has been making new connections to community members.

Look forward to updating you again next week!

 

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Week Three: The Beauty of Participatory Budgeting

For many public servants, the democratic process is viewed as a key to success. Personally, I have always loved this aspect of local government. Local government has the capability to impact people’s lives in a direct way, which is why it is so essential to have residents’ opinions on the community.

 

In the City of Durham Budget & Management Services office, this is of the utmost importance to all who work there. The department is implementing a new process of “participatory budgeting.” $2.4 million dollars has been set aside for projects decided on by those who live in different parts of Durham. The initiatives are currently being voted on, and the projects with the most votes will be implemented in the next year. Much of my work the past few days has been around this process, as voting comes to a close at the end of May.

Through participatory budgeting outreach I have interacted with constituents in ways I never have before. One way I have been able to reach out to residents is through text messaging. This communication channel, allows folks in the office to hold a conversation with anyone who may have questions, instead of just sending out an email blast that will have little response.

Residents can vote either online or in-person on a paper ballot. Whenever we have new responses cast on a paper ballot, we  input them online so that everyone’s vote is included. I have been able to add folks’ votes to the online server, allowing me to see what their preferences are, and get a better idea of the City of Durham.

In addition to participatory budgeting, I have been included on the work to implement the City’s Strategic Plan adopted last summer. The City of Durham has five general goals and each department is assigned to one, and they work together to form objectives and initiatives that can be achieved under each goal. Staff will be presenting next month on the progress made on these initiatives, and as the departments work on their presentations we have been working with them to ensure they are prepared. This has allowed me to better understand general strategic planning, as well as the future of the City of Durham. A photo from one of these meetings can be seen below.

That’s all for this week! Stay tuned for next week, when I’ll update everyone on how budget presentations go this Wednesday and Thursday for each department- it’s sure to be a good time.