Public Works Interview notes (March 6)
People want things – they want a hardware store – how many diff customers do they need to have. They want to have a 4 star hotel downtown – what kinds of places can you find – they want things, but they have to be realistic about how to do that – part of our job is managing people’s expectations so they understand what they can and cannot do
Carbon neutral by 2040
Just resp for the county – from large to smaller – every person does a lot for different things – you learn so much in the smaller gov context
Public works resp. for local street design construction and maintenance – and we budget to do it –
We also manage the sewer infrastructure // sewer and sanitary – we also have an operations side that handles some of the sewer work – that handles the street work
Scott’s group does the environmental piece // arbor division that has the 3 parts to it – we are a tree city and we take a lot of pride
Landscape – special planting areas – we have landscape recycling center that is intended to be self sufficient
So we interact with a lot of state agencies – dept. of transportation, parts dept (trees) IEPA on sewer side? Local groups, sanitary district – we are part of a county and we have a lot of intergov relations with in the county
Street lights
It’s not obvious what to prioritize
Shift since mayor marlin – (that’s why we have a city administrator) – recurring revenues were not keeping up with the budget
Budget – we are going thru what the citizens perceive are the services we provide 0- we have id’d those and id’d a set of priorities – public safety doe sit promote economic development – and all of those are done to id the niceities vs necessities
There are not very many things that are just obvious to eliminate
What are the essential qualities of Urbana? Trees! We are not going to change that commitment
Other things that we can
Long list of Priorities stay the same – and the short list of doable priorities change
There are other things – the 4 year mayor council priorities are over and above CORE priorities – what are the things that we consider CORE priorities
When you squeeze
mayor has: public safety, budget reform, and
60M over all city budget – city is 150-200 – public works is half of that
For this kind of government – 1st gov was DC (city county and state)
Structural deficit
- Data
Environmental data: prompts for people to engage in behavior that they already accept as part of their values
Programmable – thermostat
test and measure your intervention
designed a magnet – for fridge – when your apt turns over 1200/yr for environment
750K – environmental + sustainability – energy + climate, recycling and nuisance abatement
So we have a data set on street tree – geocoded date code – height – great data set
Social equity goal – funding sourced want yo u to do BOTH
When a tree is dying –
Does it never get back on the replanting list
Census data: ;looking at census track and race and over lay with tree data base -to see if there was a site worthy of a tree coded in our data set – to see if there was correlation btw vacant tree site and race
Come at this fresh – diff
Hackathon
Police and Frre
People count what’s easy to count
Not necessarily counting what is meaningful
For public works – probing things p- which is cheaper – why don’t take a step back and think about something bigger
What should I be analyzing
Work order system – what data should we be collecting
We don’t need to collect everything we can collect – BUT we need to make it meaningful – what can I benchmark this against
There is an ongoing conversation with township – for social services (interested in poverty stats) – can you take the students out of the formula
Setting my incredulity aside – form an economic dev perspective
Part of the story that we are not able to articulate is what is the buying power of our community – bc some students
For some people who want to open a hotel –
If we could get the auto registration – we would have a better sense of the buying power
Ward 3 has a strong desire to get a grocery store – so how do you tell the story of why DuPont Circle should get a grocery store? Made the case –
Brandon – short list
ALDI’s // Trader Joe’s
LiDL
Lincoln + Bradley
Nuisance Code enforcement – vegetation – unkept lawns – garbage nuisances
Back to 2012 – decline in vegetation and waste nuisance
We’ve been declining – since the recession
Inspection – violation -= notification – owner abate the nuisance – owner abated
- What do you think of as working well in the city? (Or does a "best practice" in the city come to mind?)
Nuisance code enforcement – response time – is the day of or next day – resolving – chance for the person to resist it – things don’t linger
We have the oldest curbside recycling in the state – and multifamily – costly and takes 1980s (20th anniversary)
1st public sector – solar powered purchase agreement – you lose federal – solar array onto your property – you just pay the power operator to – and – WCP solar in Chicago – limited time fixed solar install price
1.5 – we have a 25 year power purchase with them – 400$/year – so it’s cost neutral – we are switching from solar to wind – fuel energy credits – we are not making a renewable energy claim
Technical assistance – vulnerability assessment – climate change – storm water – and substantiated with a demographics exercise – some useful data on disproportionate – equity orientation – and the disparity of vulnerability
Glesa – great lakes science assessment
Based at the U. of Michigan
Self-guided treatment/in person
NRES – rounds college in FL
Ned's notes and beginning of partial transcription
00:43
SH: I’ve been at the City for almost seven years. I sit at Public Works. I’m responsible for anything that might touch on energy, water, recycling, natural resources, nuisance abatement, and, uh, previously I worked for Orange County, Florida Division of Environmental Protection and doing a number of different things there.
CM: Um, I’m primarily – my main job is City Administration. I’m currently also the Interim Public Works Director. I’ve been here since June 4 of last year, so I haven’t been here a year yet. And, um, so I describe my job as City Administrator as . . . the Mayor is CEO of the city, and I’m COO. So I’m very much so behind the scenes. But I would describe myself, though, as a counsellor to the Mayor in terms of setting priorities and bouncing ideas off of and all of that. Um, I had, um, been a Real Estate Appraiser for 20 years before I got into local government, and then I had a variety of stints in local and federal government. And, um, the reason why real estate was so interesting to me and how I still think it applies to all of the work I do is there are certain things that everybody interacts with, right? So, you’re, with real estate, it’s, your home, is one piece of real estate you interact with and have opinions about.
-
DC: people wanted things for their neighborhood (DC – hardware store; Urbana – 4 star hotel – “part of our job in government. Is managing people’s expectations”
“Carbon neutrality by 2040,” “Scaffolding”
Leading an environmental protection office of 3 persons (“every person does a lot of different things” – “you learn so much”)
PW responsible for local street design and maintenance; manage sewer infrastructure; fleet operation of 150 vehicles; forestry as a “tree city”; interact with a lot of state agencies (DOT; IEPA on the sewer side; sanitary district . . . .)
Bike paths – but in parks, then park districts – street lights, etc.
“All done with very limited funding”
“There’s a shift that’s taken place in Urbana” – since new mayor, prioritization of things
College fund metaphor
Identified things and ranked against priorities – safety, sustainability, promotion of economic development . . .
“There aren’t a lot of things that are very obvious to eliminate”
Trees – we’re committed, “that’s the kind of commitment that we’re not going to change”
“Service inventory” – “identifying core services”
“What are things that we’ve considered core services that we can reduce or eliminate?”
No room for luxury??
Mayor ran on – public safety, structural reform, budget reform
Budget – about 60 mil
Climate Action Plan (what interventions achieve changes – reminders – programmable thermostats; refrigerator magnets with reminder of what things should be set to for a few $100; gave to property management groups to distribute once tenants turn over)
But never actually happened – just a box of magnets
Data set with every street tree – b/w curb and sidewalk (condition, etc.)
Gave student data w/ census tract income levels, race, overlay that w/ tree database, see if there’s correlation b/w vacant tree sites and race and income (statistically insignificant)
Bad – can’t apply for a grant; good – we’re not inequitable
Certain days of the week – gas higher or lower
Create performance measures around what’s easy to count rather than what’s meaningful
What data should we be collecting?
We don’t need to collect everything we can collect . . .
Poverty assessment – how do you take students out of the formula?
What’s the buying power of our community?
“If we could get the auto registrations . . . , then we would have a better sense of the buying power”
“We need to tell a story in the same way that they do in DC, or Arlington, VA.”
“Ward 3 has a very strong desire to have a grocery store. How do you tell a story??”
Obvious site is at Lincoln and Bradley
Nuisance co-enforcement (vegetation, unkept lawns, garbage)
PW: inspection – if violation, notification, and report percentage that is abated (80%, roundabout)
Great at snow removal – “what does that get you?” “Part of a story of the resilience of the community”
Nuisance control – response rate is the next day; one of the oldest curbside recycling programs in the state (difficult, costly, takes management, unique to Urbana)
1st public sector solar power agreement
2019/2020 are going to be big solar years (everyone will join in)
“Our challenges are by and large money”
FYI – technical assistance grant on a vulnerability assessment (climate change, storm water oriented – a bit of a demographics exercise) – relying on census type demographics
GLISA – Great Lakes Integrated Science Assessment
Hear Smart City talk – someone trying to get into the city coffers
“People measure what is easy to measure” – meaning, “tools” – how often are you going to use that?” “Privacy concerns”
“Create a problem that I don’t have”
Keywords: Social equity; stormwater, green infrastructure, environmental justice; urban forest; urban canopy; priority-based budgeting