The city of Rochester, MI recently reconstructed an entire street — from the sidewalk to the street to the water, sewer, lighting — all at once.
The city of Rochester, MI recently reconstructed an entire street — from the sidewalk to the street to the water, sewer, lighting — all at once. We'll catch up with Blaine Wing and Gordie Wilson to talk about the city’s award-winning work, and what it takes to build connections inside and outside the local government. Read more...
More info:
Featured government: Rochester, MI
Episode guests: Blaine Wing, Rochester City Manager, and Gordon Wilson, Executive Vice President, Anderson, Eckstein & Westrick, Inc.
Visit govlaunch.com for more stories and examples of local government innovation.
Lindsay (00:05): Welcome to the Govlaunch Podcast. Govlaunch is the wiki for local government innovation and on this podcast we’re sharing the stories of local government innovators and their efforts to build smarter governments. I’m Lindsay Pica-Alfano, co-founder of Govlaunch and your host.
There’s a saying “it takes a village.” And in local government, that’s often true — or it takes a town, city, county … you get the idea. Projects don’t just happen on their own, they need citizen buy-in, council champions, and coordination across multiple departments.
On this episode, Jess from our team is talking to Blaine Wing and Gordie Wilson about how all these pieces came together in Rochester, Michigan. Their recent “complete streets” project was a massive overhaul with a couple of last-minute curve-balls that has won statewide acclaim. Let’s learn how one public works project has set their town up for cost savings and efficiencies in the years to come.
Jess (01:06): I'm Jess from Govlaunch, and I'm here with Blaine Wing and Gordie Wilson. Blaine and Gordie, tell me about your rules.
Blaine (01:14): Yeah, let me start. Again, as you just said, I'm Blaine Wing and I’m the City Manager. I work for the city of Rochester, Michigan.
Gordie: I’m Gordie Wilson. I'm an Executive Vice President at Anderson, Eckstein and Westrick. We’re consulting engineers for the city of Rochester.
Jess: So you've recently completed an impressive public works project where you basically reconstructed an entire road, you know, from the sidewalk to the streets, to the water, lighting, sewer, really everything. I'd love for you guys to tell me a little bit more about that project.
Blaine (01:46): Sure. I'd be happy to start, but Gordie was one of our main engineers on that project, and it was what we call kind of a complete scape. So as you stated, roads, drinking water, sewer, sidewalks, lighting, , we work with various utilities ahead of time so that we weren't going to need to tear up the roads twice. I mean, it happens sometimes in some communities that other projects just happen, the timing doesn't work. And so you have a nice road with some patches. We actually took a lot of time over a number of years to actually get this done right. Gordie, I don't know if you want to maybe get into a few more specifics.
Gordie: Yes, I certainly can Blaine. Rochester approached us from a complete streets perspective. They recognized that they had to replace the road, but all their utilities, water, sewer, storm, et cetera, were all over 50 years old and they were nearing the end of their useful lives. So they understood that this was going to be a complete reconstruction project, but yet they were sensitive to the needs of the people. They even went to the point of being sensitive to the trick or treaters and allowing them to get through the construction. A lot of thought went into this, they understood the needs and the challenges, and they engaged the public in the full process.
Jess (02:56): So tell me a bit more about what that process looked like, how long did it take and how did you keep residents up to speed throughout?
Blaine (03:03): So from really the planning part, it probably was 18 to 24 months ahead of time working with our engineering staff, our public works staff. We had our building department look at things with the police department, fire department, and then financing as well. That was kind of behind the curtains and behind the scenes. Once we actually bid out the project and then awarded a contractor, we actually did what I'll call a town town hall style meeting with our residents. As Gordie alluded to, we have a nonprofit that is called the community house and we utilize their facility and went in there and had probably 75 different residents actually show up. We communicated who the contractor was, who was awarded the project and then kind of explained really the overall project, the timelines, and explained that we were going to be setting up a dedicated webpage that we were going to be communicating weekly with our residents through email. Overall we were able to actually get the project done on time and under budget. So super excited with the contractor DiPodio and with our engineering staff, along with my whole team, you know, like I said, from the various departments,
Jess (04:24): That's a huge amount of work to do all at once, but it's a really strategic approach. and on top of all that, you basically called an audible and at the last minute you threw fiber conduit into the mix. What was the response to that? And what was your thinking behind that?
Blaine (04:42): Yeah, so we're actually in the process of building a new public works administrative building and then updating our campus. Again, our engineers have been a big help with that. When we actually looked at where our fiber into our communities coming and happens to be on the outside of the Ludlow Road, it's called University Drive. And I've worked with our engineers and said, Hey, while we have everything opened up, would it be possible at least to put a pipe, a conduit that later on, we would be able to pull fiber through going to our public works building? It probably caused about a week worth of extra stress on both our engineers and my public works staff, and then also myself, bringing that eventually to our city council.
We were able to show really the quick return on the investment, as adding it after the fact was going to basically double the cost. And we actually upsized the conduit so that we could actually put some different chambers in, so that in the future we can work with other providers, other utilities to actually go in there, and recoup some of the costs down the road. So it will help out us for the city, but also allow the landscaping along and not have to be torn up when other providers do come in and eventually want to bring fiber.
Jess (06:11): Yeah, I think that's great. I think it's a great example of how, you know, you were forward-looking, even though you were addressing a problem and a need that was more in the present. Gordie, I'm curious from your perspective, how this project differed from other public works projects that you've been involved with.
Gordie (06:28): I guess I'd like to say that the Rochester team did a great job, as Blaine had said, pulling everybody together early. They were progressive and forward thinking throughout the entire project. We realized that this would be intrusive upon the residents there. That there were going to be unavoidable inconveniences that had to address and respond to, yes, we went through there, we tore off the sewer and the water. So people were out of service temporarily. We worked with a contractor very closely and city administration to make sure that they weren't out for more than a couple hours. So we also worked with the police and fire department quite closely on traffic control plans and making sure that people can get around. We were focused on safety too. As the project ran through Halloween. This is a very community oriented area. So they wanted to get all their children through trick or treating. We made provisions to make all that happen. We had the Arts and Apple festival, which is three or four days. So it was very interesting and it was very, I guess, team oriented towards everything that we did.
Jess (07:31): Yeah, that's great. I mean, it just seems like there's a huge number of different stakeholders involved in this project to make it happen and make it happen on time and make it successful. Blaine, you're relatively new to the city of Rochester. How have you worked to break down some of the silos that exist, you know, within local government and the community and how have you built this network throughout the community?
Blaine (07:56): Yeah. So I've been with Rochester almost five years. However, you know, the previous city managers have a much longer tenure. I started for the first two years actually having our staff meetings once a month, at a location that was out in our community. So it was at a nonprofit, maybe in business, maybe an organization that the city interfaces with. That really started to build up my understanding and I got to do a brief tour, along with my staff at that location. In addition to that, I've participated with our past mayors and current mayor with coffee with the mayor, which is a monthly event and our local senior center. And it's gotten to know several residents as well as other individuals that do attend those meetings.
Jess (08:48): I'd love both of your thoughts on, on this next question. If you were going to give one piece of advice to another town or city looking to undertake a complete streets project like Ludlow Avenue, what would that be?
Gordie (09:00): I guess as Rochester did, you know, they were forward thinking as we’ve said numerous times there and they looked at the whole picture. They didn't just then go in and start a project. They went in and understood what was going to happen, what the impact of the community was. So become engaged with the community, make sure you enter all right, people on your team, such as police and fire and DPW and city manager. And Rochester, one of the things that was truly recognizable as council was actively engaged in the project throughout the project. So it was a team effort.
Blaine (09:32): Yeah, I would just add that really a, probably a phrase that I use quite a bit is communicate, communicate, communicate, and we did that pretty much every way we could from those time town hall style meetings to a dedicated webpage to email messages. But it also meant, you know, my staff and even myself to walk the project and meet with residents and hear their problems. you know, if it was all of a sudden when we're removing the sidewalks, how are they going to get their mail or how are they going to get their packages and work with them, even on a birthday party that was going to be coming up. So communicate and then hear what was the concern and then really address those.
Jess (10:17): That's great. That's great advice. So I understand the project has received an award. Can you tell us more about that?
Blaine: Sure. I'm happy to say that we won the 2020 project of the year award in the state of Michigan through the American Public Works Association. This was for a project, the size of 1 million to 5 million. And that actually is allowing us to compete at the national level. We're very excited to actually win the project for the state in our category and we're hopeful for the national.
Jess (10:58): That's great. Congratulations, I'm excited to see how it all turns out. If time or money were a nonissue, is there a product or a tool that maybe doesn't exist or that you don't know of that would make your life easier?
Blaine (11:10): If there were some sort of email prioritization kind of tool, maybe using some AI that could help me smartly sort through and really kind of have the higher priority things and then the lower ones, that would allow me to kind of maybe better utilize my time throughout my day. I've used different applications, but right now, I guess there isn't one that quite fits that bill yet.
Jess: I think a lot of us could benefit from something like that. Who else is doing interesting things in local government?
Blaine (11:47): Well, I think right now, I would say, with this COVID event going on, I've seen a lot of positive work in the HR kind of sector. So really working on, you know, from remote work to different really policies and guidance and guidelines. So immediately I would say there, There's also some interesting things really in regards to sustainability and some green initiatives so I'm more able to take advantage of some of those even with our new public works building is going to have some solar panels that we're going to be able to recoup some of that energy.
Jess (12:28): That's great. I think this would be an interesting question for both of you. What's something that you've tried that didn't work.
Blaine (12:34): For me, I would say, at this community and some of my past ones, I've been a beta tester for various software programs. It does take a little bit of an investment of either my time or my staff's time, or maybe a combination, and you’ve kind of gotta be willing to try some things that, you know, maybe an entrepreneur or maybe even a company that's existing is just trying to solve a problem. Occasionally there's some that just aren't really gonna pan out. Sometimes it's just the scale, sometimes there's resources or timing or other things, but I would say there's been a few software solutions that I've tried that unfortunately have not been successful.
Gordie: And for us, obviously as a firm, we've tried a lot of different types of things from the resources available for technology and so on and so forth. Some of the hardest things that we do encounter is when we come into communities, Rochester is a very old community with established infrastructure. We run into a lot of problems out there. A lot of times people don't even know they were there. So you run into them when you try to reroute them, you have to accommodate them. I can't say they didn't work because we have to make them work one way or the other, but having a good team to help you out and understand it has been excellent in that regard. So we've been able to get our way to everything.
Jess (13:53): That's great. Yeah. We hear, you know, from a lot of innovative cities and innovation leaders that not being afraid of failure and trying things is one of the keys to succeeding in innovation.
Blaine:
Yeah, I definitely would agree, We've piloted several things and some of them, you know, have turned out quite successful and if we wouldn't have I guess had that safety net or willingness to at least try something different, we wouldn't have had those successes.
Jess: Great. What's something that excites you about the future of Rochester?
Blaine (14:27): Right now? I would say we're really working on sustainability. Over the last couple of years, we've actually created a tool called sustainable Rochester. And just this last Monday night, our city council actually approved our first electric vehicle. So there's several initiatives and projects that are coming up even this year, as well as planned out for the next one to three years. I'm excited as we just celebrated over 200 years as a community, that we actually look forward to the next 50 and to the next 200. So really having a sustainable community, building it so that, you know, basically our tree, our environmental areas are maximized, and that we have a good balance between residential and commercial, that we create a walkable, and kind of continue to enhance the efforts that are already in place, to make, you know, Rochester the best that we can be from now going forward and already celebrate our past and our history, while we're doing that.
Jess (15:38): That's great. Yeah. I think the work that you guys are doing there is just such a great example for other cities, again, at taking that forward looking approach to everything, to all projects and solving the needs of today, but also keeping in mind what's coming next and what the needs may be and building those into the solutions that you're using today. So just really excited about the work you're doing. Thank you so much, Blaine and Gordie for joining us today. Looking forward to more innovation out of Rochester.
Blaine: Great, thank you.
Gordie: Thank you very much.
Lindsay (16:15): It doesn’t have to take a large-scale public works project to bring different members of the local government and community together and the impact of building these cross-functional relationships can’t be overstated. As leaders in Rochester demonstrate, working as a team and keeping communication open across all groups — including their citizens — can be a major driver of innovation. Thank you to Blaine and Gordie for sharing Rochester’s work with the wider community of local governments looking to innovate.
I’m Lindsay Pica-Alfano, and this podcast was produced by Govlaunch, the wiki for local government innovation. You can subscribe and hear more stories like this wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re a local government innovator, we hope you’ll help us on our mission to build the largest free resource for local governments globally. You can join to search and contribute to the wiki at govlaunch.com. Thanks for tuning in. We hope to see you next time on the Govlaunch Podcast.