With Episode 48, we begin a 5 part series on the up-and-coming innovative city, Lancaster, PA. In Part 1 Danene Sorace, Mayor for Lancaster, PA dives into the culture work underway in Lancaster to transform the city into a more innovative and citizen-centric city. We talk about the block by block approach and how Danene views meaningful engagement and her leadership role more generally with Lancaster.
In the weeks to follow, we’ll tap into some core strategies and projects that are defining this mid-sized city. From strategies to support inclusivity and equity to homelessness prevention to establishing a comprehensive plan, Mayor Danene Sorace has been busy.
At Govlaunch, we strongly believe that innovation can happen at all levels of government and across departments. And while we provide open tools for any public servant to reference as inspiration on their innovation journey, we acknowledge the work is hard if done in a vacuum. It's a lot easier to get there when leadership is fully on board with innovative new ideas, a more collaborative work style, and management by results.
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Featured government: Lancaster, PA
Episode guests: Danene Sorace, Mayor
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. At Govlaunch, we strongly believe that innovation can happen at all levels of government and across departments. And while we provide open tools for any public servant to reference as inspiration on their innovation journey, we acknowledge the work as hard, if done in a vacuum. It's a lot easier to get there when leadership is fully on board with innovative new ideas, more collaborative work style and management by results.
Lindsay: (00:46)
Today, we begin a series on up-and-coming innovative city, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. From strategies to support inclusivity and equity to homelessness prevention, to establishing a comprehensive plan, Mayor Danene Sorace has been busy. Danene joins me in this episode to talk about her approach to leadership in Lancaster and how she's helping foster a new culture of innovation for her city. So let's now turn to Danene to share more about her important work and how your city can begin thinking about team building engagement and innovation too. Thanks Danene for joining me today. Can you quickly introduce yourself and share a bit about your role?
Danene: (01:28)
Sure. Hi, my name is Danene Sorace. I am the mayor of the city of Lancaster, and I have served in this role since 2018 and it is my pleasure to be the second woman to hold this post in the city's history. And we are a city of about 60,000 people. And in addition to all the usual things you think of a mayor doing, I'm also the head of a public utility running water and wastewater operations for our city and beyond.
Lindsay: (01:59)
Yeah. Well you definitely have your hands full. Um, we brought you on today, you know, as the second woman to hold this post in Lancaster. You've been a real mover and a shaker in the last few years. Your approach has been very high touch and community centric. Can you elaborate on that for us and talk more about your more general philosophy on civic leadership?
Danene: (02:19)
Yeah, thanks for asking this question, Lindsay. It's something that I've had to really reflect on as I've gotten further because every year you're evolving in your leadership and your leadership style. And I would say that, that for me, my approach to civic leadership is really rooted in service and it's focused on ensuring the greatest good with a special emphasis on equity, recognizing that government is not exactly set up to be entirely equitable and the ways in which decisions are made and who is at the table is really important. And so I have really emphasized and stayed attuned to the fact that this is an opportunity for me to serve and in my service to others, I need to make sure that I am being inclusive and equitable in that approach.
Lindsay: (03:16)
When you came in as mayor, um, you had a few core objectives from the get-go. So I want to get into more of the specifics. Can you talk about some of what those were?
Danene: (03:25)
Yeah. So prior to serving as mayor, I was on city council, so that really helped inform one of the four key objectives because I was also the finance chair. So I, when I was on the campaign, I talked about four things, strong neighborhoods, safe streets, secure incomes and sound government. And so the sound government part was like very clear to me from the perspective of being the finance chair. I knew that we needed to have a financially sustainable city if we were going to do anything. And I also knew that we had to do the core work of the city really well. Again, if we were going to be able to advance any other objectives.
Danene: (04:02)
And so sound government really, uh, centered on those core operations and, uh, fiscal sustainability. And then I just also understood that we were more than our downtown and there was a lot of emphasis on our downtown and really thinking about our neighborhoods and the vibrancy, diversity, beauty of our neighborhoods and how we could really strengthen those. And that had to do with not only the physicality of our neighborhoods, but also the people who live there.
Lindsay: (04:33)
And how did you prioritize these objectives? How did you get started addressing them? I imagine you didn't go in day one and say, here are the four things we're going to do today. So just talk a little bit more about just from a management perspective how you handled this?
Danene: (04:46)
Yeah. So I think that when I got here, I was really clear that we had a really well-functioning government, but it was very siloed and each department was doing basically its own thing. And that we really wanted to amp up communications and we wanted the hallmark of my administration to be around transparency and engagement. And so the communications efforts started, uh, from the get-go expanding our social media strategy. We did a total website overhaul, uh, we adjoined welcoming cities and that really, uh, helped us prioritize language access. And then we also developed some open data initiatives because that was one of the things that really problematic from the beginning is that there was no common dataset across departments. Uh, there were again, all of these different silos. So those were some of the initial ways that we started to pull this all together.
Lindsay: (05:45)
And from a data perspective, I know you guys are partnered with Tolemi, correct?
Danene: (05:49)
Yeah. Yes. And building blocks and Tolemi that was our first foray into open data. And, uh, it was a game changer for us. Really. You, you, you wouldn't believe walking around here the first day that that launched everybody was like digging in and looking at all the data overlays and geeking out on, oh my gosh. We can look at like, uh, housing, uh, citations and crime data all at the same time, uh, at an individual block level.
Lindsay: (06:19)
That's fantastic. Yes. Yeah. They're, they're great. So your work has also involved some restructuring internally, including the development of some new departments entirely, uh, would love to dive into that and talk about what inspired these organizational changes and really how things are going since the restructure.
Danene: (06:35)
Yeah. So during the campaign, I made strong neighborhoods a priority. And, and so I pledged that I was going to create this position, a director of neighborhood engagement that would ensure that, you know, we remembered that there's like no one size fits all that every neighborhood has different, um, different characteristics and qualities and things that they're prioritizing as a need. And that we really needed someone in city hall that was going to center neighborhoods in our work. And that person is Milzy Carrasco. We hired her, uh, five months into my first year in office as the director of neighborhood engagement. And I will totally tell you that I stole this idea directly from New Orleans. I found their office of neighborhood engagement. I found their job description. I changed it to reflect what we needed here in Lancaster, and we ran with it and it has been a game changer. It was bumpy to start for sure, but over time we've really found our footing. And as a result, every department now understands and is engaging in, uh, in neighborhood conversations as they're doing their work, which is exactly what we need to be doing.
Lindsay: (07:50)
So obviously the neighborhoods and your residents, like, like this concept, uh, were the changes that you were making met with any resistance internally?
Danene: (07:58)
Yeah. And so when I had mentioned that it was a little bumpy to start, it was because, you know, when you have an organization that's been around as long as city government, right. There, there are changes that are to be expected when a new mayor comes in. Putting in a position like this that has that's reporting directly to the mayor and has tentacles across every department is, um, off-putting for some, and it was really difficult to understand what exactly is her role here? How are we understanding what we're doing in terms of what, what the office of neighborhood engagement is doing? And so it was very bumpy for the first year. Uh, and I think anybody who's had that experience of coming into a job that has never existed before in an organization that has had relative siloed operations can predict that that will happen. And I think I just underestimated, uh, how, how difficult it was to, uh, realign, uh, because there's really a culture change that, that had to happen simultaneously.
Lindsay: (09:08)
It's culture change. It's communication. It's breaking down those data silos like you talked about, there's a lot of components to handling the siloed beast that is government operations. Um, we hear this from every local government that we talk to.
Danene: (09:24)
And isn't that the great challenge, like I always think about I'm pushing this ahead to sort of the next level. And so, uh, I'm really grateful that I came into an organization that had really strong individual departments. Okay. So the next challenge is how are we working as a team? How are we thinking about one another across departments? How is it that police and fire and public safety are thinking about community planning and economic development as central to what the work that they're doing is, uh, as we understand public safety is to the strength of our neighborhoods. And so it's, it's mind bending in some ways, because it's not how everybody that, you know, you don't rise to the level of a chief, uh, without like extensive focus on what your craft is, right. And so if your craft is public safety, and that's what you do all day, then thinking about community planning, economic development, um, can be like, why am I here for this conversation? But it's really important.
Lindsay: (10:25)
All of these functions are really inextricably linked to the success of how the government is operating more generally, which as a resident, you only care about how the services look from your end, right? All this behind the scenes work that you have to do. Like, don't bother me with that. Just give me better service delivery. Obviously these departmental shifts are gonna be aimed at breaking down these barriers and getting the city working together. Um, and with your community more seamlessly, can you give us an example or two of just some benefits you've seen come out of this work you've done to break down these silos?
Danene: (10:59)
Oh, there's so many ways to answer this question, Lindsay. One of the things that I really prioritize as being accessible internally, as well as externally, and I remember very early on just walking around like, oh, I have 20 minutes that's unscheduled, let me just go hit a floor in our building and just walk around and say, hi, what are you working on? How are things going? And just trying to build rapport, uh, not just with the executive leadership team, but with all of our team members. And it really gave me a window into the world, uh, across all of the departments. And so I would say that data really became then a vehicle for having these kinds of conversations. And one of the, one of the things that came out of our work with Tolemi was the development of a block strength indicator.
Danene: (11:55)
And that became a way for us to bring different people to the table and have a conversation about what is this block strength indicator. Okay. So we're looking at an individual block. We're looking at different data about this block, where we are, we are identifying this area of the city or this particular block and thinking about what are the short-term and long-term planning efforts that we need to focus on to strengthen this particular neighborhood, whether that's because they have a high litter index, whether they have a lot of housing code violations, whether they have a lot of calls, uh, for, um, you know, police response, whether it's, um, you know, looking at just demographic breakdown around income levels. And how are we thinking about these things more holistically rather than sort of like the whack-a-mole approach of like, yeah, we're going to go out and clean up this litter, and then we're going to get frustrated because it's still a problem.
Danene: (12:55)
No, we're actually going to go knock on doors. We're going to talk to folks. We're going to hear from them what their concerns are. And then we're going to understand why litter is a problem. And, oh, it's a problem because nobody has a trash can or they're not bringing trash cans out front because there isn't a place to store them and we have an ordinance that says you can't store them in the front of your house, but there's no way to get them to the back of the house because there are no bakers alleys on this block. These are the kinds of things like peeling the onion back, and really, again, centering residents in the conversation as well as really digging deeply across multiple, um, departments. And that has been a way that we've broken down some silos and, um, have been leaning on each other and what it's done is it's like developed this, uh, sense of teamwork that I was really aiming for. Because if people feel like they're part of a team, they're less likely to just hand it off or say, that's somebody else's problem. And that's really important.
Lindsay: (13:58)
Right. Well, it was great segue because I want to get into the block by block approach. Uh, your city has received some recognition for this strategy. Can you kind of fill in the blanks, explain more for our listeners, what specifically this is, you know, you touched on it a little bit and really what inspired you to take this strategy?
Danene: (14:15)
Yeah, so, um, a couple of things for listeners, we are 7.3 square miles. Our city is highly dense and what's even better is that essentially the core of our city is like four square miles. And it means that it's doable. Like we can actually influence change block by block and how I came up with that strategy. And, and even how I started talking about it was very much informed by knocking on thousands of doors.
Danene: (14:45)
You see firsthand the essence of a block when you're walking on it, you understand the, yeah, there's a vibe, right? And so you'd round a corner and you'd be on this block where kids are out playing. Um, people are sitting on porches there's energy on the block. And then there's other blocks where it's just like, kind of like a dead zone. And there isn't that kind of energy. And, and it literally varied block by block. And so that's how I started talking about this whole concept of block by block. And also just recognizing that, you know, every city is more than a few downtown blocks and we have just rich opportunities in our neighborhoods. And I know that, um, that there are people on every single block who care about their neighborhoods. And so who are they? How are we knocking on their doors? How are we engaging with them? And so that's been the best part about this job is continuing to do that work.
Lindsay: (15:44)
Can you speak to what the approach has been historically to community engagement just as a resident yourself?
Danene: (15:50)
Yeah So, I mean, this is, again, one of the things that when I ran for city council, I was really interested in having an opportunity to serve with our former mayor, mayor Rick Gray, and understand a little bit more and, you know, there's a real generational shift and it's even happening now where the next social media was like not his jam. And it was just, um, if you wanted to know information, you had to find the phone number and call, and there wasn't like a point person like an ambassador, an ombudsman, which is really what the office of neighborhood engagement is, is sort of like, okay, if you've got neighborhood issues, there's a person here that can help you work through them and can, um, convene the resources internally to respond externally and you don't have to make seven phone calls. And so I would say that pretty much, you know, you had to be super proactive historically.
Danene: (16:44)
You had to be, uh, you had to have accessibility tools and time in order to be able to, uh, get things done or get questions answered. And when I was knocking on doors, it really bothered me two things. One I'd knock on a door and somebody was living with an issue that they did not need to live with. Uh, and so they didn't have, they didn't know how to access government. They didn't even know where city hall was. They, they just had no idea about the role of local government. And then the second thing was that even if they did know, they didn't bother to call because they didn't believe anything would change. And that was heartbreaking. And that, that really speaks to my approach to civic leadership as being responsive. And we're not going to be able to solve every problem. Being responsive also comes with a dose of reality and honesty about some of the things we can fix and some of the things we can't, uh, but it means that we are being, we are following up, we are being responsive. We are helping people believe and know that local government is here to serve them.
Lindsay: (17:50)
Well, your passion is really evident. I mean, what a great time to be a resident of Lancaster. I want to shift gears a little bit and talk more generally now, you know, there are a lot of people looking to build leadership careers in government. Are there any insights you would share with some aspiring public officials from your tenure?
Danene: (18:14)
Okay. So these are hard jobs, there is incredible and intense public scrutiny this past year was just unbelievable in so many in so many ways. And that's not to not to say that there aren't like great perks to this job. I mean, you meet incredible people and you have opportunities to do work in so many different domains. But what I can say is that show up like show up and get informed is like the first thing to do. It is so easy in our, you know, in our social media world to, um, pontificate about things that you don't know anything about. Um, and I just think that for me, coming to me and also taking lessons from other mayors there's incredible opportunity here, but you have to want to work at it. We are so fortunate to have an incredibly dedicated, uh, highly motivated professional team in every area of the city that is working to be the best. And that's what you want. Uh, and I think so, so often, uh, government is viewed as stale and, uh, kind of dead end and not the place to go to hone your craft. And so when people want to get into government it's, um, it's, there are huge opportunities and you have to be motivated by different things. And those things, uh, have to be more about service.
Danene: (19:53)
And I kind of think about this as a term of service, and it's different than if you're going into private corporate world, where you have different perks and different budgets and different, um, you know,people aren't pointing fingers at you. If you spend some money on a staff development, and it's the number one thing to go in most organizations, but definitely in public sector. So team, you know, all of professional development in the world, if you don't have good staff to begin with, um, isn't going to go anywhere. And I look around my sister cities, and I think about those that have had steady leadership. They are, they are successful and leadership matters. It really matters.
Lindsay: (20:43)
Yeah. I mean this culture of innovation, we talk about a lot and it really comes from the top. You have to have somebody like you who's really supporting open sharing of ideas. And we talk with a lot of people that are in lower levels of government that, that say, oh, well I'm not a decision maker. And all sorts of people come and search for innovative best practices and tools on our platform. And it's just, it's sad when we hear that. And it's like, you work for a government that really does not support you being involved in the narrative in how to make things better.
Danene: (21:18)
And that's such a misnomer that because you don't have the title, you're not a leader, everybody's a leader, they're a leader in their own, uh, sphere of influence. And there are always ways to push up. And I embrace that. And I, I know that that's been part of a major culture change around here. Uh, there's, there's been a lot of, um, kind of command and control, you know, and you do this because this is the decision from on high. And I'm the first to say, I mean, I'm walking in here. There's so much about government and our operations that I don't know, I'm never going to be an expert in running a water plant. We've got lots of people who are experts in water plant, what do they say? What are their needs? How are we meeting their needs? And so I have internal customers, my staff, you know, I think about them in that way, as well as external customers.
Lindsay: (22:12)
And as you know, failure is a big part of innovation. You've done a lot of things right. But there's obviously been some mistakes along the way. So I want to be able to share some of that. So that potentially some other people in your position don't make the same mistake. Um, or at the very least they can commiserate with you. So I want to share something you've tried that didn't work.
Danene: (22:34)
I mean, I like a lot of the mistakes that we've made have been, you know, uh, around failure of communication. Like how do we communicate this well to the public when this is like a hallmark of what our administration is supposed to be? Oh, right. We're moving 50 miles an hour with, you know, with a car that only has three tires. Um, and so it, it's just, it's like a constant pacing and slowing ourselves down. And we have absolutely stepped in it in terms of like, oh my gosh, how did we miss that? Uh, and so that's been really hard, uh, in terms of, you know, I, I call them unforced errors, you know, like, oh, and they're, they're very frustrating. And then, you know, something that we tried and didn't, that didn't work. I mean, that was really hard.
Danene: (23:27)
And we were way too aggressive about making changes initially right out of the gate was starting something called a neighborhood working group. And we put Milzy as the office of neighborhood engagement in charge of it. And it did not, I thought, okay, we're going to, like, we're going to have a whole team of people from all of the departments. And we're going to case manage these blocks. These are, these are challenging blocks. We are spending enormous amount of public resources on these blocks. Everybody gets to the table, we're going to talk about what's happening on these blocks. We're going to have data. It's going to help us inform what our response is. And it was so challenging. And we developed new systems so that we didn't have to have all of these people coming together, but it was painful.
Danene: (24:12)
And I wish that I would have done a better job of setting clear expectations from the start about how we were going to work together. Because when you're talking about change, you have to talk about it ad nauseum. And in order to bring everybody along with you about what we're trying to do. And I think I'm really clear that, you know, at the executive level, everybody can be on the same page, and that's hard just getting eight people on the same page, but then when you take the next level down and you've got, you know, 40 managers, okay, how's everybody on the same page there. And then you go further and we're talking about 570 people, um, and how they understand it. And they're going to have their own local experience within their own shops, let alone, you know, what, I'm trying to create citywide in government and within the city itself. So the failures around communication and leading change are the hardest. you pick yourself up, you dust yourself off and you keep on going.
Lindsay: (25:12)
You show up every day, like you said, show up every day. Well, this has been such a fun kickoff to the series that we really appreciate your insights and your leadership by example, most importantly, and really feel advice shared today is going to resonate with a lot of public sector leaders across the globe listening in. So we're super excited to continue the series with Lancaster and dive into some more of the projects you all are working on. In the next episode, we're going to talk about some individuals leading some newly established departments and how their unique approach to engagement has been to create these strong neighborhoods you referenced.
We're also going to dive deeper into equity and more so Danene thanks again for helping kick off the series and keep up the great work in Lancaster.
Danene: (25:53)
Thanks, Lindsay. I appreciate it.
Lindsay: (26:01)
I'm Lindsay Pica-Alfano and this podcast was produced by Govlaunch the Wiki for local government innovation. You can subscribe to 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@govlaunch.com. Thanks for tuning in. We hope to see you next time on the Govlaunch podcast.