While we typically highlight current government employees, we recently talked with a former government worker about the importance of cycling in and out of city government work, in order to be an effective changemaker and prevent burnout. Brian Bonanno is a seasoned public servant with experience working in city government and in the nonprofit sector, with a focus on community engagement.
“I've worked adjacent to local government for most of my career, starting in Chicago. In Iowa, I worked closely with a few different cities, specifically Des Moines, and Dubuque. I came to New Mexico in the fall of 2020, and started working as a planner for the city's behavioral health and wellness division.
I transferred last spring to the urban design and development division where the city was experimenting with ‘mid-range planning’, a new division created to specifically address difficulty with on-the-ground engagement from city government. Most of my background consists of working with residents, business owners and community organizations to press the city to make changes. This role flipped that around, by employing someone within the city government to do that kind of work out in the community.”
We talked with Brian about the value and importance of working inside and outside of the system to advocate for justice, and the possible roadblocks that arise within government that make community engagement a difficult practice.
“I think public servants are getting attacked in a lot of ways from all sides. They're being asked to do a lot with a little- here in Albuquerque, we’re struggling to keep up because budgets are tight and there’s more work to be done in neighborhoods than ever before. The challenge now is that we are trying to do that work with fewer people.
In the planning department we're struggling to meet all of the expectations of the city and the citizens we serve. I think some people misunderstand our role in the community. Sometimes, even the planning department is unsure of their role. That's partly because the nature of the work has changed; there's more of an emphasis on acknowledging the mistakes in planning in the past that have led to inequities and disinvestment and injustice. In the time that I've been there, we’ve started trying to make amends for instances of injustice, like histories of redlining or community disinvestment that planning is partly responsible for. This has been a harder challenge to address than was anticipated. A lot of people don't like to admit to mistakes, they want to keep moving forward with planning and maybe acknowledge these things, but no one wants to take full responsibility.”
We talked to Brian about the work of a city reckoning with their role in historical injustice, and what it might look like for city government to take meaningful responsibility and make amends.
“Cities tend to move in highly regimented schedules. It's a two year plan, it's a five-year plan. These plans rarely go beyond, five, maybe 10 years. I think cities need to be willing to accept that this work takes a very long time. It took a long time for communities to end up where they're at. It took years, and decades of neglect and disinvestment, particularly in lower income communities. From the government, there’s an unwillingness to dedicate more than a couple of years to solving that problem. What a lot of these communities have lacked is consistency.
For example, when I worked in Des Moines, the city had their five-year plan. Four years into their plan they said ‘it's not working the way that we expected it to work,’ partly because they weren't willing to be vulnerable to their own mistakes. And this causes cities to pick up and move to another neighborhood or pick up a new project or a new planning idea, and see what else is going on, and what the new planning trend is, and put their energy into a new project.
Brian was recognized as the 2019 "Creative of the Year" by the Greater Des Moines Young Professional Committee for his community engagement work and facilitation of public art projects around the city of Des Moines, Iowa.
If you sit in a place long enough and you open yourself up to be vulnerable and transparent with communities, you are going to reach a better outcome. That was the something I really pushed for in my department- we need to stop rushing. There's always a sense of urgency, but it's in an urgency focused around finishing a project in order to move to the next neighborhood. What I’m advocating for is a model of city planning where we stay a while- get to know people, spend time in communities outside of just going to an event at a library or a community center. Why don’t we talk to our business owners and residents in the community?
To me it feels like the city planning model isn’t capable in its current form of being the kind of community partner that's needed. The things that I see missing from the system are time consistency, transparency, and sincere community engagement.”
Brian is hopeful that these trends are changing, both in city government structure and in the higher education programs producing the next generation of city planners- but, at the end of the day, these changes are happening very slowly. Brain shared with us lessons that he learned about the importance of knowing the why of public outreach before engaging with a community, in order to be a more effective resource.
“In city government, it can be really easy to get beaten down and become complacent, and feel like the system wants you to conform. Before I left city government, I tried to impress upon the people that I work with the importance of knowing what you are asking for when you engage with a community. I think there’s often an idea that we just have to get out and talk to people.
I've been in this situation where I've engaged people and built relationships and had nothing tangible to offer them. Ultimately, that leads to you letting people down. After that, how can you expect them to trust you again? When I consider all of this, I try to focus on how we can hone in on what we are asking the community, and what we can offer the community before we go out and try to create meaningful engagement.”
Brian will continue to work in community engagement in a new position with a housing non-profit in Albuquerque, New Mexico this winter.