Herocrats Spotlight: Renee Tyler Infuses Inclusion into Community Service

Renee Tyler is currently the Director of Community Services for the City of Eau Claire, WI, and this spring she will be transitioning to a position as the Director of Administration for the City of Fulton, MO. We spoke with Renee about  her career in public service, and the importance of inclusivity at every level of decision making in government. 

How did you end up working in government?

“Prior to my work in government, I worked in the finance sector in New York City. For years I wanted to help people and see a result. The thing about the private sector often is that you don't see the impact of what you're doing. 

My undergraduate degree is in social welfare, and I have never officially used it, but I use it everyday in community services. My beginning in public service was influenced by living and working in the New York City metro area; seeing how one neighborhood can be beautiful, and not even two blocks down and a block over, and it's not beautiful anymore. These experiences got me learning about service, allocations and funding, and people that were advocating for these areas. When I started this journey, I didn't think I was going to be here. No, I was just looking for a way to be more proactive and to do something that would be a part of positive change.”

After getting into government, how have you become the leader you are today?

“For me, I think that the work has grown because my voice has grown. I have now been able to expand my work, by looking at the inclusion of equitable policies that encourage women and minorities. My career path has taken on a form that is different from many, because I try to use my voice, and I try to implement policies and procedures that are inclusive. This path has allowed me to gain more confidence in speaking my truth, but also hearing, listening, and trying to be a conduit for those who are not often heard or seen.” 

Renee Tyler and City of Eau Claire staff at the 2021 Public Works Appreciation Cookout

What challenges do you face in your day-to-day work?

“Part of the concern that I have with things that are happening today in government is that we tend to still want to be status quo, and we aren’t addressing the important issues. I'm a Black woman working in a white male-dominated area. That's a lot to take in for some people. When I speak truth to light, I'm trying to be as transparent as possible and, in certain areas, making people understand that some of what I'm speaking transcends race. I ask the question, how can we move forward? If I'm in an organization and I'm the minority, but the majority of the people in the organization don't treat one another with respect, how can I expect you to treat me with respect? 

I am not here to be the Black director, I'm not here to be the Black female director. I am here to be the director. And I try to channel those things that I've experienced into my work and my advocacy.”

Can you share an example of your lived experience influencing your work? 

“Transit is a passion of mine. I grew up in rural Arkansas, a very car dependent place, and I was blessed to have reliable transportation. But so many people in my community didn't have access to transportation. Then you factor in navigating life using a mobility device, or having a visual impairment. These factors don’t stop at race, they don't stop at gender. They are equal opportunity issues. So getting people to recognize and respect the need for everybody to have accessibility in community services, to me, that's big.”

How do we do this? What can we do to bring more accessibility?

“I'm a huge advocate of succession planning. In government, most organizations and succession plans target mid-level training for mid-level employees, with the intent to help them become city managers, county managers, and supervisors. I think that's great, but what I don't see enough of is intentional succession planning focused on frontline workers moving into supervisory roles and into management positions. 

I mentor some of my supervisors, and everybody is extended the invitation. Any opportunity that comes across my desk for training or whatever, if frontline staff wants to sign up for it I say, ‘I’ve got money for it, I have the budget, let's do it’. In my work, I am trying to show what inclusion really looks like. Something that becomes disheartening is having to explain to peers what I'm doing, and why I'm doing it.” 

How should we be doing things differently in local government to make meaningful change? 

“You don't get organizational change with comfort. Change is not comfortable. If change was comfortable, we wouldn't be dealing with what we're dealing with today! 

I'm of the mindset that when everybody is sitting at the table is shaking their head yes, and we haven't even discussed the issue, it's a failure. 

When you get people talking, expressing, and you have civil discourse, that’s when change can come about. I can't fix something if I don't know anything about it. I need the operators. I need the frontline workers in the room, I need the team that's outside fixing the sidewalks and planting trees, I need their input. How can I make policy decisions or choices that impact how you do your job, if I don't know how you do your job day to day? It seems like it should be common sense, but the hierarchy of work just isn’t working anymore.”

Renee Tyler at the 2021 National APWA Conference, where she was the recipient of the 2021 National APWA Community Involvement Award.

Herocrat Spotlight: Brian Bonanno's Approach to People Centered City Planning

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.