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2021: A Year of Herocrats Working Hard in their Communities!
This year, Herocrats across the country led with courage, creativity and connection in their communities. From public health officials, to IT directors, we are excited to cheer on our 2021 Herocrats, who are putting in the work to make their communities a better place for everyone!
Here’s a glimpse at the work Herocrats have been doing in 2021:
Dawn Beck shared her personal experience as a child of an incarcerated parent at her job in Olmsted County, MN to advocate for children and families affected by incarceration.
Ling Becker managed her 80 member team to ensure effective and equitable dispersal of CARES Act funding.
City Planner in Albuquerque, NM, Brian Bonanno applied his non-profit experience to engage community members in local government decisions.
Using a unique participatory policy making process that included a design team of Minneapolis high schoolers, Carrie Christensen was integral in the development of the Minneapolis “Parks for All” plan, which was approved this November.
Medical Countermeasures Coordinator Gabriela Hurtado took the lead in the City of Long Beach pandemic response.
A City Councilperson for Stevens Point, WI and Director of the Marathon County Solid Waste Department in Marathon County, WI, Meleesa Johnson leads with strategy and compassion in her roles as a government employee and elected official.
Jordan Laslett used extra time in his AmeriCorps service term to make the case for paid internships in the City of Philadelphia.
IT Director Elizabeth Lo works with her team weekly to catch 30,000+ fraud attempts and protect the data and communications of Bedford County, VA.
Deputy Administrator in Erie, CO, Melissa Wiley promotes courage in her fellow government employees by creating a space for others to share their own story and leading with empathy.
Do you know a government employee that deserves to be recognized as a Herocrat? Nominate them!
2021: A Year in Review for Bellwether Consulting
Happy holidays from Bellwether Consulting! We have so much gratitude for our community of changemakers, and the work we have been part of in 2021.
Our Team
We added a full-time employee to the team! Welcome, Mike Bell!
We rounded out several projects with our dynamic and super-talented associates Joanna Hubbard-Rivera, Vincent Frazier, Rachel Speck, and Rachel Brummel!
We brought on Piper Wood to lead communications efforts such as this one!
Our Work
We did lots of transportation equity work this year, including:
Forming and facilitating the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT)’s Equity Work Group to inform long-range planning;
Applying an equity lens to the Minnesota Electric Vehicles Assessment in partnership with Great Plains Institute;
Applying an equity lens to the Highway 77 Study; and
Applying an equity lens to the Metropolitan Council’s Electric Vehicles Study in partnership with Great Plains Institute.
We partnered with the Humphrey School of Public Affairs to build leadership skills among 36 senior leaders across the State of Minnesota through a 10-week program.
We worked with regional partners to build and operate a Federal Funding Hub, and helped to secure a Build Back Better Regional Planning Grant.
We did two cohort-based workforce projects with the Department of Labor and Industry:
An intensive DEI workshop that brought together changemakers from 27 companies to discuss strategies, share experiences, and produce action plans, and
A comprehensive Train-the-Trainer workshop aimed at building up equitable training infrastructure and best practices at 22 healthcare and manufacturing companies.
We supported an assessment of the Minnesota Department of Human Services’ Integrated Service Delivery.
We conducted focus groups and interviews with people experiencing homelessness, people with a history of incarceration, refugees, and other Ramsey County residents to understand and document their barriers to wellness.
We featured 9 Herocrats from 7 states who are leading with courage, creativity and connection in their communities.
What’s Next?
Our team is energized for the work that we will be a part of in the new year, and we plan to lean on our “simple rules” in order to see bigger, work deeply, and build more just and equitable communities together in 2022 and beyond.
2021 Worker Shortages: Can Local Government Respond to Changing Work Trends?
“We're pretty, short-staffed- I think we're supposed to have 25 budgeted positions, and right now we are down to about six.”
Across the country, conversations of worker shortages have made headlines, from short-staffing at minimum-wage food service jobs, to mid-pandemic hospital staff shortages. Government work is not exempt from these labor concerns, and in fact, government agencies across the country are experiencing historical gaps in staffing, even as private sector jobs rebound. We spoke to Brian Bonnano, a former city planner about why shortages in local government positions persist, and what it means for the efficacy of government offices.
Source: Pew Charitable Trusts using research from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“The city is struggling to hire people- the issue is that the benefits of a stable city job are not as attractive as they once were. Unfortunately, in government work, you're not very well paid. Additionally, some of the other amenities or benefits that people are looking for, especially after COVID, are just not there,”
Brian sees a disconnect between a younger incoming workforce and the structure of city work, which rewards worker loyalty over sign-on benefits.
“Traditionally the benefit is that if you stay in a city job for 25 years, you get a great pension. The problem is that people don't really stay in jobs that long anymore. There are a lot of other quality of life benefits that they're really looking for. So, if you’re underpaid, and aren’t receiving some of the other benefits either, it becomes really difficult to attract and retain workers. Toward the end of my time with the city, we were posting jobs and getting no applicants.”
This change has also been noted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in a recent report that focused on age demographics and job tenure relationships. The BLS found that overall tenure in public sector jobs was twice that of private sector positions, and the proportion of workers over the age of 35 was higher in the public sector than it was in the private sector.
Not only do these shortages create long-term concern for government agencies, they also put strain on the current workforce, which contributes to worker burnout.
“In my division it felt like we were getting pulled in a million different directions and we were trying to fill every gap. We could see lots of gaps, but we're overextended as it is. We're short-staffed and it would be better to show people that we were really skilled at one thing instead of trying to do it all.”
As a cycle of public sector workers begin to retire, concerns of worker attraction and retention arise. Will governments be able to meet the interests and demands of a new workforce in time to garner support for resilience building programs? Will there be enough laborers to fulfill the needs of public infrastructure amidst COVID-19 Build Back Better initiatives? Brian is optimistic, but recognizes that significant changes need to happen for this to work.
“I think they’ll come out of this, but it's going to take some time and it's going to take reorganization, and restructuring the way that city government operates.”
Is your team facing worker shortages? What are they doing to change this?
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.
Government Employee and Elected Official: Meleesa Johnson’s perspective from two sides of public service
By Piper Wood
Meleesa Johnson is the Director of the Marathon County Solid Waste Department in Marathon County, Wisconsin. She also serves on the Stevens Point City Council representing the fifth district, and was elected the council president by her peers in 2017. Meleesa’s unique role as both an elected city official and government employee in Wisconsin gives her an opportunity to see and cooperate with both sides of state and city government. In her Herocrats interview, Meleesa outlined some of the lessons that she has gleaned from both sides of the public service coin, focusing on what government employees and elected officials can learn from each other.
“There's this intermingling of my professional life and my political life, just because of what I do for a living. But I always have to predicate, ‘I'm speaking as, not as an elected official, I'm speaking here as, a professional working for Marathon County’ or conversely. So I have to be careful to walk that line very, very carefully, but there is so much overlap.”
Despite the challenges of delineating her roles, Johnson has found it helpful to be able see things from the other side.
“From a practical perspective, I find it very helpful in my policy-making because I know what it's like to be staff. Staff needs clear direction. And when policymakers can't make up their mind, or if there's conflict, it's staff that suffers.I know what it's like to be staff when there's no clear direction. As staff, I also understand the challenges of trying to create policy when there is not agreement among policy makers. It gives me insight into those worlds that helped me understand why things move along slowly.”
Colleagues in both positions turn to Meleesa for advice, due to her ‘birds eye view’ of policy work from a dual perspective as a staff member and an elected official.
“It's very, very beneficial because it gives me insight that I think is very helpful in both situations.”
Meleesa has thought a lot about how elected officials and government employees could more effectively work together. Foundationally, she sees a need for greater knowledge of the processes behind government work, and the need to identify the why of staff positions.
“There is sometimes a lack of understanding of the public policy process, even at the local level or the state level or federal level. Well, what underpins your work? What underpins your work are policies that are set forward in ordinance or statute. As staff, you need to understand the policy basis of your work, particularly if you want to get into more leadership roles.”
On the flip side, Johnson sees a knowledge gap for elected officials as well.
“While I was talking about staff needing to understand the public policy process, elected officials also need to understand the public policy process, and understand statutory authority.”
Specifically, Johnson sees City Council as a body with influence, so long as Council understands their role in making decisions and feels empowered to make a decision, without giving into electoral fears.
“Because as I've talked with them, they said, well, it's the mayor's budget, right? No, this is our biggest policy document. And it's our budget. It's not the mayor's budget. It is the council's budget.”
Johnson’s role as both an elected city official and a government employee offers her insight into the integral part that these positions can play in furthering and implementing policy. With these roles in mind, Johnson works as a Herocrat in her community to build capacity and increase knowledge sharing between public servants in her community in Marathon County, Wisconsin.
Have you ever worked in a position that gave you insight into two differing roles? What was this learning experience like?
Herocrat Spotlight: Medical Countermeasures Coordinator Gabriela Hurtado
Gabriela Hurtado is a Medical Countermeasures Coordinator for the City of Long Beach, CA. In the past two years, she expanded existing city pandemic preparedness plans to develop citywide testing, and, when the time came, helped create a citywide vaccination effort to serve the 400,000+ community members of Long Beach.
“To operationalize our plans for the test sites, we basically took our anthrax plan and adjusted it for COVID-19. It's not like it was all from scratch, but we were creative and able to build on that existing knowledge to serve the community.”
Hurtado partnered with government agencies across the city to develop a unified effort against COVID-19, with the goal of creating accessible test sites and vaccines for all community members.
Hurtado began her career with the City of Long Beach as an intern in 2012, building community awareness of emergency preparedness measures. In the nine years since, she has helped develop the emergency management division; In particular, Gabriela assisted with HIV surveillance efforts, flu vaccine rollouts, and bioterrorism preparedness before focusing in on pandemic preparedness in 2019, and putting skills into practice in early 2020.
“Vaccines are really my niche so it was exciting when I was able to participate in the vaccine rollout. Vaccination is something that we are really well versed in as a department because we do a flu vaccination every year. We took our plan that we practice every year with the flu vaccine, swapped out the flu, and inserted the COVID vaccine.”
Long Beach Public Health Nurses drawing up COVID-19 vaccines at the Convention Center. Source: Gabriela Hurtado.
Throughout a year and a half of pandemic management, Hurtado has juggled the opinions of stakeholders, community members, and public health officials in developing a just pandemic response.
“I think in all of this, the most difficult part was that for so long we did our job and no one noticed. I think that's a good thing, right? Because that means we're doing our job well. But when COVID-19 happened, all of a sudden everyone was an emergency manager, an epidemiologist, a statistician. I think that was really difficult because our entire team serves as subject matter experts, but then you have politics come into play. And It's challenging when everything on the news or social media is negative all the time. It's so divisive and polarizing that I have to remind myself and our team constantly, ‘we're doing this for everyone else, not just for us’. I think that really helps.
I think that one of the other really challenging pieces is trying to reinstate ourselves as a trustworthy entity. Because we would never ask the community to do something that we wouldn't do ourselves. Trying to navigate that was really difficult; specifically, trying to make sure that all of our communities of color were getting the information and not just getting it, but understanding it and knowing that it came from a trustworthy source. I think those are probably the two hardest parts of this pandemic from an emergency management standpoint.”
Amidst the myriad of challenges brought on by the past two years as a Medical Countermeasures Coordinator, Gabriela has taken on a role as a public health authority and community spokesperson in the COVID-19 response in Long Beach, CA.
Command staff that led the Convention Center-Public Health Emergency Management team, Fire Department, and National Guard. Source: Gabriela Hurtado.
“I've never been in this type of leadership position before where there's so many people looking to me for information or answers. I have to remind myself that a lot of people are going to feed off of my energy. If I'm stressed and overwhelmed, everybody else is going to feel that too. So I have to remind myself that it's okay to have off-days or off-moments, but just because it's a bad moment, doesn’t mean it's a bad day.”
I always remember the day that we went down to the convention center and they were like, ‘okay, Gabby what do you want to see? How do you want us to set this up?’ I literally said, ‘I want this to look and feel like Disneyland’. At the time we were seeing up to 6,000 people a day. And, we had signage everywhere and everyone was so happy to see the next person in line. It was not just our team being happy to see this next person getting vaccinated, but it was also the community sharing their gratitude and their hope from a vaccine, which I think is my favorite piece of all of this.”
Gabriela overseeing the drive thru vaccine clinic at the Convention Center. At the height of vaccination, 6,000 residents passed through the Convention Center daily. Source: Gabriela Hurtado.
Herocrat Spotlight: Meleesa Johnson builds understanding of the public policy process
“In this time of division, how can we build one another up? How can we support one another? How can we build capacity? How do we help people to understand this is hard work? Don't ever think for a minute that this is easy.
We need to set a policy agenda that is not reactive to attacks, but one in which we can work collaboratively to advance sound public policy. And it has to go beyond just one little community, to a broader level.
I'm trying to demystify the budget process so that people, when they show up for a budget meeting, don't think ‘I don't want to ask a question because I don't want to look stupid.’ I'm trying to help shed some basic light on the public finance process so that people can understand. What are the expenses, where's the money coming from and what are all these special funds? What does it all mean?
This is an education job. And it's worth it. Especially when you recognize that you're not alone, even though you feel like you are sometimes. I want my legacy to live on in the capacity of other people. And so you lift them up, you build them up, you give them tools, you guide them, you find their strengths and build on them. That's what we should be doing. And that's what someone did for me. And that's why I try to do it for others.”
Meleesa Johnson is a public servant that holds dual roles as an elected official and government employee. Meleesa Johnson was elected to the Stevens Point City Council to represent the fifth district in 2016, and was elected President of the body by her peers just one year later. She also has 10+ years of experience as a public servant directing the Marathon County Solid Waste Department, and is currently serving her 3rd term as a Supervisor for the Portage County Board.
Herocrat Spotlight: IT Director Elizabeth Lo
Elizabeth Lo is an IT Director in Bedford County, VA with nearly twenty years of government experience.
“I’m currently working in Bedford County in Southwest Virginia. It’s very rural compared to Minneapolis. There are a lot of hills and mountains— it’s right by the Appalachian trail and edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
I run the IT shop here. We have 11 full time IT employees including myself. There is a lot of great talent within the group. We're really trying to do the right thing and do things right. At organizational level, the IT Department supports internal county departments and those departments who support and serve the community. Technology is changing so fast and just keeping up with everything is very challenging. It used to be that there was a very specific skill set in terms of being a programmer/developer, but that’s changed quite a bit.
The technology field has expanded to include business analysis, project management, GIS, and more. A big part of IT is now about being a good communicator in order to help staff and leadership navigate technology toward achieving the County's goals and mission.
The bad actors are very clever and sophisticated in their approach. They're everywhere. What I've explained to people in my organization is that we're not hidden from these bad actors. You feel like since you’re in Southwest Virginia, nobody's paying attention to you, but every week we block 35,000+ external phishing attempts from across the world.
There’s a lot of collaboration between state, federal, and the local county. There can be moments of conflict and cross purposes between the various levels of government. But when we do come together, when we actually know what our purpose is, what we're trying to achieve, we really knock it out of the park.
Everybody talks about the bureaucratic red tape, but there’s a flip side— the green tape. Those rules that actually help. They pull everything together. They’re not just policy, but policy with purpose that we understand. You know what the purpose is, the policy is consistently being applied across the board, and well-communicated. A big part of government is providing that structure in a way that actually moves things forward. Green tape is what I think we need more of, not less of. Unfortunately, a lot of people say that if you have a rule, then it's red tape and that is not necessarily always the case.”
Herocrat Spotlight: Dawn Beck Brings Her Lived Experience to Work
“I'm the child of an incarcerated parent. I wasn't okay with sharing that with anyone until I was in my forties.
I worked for Olmsted County for nearly 20 years. In 2017, the Minnesota State Community Health Services Advisory Committee, a group of county commissioners and public health directors, formed the Children of Incarcerated Parents Workgroup. The group was charged with advancing how Minnesota and local governments can better support children of incarcerated parents. At that point in Minnesota, having an incarcerated parent was the most frequently reported adverse childhood experience.
After I heard about the workgroup, I went to Olmsted County Commissioner Sheila Kiscaden—one of the group’s co-chairs to let her know that I was the child of an incarcerated parent, and that I was willing to help by giving insight from the child’s perspective.
I felt really courageous because it's not something that we’d ever talked about. A few months later, she called and said, ‘I just talked to your boss and asked if you could participate in the workgroup.’ After I joined, I found out I was the only person with the lived experience of parental incarceration serving on the workgroup. Advocating for families and children affected by incarceration has since become a calling.
When we plan to engage communities, it’s important to include community leaders and those that care about their community, and it’s vital to hear from those who might feel disengaged, the people who have lived through the issue. In order to appropriately address systemic issues, including the voices of lived experience is essential.
Ultimately, the group did accomplish its original charge, which was to study the issue in Minnesota and come back with recommendations. The big takeaway is that we need to raise awareness in order to change attitudes and move to action. Kids with parents in jail or prison don't talk about it, and teachers don't know about the traumatic experiences these kids may have encountered. There’s a huge lack of awareness. When we you start talking about it, people say things like, ‘‘those criminals did a crime, so I don't feel bad for them.’ They assume that there are services and systems for addressing the impact of parental incarceration on the kids, but there aren’t.
Although I was set to be the workgroup co-chair in 2021, I was nearing the end of a special assignment with Olmsted County and made the leap to starting my own consulting business. I’m still working on the issue as a strategic advisor for the Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee of Minnesota and other organizations with missions in support of families experiencing incarceration.”
Dawn with her grandsons
Dawn Beck worked for Olmsted County, MN for 19 years. She currently runs New Dawn Consulting, where she helps organizations transform individuals, teams, and communities with strengths-based leadership and team development, organizational excellence via talent optimization and collaborative problem-solving.