GovLove - A Podcast About Local Government

Meeting people where they are. Jay Dawkins the CEO of PublicInput joined the podcast to talk about community engagement and reaching more people through engagement. Jay shared his career path to leading a software company and how they work with local governments. He talked about pitfalls in engagement like the "if you build it, they will come" mistake and why engagement matters. 

Diversity in the local government profession. Two professors from the University of North Carolina School of Government share findings from recent research on the diversity of city and county managers. Leisha Dehart-Davis and Kimberly Nelson talked about what they heard from interviewing managers for their "Near the Top" report and the importance of attracting women and people of color to local go...

Using and regulating drones in government. GovLove Legal is back. Derke Price and Erin Pell from the law firm Ancel Glink join the podcast to talk about the regulations around drones. From how the law varies from state to state to how the Federal government treats drones they cover what you need to know. Derke and Erin also share examples of how local governments are using drones to support their...

Shift Indy. Ken Clark the Chief Information Officer for the City of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana discussed his career path and his work updating the organization's website. Ken shared how he got buy in for a new approach to the website, the work that went into bringing it into the 21st century and how they improved the user experience. Ken also talked about the importance of understandi...

Engagement in Bologna, Italy. The Deputy Mayor of Bologna, Matteo Lepore, talked about how his city won an Engaged Cities award for their work engaging residents with local government. By engaging with residents the City is able to bring people into the process of shaping public spaces. Learn more from their case study:  Co-Creating Urban Commons .

Finding innovative ideas with residents not just for them. Tulsa, Oklahoma has been empowering their residents to address longstanding or emerging civic challenges in partnership with city staff. James Wagner, the Chief Financial Officer and former Chief of Performance Strategies and Innovation, talked about their Urban Data Pioneers and Civic Innovation Fellowship programs. Through these programs...

Celebrating the most effective solutions to engagement. Myung Lee, the Executive Director of Cities of Service, joins the podcast to talk about their Engaged Cities Award, spotlighting solutions from around the world and her winding career path. Myung also shared the work of Cities of Service and how they help Mayors build stronger cities.

Leading Hillsboro. Mayor Steve Callaway from Hillsboro, Oregon joined the podcast to talk about his path into public service, how his city works to attract people into local government and reaching out to the Latino community. Mayor Callaway also discussed his viral social media post on dealing with a racism and his love of the Hillsboro Hops.

Cool things about parks. To celebrate the start of the #ELGLKnope Award contest for the best Park facility in the country we have an interview between Eleanor Wyatt and Bobbi Nance. Eleanor is a 9-year-old that has strong opinions about parks and Bobbi is the President of Recreation Results, a company that uses data and strategy to advise local governments in the parks and recreation sector.

Using scrum in local government. Michelle Thong, the Digital Services Lead at the City of San Jose, CA, joined the podcast to talk innovation, iteration and engaging the tech community. She shared the three innovation behaviors her office works to encourage in the organization and how she works to be a multiplier. Michelle also talked about starting the Code for San Jose brigade and how the City w...

Transforming data into action. Miguel Sangalang, Deputy Mayor for Budget & Innovation, and Amanda Daflos, Innovation Team Director, joined GovLove to talk about their work at the City of Los Angeles, California. They discussed earning the top level of the What Works Cities Certification and how they are pairing budget with innovation. They also shared why they think data is important and how the C...

Measuring employee engagement. Bob Lavigna the Director of the Institute for Public Sector Employee Engagement at CPS HR joined the podcast to talk about why organizations should take employee engagement seriously. He argues that there is a business case to keeping employees engaged at the workplace and that the best organizations have recognized this. He also shared his path into working with gov...

Communications and media relations. Chris Floore, the Assistant to the County Manager for Public Affairs in Macon-Bibb County, Georgia, joined the podcast to talk about his work and building relationships with the media. Chris discussed the importance of the public information officer role and how he prepares staff to work with the media. He also responded to a report from the Society of Professio...

Battling disparities through planning. Two people from the City of Minneapolis, MN join the podcast to talk about the hottest comprehensive plan in the country, Minneapolis 2040 . Heather Worthington is the Director of Long Range Planning and Paul Mogush is the Manager of Community Planning for Minneapolis. Heather and Paul discussed the goals of the new comprehensive plan, which put dealing with...

The best episodes of the year. All five regular GovLove hosts teamed up to hand out awards and recap the year of GovLove. Kirsten, Alyssa, Javon, Kent and Ben all selected four of their favorite episodes to honor with the most prestigious award in local government podcasting, a GovieLovie. In addition to handing out awards, the hosts shared what they hope to cover on the podcast in the future, the...

Problem solving in government. Brian Platt the Business Administrator of Jersey City, New Jersey joined the podcast to talk about managing the day to day operations of the city, innovation in local government and being named a babe of Jersey City. Brian previously served as the Chief Innovation Officer and he shared the work of the city's i-Team and how they've approached problem solving. 

Hungry for democracy. The national non-profit, Pizza to the Polls, tries to make waiting in line to vote a little better. They take reports of long lines from people around the country and then find local pizza places to deliver slices to voters. Scott Duncombe is one of the founders of Pizza to the Polls, he tells the story of how it started and how they delivered over 10,000 pizzas in the 2018 e...

Transportation & engagement. The Pennsylvania Secretary of Transportation, Leslie Richards, and the PennDOT Planning Chief, Brian Hare, join the podcast to talk engagement and the future of transportation. They shared their PennDOT Connects initiative which works to engage Pennsylvania residents before they implement transportation projects. Secretary Richards and Brian also talked about their car...

Economic development at the state level. Stefan Pryor, the Secretary of Commerce for the State of Rhode Island, joins the podcast to talk about his work attracting companies to the state. Stefan discussed the policies they've used to turn around Rhode Island's economy. He also shared his career path to the position, which included a stint as Deputy Mayor in Newark, NJ. 

The City Hall beat. Iris Dimmick, Senior Reporter at The Rivard Report, talks covering local government in the City of San Antonio, Texas. She talked about the non-profit journalism that The Rivard Report conducts, her path to becoming a reporter and the future of local journalism. Then Iris discussed three propositions that were voted on by residents in November, each had a different impact on th...

Applying technology to make things better. John Covey, Chief Information Office of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, joined the podcast to talk about software, local government IT and improving processes. John shared his career path to working at the Town of Shrewsbury, his definition of a technologist and what he sees as trends in the field. He also shared their experience working with ViewPoint Cloud t...

Putting people first. Mike Sarasti, the Chief Innovation Officer and Director of Innovation & Technology for the City of Miami, Florida, joined the podcast to talk about his role driving innovation and scaling solutions throughout the organization. He discussed his path to becoming a CIO, how they put users first through process design and working with Code for Miami. He also talked about how addi...

Getting the work done. Hana Schank, Public Interest Technology Fellow for New America, joined the podcast to talk about her recently published report on innovation in government. She interviewed problem solvers working across Federal, State and local governments to learn how they are trying to make government services better for residents. From what this field of innovation should be called, what...

Quality neighborhood drama. Jenn Takahashi, the chief lurker and founder of the parody account Best of Nextdoor, joined the podcast to talk about sharing the entertaining drama that happens on Nextdoor. Jenn shares what caused her to start the account, what the Nextdoor CEO thinks of it and what it's been like to have the account get so popular.  

Budgeting for Outcomes. In his new book Andrew Kleine, the former Budget Director for the City of Baltimore, MD, challenges how local governments budget. He writes about how he changed budgeting in Baltimore to focus on outcomes rather than line items. He joined the podcast to talk about how he learned about outcome budgeting, the process of writing a book, and his career path in government.