By Wally Bobkiewicz, ICMA-CM, and Catherine Hurley

In 2006, Evanston, Illinois, adopted a strategic vision to create the “Most Livable City in America.” During the following nine years, Evanston took a number of bold actions to help hold the line on property tax increases and increases to pension contributions beyond the minimum requirement.

It created partnerships and delivered workforce development programs, provided mental health services, and created volunteer efforts to protect the urban forest—all with area agencies and not-for-profit organizations.

Here are other bold actions the city took: eliminated Evanston Township, a duplicate body of government that shared geographic boundaries and elected officials with the city of Evanston, and reorganized the city and provided resources for dedicated staff to focus on the key areas of community engagement, economic development, and youth and young adult services. The city also created one-stop-shop communicating through a 311 nonemergency customer service center.

It also went about building a stronger relationship with Northwestern University. As the city’s largest employer, Northwestern also owns nearly 5 percent of all land in Evanston and does not pay property taxes. Improving the strained relationship was a top priority for Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl, who took office in 2009, the same year that current Northwestern President Morton Schapiro joined the University.

They now meet personally on a quarterly basis, and several city-university committees meet regularly. In March 2015, Northwestern agreed to donate $1 million annually to the city for a period of five years, with proceeds to be spent on projects and services agreed to jointly by Mayor Tisdahl and President Schapiro. Areas of focus will include improving infrastructure, including building bike lanes and replacing aging water mains on an accelerated schedule.

The city also surpassed its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 13 percent by 2012. While improving Evanston’s livability played into all of the initiatives, it remained a largely informal goal.

In December 2014, the city set out to change that by creating the Evanston Livability Academy for city employees. All 800 full-time staff employees were required to attend a half-day session. There were 13 opportunities due to the number of staff members and the room size. There also was the need to accommodate staff across all shifts, including police, fire, and administrative staff and water treatment plant operators.

The academy was designed to explore each employee’s role in making Evanston a more livable community and to renew their shared enthusiasm toward supporting a high quality of life for all residents.

Sustaining and enhancing livability is key to Evanston’s continued success and financial health. As city staff, we all need to be on the same page about what livability means and how achieving it fits into everyone’s job description.

 

Nurturing Teamwork

Before launching the academy, planning efforts were led by Evanston’s sustainability manager with input from a committee of senior-level staff representing all departments (some 10 people). In truth, the planning task took 50 percent of the sustainability manager’s time during the two-month window that was used for the majority of the planning.

Three meetings of the planning committee were held in that time along with many smaller discussions and planning activities. In-house organizers for the academy training prepared a video with both city and community leaders describing the features that make Evanston livable.

The interviewees talked about good schools, walkability, historic character, and public art, along with the community’s strong tradition of resident engagement, commitment to volunteering, and numerous social programs. They noted how beautiful the tree canopy is across the entire city. A long-time employee who also grew up in Evanston said that the community is even better than when he was growing up, and he is proud to be both an employee and a resident.

As an icebreaker, academy sessions started out with a “marshmallow challenge.” Using only 20 spaghetti sticks, string, and tape, small groups of staff members from different departments had 18 minutes to build the tallest structure they could to support a marshmallow.

This exercise was designed to encourage cross-departmental teamwork and collaborative problem solving, while challenging participants to work together on how best to use the flimsy objects. Afterward, the teams discussed their experiences, and the organizers shared findings from other groups.

A main takeaway was that the teams needed to continuously talk through the project to make adjustments and be flexible with their design and construction. The exercise created a nice segue into showing a video with community leaders discussing their views on what factors make Evanston a great city in which to live, work, and play.

Designated staff from a variety of departments then elaborated on themes in the video with short, TED Talk-style presentations. These included facts and figures about conditions in Evanston as well as key city programs, policies, and partnerships in six areas: built environment; climate, energy, and natural environment; economy and jobs; education, arts, and community; equity and empowerment; and health and safety.

The data came primarily from information that Evanston had collected for the STAR Community Rating System, a comprehensive framework and certification program for measuring local sustainability (http://www.starcommunities.org). The rating system was developed by some 200 expert volunteers from 50 cities and counties, state and federal agencies, nonprofits, national associations including ICMA staff, universities, utilities, and private corporations.

Evanston was part of the STAR Pilot Program in 2013. Evanston’s efforts ramped up in late spring, and program certification was submitted at the end of January 2014. Our program announcement was made at the State of the City Luncheon on March 20. ICMA staff continue to support STAR communities by serving on the steering committee and participating in the development of STAR Version 2.0.

Evanston’s staff and administrators are proud of its 4-STAR [out of five] rating. But for us, the most important part of going through the STAR evaluation was to collect in one place real data on how we are doing in areas that make Evanston a great place to live. What STAR calls “sustainability” basically fits into what we call “livability.” So it was a logical jumping-off point for the academy.

Presenting the information thematically rather than by department also helped city staff see their roles more holistically. “The Livability Academy highlights our strong partnerships and collaborations across many departments,” says Evonda Thomas-Smith, Evanston’s director of health and human services.

For the final academy exercise, participants returned to their marshmallow challenge teams to discuss ways they could make Evanston more livable in their own job duties, work collaboratively across departments, and adjust city government operations to improve livability.

These conversations generated ideas and productive information sharing. In fact, staff came up with 60 unique ideas on how to make Evanston more livable.

As another example of how participants collaboratively produced valuable insights, a police officer in one discussion mentioned his difficulties trying to reach at-risk young adults in the community. A parks and recreation staff member told him about the mayor’s Summer Youth Employment Program, which provides workforce training and life skills for 500 at-risk teenagers annually.

It was like a light bulb went off when they both realized that existing city programs and resources in other departments could be used to help them fulfill their mission.

In other words, they realized that everyone has a role in making the city more livable. “Today’s exercise helped me see that residents are impacted by so many city employees every day. We all have an opportunity to make those interactions as positive as they can be,” says Kevin Brown, community services manager.

 

Working Together on Priorities

After employees attend the Livability Academy sessions, a follow-up memo was sent to staff members thanking them for their participation and sharing their ideas. Many employees said that having an opportunity to get together with fellow colleagues face-to-face was one of the most valuable parts of the experience.

Now we are all working toward addressing three ideas that repeatedly surfaced during academy discussions:

Improve internal communication. While this can be a never-ending challenge for all local governments, the academy underscored the importance of sharing information non-electronically, especially for employees out in the field without easy access to e-mail.

The city manager visits key workplaces two times per year to provide updates on city issues and to answer questions. People wanted to have even more information shared through staff meetings, small-group meetings, and paper handouts they can keep at their work places.

In that vein, a memo was also posted in workplaces to reach employees without regular e-mail access. Digital display monitors in the service center and water plant are also being installed as a way to provide real-time information to field staff.

Improve infrastructure. Recognizing that city facility and citywide infrastructure improvements require financial resources, it was explained that Evanston has traditionally issued debt for such improvements, but current fiscal conditions call for debt reduction.

Since most of the general purpose infrastructure funds for the next three years have already been allocated to street repair and improvements, there are limited resources for new significant investments in facilities. Even so, staff were invited to propose any specific suggestions for low-cost repairs or refurbishments related to livability.

Employee housing programs: One idea that gained traction during several academy sessions was to explore options and incentives for employees to be able to live in Evanston. With market pressures in the densely populated city driving up housing costs, some staff expressed dismay that they cannot afford to live in the city.

If they could be residents, staff would be able to gain new insights into ways to make Evanston more livable and feel a greater sense of civic pride as part of the community. As follow-up to the academy, a staff committee will do more research to identify resources and to develop recommendations that can move this project forward. Staff members were also invited to apply to serve on the committee.

In addition to these items, various departments will work to refine other ideas from the academy and begin implementation. These include improving travel within Evanston. The community development department has created a transportation and mobility positon to implement the city’s transportation programs and coordinate across departments to improve multi-modal transportation in Evanston.

Helping employees feel connected to the community was another idea that is being implemented by several departments, including opportunities for employees to volunteer with local originations and to participate in “fun” activities outside of the workplace. Evanston will continue to track the data staff collected for the STAR Community Rating System to measure sustainability trends and the impacts of their efforts.

 

Improved Connectivity

A shorter version of the Livability Academy program is being developed to use with Evanston’s many community groups. The goal will be to have a “plug-and-play” version that managers from any department can use with groups or committees to discuss livability issues affecting the community. Piloting the academy with all city employees first helped to educate staff about the livability initiative so that they feel more informed and confident in talking with the public about it.

“The Livability Academy exercise refreshed everyone’s focus,” says Dave Stoneback, public works agency director. “In many ways, it’s business as usual, but we can see greater connections between our policies and programs and work going on in other departments.”

Mayor Tisdahl explains that the academy has helped to crystallize the concept of livability so that it feels more tangible and actionable. “Our city employees work so hard on their own duties and responsibilities,” she says. “The Evanston Livability Academy helped them step back and see how their work fits into the greater mission of making our city a great place to live, raise a family, open a business, and participate in community activities.”

 

Low Cost, High Participation, Impressive Results

During six weeks in 2015, 95 percent of Fort Lauderdale, Florida’s 2,214 staff members participated in a two-and-a-half hour training entitled “Climate Change and Sustainability - Science, Seriousness, Solutions.” The goal of the training was to engage all staff in the city’s vision plan related to adaptation and mitigation.

City staff facilitated the training, and 77 percent reported that the training made them more aware of climate change issues, while 69 percent felt that the information learned could be used during their everyday work activities. The cost to provide the training was $16.77 per city staff member.

Following this session, Fort Lauderdale hosted staff from nearby communities to attend the same type of training. Training will also be offered to the 108 communities in the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Compact, a globally recognized governance model that commits compact counties to foster sustainability and climate resilience at a regional scale.

Through support from ICMA and United States Agency for International Development, Southeast Florida’s efforts toward regionalizing around climate action are being replicated in communities in South Africa and Tanzania.

In August 2015, Fort Lauderdale was recognized in a fact sheet distributed by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy as a prime example of a community that has implemented a program integrating the best available climate science to enhance climate literacy.

For more information, contact Nancy Gassman, assistant public works director – sustainability, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at ngassman@fortlauderdale.gov.

Stats on Evanston, Illinois:

+ 75,000 population.

+ 800 full-time employees plus hundreds of seasonal workers, including summer camps and beaches.

+ 13 Evanston Livability Academy sessions.

+ 31 staff presenters.