Articles in PM often address the difficult challenges facing local governments today and how they continue to deliver effective services given reductions in both their revenues and staffing. This story tells how Palmdale, California, is using one powerful tool to address its service needs.

One of the key components of Palmdale’s strategic plan for creating a sustainable community is community engagement. Residents, community groups, and businesses are the catalysts to making this type of engagement the powerhouse that it is.

The city realized the energy that its residents have and put that energy to work on October 5, 2013, at a makeover event for one of the most widely used parks in the city, Domenic Massari Park. Community members successfully completed myriad projects, bringing life back into the park and at the same time, contributing to the strategic plan component.

Activating the Community

When I first began to discuss the idea about community partnering and collaborating as a way to accomplish this park’s revitalization projects, no one could have imagined the level of enthusiasm that the community would demonstrate.

• Here is what took place:
• The process began by creating a team that would conceptualize, organize, and plan the event, including promotional and operational aspects. The team worked closely with Palmdale’s communications manager on media alerts and press releases.

Team members took part in a radio broadcast aimed at reaching the community’s Hispanic population and spoke about the importance of the event and what it could do for Palmdale.

• The city’s website was used, and the city also created flyers for display at the park, along with having public safety officers distribute them to park patrons.
• To engage and entice the business community to support the event, businesses were offered recognition in the winter edition of Palmdale News, a magazine mailed to households every quarter.

The team contacted local pizza establishments around the immediate area of the park and requested pizza donations for the volunteers, and each one of those establishments graciously granted the requests.

• Several home supply stores supported the event by donating materials and allowed their employees to volunteer their time. A coffee chain donated coffee, and other local businesses offered supplies or services for free or at significantly reduced costs to the city.
• Project accomplishments on that picture perfect day included repairing soccer and baseball fields; painting the inside and outside of buildings, painting baseball benches, baseball dugouts, curbs in parking lots, and many other gates and fixtures throughout the park; spreading decomposed granite in parking lot medians; planting new shrubbery within the park and parking lots; installing sod; and filling in park tree wells with concrete as trees no longer grow in them due to health conditions.

The work also included beginning a special project repurposing park light fixtures by creating round, colorful spheres and putting them atop fixtures in the playground area.

The positive feedback and inquiries into future community events received from residents, businesses, and more than 50 city staff who were involved will have a long-lasting impact. When this article was written, planning had already begun for the 2014 Semester of Service, which includes a community event one Saturday each month from January to April. This begins with the “Desert Reveal” event in January, where illegally dumped items in the native desert scape are removed to once again reveal the area’s natural beauty.