“we called the bluff of developers and they continued to build without [incentives] in some neighborhoods.”
Kansas City, Missouri city manager interview with Brian Platt
Here is my final installment of my Kansas City, Missouri City Manager candidate reviews: Brian Platt of Jersey City, New Jersey.
You can check out my past recaps/reviews:
Kansas City, Missouri is undergoing a critical hiring process right now. The City Council and Mayor are interviewing potential City Manager candidates. With our strong City Manager form of government, this hire is extremely important for the city’s future.
I wanted to try and recap the candidates’ public interviews as much of possible. I realized I have my limitations so the recap/review I’ll be giving is based off of the public interview with the City Council and Mayor (there were two other public sessions) and a general glance at their bio. So not comprehensive but hey! I have a day job and a crazy toddler running around.
Watching the first interview, I realized there are really four big buckets that we should be evaluating these candidates on:
Revenue creation and fiscal management
Land use, physical development, and infrastructure
Business environment and economic development
Managing city staff and relationships with other organizations
All of these “buckets” should be layered with focuses on equity and sustainability.
What I’m Looking For
To be transparent, what I’m looking for in the city manager is someone who believes in a strong public sector that can deliver basic public services and create and execute effective policies that guide the city and its development. I also want them to be creative with the private sector and other organizations but to be tough and consistent in defending taxpayers’ interests. Big topics for me are housing, infrastructure, equitable development, and climate change.
Our last review is for Brian Platt of Jersey City, New Jersey, who interviewed October 2nd. You can view all the videos and submit your feedback here.
Biography
Brian Platt, City Manager, Jersey City, New Jersey
Brian Platt currently serves as City Manager for Jersey City, New Jersey. He previously served as Jersey City's first Chief Innovation Officer and established the City's Office of Innovation in 2015. His previous work experience includes management consulting with McKinsey & Company and serving as a kindergarten teacher with Teach for America. Mr. Platt earned his Master of Public Administration Degree at Columbia University and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Philosophy at Emory University.
What He Said
Here are some quotes and paraphrased statements from Platt’s interview with the City Council and Mayor. I broke them up in my four “buckets.”
One of the points was about his age and shorter time in government. He said he has had a lot of success and track record and that age can sometimes give you a sense of complacency.
Revenue creation and fiscal management
On budget challenges,
Fiscal policies in Jersey City included forecasting, audit of every contract and third party agreement, ensure reserves are available. This type of preparation enabled them to pull a lot of levers when the economic downturn started. Examples of this was they found they had extra security guards and they audited purchasing.
He is a big fan of public-private partnerships but the challenge is getting the right people at the table.
How do you make equivalent cuts in all departments?
He would push back on the idea of equivalent cuts, “cut where we can but not equally across the board.”
There is no real single approach to solving the budget crisis. It’s a department by department approach.
Many staff were temporarily transferred into other departments to focus the dollars into certain areas and fill new needs like delivering food to seniors and kids during COVID.
Mindful of revenues and reserves but Jersey City was more prepared due to financial planning beforehand.
How does a city wean itself off annual appropriations for debt?
Jersey City used to issue a lot of debt without much thought. But they have now been more conscious about how to issue debt. The City requires stronger justification for debt for capital projects and there are new requirements and process to get the most dollars out of an investment.
They found random cash from project accounts over decades and paid off an entire year of debt with it.
Now is the time to issue debt but there may not a lot of appetite.
Land use, development, and infrastructure
On how to deal with Kansas City’s large geography,
Jersey City is 21 square miles and has around 250,000 people. The city has a diversity in land use despite the small size.
Visions and goals can change with each community and neighborhood.
Through a neighborhood by neighborhood approach “the city becomes intentionally varying and diverse…there is no possible way we can implement a universe approach to economic development.”
How would you approach competing needs of greenfield and infill/redevelopment?
No one right answer. What do people want and need? What does the City want and need?
Sometimes there is a need to publish the vision and show the city is committed to a certain neighborhood to spur other development.
Some of the initial deals to help spur that development may not be the most fiscally responsible.
The community is tired of talking and wants action on reinvestment. How would he overcome barriers to action,
They utilized city own property to fast forward neighborhood growth.
Over $200 million city investment in one neighborhood that consolidated city services, created affordable housing, park, and expansion of jobs and businesses in the neighborhood.
On large infrastructure projects and balancing prioirities and pieces that go along with them,
Jersey City takes seriously the goals of maintaining quality infrastructure. It has old infrastructure just like Kansas City.
Currently doing $700 million in water and sewer infrastructure upgrades. They are dealing with this after the can has gotten kicked down the road.
Combined sewer issues are common like in Kansas City.
Hurricane Sandy flooded a lot of Jersey City and this complicated sewer issues.
“The way you avoid these $700 million complete replacement of infrastructure is to properly maintain it and service it over years.”
Stormwater management strategies on developer properties.
Video based analysis of each street and does it regularly.
On transit and rideshares,
They are currently working on bike and pedestrian safety and have largest protected bike lane system in New Jersey.
State of New Jersey runs most of the transit.
Didn’t want to deal with roadblocks of working with difficult state agencies so wanted to create a customizable, accessible rideshare system.
Thought the ride share would funnel people to downtown but now it’s showing people are moving around their neighborhood.
On Vision Zero (pedestrian and bike safety),
These things are not easy to push forward. Conversations started in city hall first.
There is a lot of value that can come with it. We had a lot of community meetings.
Strategized where to put things to things more palatable to help ease the changes.
Business environment and economic development
How would you go about making economic development packages for low-income areas?
Find specific solutions to help those communities from housing, job trainings, or daycare.
“There may be multiple right answers…there is typically one best right answer”; a facilitator to find the right answer not a dictator.
Redevelopment plan and zoning changes in Jersey City to adjust densities.
The best thing for the area is the community consensus even if it’s not the best or highest use of that land.
On reforming economic development incentives,
“Incentives are a great tool…they are not always the right tool.” The type of incentive can vary over time and by neighborhoods.
Jersey City created incentive program to push incentives to other parts of the city outside of downtown.
If incentives aren’t needed in Jersey City, they have been ending the programs and pushing them to other areas of the city that need them.
“We called the bluff of developers and they continued to build without [incentives] in some neighborhoods.”
Some incentives are density bonuses, variances in zoning, etc.
Looking to build new schools, libraries, homeless shelter through community benefits agreement.
On supporting minority businesses,
Jersey City is ranked one of the most diverse cities in the country so there are a lot of minority businesses but it comes with different challenges.
Completed a feedback loop with business community and continue to develop solutions, initiative ideas, etc.
During the COVID crisis, they were able to issue an up to $20k grant to small business.
Created a point person for businesses to help navigate different resources.
Set up an office of Diversity and Inclusion but has not been there that long. The focus is twofold: one to encourage minority businesses and ensuring they have the resources they need in addition to the generic business support.
Managing city staff and relationships with other groups
On evaluating departments and making recommendations,
Quickly as possible to understand and analyze and make changes; however, finalizing would take some discussion and time; collaborative unified and approach.
On criminal justice and policing,
Big on community policing and building relationships between communities and police. He emphasized using foot patrols and having key stakeholders in these discussions.
Better desecalation training and finding different resources and personnel to respond to different calls.
Have some communities asking for more police; key focus is to get at root causes of the violence, which include resources and solving economic instability.
~20% of the Jeresey City budget is public safety (fire, emergency management, police, parking). This about put Councilperson Lee Barnes on the floor. “maybe he should come help us out.”
What is your philosophy on building internal culture related to creativity, breaking down silos, and doing their best work?
One of his focuses as City Manager to foster a more inclusive environment through communication. Lack of communication at all levels of government. Communication about the vision of the city.
Have accountability but also celebrate success.
Letting more people make decisions and run with ideas.
On innovation,
“The solution is not always technology-based.”
What I Think
I was pleasantly surprised with Brian Platt’s interview. He is young guy that is an “innovator” in the best sense of the term. (If you know me, that’s a huge deal, I hate buzzwords.) He also has limited experience, which isn’t always a bad thing but it is more of a wildcard.
He really emphasized doing things differently and problem solving. This was evident in his discussion about infrastructure assessment and upgrades as well as monitoring road conditions via a roving, tech-enabled vehicle.
When he said he was a “big fan” of public-private partnerships I cringed as I often associate them as one-sided deals but he redeemed himself in my view with his discussion on how they shifted where incentives were used to be benefit the entire city.
I do worry about his background. He was a Teach For America teacher then worked at McKinsey consulting and then onto city government. There is a lot of controversy and plenty of critiques about the underlying philosophy and impact of TFA and McKinsey and how that relates to privatizing public services and goods.
His lack of experience is a legitimate concern but shouldn’t overshadow the entire process. I’d also like the Mayor and Council to really interrogate what is going on in Jersey City. It just seemed too good to be true at points. There has to be some more tension there.
Platt does seem to not accept the status quo and has the drive to implement creative solutions and processes.
And that is something Kansas City desperately needs.
Thank you all for reading! In addition to these special City Manager reviews and recaps, I do similar posts for City Council happenings. I also write some commentary and hope to include more “big idea” posts for local challenges.
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