Professor Steve Goldsmith interviews Baton Rouge's Mayor Sharon Weston Broome and discusses community engagement, infrastructure planning, and how water management is a way of life in South Louisiana.
In this episode Professor Steve Goldsmith interviews Sharon Weston Broome, the mayor of Baton Rouge. Mayor Broome talks about leading a data-driven city, prioritizing resident engagement, and how the city relies on GIS data to manage climate resiliency.
Tune in to learn about data-driven flood mitigation, What Works Cities certification, and how to build a resilient city.
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New from the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, the Data-Smart City Pod brings on top innovators and leading industry, academic, and government officials to discuss data, innovation, and government. This podcast serves as a central resource for cities and individuals interested in the intersection of government and innovations, the adoption of data projects on the local government level, and how to become data smart. Hosted by Stephen Goldsmith, former Deputy Mayor of New York, Mayor of Indianapolis, and current Professor at Harvard Kennedy School.
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Music credit: Summer-Man by Ketsa
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Stephen Goldsmith:
Hello, this is Steve Goldsmith, Professor of Urban Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School. And you're listening to Data-Smart City Pod, where we bring on top innovators and experts to discuss the future of cities and how to become data-smart.
Welcome back…this is Stephen Goldsmith with another of our sessions about how we can creatively use technology and data to improve the way cities function. And today, we're fortunate enough to be with Mayor Sharon Weston Broome of Baton Rouge, who's a leader in all of these regards. Welcome, Mayor.
Mayor Broome:
Thank you for having me.
Stephen Goldsmith:
So, I'm affiliated a little bit with What Works Cities that advances the use of data to manage cities well, and I know you're one of their all-star performers. So congratulations in that regard. Let's begin with perhaps what is the significance of the What Works certification? And then let's talk about that as applied to maybe stormwater management or street safety, just a couple examples so our listeners can understand how you go about it. But first, what did the What Works Cities, how did you accomplish this certification and why was that significant to you?
Mayor Broome:
Well, I want to back up and talk a little bit, as we talk about this, about my experience as a first-term mayor with the Bloomberg Harvard Mayor's Institute, right? So during that season, there was a strong emphasis on the need of data in terms of our major operations. So I will tell you that that was rooted, implanted in me as a first-term mayor. And we started integrating it into the fabric of our government. So from day one, we've been focused on innovating on all we do while using the data to make better decisions that lead to a more efficient and effective government. And so when we think about the whole What Works Cities certification, it has been an invaluable part of our internal collaboration among our city parish departments. That's why this certification was indeed very important to us.
Our departments had numerous conversations with one another about the work taking place across government that would relate to our achieving the certification, including of course, but not limited to, the full day our department leaders spent with the WWC certification team to discuss initiatives that were relevant to this certification process. And so we worked on this, we recognized that certainly this certification helped us to strengthen our decisions on our technology policies, our projects, or of course, areas around cyber security. And so we started on this path because we knew that it would provide us with data-driven baseline of where we were excelling in both making our data more accessible and how we were using it to more effectively measure and drive solutions for our residents.
Stephen Goldsmith:
That's interesting and raises a few issues. One of the challenges in city management, as you know and I know from a little bit from my experience, is that big problems cross agencies, right? And I know you're an advocate of better equity in the delivery of services. So how did you bring the data or the agencies together? How did you think about bringing or causing your agencies to work together in stormwater or street safety? Did you map them? Did you visualize the issues? Just a little bit about the organization of your process, please.
Mayor Broome:
Well, the organization of our process really involved our teams working together. We certainly knew that we placed a strong emphasis behind learning from best practices or even just other practices in ways our cities approach our common problems. And so this sense of community building and the collaboration has only enhanced our work, where we learn from others and vice versa. And so for example, we held a virtual event related to our Open Data Day. That's been a big issue for us in getting that out to the community, making them aware of the value of data as well.
Stephen Goldsmith:
So let's talk about a couple examples here. It caught me as particularly interesting that you have these pieces, right, community engagement and mapping and data and equity, in order to prove the results in your city. So let's go with stormwater, right? Did you map stormwater overflow issues? I mean, Baton Rouge obviously has a lot of issues with respect to resiliency and water and storms. How did you go about workshopping that or involving the community?
Mayor Broome:
Well, first of all, let me just say that water management is a way of life here in South Louisiana. And so our Stormwater Master Plan actually is the first that has ever been done in the history of Baton Rouge, where we are surveying all of our drainage infrastructure and waterways. And this will give us a complete understanding of the status of our systems, the repairs and improvements needed and how water flows through East Baton Rouge Parish. Of course, the data collected really is empowering us to identify our comprehensive drainage solutions that certainly will benefit our parish for decades to come. And so with the Stormwater Master Plan, we had public input as part of the foundation of this project. We had frequent public meetings for different watershed areas of our parish to get feedback and to provide updates to residents within that area. And our Stormwater Master Plan has utilized submissions from residents to identify key maintenance needs as it relates to drainage.
Stephen Goldsmith:
How did the residents communicate back to you? I assume your departments would show them something about their community or some of the plans. How did you gather the data or the input coming backwards?
Mayor Broome:
We gathered the data from surveys done in public meetings. And secondly, we had an online presence for our Stormwater Master Plan that was interactive.
Stephen Goldsmith:
So where you would map proposed plans and then in an interactive way, ask the community for results?
Mayor Broome:
That was one way, but we also asked the community to identify areas that they thought needed to be addressed. And many of them took pictures and forwarded those pictures to us. And so they were very involved in the, if you will, citizen analytics of what was going on in our community.
Stephen Goldsmith:
So your citizens were, as they should be, kind of the eyes and ears of the city.
Mayor Broome:
Correct. Absolutely.
Stephen Goldsmith:
And then you're still, this is a working process, I know. So have you moved to implementing any of these proposals or are you still trying to do the analysis of the cost?
Mayor Broome:
We are still doing the analysis of the cost right now. But let me tell you, one of the things that we've done with some of the data that we received from our Stormwater Master Plan, because we do have some data available to us, we took some of our ARP dollars and addressed some of the issues that were identified in the Stormwater Master Plan. Because as I started out saying, water management is a top priority for us here in South Louisiana. Drainage issues here in my city and town are a number one concern for many of my residents, the majority of them. So we use the data from the Stormwater Master Plan.
We put ARP dollars into what we consider those issues that were not such a heavy lift, that we could see immediate results. For example, identifying those drains that had been shown to us in the Stormwater Master Plan, cleaning those out, cleaning out canals and other systems. So the work that we did was fundamental work that we could certainly build on. It was not the tier of work that would take major, major efforts, but we were able to immediately start cleaning out drains and canals, et cetera, to help mitigate drainage issues. And we're still working on it.
Stephen Goldsmith:
You will be forever, it would be my guess, probably. Let's just move subjects here in our remaining minutes. I'm interested in the connection of data/mapping and community engagement to solve big problems. And in addition to resiliency, I know you've taken on safety issues as well, meaning traffic safety issues as well. Talk me through a little bit how you use those tools to address your MOVE program in Baton Rouge. What are the implications of that, please?
Mayor Broome:
Yeah. So MOVEBR or MOVE EBR, we're a city parish form of government, is the largest infrastructure and transportation roads project in the history of Baton Rouge, almost a billion dollars. So we have had public meetings where the public was allowed to contribute their ideas for MOVE EBR before we put it on the ballot and after we passed it as a ballot initiative. And so we understand that as we move forward in our work with MOVE EBR, the data that shows us, for example, you mentioned our traffic issues. So we've used the data to implement and roll out, as part of our MOVE EBR project, a major light synchronization effort.
Now, that light synchronization effort has been transformative already in terms of the impact of the flow of our traffic here. When we think about resiliency, which is a word we use a lot here in South Louisiana, we are determined, as we roll out our roads program, to use the data. And so here you have interactive data, whether it's our GIS mapping or other data that is collected, we are using that to see how can we integrate water management and the development of the roads that we are working on. Because we have realized that there has to be an intersection if we're going to build resiliency, be a resilient community. There has to be an intersection of water management in everything that we do.
Stephen Goldsmith:
Just in conclusion, I've spent most of my professional life looking at the way cities and counties are managed, right? But there's only a handful of us that find that particularly interesting. The public cares about the quality of life in their neighborhood. So maybe as a closing question, Mayor, how do you elevate this narrative to one that the community cares about, right? And I know they care about flooding. They care about safety. They don't really care about data. So how do you manage to create the narrative it gives you the authority to put a billion dollars into roads or solve a water problem?
Mayor Broome:
That's a great question. Of course, a lot of it comes through continued education and awareness. But I have found when the data connects to the citizens, when they can see it and realize it, then they see the value of data. Let me give you an example. I will never forget in my first or second State of the City, I started talking about our work. And then when I talked about the number of potholes that had been filled during a certain period of time, everybody's eyes got real big and I got applause for that. Why? Because people connect to potholes, and we tell them the data of how many we had and how many we addressed, then that connected with them. So data is so important and we've got to connect it to real life situations for our citizens.
Stephen Goldsmith:
Mayor, thank you for your time. We've been fortunate enough to be speaking with Mayor Sharon Broome from Baton Rouge on her work with What Works Cities, climate change, and safety, but focused on community engagement and data. Mayor, thank you for your time.
Mayor Broome:
Okay. Thanks so much.
Stephen Goldsmith:
Nice seeing you. Bye-bye.
If you like this podcast, please visit us at datasmartcities.org or follow us @DataSmartCities on Twitter. Find us on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. This podcast was produced by Betsy Gardner and hosted by me, Steve Goldsmith. We're proud to serve as essential resource for cities interested in the intersection of government, data, and innovation. Thanks for listening.