City Hall Stories
by Jack English
An exploration into the organizations that define our society, and the individuals that lead them.We speak to local government innovators to understand how our future cities, towns and counties are being built in real-time, plus learn best practices on the strategy and vision that creates an effective government.
Episodes
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Chris Shorter - Starting From Scratch in Baltimore [City Hall Stories, Ep. 29]
It’s not often in local government that you have the chance to define an entirely new role for a City. This is exactly what Chris Shorter is doing in Baltimore as its first ever City Administrator. Working closely with Mayor Brandon Scott, Chris is responsible for turning vision into reality and...
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Mayor Michael Hancock - Envision Big Things, Delegate the Rest [City Hall Stories, Ep. 28]
Mayor Michael Hancock is one of the US’ most known Mayors. Having served Denver as an elected official for almost two decades, Mayor Hancock has seen perhaps the greatest transformation of any American city this century, with Denver exploding in growth, business and opportunity. Yet with that...
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Robert Clark - Project Save Our Streets [City Hall Stories, Ep. 27]
Robert Clark recently returned from an illustrious FBI career in Los Angeles back home to Ohio, specifically to lead the City of Columbus’ public safety efforts. Like all other major cities in the US, the past two years has seen a worrying trend of increasing gun violence and homicides, undoing a...
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Brandon del Pozo - The Good and Bad of Today's Policing [City Hall Stories, Ep. 26]
Chief Brandon del Pozo is one of the leading thinkers in Policing. Following a long career with the NYPD, Chief del Pozo moved north to lead the Burlington Police Department. While there he oversaw a 50% reduction in opioid overdose deaths, pushed through key transparency initiatives and…
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Tommy Gonzalez - The Secret Key to Local Gov Excellence [City Hall Stories, Ep. 25]
Tommy Gonzalez has earned the right to be called an all-star City Manager. Now leading the City of El Paso, Texas, Tommy has also managed in Lubbock, Dallas and Irving, earning awards for Performance Excellence along the way. His time in El Paso has seen it rise to one of the safest and well-run...
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Maurice Classen - Landing the City of Chicago's Plane [City Hall Stories, Ep. 24]
When it comes to local government, it doesn’t get any bigger than Maurice Classen. Most recently the Chief of Staff for Mayor Lightfoot in the City of Chicago, Maurice’s role meant overseeing an $11 billion budget and 30,000 city staff, all the while managing the unique tensions of Covid and the...
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Meredith Reynolds - Getting the Dream Job: Now What? [City Hall Stories, Ep. 23]
Meredith Reynolds is the Special Deputy City Manager for the iconic City of Long Beach, California. Handpicked in the middle of Covid to lead a unique team tasked with overseeing the City’s recovery, Meredith’s role ranges from community engagement, fiscal budgeting, operational management and...
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Bridget Brennan - Fighting Fentanyl, Block by Block [City Hall Stories, Ep. 22]
Bridget Brennan is the Special Narcotics Prosecutor for the City of New York. Responsible for prosecuting major drug related crime that stretches over the City’s five boroughs, Bridget has experienced severe changes in the narcotics landscape since taking the role 2 decades ago. Today the country...
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Greg Russ - How to House 370,000 New Yorkers [City Hall Stories, Ep. 21]
Today marks the second episode of our mini-series, inside New York City Hall. Greg Russ is the Chair and CEO of the largest public housing authority in the United States, the New York City Housing Authority. Impacting over a quarter of a million people, the ability of the Agency to provide safe…
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Marcos Soler - Criminal Justice in NYC [City Hall Stories, Ep. 20]
This is the first episode on a mini-series, specifically focusing on the fascinating and unique local government institution of New York City Hall. To kick things off, today we’re speaking to Mayor de Blasio’s recent appointee to lead the Office of Criminal Justice, Marcos Soler. Marcos brings an...
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Arnoldo Matus - Saving the Sinking City [City Hall Stories, Ep. 19]
Arnoldo Matus follows a rich group of Chief Resilience Officers we’ve had on the podcast - one of the most fascinating and critical roles Cities are implementing to address rapid environmental and social changes. Arnoldo - now leading a private consultancy - oversaw one of the largest resiliency...
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Jeanethe Falvey - Cities and Paper: the Match Made in Hell [City Hall Stories, Ep. 18]
Jeanethe Falvey is the Chief Digital Officer of the City of Boston, Massachusetts. Jeanethe has an incredible resume that speaks to a love of the environment and a deep sense of care for her local community. While at the EPA she drove a revival of the historic Documerica project, before moving to...
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Eleni Myrivili - Fighting Heat With Fire [City Hall Stories, Ep. 17]
Eleni, or Lenio, Myrivili is currently the Chief Heat Officer of the City of Athens, Greece, and a leading European actor in the urban fight for climate resilience and adaptation. Formerly the Deputy Mayor for urban nature and resilience, she is on a mission to prepare Athens’ millions of…
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Theo Blackwell - The World's Smartest City? [City Hall Stories, Ep. 16]
Theo Blackwell is London’s first Chief Digital Officer. Responsible for carrying out Mayor Sadiq Khan’s vision of cementing London as the leading digital-first local government in the world, Theo both provides strategic direction to the City on digital direction, while also facilitating…
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Ginger Spencer - How to Manage the US' Fastest Growing City [City Hall Stories, Ep. 15]
Phoenix is the fastest growing City in the United States. Located in the searing hot Southwest state of Arizona, its growth faces severe constraints from rising heat, water shortages and arable land. For it to be able to sustain the growing number of humans choosing it as home, it requires…
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Stephanie Williams - Inclusivity is Not Food and Fun [City Hall Stories, Ep. 14]
The City of Worcester is the second largest city in the entirety of New England, just behind Boston. With that size comes an incredible diversity - over a fifth of its residents were born outside the USA. Like all large American cities its spoils have not trickled down evenly, and not only is its...
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Dave Amos - City Beautiful [City Hall Stories, Ep. 13]
Dave Amos runs City Beautiful, the most popular YouTube channel in the world focusing specifically on urban planning and design. Amassing over 36 million views, his videos draw from his PhD to introduce regular folks to concepts of livable and healthy communities. Today we discuss things that…
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Barbara Canales - I Thought I Could Change the World [City Hall Stories, Ep. 12]
South Texas has been the focal point of disaster for the past 18 months, and Nueces County is no different. Overseeing 250k residents, Judge Barbara Canales is the chief executive officer of a county which faced hurricanes, snow storms, and at one point the highest covid positivity rate in the…
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Shannah Hayley - Let's Just Delete Facebook [City Hall Stories, Ep. 11]
If you think all a communications team for a city does is send out notices when a pipe bursts (as I admittedly did), then you couldn't be more wrong. As we learn today from Shannah Hayley, Communications Director of Plano, TX, successful communication is one of the key strategic levers a local...
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Jeff Cook - GovTech is Exploding [City Hall Stories, Ep. 10]
Behind every City, Village and State is a web of tools enabling staff to keep our lights on, our roads paved and our taxes safe. Many of these tools are software applications loosely connected by the name GovTech. This space has seen an eruption of interest in the past decade with the growth of...
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Alan Murphy - Solving Homelessness With An App [City Hall Stories, Ep. 9]
In local government it’s easy to forget that residents don’t really care where one district ends and another begins. At the end of the day, they want cohesion and efficiency in the services they utilize. That’s why Smart Dublin exists. It’s a joint program between 4 Councils, led by our guest…
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Kevin Knutson - To Lead is To Disappoint [City Hall Stories, Ep. 8]
When it comes to local government, Kevin Knutson has been there and done it. Now the Assistant County Administrator for Pinellas County, Florida, he’s led over 200 government consulting projects, sat in the City Manager’s Office of Reno Nevada, spent time in Canada as the Vice President of a...
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Jordan Sun - Silicon Valley Meets Local Government [City Hall Stories, Ep. 7]
Jordan Sun has an incredible resume. Prior to joining San Jose as the Chief Innovation Officer, Jordan was Chief Operating Officer for the Special Operations Joint Task Force-Afghanistan Technology Team, while also holding the rank of Major supporting the US Army’s technology modernization…
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Karina Ricks - Prioritizing Humans Over Cars [City Hall Stories, Ep. 6]
Karina Ricks sits in the City of Pittsburgh’s Mayor’s Cabinet, as the inaugural Director of the Department of Mobility and Infrastructure. Previously the Director of Transportation Planning for the District of Columbia, Karina now oversees the design and implementation of Pittsburgh’s ‘complete...
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Mike Mendonça - Planning for 2100...Starting Today [City Hall Stories, Ep. 5]
Mike Mendonça is the Chief Resilience Officer of Wellington, New Zealand. Named the fourth most livable city in the world by the Economist this year, Wellington has three central challenges: changing population, earthquakes, and sea level rise. Mike’s office is tasked with confronting all of…
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Pete Buryk - Don't Shock the System [City Hall Stories, Ep. 4]
Pete Buryk is the Director of CivicLab Norfolk, in Norfolk Virginia. His work building this office of innovation has seen him recognized in the top 20 most influential local government professionals, and CivicLab Norfolk has driven projects across City government resulting in massive efficiency…
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Brent Stockwell - How to Fight City Hall [City Hall Stories, Ep. 3]
Brent Stockwell is a local government legend. Now sitting in the City Manager's office of Scottsdale, Arizona, he is renowned for leading inclusive, high performance and data driven teams. Our conversation touches on the misconception that it's impossible to 'fight' City Hall, fundamental issues...
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Josh Birks - We Don't Steal Business [City Hall Stories, Ep. 2]
Josh Birks is an economic development star. Overseeing one of the USA’s fastest growing cities, Fort Collins Colorado, Josh and his team have led a $330 million dollar redevelopment project, retained major corporate headquarters and were selected as one of Bloomberg’s Champion Cities in…
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Warren Logan - Reimagining City Streets [City Hall Stories, Ep. 1]
As the Director of Mobility and Interagency Relations in the Mayor's Office of Oakland, California, Warren Logan is responsible for moving 400,000 residents every day in the safest, most sustainable and affordable way possible. More than just creating a path from A to B, Warren is committed to...
About this show
An exploration into the organizations that define our society, and the individuals that lead them.We speak to local government innovators to understand how our future cities, towns and counties are being built in real-time, plus learn best practices on the strategy and vision that creates an effective government.
Hosted by
Jack English
Categories