The winter Mayors Exchange was a great in-person event that sold out fast! It was a pleasure for AWC to host at our home office in Olympia. Mayors came from all over the state to share ideas and concerns, compare notes, and make their way up to the Capitol
with AWC experts to engage with legislators directly. Check out photos from the event and read these five things
we learned together.
- Housing is a big topic for this legislative session
There’s major interest for this session to make progress on both housing availability and housing affordability in a cohesive way. The mayors engaged with two legislators around
housing happenings on the Hill: Representative Amy Walen (D–Kirkland) and Senator Patty Kuderer (D–Bellevue). We heard that bills that relate to preventing homelessness, helping people without homes, preserving existing housing, and
producing new housing are all anticipated. Lots of other policy bills are in varying stages, including condo reform, permit expedition, a homestead exemption, ways to leverage existing infrastructure, improve design review, and make
the most of public-private partnerships are all expected to see some policy work.
Several mayors talked about the need for cities to preserve some authority in determining where housing is shifted from single-family to multifamily,
changing the tax code to better support workforce housing, and balancing private developer interest with community needs. Others mentioned the importance of development that is transit-smart or supporting policy that includes concurrent investments
in transit, as well as ways to address the decline in mobile home and RV parks that could be providing safe, sanitary places for those living in vehicles.
- Build trust with local media to build trust with your community
AWC was thrilled to welcome Meeghan Black—a well-known Seattle area broadcast journalist—and now the Public Information Officer for the Bellevue Police Department.
She advised that when taking an interview from the media, to be honest and transparent—never say, “no comment,” (it looks like there’s something to hide) and to instead establish a consistent person or place (e.g.; a web
page or contact) where updates to any ongoing issues could be found. This can help establish your city as an expert, and as the place to go for factual, reliable information—which in turn builds trust in the community at large and can counter
misinformation. Clearly stating what you know and acknowledging what you don’t is key. Be forthcoming with new information or offer to get back to them with information in a timely way.
Meeghan shared her perspective on how to
work well with the media, and counselled members on how to develop trust with local reporters. She shared that reporters—now more than ever, are constantly on deadline, working long hours, covering huge beats, and often new to the field.
Asking simple questions like, “when is your deadline,” and, “what story are you trying to tell,” can go a long way to building a good relationship. She also covered some great information on developing key messages and
using bridge statements. We’ll share more of her great advice in future articles.
- New data show local governing is popular with voters
AWC staff led a review and discussion of the latest data from AWC’s recent public opinion survey. One clear takeaway is that communities value working together. 85% of residents want city leaders to treat each other with respect and civility, and to work together to get positive results for their cities. There was a lot of great Q&A around the survey results, which provided some clear alignment on priorities for the
public and city policymakers. Read a quick snapshot of some other results:
- 82% of residents agree that local government is in a better position than the state to make decisions on pressing community issues.
- 76% of residents believe that cities are best suited to solve housing problems, and that cities are better connected to the community’s needs.
- 68% of residents prefer local government to make growth decisions, and many believe that private development is both a problem and a solution in relation to housing.
- 66% of residents are concerned about failing city infrastructure.
- 86% of residents rated public safety and crime reduction as a high priority for their city government, which was 14% higher than a similar survey question from two years ago.
- Engaging on social media is a shared issue for many elected officials
There was a lively discussion around the difficulties and pitfalls of having an online professional platform, and how to keep professional and private profiles separate
in the social media landscape, particularly when it comes to thorny community issues or people tagging officials’ private accounts in posts. Many mayors were eager to offer tools and ideas that have worked for them, and wanted to make sure
they were keeping a clear separation for their high value on open government. A few highlights include:
- Have your campaign page and elected official page separate from your personal page.
- Don’t engage in professional talk on your personal platform.
- Don’t be afraid to defriend or block people on your personal platform.
- Add a pinned box on personal platforms stating that, “This is the private page of X and doesn’t represent the city of Y or its Council.”
- If you must respond, simply provide a contact (e.g.; You can reach me at city hall at person@email, and a phone number).
- Use your platform’s filter options on your personal pages to opt out of posts containing certain words (e.g.; “government”), or choose to require permissions before someone can tag you on your personal page.
- Just be patient. The community will self-correct, as long as the facts, or a contact for the facts, are available to them.
One of the mayors pointed out that AWC recorded a great speaker on the related topic: Check out Mark Weaver’s presentation, First Amendment considerations for government social media.
- Workforce hiring is a shared concern
We heard many mayors express concern about the difficulty of moving forward to implement plans and programs because of staffing shortages—whether that might be in administrative positions, infrastructure-related
positions, executive positions, or in a myriad of other places. It seems that every department is hiring, and city government is looking for ways to find and retain quality staff. Looking for candidates yourself?
AWC JobNet is a great place to start—over 1,200 individuals have alerts set so they can view your
posting the minute it goes live.