Episode #158: Suzanne Sherman – A Lesson on Ethics

Hey podcast listeners episode 158 this is Steve and on this episode we interview Suzanne Sherman what I really like about this and I always try to find you know niche interviews Suzanne took over a commission that had gone through some serious ethics challenges and she talks about how she navigated those challenges and as she rebuilt the confidence of the public in the city really good we're calling this one a lesson on ethics very good interview really smart woman and a very ethical woman really a good one to listen to Greetings I'm Steve VanCore and this is the FCCMA podcast a service produced by and for the Florida City and County Management Association as you know I'm your host and each episode we interview a city or a county leader who's in a position to share interesting and useful insights into the operations of local government here in the Sunshine State and you know we've not spent a lot of time on ethics I know if you're a city manager you're elected you have to go through mandatory ethics training and our guest today is Suzanne Sherman she's Brevard County one of the many cities in Florida with the word POM in it when are you guys gonna change it to Palm Bay Beach that's what I want to know well since we don't have a beach that might not be happening I'm not an impediment unless we annex you know I'm an impediment to handle our beach exactly as the other folks that barely have it my favorite story of course is Lake Worth changed to Lake Worth Beach I'm like now you have two bodies of water in your name but I love them I love them they're good folks and I hope that I just thought that was funny so when we started talking we're here at the annual conference for FLC you're here and you went to a training an ethics training class now this class correct me for monk is designed for electives it is but city managers and other managers at higher levels and organizations also have that ethics requirements same ethics requirement that the electives do now do you get credit for attending this one I do I do yeah I make sure to put it on my continuing education but there's only what you're only required to do four hours annually for the state statute so I can jump right into kind of telling you a little bit about the ethics experience I've had this year I do because your story is not unhinged from your life experience and so I love the duality of this and I want to really spend some time delving it so talk about that sure sure so what I was alluding to is I made a personal choice a well back to go to ethics training twice a year so I go at the Florida City County Management Association as the city manager that's my professional association but I also take the four hours ethics session at the Florida cities conference every year I'm only required to do it once but I do it twice and the reason for that is I like to as often as possible kind of sharpen the tools in my toolbox I like to hear the stories the examples that are given these trainings that kind of refresh for you the potential areas you need to watch out for as a leader in your organization opportunities that people may use to try to take advantage of something and you don't want them to have those opportunities so kind of like to be aware to increase your awareness the reason that's important to me personally so in my career in local government I worked for the city of Palm Bay for 10 years the first time this is my second time at Palm Bay the first time growing in my career really my first true government job had an opportunity to really develop as a leader as someone who was your position well I had four different jobs when I was with the city the first time I started out as what was called a management analyst it was a position it was a part of the city managers department at the time it had two components to the job it was really like a budget analyst but also the city manager at the time Lee Feldman had a performance performance management measurement program he had put together we went on to Fort Lutterdale yes exactly so I worked with him in Palm Bay along with John Lewis who's also been very involved in FCC me for years so good mentors he was like well to us yeah exactly great great folks so really good mentors absolutely true the best totally blessed to work with them but Palm set a performance management program that that Lee had put together so my job was really to be a part of a team of two that was running that program for the whole city that was my first job learned a whole lot grew grew as a professional but then I had kind of been on a path of I like to learn like to you know kind of learn more about how the organization works and so my next job after that was I got hired to be the risk management and human resources department which was dealing with your insurance is workers comp things like that and all fairness and you know nothing about that but I was one of those jobs that you know you have the capacity to learn so you got a chance to do it and I did so that was awesome did that for a couple years another promotional opportunity came up and then I went into the the utilities water and wastewater utilities department as what was called the business operations division manager that position dealt with all of the utilities customer service dealt with the finances of the entire utilities department which was a big a big responsibility you know what's amazing about those three areas if you would have talked to somebody who didn't understand the breadth and the scope of what cities do they would think well now you're done now you got to be the city manager because you've covered it all but it's probably like eight other departments like that you're correct you're correct yeah that's just the tip of the iceberg exactly so after I did that for a little bit then my my last stop on my first tour of duty with Palm Babes you want to call it that is a had an opportunity to go back to the city manager's office as an assistant to the city manager and the position when it was created was developed really to tie together two significant things were happening in the city one was a large roadway project kind of like a road that would ultimately become an alternative to i95 in the city of Palm Bay there needed to be someone who was the point person on that project to manage it plus a lot of significant large size large scale developments because that's got land use that's got water issues that's got obviously traffic issues that's got eminent domain issues there's not a single thing utility issues so all the things I learned right yeah yeah it was great it was great so yeah so that was that was wonderful I I really enjoyed all the things I learned worked with a lot of great people in Palm Bay but then we're in a we're in a political environment right so an election occurred in 2014 there was some change out in the leadership completely new council and 2015 I decided it was time for me to to move on so I did I got a chance to go to the city of Salah beach work there as an assistant city manager really enjoyed that job for a few years and then another election happened and I still live in Palm Bay the whole time how far satellite beach pond it was like a 30 minute drive not bad not bad still in Brevard County so I was glad to see you there right now is like saying I live in Texas well it is 72 miles long that's right I know and it's crazy because you're you're in Brevard and you know east to west you could be in an out in five minutes but north to south it's like a weekend trip yeah sure we do have we do kind of joke around between Titus Film Palm Bay because we're like the northern and southern points of the county so it's like you got to take a take out a hotel reservation to go visit the other side you know but anyway so yeah so I did that for a few years at Salah beach and another election happened in 2018 that changed the political makeup in Palm Bay and a new city manager came in that also meant that a new deputy city manager position was open and I applied and got the job so I decided to come back to Palm Bay sure to commute shorter commutes yeah I felt like I had unfinished work in Palm Bay anyway and so it was it was a great opportunity to come back now when I came back the reason the reference to ethics at the beginning was so important to me is I came back in part to help restore the public trust in the city of Palm Bay because the things that had happened between 2014 2015 through 2018 put the city in a position that was really disappointing from someone who has has been trained in the ways of you know being a professional ethical public manager you know making you know making sure you know that your high priority at all times is to serve the people that you've been given a trust public service I want to clarify something because I think and I don't think our audience would would would misunderstand this but when you hear about ethics training it sounds simplistic it sounds like hey just you know four-hour lecture on do the right thing but there are laws governing that there are rules governing that there are things you should do that you might not think to do there are ways for example how do you handle open record requests how do you handle freedom of information how do you manage your own personal phone versus that how do you make sure things go through proper procurement without you know even though you're doing the right thing you're well-intended there are there are laws that you must follow to go through those things because somebody else is determined because someone someone somewhere screwed something up so we make a lot of prevent that from happening so you've got to know the rules of engagement for being an ethical person in that position doesn't mean you're you're intended to go in your own lie you're intended to go in your steal but if you do the following things that's against the law and it's under the rubric of of ethics right it's true and I would even go beyond just knowing the just knowing the law because there's a lot of there's a lot of perception issues There are a lot of things that you have to consider when you talk about ethics that relate to, like you said, what is the right thing to do? And then maybe things that aren't spelled out as clearly as you'd like them to be spelled out in the Florida statutes. So from my perspective, being an ethical leader, being an ethical manager means you are constantly, diligently pursuing what is the right thing in every decision you make. Any piece of paper that comes across your desk, any email that you're making a decision on, any conversation you're having with anyone from an employee to a developer to an elected official, you're always going to, if you're doing your job well, you're going to constantly keep yourself in a place where you're diligently looking at things through the lens of what's the right thing to do in this situation. Right. But it's also it's not that easy. Let me give you one example. So I think our city manager, Ryskode, said because they're getting a lot of FOIs on emails. He said, make them all public record, all of the correspondence public record. Wait a second, employee, a emails to her supervisor, I have to take off tomorrow. I'm having a uterine pains or some personal issue that she sends towards her boss. He says, hey, remember, I've been fighting this. I'm just going to make this. I've uterine cancer and I got to go back for a checkup tomorrow. Well, if you make that a public record, now you've violated this person's hip arise and you've just closed. Yeah. The personal health information to the public. See, you want to do the right thing by, hey, let's just put all the emails on. We have nothing to hide. But yeah, there are some laws governing that. So that's where there's a trap. That's a great point. And that's actually a great illustration of fact that none of this is black and white, none of it's easy. And it's some of it takes contemplation. So just jumping into a decision, some things are easy to say, no, that's not right. Let's not do that. Right. Those things. Yeah, right. There you go. And these things really require some deliberative thinking because you have to think about all the parties that could be affected. Right. With each type of decision and each decision may not just be a yes or a no. It could have different characteristics. Well, and frankly, if you don't know the law, right, then you can't know how to stay within the balance. And you might think you're doing the right thing. But if you didn't know a word, think about HIPAA, it would just be totally transparent. That sounds great on paper. But now you just violated someone's personal privacy about a personal health condition that they may not want anybody to know. Absolutely. I've got a divorce hearing tomorrow. Nobody needs to know that I want to know that has nothing to do with city business. But your one area to be transparent hurts in another area. By the way, one of the most ethical people I've ever worked with, former City Commissioner Tallahassee Mark Mushin. DOT was talking about, you know, Mark, you saw a great guy. I do. Yeah, he's a great guy. I first met him up. This is the most boring person I've ever met. And now I just, I can't get enough of Mark. He was on a committee with the City of Tallahassee to bike trails. Okay. I was so excited because he really did a lot of good work on this. And the city of DOT came in and so they wanted to turn this major road to have a bus bike lane. Wow. As a someone who cycles a lot, I'm like, no, no, no, no, and it was also a turn lane for a lot of commerce. I'm like, it's going to be like called sitting duck avenue, right? So I came to talk to Mark and I sat down in his office. Can I talk to you about this? And I started going, Mark, you can't do this. And he was like, stop right there. I'm like, what? He goes, are you representing anybody? Like, what? Are you paid to be here for something? He's my friend. And he says this to me, but he's checking it out. He probably just got, now Mark is a lawyer. He's a very ethical man. He was obviously like, that's good. But that's the kind of stuff. Hey, we're just friendly. You know, you could see on the press call or with the FBI going, yeah, you're just a buddy of mine. Well, did you know he was getting a kick back of FDOT? Didn't do that or did that? Right. No, I didn't know. So you can get trouble even when you're doing the right thing. You can, it's true. You have to be so diligent. So, yeah, I mean, and to bring it back to Palm Bay. So when I came back in 2019, the city was being investigated by FDLE. We were undergoing a J-Lac audit. What's J-Lac audits? So J-Lac is an audit that is the state coming in and basically looking at all of your, really all of your operational attributes, aspects, everything you do, how you do it. And they're looking, sometimes you're looking for specific areas of your operations, but depending on what you. And they're coming because they suspect something's wrong. Correct. They suspect that there's been waste fraud, misuse, taxpayer funds, you know, people taking advantage of systems. There have been enough accusations about how decisions were made and what those decisions were. Is there anything that statutorily trips a J-Lac audit or is just that could do what they want? I think it was a local elected official serving at the state level who requested a J-Lac audit and the information provided to them was enough to move that forward. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, it was really interesting because the coming into that and seeing the things that had happened, which I guess it just gives sort of a very high level explanation. So we had people that were absolutely making deals with developers and, you know, having discussions apparently that they should not have been having, back room deals kind of thing. And this isn't your normal "Hey, if you put curvy sidewalks in, we'll give you an easement." This was obviously, "Hey, will you hire my brother's sheet rocking company?" It was a little bit more like that, yeah. So, you know, the sad part of it is that there was enough that went on that there were a couple people that got investigated and then ultimately were arrested for their involvement at some of these things. But there was also the operational impact to all the staff who were seeing this happen. And so when I came in 2019, ultimately-- You need to be run in as the deputy. I mean, as the deputy, there's a different city manager. One of her primary goals was to change out the leadership team, to bring in people that there was confidence that there was ethics and integrity in their background and their ways of operating. It was an important thing that was kind of shifting the city when I came back in. And one of the things that I ended up having to do was one of my main tasks was to work with all of these new leaders in these departments. To answer all the questions that the J-LAC auditors had come to us with, which were all a whole slew. I mean, there were pages and pages of questions they had about, "Why did you do this this way on a procurement issue, a payroll issue, a finance issue?" The list was long. So awarding a bid, things like that. So the good news for you is you were brand new. So none of this was like-- I was new, but I knew enough about the city for my ten years before to know how to get the information to dig into where we were at to help with some of the answers on those things. And having the leadership team coming in fresh perspective, wanting to do the right thing, that made a difference, too. Because one of the things that had happened during that three-year period is that the leaders of the city at the time had fired many, many directors who had a lot of years of experience with the city, a lot of tenure. People that could have been gatekeepers to what's right and what's wrong. So those people removed, new people were brought in. That's part of what caused the issue, too. People didn't know or they had other reasons that they were willing to do what they were supposed to do. Well, also what happens is, you know, I heard something the other day about the one-bed apple theory is just wrong. One-bed apple does spoil the whole bunch because once people start seeing, well, this is the way we do things. Hey, Sally got her brother hired by this contractor. Hey, and therefore you should be able to do that for your brother. Absolutely. And then next thing you know, it becomes part of the culture. That's really hard to root out. It is. So, you know, so yeah, starting 2019 and, you know, for the next two, three years, the goal was let's rebuild public trust. Let's be transparent about things. So we had plenty of public workshops talking about what we learned out of the state audit, what we were doing to correct the issues that were identified. Some of those things were obvious things, like putting in the ability for anyone, employee or someone on the outside to kind of like being whistleblower, but a little bit beyond that, you know, the ability for you to put in a complaint, a concern, a question about anything we're doing operationally via email, via phone, anonymously, or not. You know, as many outlets as we could give people to report something. That's interesting because if I am your employee and you say, hey, if you suspect anything but you can't guarantee confidentiality if they send an email because it's like a whistleblower protection says, hey, I will just use this fictitious Sally who just got her brother hired. If you say, I think you should look into Sally's brother is pretty incompetent but he just got hired on another project. If I put that in an email and if somebody FOIs it, that's a whole, so different mechanism might be, because I know you can't keep that confidential. Right. Interesting. So that to be anonymous too. And we created an entire committee of leaders including the city attorney. I'm not involved in it because mostly operations fall into city managers. So I'm expressly exempted from this committee. This committee finance director, human resources director, city clerk, city attorney, they investigate any of these anonymous complaints that come forward. That's just one of the things we put in place. I mean, we had this huge overhaul of all of our administrative processes and policies. We actually developed brand new policies, things that had never been written before, but they are written down now because we saw some of the pitfalls of not having a policy in place. Basically establishing more checks and balances than the organization had ever seen. So what that did was, most people were, most people welcomed that. Most people were pleased about it. But some employees were sometimes frustrated because now we have what they perceive to be extra layers of bureaucracy. my message to them then and now. is this is one of those things you're going to have to just go through. Because unless we do this process, unless we go through these extra steps to make sure that we've reviewed the totality of the situation, we might open ourselves up to some potential. No, unfortunately because sometimes we govern, we legislate, we create ordinances or policies or procedures to the lowest common denominator. But after you've just come through a crisis period, you have to do that until and less until you get back to basics and say, okay, we've restored public trust, we have good processes in place. Because what happens is then the next generation will forgot why these stupid things were in place. You know, we're all have to fill out a paperwork every time I meet with somebody. Well, there's a history there. But you can then begin loosening rules once you've rooted out a bad culture. Exactly. Sometimes it takes it takes exactly that to do that. It does. And sometimes like what I've experienced is it takes several years to really start to turn the tide. And some of that was, you know, not just the things we did the Republic to try to send that message of transparency and accountability, but also, you know, reputations important in local government. People know, especially the good employees that are in one local government looking at another local government agency and they know the story. When we start to bring in leaders who are, who have reputations of integrity and doing the right thing, you can really start to to draw in good employees. So that's one of the things I'm really proud of. We've brought in so many good employees from other agencies who were willing to come and be a part of the change and the rebuilding of foundation for the city of Palm Bay. And it's been done. We've done it. So I became a city manager in July of 2020. So about four years ago. And it's tremendous. So you come back as a deputy city manager. What happened to the city manager? Political change. So we had a day. It was one of those, you know, unexpected moments in your history, right? And I get a call from the city manager one morning that says, you know, this might not be a great council meeting tonight. And I find out that there's three votes that are going to be saying your time is up and they're going to put me in his acting. And this was in July. So we had another election coming up that year. So did they blame? I say, her? Was it her? Yes. They blame her for the over the Lex. No, no, actually, she was part of the change to try to fix those things. She was like, it was just one of those political things that happens, you know, you're not on the same page with your council members. So, you know, a party. Yeah, but no, she had actually been the person who came in behind the city manager. They fired. Okay. Okay. So that didn't that wasn't her tail. No, it wasn't her issue. Just some other random thing. Just like to get you. Yeah. So, um, so yeah, then then yeah, I'm 2020. I'm picking up the pieces of that. And so it was an easy time to be. It was challenging. It was more than 2020. What can possibly go wrong? It was interesting. So, uh, for those of you who were living in a K that was the beginning of COVID. We were there. We were still dealing with all the J lack audit stuff, which was a tremendous heavy lift. And I'm about to go into, um, elections, elections cycle that year. And so I was faced with a situation where I really didn't have the right, the right people or ability to hire a deputy at the time. I was still acting. They decided to keep me acting until after the election. Well, you know what? So it was. And so I was the city manager, no deputy city manager and we're it's this huge volume of things. It was, it was, I would tell you it was one of the greatest learning experiences I've ever had. And the ability to juggle and, you know, stretch in new ways. Recognizing that you're now the city manager of a huge city and you have never done this before. Well, it was great. Interim for so long. Yeah. It's got to be a little destabilizing. You know, it was interesting. You had to keep these decisions, but I probably can. Every day was a, uh, so yeah, you've been the city manager now for four years. Yes. You've been going to twice a year to ethics chaining. So I say you've been through eight four hour. Yes. Give me the uninitiated. We're at a cocktail party. So what do you learn in an ethics training? Tell me what you learn. And I want to explore the difference between what the FCC may teach you with the FLC teachers. Well, there's definitely a lot of similarities in the two types and also varies based on the, the presenter. I'll tell you that because some presenters are more just straight to the, let me tell you about the law and what the law means and others bring a lot of stories and, you know, case law into it or just actual personal stories they've experienced. So each year is different. I'll tell you that between FCC and FLC ethics training. That's probably good because if you go to the same one year and you're like, ah, yeah, it's good to have the refresh. But for me, you know, I don't mind hearing again and again about the importance of, you know, how you handle public records, about the importance of how you publicly notice meetings, about meeting in the sunshine. I really don't mind hearing about that again, even though I've heard it, you know, many years. Well, the law does change. And it does. That's fair. That's true, too. Yeah. What I enjoy the most is hearing the latest stories of things that have occurred where people made mistakes and kind of hearing about the journey of what that looked like and how they got, how they ended up in the place that they ended up in. So some things are obvious. Like we had an example in today's session. Some people that decided they just wanted to do what they wanted to do. And so three elected officials got together in the council chambers didn't tell the other elected officials. I decided to have a meeting, decided to vote on things that they really had no business voting on because it wasn't a publicly noticed meeting. There was no one else there. It's just really interesting. And they ended up having a whole big investigation. I think a couple of them got arrested, too. But anyway, that's a more like that's obvious. You don't do that kind of example. Yeah. And that's the stuff that, you know, the criminal enterprise. Yeah, we got that. Okay. No, but but it's the the subtle word about the most inadvertent. Exactly. Violations. Exactly. Yeah. So, so like examples, I think that are really good. Those came up today again, too, is, you know, maybe you're newer to your position elected or in a pointed position, like a city manager. You have someone that you've known for many years that you, you know, the example in the conference today was a neighbor. You say hi to the neighbor, you know, every day, every week, you see him say, Hey, how's it going? That's what you're on. Yeah, you know, maybe just have a superficial type relationship. But then suddenly when they become aware of the fact that you're in a position that you're in and you're having a different conversation with them, you have to start to be on your guard. Why are you having this conversation with me? Whatever it might be, you know, because there's always people that are looking for a favor, something help, accessing information. You don't know their agenda. So you always actually have to be a little suspect. It may sound terrible to say that. I'm not jaded. I promise. But you really have to be always on your guard about any conversation. What are what are what is your agenda? What are your motives? So one of the examples, the stories that was shared was, you know, you have a, the neighbors that have been, you know, cordial and casual in their conversations for some years. And suddenly, the neighbor says, Hey, you know, we got to go out to dinner sometime. You can we hang out and just get to know each other a little bit better. And so you think, Oh, that's fine. We're just becoming more, even more neighborly, right? And you go out and you do that. But at the end of the conversation, as you're parting ways, this person is saying to you, Oh, by the way, I've got such and such a friend or relative as a construction business. They've been trying to get a contract with the city to do such such a such a work. You know, is there anything you can do to help us with that? And then the conversation is taken on a whole new meaning. Yeah. Because then it's like, Okay, well, was this all because of that? And even just the conversation, you may not have done anything wrong. But now you know. So it's being vigilant and aware of the fact that those things can come in subtle forms. You have to be on your guard because you don't want to let your guard down if you just went to dinner and you're you're all relaxing. It's fun, right? And what would be helpful to me if I was in your position is tell me what I can do, which is, yeah, sure, have your neighbor call me your friend call me. I'll set them up with our utilities department and tell them what the process is for bidding on projects. We'll make sure. But you know, and I think I think what you're going to tell me is the key here is you treat this person like you would treat anybody else. Exactly. Put him through the system. You got it. Yeah. Because you're right. If it's and they're not asking you that because they want to be treated like everybody else. They aren't. They're like, Hey, my neighbors a cop. Can you get this fix for me? You know, I do want if they do want special treatment or the the there's an RFP out there's a cone of silence. Right. And they're at their barbecue going, Yeah, I heard about that engineering contract, but not telling that his wife works for the engineering firm. Right. And now what do you think? How do you think it's going to go? And you go, Yeah, you know, who knows? And you could just say something casual or are inadvertent or just like, Well, it's going to be it's going to be complicated because there's some big issues. You're over the line. Exactly. And another example that I thought was really interesting and this one kind of challenged me to think about this more deeply. The example was you're in hurricane prep mode. You're handing out sandbags everyone. And this was an example of an elected official elected official has a neighbor who's elderly. You know, they go way back. This person used to babysit them or whatever, you know, years ago. This elected official goes to the public works team that's doing all the sandbag operations and they say, Hey, you know, I've got this neighbor. She's elderly. She can't do the sandbags on her own. I'd like to see if you guys could just, you know, fill up some sandbags and she only lives right down the street a mile away. Can you take those to her and put them on her property for it. It sounds like a nice thing to do. You're an emergency prep mode. You're like trying to help the members of your community. It doesn't sound like a big deal. Nobody's getting any money from this. Right. It sounds good. But then the challenge from the person leading the ethics session today was, would you do that for anyone? Does everyone have that same opportunity to get that support? Do we have assistance? You know, that's a really good example because that's where, so we talk about, do the right thing. Right. Well, doing the right thing would be to use your access to power to help a little old lady with her sandbag situation. but sadly because of the law, and oh, maybe good because of the law, it's the actual legally wrong thing to do. And so, listen, I'm pretty sure nobody's ever got fired for doing that, but it is a really difficult gray area because let's face it, in any city, it's gonna be 30 of those little old ladies. - It's true. - And how are they not getting the same treatment you are? You know, it's the texting the city manager when your power's out. - Right. - Good example. - And the city manager takes back, "Go to the city portal and report that." Or, "I can report it for you like I would do for anybody." And that's a tough challenge, you know? But it's difficult because if you really stop for a second, I remember I was going up an elevator. And it was one of those glass elevators. I think it was at the King's Heath facility, the Embassy Suites, and I was in there thing with somebody and I said, "Yeah, work for the Florida City County manager." And I was like, "Yeah, I've never heard of them." And he goes, "I said, you see, and everybody's downstairs." - Yeah. - And we stopped and I pushed a button and I said, "Look down there." I said, "You see all those people?" I said, "Every one of them pretty much controls a billion dollar budget a year." I said, "An average city is a billion dollar budget a year." So there's a lot, and you're not elected, okay? And there's a lot of power and control and things could get out of hand and they often do. And so to me, it's not the bag of cash and that we're talking about. You were talking about some of these gray areas. So make sure you're handling it professionally. - Yeah, it's the subtleties of it, you know? And also just that last example I shared, to me, it's if you're driven, if your passion is to serve the public, you have to watch that your passion doesn't become a blind spot for you so that you're so focused on, I have to serve everyone in whatever way I can, that you miss something like that, elderly lady with the standbite. - Yeah, to be an example. - 'Cause you're doing the right thing for the whole world, maybe. - Yeah, you're trying to help someone, but I didn't give anyone else that opportunity. And my other senior citizens in my community they don't have that opportunity. So then did I miss the mark and just doing that one thing? Yeah, I would say, I would say. - You know another interesting example was a former city manager that I was talking to, he had a really good idea and they went out and they bought a bunch of generators. - Okay. - And what they did is they chained the generators to the critical infrastructure traffic lights. - Okay. - And they were electrified so that, you know, you could just plug a man to get the traffic lights up and running. Perfect, great idea. Well he had about 20 extras. They bought X number and said, okay, if you go to the next layer where you need 200, okay. So they had extras and he said, you know what I want you to do? In a storm, as a storm's approaching, I want all the executive leadership of the city to get one too because your deputy director in charge of emergency operations, the audience can't see your face. - Wow. - And you can just describe what your face just did. Your eyebrows went all the way midway to the back of your head. - That was my red flag face. That's what that was. (laughing) - Wow. - And he was doing the right thing to say, look, these are the folks that are going to have to be working 24/7. These are the folks that are going to have to respond. These are the folks that are going to be necessary to get the lights back on and things running. I want to make sure they could take a hot shower. They can get warm water. And it was wide. - Wow. - To criticize for. - Being his advocate was like, that was a smart thing to do, but you got the holy (beep) on and going. - The optics are real bad, real bad. Yeah, I mean, there's like a whole bunch of other ways you could handle that, right? I mean, clearly I would assume that city didn't have some sort of emergency operations center where everyone would house themselves, but that's typically what you do. Bring everybody in together, you're working through the storm together. So you're in a place where you have access to whatever you need. - He was also thinking, so the city manager, the assistant city manager is gonna be working at the operations center, that their family at least have some lights, and can't do that. 'Cause you're not treating them the same way you would treat everybody. - Exactly, and it's our job to take care of our families and our home situations, 'cause we're in this position where our job is to handle the emergency. And so, first of all, if I go without power or I go without water, that's just what happens, 'cause all my residents are in that with me. But second of all, you make preparations and you plan for your family ahead of time. If you need to send your family somewhere else, you do that. If they have to stay, you take care of that. That's an individual responsibility. That's not the city's responsibility. My responsibility is to make the needs. - And you're not treating the family, the same way you would treat any of them. - Absolutely. - And that's the criteria. - Yeah, absolutely. - But it was one of those situations that you can't do in the moment, right? It sounded good. It seemed like, yeah, I'm taking care of my team, 'cause that's another area that, to me, can be a, just like I said, your passion for serving people could potentially be a blind spot of sorts. Same thing could happen when you care so much about your team. I care about my team at a very high level. I mean, the morale of my team, how they're feeling, how they enjoy their jobs, that's very important to me. So I have to also, for myself, be mindful of the fact that just 'cause I care so much about them, and want them to be so successful, and want everything to be well with them, I can't let that be a blind spot where I'm making a decision, like what you just explained, that is going to be something, won't be perceived well. That won't be a good use of taxpayer resources. That example you just gave is an example of where you care so much about your team that you can have a little bit of. - Yeah, I have an employee, her car breaks down. We have a city vehicle in the parking lot, and I say, why don't you take that back if what's been worked for a few days? Can't do that because you're not treating them the same way you would treat anybody else, and then if they get in the next, and your insurance company's like, "Wait, I would do it in what?" They want a personal time, and you get a whole swirl. - I'll give you two other examples. There was one time, this goes back some years, where we had someone who had a car breakdown, and the request was, could the fleet team use their tow truck to help that person? The other's no, absolutely not. That's obvious. Tell a working has been interesting too. Tell a working, our policy is, it actually says this in our policy. You can't use the opportunity to work from home as a substitute for things like childcare. So it sounds kind of funny to say that, but we've had one or two instances where we could verify that an employee wanted to tell a work. It was good for the department to have tell a work, 'cause in our growth period, we've run out of office spaces, so it's been helpful to have people who can remote work. But we have this one or two employees that we found out that ultimately they took their children out of daycare because they were gonna be working from home, and they were trying to multitask. So taking care of the kids, saving money, which I don't fault them for that, and I treasure that. - You want to be supportive of that. - Right, I wouldn't be supportive of that, but at the same time I can tell that your work product is now decreasing, and when the customers are calling you, they hear things on the, in the background on the phone, phone calls that tells them what's happening behind the scenes. So we had to deal with that from a corrective standpoint, right? We talked to her about it, it didn't get corrective. - That's a double problem, because for the employee, they're acting unethically by saying, hey, I could take advantage of the city by working at home. As a boss, as a supervisor, if you allow that, now you're allowing taxpayer dollars to supplement someone's daycare, which while it's an honest, nice thing to do, it's not what taxpayers intended their money to be going for. - Absolutely. - And so you've got this, and now it's a difficult situation to say, Joe or Sally, you can't do that. - Right. - If you're working from home, you've got to be working from home. You can't be working from home while watching your children, because it is in your attitude. Well, he doesn't interfere with the job. Well, that's not the point. - That's not the point. - You know, very interesting. Anything else you would share with somebody who's never been to one of these seminars? - Well, I would just, I would actually just encourage. Anybody that's in public service, not to take it lightly, I know it's easy and tempting. I think you said earlier, you know, just to be like, oh, you know, it's the same old same old, I've heard this every year. But just if you go in with a little bit of a fresh perspective, you make yourself look objectively for something new that I can learn out of the session, I can guarantee you, you will every time. You will every time. But that's a matter of your own personal integrity and where you're at on that. I encourage everyone to go in with that willingness to learn something new. - Well, you know what else it does, too, I think. It hits refresh on the, what I'm gonna try and say, the mindset that I need to remain an ethical person, and here's the guard rails, here's the rules, here's the lie, to hit refresh on that. So if you don't do it for several years, you could start drifting back. 'Cause you do something, we talked offline about the Brian Williams principle where former I guess NBC host, Knightley News, was in a helicopter, in the helicopter in front of him I believe, got shot at, and he told a story like 30 times, correctly. And then it became his own version of telephone, where it was closer and closer eventually, it was his thing got rocked, and he told a story. And most analysts say he never meant to lie, but once you tell a story, you recode on your brain, what it was, so you remind your reminded of what it was based on how you recoded it, right? So eventually he was lying, he was telling an untruth. But being unethical is the same way. You've done something a little bit here, a little lie, a little yell, a little wink wink nod nod, nobody cares, nobody, two years later, you're full-throated into it. And that's how you get there. By coming to these conferences, by taking ethics training again and again, you hit refresh on, you leave inspired to say, I am gonna be a good, it's like, how the hell are fitness you say, okay. - Exactly. - I read an article about how to, you know, stay on my diet. So I'm more likely to stay on my diet. I read an article about how to be a better husband. So therefore I'm gonna be a better husband. So if, even if you don't get actual knowledge, are you going in and get hit and refresh on that? It's probably a good thing. - It is, you know, and the other thing I think about too, and as you're talking, I just wanna say this, the folks are listening is, you know, as leaders, you never wanna surround yourself with people that will always say yes and always agree with you. You wanna always be open to criticism, you wanna always be open to criticism. be open to constructive feedback, because that's a very key ingredient in successfully navigating through ethical challenges. And having people that are around you who will say to you, you know, I heard what you said in that meeting. I heard what you were thinking about doing, and I just wanna say this would be my concern, because it really does take a team. It truly takes a team. - You know, I wanna delve into that for some time. What's important about that is not just as a boss, just as city managers say, "Hey, I want everybody "to feel free to do that." I think you have to teach them how to do that. And then for example, you're in a meeting of five people. And the city manager says, "Hey, here's how we're gonna do "such and such and such and such." I think this is the program we're gonna put in place. And if you think it might have some ethical problems associated with you, not calling the city manager unethical, you're not saying this, but you go, "Hmm, if we do it that way, "that might be an ethical." Teaching that person the correct way, so they say, "Listen, if you feel that, "come back to me after, one on one, "so you don't put the city manager or the boss in a position, "or somebody else in the team of being defensive "and then hating you because you called him out "for being unethical." - True. - So teaching them the tools to do that, to say, "Hey boss, permission to speak freely, Captain?" You know, kind of thing. I'm a little worried about this. And let me explain to you why, and then workshop with a one on one, I think it's more than just giving people permission to correct you, for show them how. And then you as a manager, 'cause I'm terrible at this. - Okay. - One of my staff come to me and say, "You know, I think you're wrong, "my first reaction is to be like, "You're fired, you know, no, but you have to, "and you have your face, so you gotta be kind of like, "Okay, tell me more. - Right. - What do you think? What is a good solution? How's a better way to do that? And now you can both be constructive and be part of the winning team to do that, so more than that. Well Suzanne, tell us something cool about your city. Oh, wow. Well, Palm Bay, tell you a couple things, if I can tell you more than one. - Oh, I know. - How much time do we have? All right. - Flipery slope here. - Well, first of all, I just wanna say, this means more than me than I can probably express in words, but our city now has mandatory connection for water and wastewater, which to the average person is probably like, well, that's just dumb and dull, but to me it's so awesome, because we, the city of Palm Bay, have over 140,000 people. I also have 22,000 septic tanks. And now I have mandatory connection, which means I am in a position for the first time in the city's 60 plus year history, come up with a funding strategy to run water and sewer lines and all the neighborhoods that haven't had those services for years and years. And that's a little bit unique to our city. - How did you get there? I'm a bit. - It's unique. - It's gonna be a whole podcast, okay? - It's unique because we're one of the handful of what are called general development corporation cities in the state of Florida. So the very quick snippet of what a GDC community is, if I see you're nodding, so you must know a little bit about it. Essentially GDC, big corporation, they port to GDC is one, north port, there's seven or eight of us. They essentially, they pre-platted all of the city, all the city at the time, sold off the lots, all over the place, primarily single family, not a whole lot of. - No planning involved. - No, no planning infrastructure, poorly installed, there's some stormwater, some roads that weren't the best quality. We actually in the city of Palm Bay have an entire area that is thousands of lots that were sold off, that were sold off in an area where they put down cheap roads, a little bit of stormwater, but they never even ran power. So those properties actually currently can't even develop. - This is when, you know, back in the 60s and 70s, I was like, "Come down to Florida, bye, peace, probably be more $5,000." - Exactly, exactly. And so this, you know, the whole thing. But yeah, that's how we ended up in our situation is GDC left this legacy of this problem. And so they had some utilities, but they didn't make any plans to put water or sewer in. So we had all over the city's, people were developing the lots that they bought in the 60s or 70s or whatever. They're putting in their wells, they're putting in their septic tanks. And we're right along the Indian River Lagoon. So that's a big deal for us. - I was gonna say, I remember going to a hearing for the Department of Environmental Protection, they said, "There are over 600,000 septic tanks "that flush into the Indian River Lagoon." So when one canal dumps in high nitrates and explodes into guacamole, they'll, "Ah, it's the canal." Well, we're already in a cat powder cake situation, but we was fascinating about that. It was the guy said, and it was guy. He said, "It's over 600,000 that are expired, "meaning they're passed their natural life, "but we don't know the exact number "because they were permitted through the GDC process." And you're like, "Oh my gosh." - Right. - So you know what, I wanna do this. Suzanne, will you come back on the show? I wanna talk about how you got there because among all those coastal cities, I know four piercers is doing everything they can. They got grant money. They're trying to get people to convert. They're also moving their wastewater treatment plant off the Indian River Lagoon 'cause somebody somewhere thought it was a great idea to put wastewater treatment plants. - We know better now. - We know better now, right? But really, that is, that's so nerdy of you to say that's a cool thing about your city, by the way. We're gonna go to 100% septic de suits. - I'm very excited. I just had to say a really cool thing because it really is what's destroying, one of the major inputs that's destroying the healthy at the Indian River Lagoon. And it's such a precious resource for the state and for our recreation, for our economy. - It's true, 100%. - For our ecology. It's really where the economic river meets the ecological road. - Exactly. - But we're way past our time. - Okay. - And I'm having so much fun talking to you. - Well, tell us something cool, cool. - Cool, cool. - That a nerdy city manager like yourself wouldn't think was cool. - You know, it wasn't cool enough to talk about mandatory connection. I'm kind of disappointed. Anyway. Well, the city Palm Bay is one of the fastest cities, fastest growing cities in the state of Florida. We added 7,000 new residents within less than a year. - Wow. - We, in about 20 years, we went from 60,000 residents to 140,000 residents. - In how many years? - 20. - Oh my gosh. And we-- - Make the North port look like a bunch of hikers. - We have annexed significantly. So we are about almost 100 square miles now in terms of our size. We're huge. - We're huge, both in population and in landmouse. A lot of people don't know that because Palm Bay is still getting out there on the map. Beyond the single family that I mentioned to you, we're also, I'm excited because we're growing, you know, we're not far from, you know, where all the launching is happening, right? - Yeah, yeah. - So we're in the space coast. So one thing is really cool for us is we're seeing this tremendous growth in our micro-processing facilities. A lot of the light industrial manufacturing industries that support all of the space industry. So like, L3 Harris, huge presence in the city of Palm Bay. And most people know L3 Harris, right? - Yeah, yeah. - So we're massively growing in the world of light industrial and technology firms and we're very excited because we have a lot of land to contribute to that in the future. So we like to call ourselves sometimes silicone Bay because that is how we're trying to market ourselves and we're seeing the results of that and we're seeing the growth in those industries and it's only gonna keep developing. - By the way, Dean, know the story as to why the space industry started growing there so rapidly? - Tell me. - It has, it came out of this podcast. - Really? - Do you know how we're tipped in? - Oh, absolutely. - Okay, when Howard was County Administrator in 2007, 2008, when the economy collapsed, they were at a money. - Yes. - He asked them to triple while they were cutting all these services to triple the economic development money. And they used that money to lower the space industry over. And you know what, I've known Howard for a very long time. Great guy, I love him to death. - Wow. - And he's such a quiet, he's a classic city manager, County Administrator type, does great things. You guys all do such cool things, but don't like to brag about him. - That's true. - You get the credit to the mayor. I'm gonna be back here. And it was like years and years, I'm like, "How could he never have told me this story? "This is like the cool story." And he just, "God, Howard, you're just shrugging the shoulder." I said, "Great." - If it wasn't for that, SpaceX and other, would have not relocated there. Because before that, we kept losing jobs to, what's the place in Alabama that builds? - Huntsville. - Huntsville, Alabama, we started losing to them. We started losing other places. I'm like, "How insulting? "We're losing to Alabama, but highest number of PhDs in the world." But you're like, "Hey, we're losing to Alabama "because we don't have the infrastructure. "We don't have the economic development, incentive money. "We don't have all these things." And Howard took a chance. - That's great. - Roll the dice. Now, how did it fail? You would have never heard the name, Howard Tipton, but it succeeded. And of course, laughter went to Pomme. - That's awesome. - I like that story. - Yeah, that's a cool story. - Thanks for sharing that. - Well, Suzanne Sherman, city manager of Pomme City. - Pomme Bay. - Pomme Bay, I got it backwards. - You got it backwards. - Sorry about that. Pomme Bay. - Thank you so much for being with us. - Of course. - I really appreciate it. - My pleasure. - And this has been the FCCMA podcast, the service produced by in four, the Florida City and County Management Association. I've only said that 156 times, but I still have to read it in the next grade. - And this is what I don't have to pause. If you want to recommend a guest, and we're gonna have you back on to talk about sewer to septic, because that's really, really important. I mean, septic to sewer. But if you have anybody you can DM, FCC, or may have Facebook or you can send me an email at svancoreadvancorejones.com. Thanks so much for being with us.