Usually when people vote on ballot measures about transit, the transit agency and supporters want the measure to pass.

Not in Phoenix in 2019.

That ballot measure would have literally derailed bringing light rail--any rail--to Phoenix forever. Then Valley Metro CEO Scott Smith rallied support throughout Maricopa County and discovered there was overwhelming support for transit and light rail. So much support that the ballot measure was defeated by a landslide.

But we start this episode with a somber anniversary, 60 years ago today John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. In a special segment, Paul and our guest Scott Smith reflect on JFK's legacy and call to service.

In our feature interview, Paul Comfort talks with the former CEO of Valley Metro (https://www.valleymetro.org/) Scott Smith about that ballot measure, as well as his time as Mayor of Mesa, AZ, President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and his run for Governor of Arizona.

Paul and Scott talk about the massive investment in light rail in Phoenix and how it ties into the rest of the transit system run by Valley Metro. Scott gives his vision for what LRT means to communities and how rising costs hamper transit projects across North America.

Next week we stay in Phoenix with an interview with the current CEO of Valley Metro, Jessica Mefford-Miller to bring us up to speed on the LRT project and a unique car-free community outside Tempe, AZ.

We wrap this episode with Elea Carey and our editor Tris Hussey talking about practical tips for agencies facing tough ballot measures in the future.

If you have a question or comment you can email us at info@transitunplugged.com

00:00 Introduction from host and producer Paul Comfort

00:54 Remembering JFK and the Call to Public Service

01:24 Reflecting on the legacy of John F. Kennedy and the call to public service

05:19 Interview with Scott Smith, former CEO of Valley Metro in Phoenix, AZ

05:19 Scott Smith's Journey into Public Service

08:37 The Challenges and Triumphs of Building Light Rail in Phoenix

13:34 The Referendum Battle and the Future of Light Rail

22:05 Reflections on the Transit Industry and Future Perspectives

26:02 Marketing minute with Elea Carey and Transit Unplugged Editor, Tris Hussey

30:42 Coming up next week on Transit Unplugged

I'm Paul Comfort.

Welcome to another edition of Transit Unplugged.

On today's episode, we take you to Phoenix, Arizona, where I met with

Scott Smith, the former CEO of the transit system there at Valley Metro.

He served for five and a half years as CEO, and prior to that, he was

the 38th mayor of Mesa, Arizona.

And he was the president of the United States Conference of Mayors.

What a great discussion we had about his career path, how he worked his way into

becoming the CEO of a transit system.

I think you'll find it very interesting.

We also talk about how he was able to, garner public support for

referendums to support light rail.

On next week's episode, we meet with Jessica Mefford Miller, his successor.

She and I took a ride on those light rail systems and talked about...

Operating it and what the current challenges are and

the expansion plans coming up.

We kick off today's episode, though, honoring the awful memorial

of the assassination of the United States President John F.

Kennedy 60 years ago this week in Dallas, Texas, where he was killed on November

22nd, the day this episode goes live.

I asked Scott to reflect on that and what his call for public service meant to him

as a young man and through his career on today's episode of Transit Unplugged.

On this awful anniversary of the assassination of John F.

Kennedy 60 years ago, November 22nd, 1963.

Uh, we remember the words, uh, during his inauguration that President

Kennedy kind of was a challenge, Scott, to, I think, all of us, uh, and to

generations to come, which was ask not what your country can do for you, but

ask what you can do for your country.

And Scott Smith, you've spent a lot of your career, So you're

serving your country as a mayor, as a president of the U.

S.

Council of Mayors, and then also as CEO of Valley Metro.

What does that quote mean to you?

Well, the quote to me sort of defines what our responsibilities are as

Americans, as members of our communities.

And to remember why we are where we are, where we are, I obviously remember, I'm

old enough to remember the assassination.

I think I was in second grade, but more importantly, it was my mother's birthday.

Oh, wow.

And, uh, my father was a superintendent of schools for many years, over 35 years.

And so, uh, being in the public service mode has always been second nature.

He was also in the military, part of the greatest generation.

And our household was just always talking about our, our, our duty.

Duty was a big word.

Responsibility, blessings, giving back.

And, and I think that, that what President Kennedy said struck a chord because

it synthesized in a few short words what, what has been, have been written

in books and sermons and everything.

It's very simple, straightforward, and, and very Soft yet we have

a responsibility in this country because we, we take for granted our

many blessings that we enjoy, the many advantages and opportunities,

regardless of where you are and what you think, you have more opportunities

and having lived outside the U.

S.

for several years.

I can tell you that we are still unique, and that uniqueness came at a

price, and it also comes with a lot of responsibility, and every time I hear

that, I remember that day, that fateful day, because like I said, it was my

mom's birthday, but I also, it reminds me what my parents and what my community

has encouraged and taught me all along.

And that is we have a responsibility to serve.

What they didn't say is that, as President Kenney said, if you give to

your country, the return is multiple.

You don't get a one for one return.

I've experienced in my time in public service that whenever I

give that, the rewards I receive, and they're not financial rewards,

the rewards I receive from working with my community, fellow community

members, others, is just incredible.

And so I always take...

I always loved that comment.

I've, I've, with the whole generation of people that was changed by that

comment, but it also confirmed to me what, what I was already being taught.

And that's why it's meant so much to me.

And just briefly, for a young person today contemplating

a career in public service, what would you say to them?

I would say just do it.

there are things that are hard to explain that, that come to

you from serving the public.

There are opportunities you get that you will not get anywhere else.

In business, in, in the private sector, uh, there are rewards that you will

not glean anywhere else but public service, uh, and, and I would, I would

seriously, I tell people seriously consider, uh, a career, a path, whatever

it is to, to serve your community, serve your, your, your, your, your country,

because, number one, I, I do believe in duty, but number two, it's worth it.

It's worth it in ways that you'll, you'll never learn until you actually do it.

And then you'll say, wow,

that's great.

Well, thank you for your service, Scott.

Thank you, Paul.

Excited to be here with Scott Smith in Phoenix, your hometown.

Uh, and, uh, thanks for being on the podcast.

Well, thanks for having me Paul.

Yeah.

So Scott and I are old pals from when we were both CEOs of transit systems, me

and Baltimore, he here in Phoenix, but Scott, you've got an amazing background

that I just want to start off with, you were the 38th mayor of Mesa, Arizona,

between 2008 and 2014, and then you resigned to run for the governor?

Of Arizona.

Crazy goodness.

That was exciting, man.

In 2013 and 14 when you were President of the United States Conference of Mayors,

dude, you're the man and then, uh, you were president of Great Western Homes

and K Name Homes and you served as CEO of Valley Metro for five and a half years,

which is a feed in itself these days.

Uh, and when

you retire, I have a hard time keeping a job anywhere,

. Paul Comfort: And then you retired at the end of 2022 and we're actually.

Uh, while we're here, we're going to be talking to Jessica Medford Miller,

your, uh, successor, who's great, uh, and she's going to show us a lot

of the stuff that you built and what she's been doing since she got here.

So yeah, it is.

Uh, I don't really even know where to start.

I tell you where I want to start.

Mesa.

Tell us about Mesa and, and how you got involved and how you became a mayor there.

Mesa is actually the 34th or 35th largest city in the country now.

Really?

Like how many people?

About 520, 000 people now.

Wow.

It's actually bigger population wise than St.

Louis, Miami, Minneapolis, even Atlanta.

The cities, yeah.

I didn't know that.

But it lives in the shadow of the fifth largest city.

Yeah.

Oh, Phoenix.

Phoenix, yeah.

Because it's very close, right?

It's very close.

Yeah.

We right next door each other.

Uh, but it's, it's a big city by any measure and I am, uh, I, I lived

in Mesa since I was 11 years old.

My father was superintendent of schools there, so I was very involved in the

community, watched it grow, owned a business there, uh, and so I got

involved in the community and, uh, after I got out of the construction

business and home building business.

I was really looking for a way to be involved, and I decided

to get into politics, uh, in my fifties and run for mayor.

And I won!

And, uh, it actually was the six years I spent as mayor were just

amazing . It's, it's, I believe the best political job there is.

Because you actually are on the ground for getting things done.

Yeah.

It's non partisan here in Arizona.

And so you, you deal with issues more than you deal with politics.

Right.

So it's non partisan.

You don't want it as a

Republican or Democrat.

Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah.

A citizen.

Right.

And I really, really.

That's probably the way it should be, man.

Cause yeah, I, you know, I, I like it because.

It's funny, you go to the, you mentioned the U.

S.

Conference of Mayors, and we would get into these group, these discussions

with a large group of mayors, and a lot of times, you couldn't tell who was an

R and who was a D, because we talked about issues, and sooner or later, the

ideology, the philosophy came out, but you really discussed how to get things done.

That's right.

Local politics is where the rubber hits the road, man.

You can't hide.

You know, as, as famous mayor of New York, uh, Fiorello LaGuardia said, Oh yeah.

There is no difference between a Republican pothole

and a Democratic pothole.

Ha ha, I love that.

And you find that out.

Yeah.

And so I really enjoyed that because I'm a doer

. And that's actually how I got involved in transit.

Okay.

Because while I was mayor, we planned and started construction on the extension of

light rail through our downtown into Mesa.

It was around the edge of the city, we took it through and I was ... With my

development background, I couldn't help myself to get deeply involved in the

planning and

even reviewing engineering and things like that of the light

rail and really got the bug.

So when, uh, after I left being Mayor and ran for Governor and they were

looking for a CEO, a guy at Metro, they asked me to be the interim.

Uh, for three to six months, and that three to six month gig

turned into a six year gig . Wow.

And I really enjoyed that too.

Now I've heard that Phoenix is the fastest growing place like in the

country and has been for a little bit.

Is that right?

Maricopa County, which is, this is unique because Phoenix,

the Phoenix metro area is one county.

It's one of the largest counties in the country.

Okay.

Uh, and does that include your?

Includes Mesa.

Mesa, okay.

There's about 5 million people in, in Maricopa County.

Okay.

About 1.

7 million, 1.

8 million in Phoenix, 500, 000.

And we have very interesting makeup regionally because we

have a lot of what are called boomers that have grown so fast.

We have several cities that are over 200, 000, 250, 000.

That in any other state would be, yeah, massive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The town of Gilbert, the town of Gilbert, which borders, it's

a town, it's 260, 000 people.

That's

probably the biggest town in the country.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so it's, it's, it's created this, our growth has created

a lot of challenges, but boy, if you want to come from anywhere and

we have people from everywhere and anywhere, everybody wants to come here.

It's warm.

Everyone wants to come here, even though it's hotter than, you know, in the summer.

But it's a place where traditions are five years old in many cases, and anybody

can do anything and be anything because of the newness of the population, and

it's a great place for opportunity.

And, uh, and it's, it was a great place to grow up too.

Because of my time as, as mayor, Uh, I was invited to go back to Harvard for a

semester on a fellowship, which I really enjoyed, uh, to talk about city, uh,

in the, in the, in the Kennedy School of Government, to talk about municipal

leadership and things like that, and as I was literally driving back across country

from Cambridge, I get a call from one of the board members, my fellow mayors

was on the board of Valley Metro, and they had had some challenges and issues

here with leadership, and they called and said, listen, um, Our CEO just left.

You said

you're not governor, maybe.

I'm not

governor.

We know you're coming.

We don't know what you're coming back to.

Our guess is you're absolutely unemployed.

Okay?

And I'm literally driving across Maryland at the time.

Is that right?

Yeah.

I'm headed south, going across Maryland, getting this call.

And they said, would you be interested in being the CEO of Valley Metro?

Until we can hire a new one, and I immediately said, no, I had no

interest in running a transit agency.

And my friend who had flown out from Phoenix to drive back with me, because my

wife had gone back early, reached across the car and hit me and says, don't say no!

Hey, let me sleep on it, I'm coming back tomorrow.

And uh, then I said, why would I be the interim CEO of Mountain Metro?

And he said, it'll be good for your resume.

I said, Dave, I'm 60 years old.

I don't need to build a resume.

Come on, I'll just do it.

It'll be fun.

You can do it, you get you settled back in, and then you

can go on and do whatever.

Okay, whatever.

So that was your interim plan that lasted almost six years.

And the board tried to hire a CEO, didn't find anyone

that really connected with them.

Oh, you had all the background, man.

Well, and, and we, and we had two or three very large projects.

Yeah, we'll

talk about those in just a second.

Yeah, we're getting ready to go before the FTAs are funding.

And I just sort of settled in and.

I went on a series of, of, uh, interim, then six one year contracts.

The idea being that at some time, yeah, I never put pictures of

my family in any of my office.

I literally thought that every year,

well, I guess I'll

stay around, I guess I'll stay around another year.

And we just go on and we just kind of decided to keep going.

And finally one year I said, okay, the projects are funded.

I'm gonna retire.

And that's sort of how it went.

Wow.

And it was, uh, really exhilarating.

I, I'm glad that my friend, uh, reached across.

Yeah.

And punched me because I, I, I learned, I got involved in the transit

industry and learned to love it.

I learned to love the fraternity, the friendships.

Yeah.

Amazing people, uh, that I, uh, that I, I got to know and work with

and I just thoroughly enjoyed it.

Yeah.

You know what

I like about our industry is just what you said.

Thank you.

Um, nobody's competing against each other.

You know, we're all trying to help each other.

Like in

Baltimore, yeah, yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

But I want to learn from you, you know, if I'm running a system,

what's some good things you're doing.

So let's talk about that for a minute, because I think you did some amazing

things during your time there that we can learn from in this industry.

And one of them was, uh, uh, and my good friend, Valerie Nielsen told me about

this, uh, is, um, tell us about these two

referendums you did.

Well, one of the big projects we were working on was a five and a

half mile extension of light rail, due south from downtown Phoenix.

Five and a half miles?

Five and a half miles.

Dude, that's a long way.

Just a, really a straight shot down Central Avenue.

Okay.

From downtown Phoenix down through South Phoenix.

Now South Phoenix, historically, uh, has, has been, uh, has been majority minority,

mostly Hispanic and African American.

Uh, it's, and it's struggled for a lot of years.

There's a lack of investment.

So.

People in the community felt this would be a great investment to take this

right down the middle of Central Avenue.

Central Avenue was a boulevard, meeting in the middle, two lanes both sides.

You're gonna run it down

the middle?

Run

it down the middle.

Okay.

Uh, and, uh, and thought it would be very, very good.

And then, um, some of the, some of the typical objections to light rail came up.

You know, the, the, the destructive nature of construction.

It's, it's tough.

Yeah.

Light rail construction is tough.

Yeah.

And, and a lot of concerns, especially the small businesses along the

route, a lot of the places who felt it would be displacing, uh, uh,

communities of interest, they were afraid of, uh, gentrification, all

the things that have normally come up when you do a project like this.

And one of the big things was, and this is interesting, because the road, as

I mentioned, was four lanes, with a median down the middle, and it had a

lot of businesses that were close to the road, literally up to the sidewalk,

and in order to widen that, there would have been over 80 businesses that

would have had to have gone down, and a lot of these were old businesses.

Family, small businesses, and so the leadership, uh, before I got there,

decided that, no, we don't, that would be too disruptive to the community, and

in order to maintain those businesses and those buildings, they decided to widen as

much as they could, but not to touch the buildings, which meant that for most of

the route, they would go down to a very wide two lanes, two lanes, bike lane,

parking, but they didn't have enough room for four lanes along the entire route.

Okay.

So, of course, that got the ire and the attention of a lot of people who

said, wait a second, you're going to go from four lanes to two lanes?

Yeah.

That's going to destroy us.

Yes.

And studies showed that it wouldn't do that, that there were disagreements,

and finally a group of people were so upset that they formed a

group, four lanes or no trains.

In other words, you either give us four lanes or don't do light rail.

Yeah, that's interesting.

Four lanes, no trains.

And they got, and they joined with some conservative groups who don't like

rail transit.

Spending money on transit, right, yeah.

And so it was

a very interesting mix.

Mostly liberal democrat, but, uh, uh, but residents of that community who felt they

would be disproportionately affected.

And conservative groups who wanted to take an aim at, at rail transit and

funding especially of rail transit.

Okay.

Got together and collected enough signatures to put a,

uh, an issue on the ballot.

And the interesting thing is, is that Phoenix has an existing transit

tax, or transportation tax, and a good portion of that was being

used to build the light rail.

So what the opponents did was, for the first time in U.

S.

history, they had an up or down on, on rail.

And it wasn't, it wasn't just to delay this project, it was, we're going to put

into, into, um, uh, ordinance that the city of Phoenix could not spend one penny

on any rail project anywhere in the city.

And we're going to take that money, and we're going to redirect it

to fix potholes in the streets.

I mean, that's a pretty, that's a pretty compelling argument.

I mean, you've got one line, and we had a couple of other lines inside the

city, which nearby or outside the city.

But if you're not building rail in Phoenix, it doesn't make any sense.

It doesn't connect.

So this would have killed the expansion of the light rail program in Metro Phoenix.

Because Phoenix is literally in the center of the city, of the metro area.

Uh, and it went to a vote, and an amazing thing happened.

See, you would expect people who live 10 miles away to not care about

light rail, not in their community.

Wait, you're going to take that money?

You're going to fix the street in front of my house?

And we were very, very afraid.

We ran a campaign, though, to talk about the history of light rail.

Light rail is fairly new, only opened in 2008.

Okay.

In metro Phoenix, so relatively new.

And what we found was that people have not only accepted light rail,

but they, they love light rail.

Uh, it went to a vote, everyone's afraid, uh, uh, that it literally should pass.

it was defeated in all but two precincts in the entire city.

Their effort to stop it was defeated.

The effort to stop it was, and it was defeated 65 35, it wasn't even close.

Wow.

In solid Republican districts, in solid Democratic districts, it didn't matter.

It, the only thing that was different was the margin of victory.

Only two precincts, uh, did it not pass, and those were two that were

in southeast right along Latter day.

Okay, yeah, yeah.

A lot of the activists were.

Right.

And even then, it was like 50.

1 to 49.

Really?

So...

So what was the secret, do you think?

I think telling the story and just talking openly and honestly.

We said, listen, we get it.

We know that, that, that businesses will be harmed by construction, but

this is a generational investment.

This is not for the next five years.

It literally is for the next five, six generations.

And when you make those kinds of investments to get something

better, yes, there is pain.

We're not going to deny that.

We're doing the very best we can with programs, with assistance

to help those businesses.

And we look and see how this investment in transit, and especially in light

rail, has changed our community.

People can see that.

When they can touch it and feel it, uh, then, then they're making their

judgment based on their own experience.

And we didn't try to change their mind.

We just tried to confirm that this investment we've made, this hundreds

of millions of dollars that we have put in locally, in addition to the

federal money, has been worth it.

And, uh, and we talked openly about, about the problems that we always have.

Nothing's perfect.

Right.

We didn't deny the challenges and the issues.

But we just talked about that it's an investment that's worth making and

that in the long run will continue to benefit our city, and the voters

agreed And what's happened since then?

Uh, the construction continues.

Uh, that line is going to be, uh, this was in 2019.

Oh.

Early in the, uh.

Okay.

It was before construction actually really started.

So, they're in the final, they'll be in the final stages, it'll be finished

at the end of this year, and testing will open up in early, early 2025.

And, uh, tell us, there's some other stuff

going on with Light Rail, right?

You had a Gilbert Road extension to Mesa, and Accessibility Hence Rail

Station at 50th and Washington, and you got 530 million in a federal grant?

The

reason why I stuck around for six years is that we had four

major, five major projects going on.

Okay.

And, you know, as with my development background and, uh, for transit,

I was a kid in a candy store.

It was very difficult to remember during that time, I won't say which

administration was there, but the, well, the Trump administration

was trying to defund all rail.

And this is when we were going up for our full funding grant agreement.

This was during this time of real challenge.

And working really hard with, uh, the FTA and with others and with our delegations.

We got those through, but we did, uh, we, we, we, uh, had three, uh, light

rail projects in the project, a major, really, uh, nice, uh, um, rail station,

which was designed in conjunction with Ability360, which, uh, handles, uh,

disabled, and it's, it's probably the most ADA compliant on steroids almost of

any rail station in the entire country.

They helped design the platform, the accessibility, everything.

And it's right next to a 360, uh, facility.

And then we did the, uh, streetcar.

A modern streetcar in Tempe.

And designed and built that.

And I was able to be right in the middle of that.

So I, I really enjoyed that.

What

a, what a great story.

Alright, so, uh, last question or two is about the future.

So you've had an amazing career.

What is going on right now?

So we're, this is, you know, the end of 2023.

Uh, transit systems across the country are still struggling to

rebound from their ridership losses.

Give us some wisdom or perspective.

I do have perspective.

Okay, give us perspective.

Yeah, I have a whole lot of wisdom.

I think transit, especially rail transit is, is at a real crossroads.

And I was talking about this before I left and before the pandemic and

everything, because it's a double whammy.

First of all, uh, we still haven't, we still don't know where

transit is headed, uh, in the new workforce in the near future.

I don't know whether Or to what level transit will recover because

lifestyles have changed so much, uh, and the workplace has changed so much.

And I've talked to friends who run companies and they're talking about

how absolutely difficult it is to get back to a five day work week.

And some of them, they say, we have a three day work week and we don't

enforce it because we can't, uh, you know, you look, you hear stuff

like that and you wonder what.

That bodes for transit.

The real thing, though, that I think was a threat even before the pandemic was the

spiraling costs to build transit systems.

Uh, and I said this at one time at an APTA conference.

I said, I'm really worried that we are pricing ourselves out of business.

It didn't go over very well.

I had two or three people come up and say, how can you be so negative?

I think it's true.

When you look at what it costs for us to build a mile of, especially rail, BRT.

Um, when you combine, that was a, that is a problem by itself.

When you combine that with the uncertainty of transit in the future and even a

lesser transit ridership, I think there's problems that people in the industry are

not talking openly and honestly about.

I think the cost of, of, of developing projects.

is, is maybe the bigger problem.

And you've got a great background in that because you

spent a career in building things.

Yeah, and I know that there's ways to do things.

I think we over Why don't we make you czar

of building transit a little more cheaply in America?

Well,

when I look at Paris and look what they, what they spent

and when they expanded, I can't remember if this is right or not.

They expanded their underground.

I think they built like 10, 15 miles and it costs less than the two

miles to expand the subway itself.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And now, now France is not exactly a labor.

Right, right, yes.

Uh, you know, they, they have much more stricter, but

they did it less than we did.

I think, I think we have to really look at how we're engineering projects.

I mean, if, if there was a nuclear explosion in Phoenix, I want to be

standing on one of our platforms.

It's that strong.

Because those things are engineered so well, overengineered you might

say, uh, you know the thing that, for example, on our south central

extension, we spent almost a half a billion dollars moving utilities.

I will guarantee you that that's not sustainable.

We've got to figure out a way.

I'm

nominating you, Nuria, are you listening?

We've

got to have a way to allow.

Things, uh, tracks to be built on top of things and make it work.

That's what they do in other places, because the costs are

gonna, are just gonna push up.

And that's, that's where I think is one of our biggest challenges.

And, and nobody's really talking honestly about that, openly.

Yeah.

Maybe honestly, but openly about that.

That's great, very good.

Well, thank you for sharing with us.

Yeah, some of the, uh, background and history and some lessons we can learn.

And, uh, I hope you stay involved.

You've got a lot of wisdom and experience that you can give.

I hope, I hope I'm allowed to stay involved and I get invited to stay.

Because I, as you can tell, I have a lot of strong feelings.

Some of them are completely full of it.

Some of them, though, I think are sort of on the, on the, on the, on the spot.

Yes.

I think so too.

Thanks to you so much for allowing me

to talk to you.

Absolutely.

Thanks again, brother.

Hi, this is Tris Hussey, editor of Transit Unplugged.

And I was, I've been listening to Scott's story about this landslide

victory or loss on the LRT ballot measure because I think this might

be the only time a ballot measure failing is actually good for transit.

So I thought I'd take a moment to ask a regular contributor,

Elea Carey, what she thought.

And it worked!

And what other transit agencies could learn from this?

Hey Elea!

How's it going?

Hey, Tris.

Yeah, this is kind of a mystery wrapped in a riddle with a very happy ending.

is!

So, one of the things, you can hear it in his voice, when Scott is talking about

the ballot measure, when it was early on, and he was surprised by the amount

of community support he already had.

That areas he didn't think would be interested at all, were like, no,

no, no, no, no, no, we want LRT.

So what do you think?

How do they do that?

What does it take to build that kind of community support when you need it

? Elea Carey: I'm making a guess that Valley Metro has some really good

connections in the community and really good communications with the

community, really good relationships.

How do you build those kind of good relationships in the community?

I think it's, um, being there, very present, being on the street,

uh, starts with management, riding your vehicles and engaging with the

public and goes to the more formal kinds of engagement, like community

engagement, where we sit down and.

Talk to the people in the community and have real listening sessions where

we're not showing up and saying, hey, this is what we plan to do in your

community where you're really willing to show up and, um, say, we want to

hear what you want to have happen.

And I suspect that in this instance, um, that that kind of behavior had

been going on for quite a while.

We'll

right.

Yeah, it doesn't happen overnight, but let's dig into tactics.

Your agency, you're facing this kind of ballot measure, either something you want

to win or something you want to defeat.

What are the top three things you would tell an agency to start doing?

start early and anticipate that this is going to be a really long

process, uh, whether you're building trust or rebuilding trust, whether you

have a good relationship already or not.

So understand that you need to go out into the community.

You need to really listen, really show up and hear what they have to say.

And I think reflecting what the community has to say back through

your communications and consistently communicating, this is what we're hearing.

Did we get that right?

And all of the communications associated with the early parts of

the cycle of getting buy in need to be really broadly disseminated, and

of course, in multiple languages.

You have a mandate to communicate in this way, but it'll also serve

you the best in the long run.

Okay, now here's something where You and I have been talking and you

don't agree with what I'm going to ask, and I want, I'm dying for your opinion.

So Scott talks at the end, wrapping that ballot measure discussion up, that

he told people the unvarnished truth.

Yep, there are businesses who are going to be affected.

Yes, construction is going to take a while and it's going to be inconvenient.

He gave, he gave them the good and the bad.

I'm not sure if I were him and he was like, and we were in the Before the

ballot measure failed, I would really be that open, but you disagree with me.

Why?

Yeah, I think that's where the trust is built, is being open

that way, and being really willing to show up, show up without an agenda.

Show up and say, and you know, that takes a lot of courage to do that,

especially when you have big plans and you're thinking generations in

advance, but show up and be willing to listen to what people have to say,

and be willing to change your plans along the way, based on what you hear.

And I think when people sense that, they start to build a lot more trust.

And when that trust is there, people can say, okay, I'm starting to get it.

It's not a five year plan.

It's a five generation plan.

I understand.

I I'm willing to put my trust in you for five generations, that this

is going to serve the betterment of the community in the long run.

Oh, that's great.

You wrapped it up really well.

Elea, as always, thank you for being a regular contributor to Transit Unplugged.

Elea Carey, you can find her on LinkedIn.

Her name is spelled E L E A C A R E Y.

Thanks, Tris.

Hi, this is Tris Hussey, editor of Transit unplugged.

Thank you for listening to this week's episode and a special thanks to our guest

Scott Smith, former CEO of Valley Metro.

Now coming up next week on the show we're sticking with Valley

Metro and Paul is talking with the current CEO, Jessica Mefford Miller.

I'm gonna find out where the LRT is now and what the plans for the future are.

If you're really getting into valley Metro and interested in Phoenix, Arizona.

Well, we have a treat for you coming up in January, 2020 for Phoenix and Valley.

Metro are the features of transit unplugged TV.

So watch for that on YouTube.

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