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Robert Lennox
Monday, March 18, 2019 9:49 AM
City of Sacramento
Director of Youth, Parks, and Community Engagement
Phone Screen Questions
General Questions
1. Why are you interested in the YPCE Director opportunity with the City of
Sacramento? Why are you actively or passively looking for a new position?
Took a step away from local government a year ago to focus on starting a non-profit
agency. The timing was right, so he worked on that and it is now up and running.
Been searching for 6 months to get back into local government. Sacramento stood
out because of the connection to the community and the youth focus. Targeting this
opportunity in particular. Fits his background, what he feels he can bring a lot of
skills.
2. Please describe your most recent position and day-to-day responsibilities.
Comes from a traditional Park & Rec background from capital projects to
programming and everything in between. His specialty is the community
engagement and connection. Has completed park master plans and updates to park
master plans. In So. CA. Increase to homelessness, a lot transient population; he
recommended a task force (City of Menifee) and worked through the issues via
committee and developed a strategic plan. History of park experience and also has
the community connection focus.
3. How many employees do you supervise? Who do you report to?
Non-profit is a small group; government has had anywhere from 11-55 direct reports
and hundreds of part-time depending on the agency and its size. Can work with
small teams as well as large teams. The focus is to deliver the vision. San
Bernardino was challenging because of the budget, just prior to filing bankruptcy.
There were a lot of upset employees. When he was hired furlough was announced;
had to win over the employees. He would come into the office on his furlough
Fridays and go out with the maintenance crews to build trust and a connection.
Position Specific Questions
4. Describe your experience with each of the three areas of the department: Youth,
Parks, and Community Engagement
Youth: in his first year in Menifee, created a youth council (similar to Sac Youth
Commission); created to get youth engaged in government. The kids had projects to
work on throughout the year, they were recognized for their accomplishments; city
was awarded Helen Putnam award in the first year. In grad school, his thesis was
focused on how youth development builds the health and wellness of a community.
Many cities are focusing on Arts, which is good too, but kids can be forgotten when
they have to advance on their own. In City of LA, as a consultant, started a program
called Class Parks. Focused on the impoverished neighborhoods and provided youth
employment, mentorship; the program is still strong today; funded by the state.
Been involved in many capital projects, opened buildings and facilities from small to
large. Longevity of facilities; deferred maintenance plans, etc. Programs: early on
found his calling there.
5. Tell me about the riskiest or most difficult management decision you have made in
recent years. What was your thought process that led you to move forward?
Would you do anything differently today?
In San Bernardino, had to trim $4m from his operating budget; cut from rec side and
facilities. Cutting on the rec side doesn't affect personnel as much, so limited hours
as a first approach; reduced hours of part-time and kept his full-time staff. On the
maintenance side was responsible for parks and the landscape and lighting districts
which were maintained by contract. Also had in house personnel. Instead of
separating full-time employees, focused on terminating contracts on the assessment
districts and shifted staff to those assignments. Was risky because of the landscape
differences. There was a learning curve and concerns that quality would be affected;
kept them employed, took them 6 months to learn; could have been a problem for
the citizen's paying the mela ruse taxes, but the community was ok because they
were also facing financial burdens and understand.
6. Please describe your experience in coordinating, tracking and reporting out on the
implementation of organizational goals, objectives, policies and procedures.
Part of the budget process is to review the balances of expenditures and revenues;
on a quarterly basis looks at participation and revenue efforts to see if on target to
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meet goals. Community surveys for customer satisfaction. Everything has to be
quantified to make progress toward a goal. Read through City of Sac strategic plans,
performance measures in the budget document is a good place to start usually—it's
an overview. In reports to Park and Rec Commissions and to City Council has given
annual reports and build confidence in departments effectiveness. Gives staff a
sense of pride for what they are doing so they receive acknowledgment as well.
Publish the annual report so the community can see it too.
7. Please describe a project in which you played a major role in creating pathways for
improvement for those in your community.
Two examples 1) capital improvement in Menifee; water was an issue in So. CA and
city was spending a lot of money on irrigation. After looking at the utility bills (some
of the areas funded by special assessments), partnered with local water district for a
grant on turf conversion project. $1.5M grant, tore out non-functional turf and put
in drought tolerant landscaping, was an aesthetic improvement and a cost savings.
2) Menifee hired him to start a new Park & Rec/Community Dev department,
worked with LAFCO to detach from a park and rec community that overlapped, was
a huge cost savings for the city. Took the project on, looked at engineering reports,
tax assessment documents, etc. After Council approval took it to LAFCO and it was
approved. Was a very political process, a herculean task. Wanted it voted on by the
constituents; City won but LAFCO put conditions on it and they are still working on
it. Opened the communities eyes to local control and services.
8. Please describe your experience in evaluating technology and operational
procedure utilized in a City department and your approach to implementing
change, if needed.
Active Net solution familiarity-implemented that system for registration and
permitting, is an expert user. Has encouraged Cities he has worked in to embrace
technology. Wireless back hull project. At Menifee didn't have the fiber optics
needed to stay connected; surveillance, irrigation monitoring, etc. Put it on the 5
year plan to create the City's own 4g network connection; wanted to stream video
surveillance for parks maintenance. He put it together as part of CIP, drafted the
RFP and got it out. Every park, especially those that were developer builds, all had a
guideline for surveillance and remote operations. Now, City Public Works has
piggybacked on that for signal control and surveilling traffic flow. Not typical for City
processes. In effort to set up the new department at Menifee, got the City onto
social media for advertising events and classes; there was a shift in median age who
is more on social media. Drafted the social media process that City Clerk's office and
Council adopted. Proficient in Granicus, Accela, Permits Plus. Most people are used
to the old school way and can be resistant; sit down with Council members who
didn't see the value, walked them through the benefits of it and show them how it
makes government more responsive and better service to residents. Not a lot of
resistance with City staff b/c they wanted to modernize. 1 on 1 and education.
9. Please describe the roles in which you have had a relationship elected officials, and
what your role was in those examples. Can you provide an example of when you
have had to research a regulatory item and present your findings to the Council,
Board, or Mayor?
Laws that govern use of State parks: City had opened their first state park. It was a
free use, drop in state park. They started to see vandalism and undesirable activity;
the city wanted to police it. He read through the case law and talked with City
Attorney. Use of fees can be done in unsupervised manner, and meet the posting
criteria. Immunity goes away if it is supervised. Council wanted to hire staff to
monitor it; had to explain the risks to Council. They didn't understand at first, then
they wanted to look at camera surveillance, eventually they understood and it
moved forward. Also started a park ranger, sworn program to be able to issue
citations.
Communication, Collaboration, and Personnel Management
10. This position will interact with managers throughout the City as well as partner
organizations and individuals in the community. How do you evaluate whether
your department is providing a good level of customer service? What do you feel
are some of the challenges to achieving a high level of customer service?
Surveys are great when in the midst of a program or finished a program to get
information from participants; you get hard numbers and can assess measures. It is
a pen and paper process; missing human element. "Community partners
meetings;" open conference room, invite non-profits, county agencies, etc. Round
robin approach to talk about issues in the community and share calendars to not
step on each other's efforts. Really helps with event planning efforts; easier to see
where the resources exist and what services are already being offered; creates
economy of scale and feedback. When city wants to do something controversial
down the road, have allies. Hold the meetings monthly. Saw that Sac wants a
published calendar; has done that before using technology. Feedback and
connection is critical. One of the outcomes of the partner meetings was the city's
facilities needed to be addressed (potholes, sidewalks, buildings, etc.) didn't have
technology to report these issues. Met with code enforcement, parks, IT, public
works to put an app in place that was tied into GIS so that the issues could be