I almost had a little tear in my eye when I read the below FB post by Jason Reisdorfer, the newly anointed Innovation Director with the city. He also believes God helped him get the job. It’s always important to thank the ‘Big Guy’.
As for getting things done, not thrilled about 5G, but that had more to do with lining Thune’s pockets and the Feds FORCING on us! Hopefully a Democratic Congress will do a full investigation of how the telecoms are screwing municipalities on the deal.
UPDATE: I was hoping Jason is motivated to start filming the Parks Board meetings as he told me he was working on a solution, and it looks like Jason and God made it happen: WATCH HERE.
It seemed kind of weird that a town that is ran by a liberal, openly gay, Democrat would have a similar positionas the city of Sioux Falls;
A month after the City of South Bend’s first Chief Innovation Officer stepped down, the city has named Denise Linn Riedl to fill the position.
Riedl previously worked at the City Tech Collaborative in Chicago and also held positions at the Smart Chicago Collaborative and the Federal Communications Commission.
She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Notice she has ‘degrees’, but that’s a story for a different day. So where does this ‘Innovation’ director concept come from? Did Mayor Buttigieg cook this up himself? He has been very successful turning around South Bend and he is looking at running for President. The ideas ‘may’ have ties to Bloomberg;
Last year the Office of Innovation spearheaded applications to the Bloomberg Mayor’s Challenge, which saw the city win $1 million to expand pilot programs connecting low-income residents with affordable rides to work.
As you may or may not know, PTH has been getting a lot of advice from Bloomberg. This may not be a bad thing, but I find it a little ironic that after attending his ‘how to be a mayor’ Bloomberg classes in NY he created this new position. Now if he can just get Reisdorfer to take some night courses. Maybe they could share the expense of getting city clerk Greco actually certified to be a City Clerk? Hey, what an INNOVATIVE concept!
The 2019 City Employee salaries was supposed to be posted already. Last year it was posted by Jan 8th.
I’m wondering if the delay has to do with some ‘rumored’ staff changes?
Supposedly the ADA Coordinator resigned this week, and two managers were hired to work under Jason Reisdorfer as an IT Manager and an Innovations Manager.
If any of this is true, all I can say is this is what happens when you hire someone with only a HS Diploma to run a massive department, they need some qualified people to do the actual ‘Heavy Lifting’. Maybe this is why TenHaken hired Beck? Not sure what bet he lost that forced him to hire T.J. TypeOver?
Not sure what happened with the ADA Coordinator. I do know that the past mayor did appreciate her in the position, so it may have been a ‘philosophical’ disagreement with the current administration. It is probably a very stressful and demanding job, and maybe she just needed a break? I also know that TenHaken has been mysteriously silent about his feelings about the LGBTQ community.
I got a chuckle after finding this on Paul’s FB page, he says this;
One of the reasons I believe I was elected was my executive experience and CEO mentality that I campaigned on. That being said, it is my belief that every good CEO needs a strong #2. In my case, that is my Chief of Staff, Erica Beck.
Today, I am spending some time exploring how other organizations use this critical role to create efficiencies and progress. Sioux Falls is lucky to have someone of Erica’s caliber serving in City Hall. #OneSiouxFalls
While I agree we are lucky to have Beck (I think) wouldn’t have you defined her role before hiring her? I have heard that the some on the city council have requested a job description of Beck, Jason Reisdorfer (IT Specialist) and TJ Nelson (Deputy COS) and have yet to receive one.
Jason suggests that city employee minions can actually sit across the desk from their director boss and have a conversation (I chuckled when he said that employees told him they were never allowed to share their ideas with the directors one on one in the past administration – wonder where that directive came from?)
He also says the city should use active data to make the city run more efficiently. I thought they did that already? Anytime they want to raise our taxes or fees they just hire a consultant to run those numbers and tell us they need to raise our taxes.
Jason also makes the goofy claim that the mayor is the CEO of our city. They just can’t get over the fact that government and business don’t run the same way. They need to take a gander at the charter, the Mayor is actually a employee manager. Policy is to be set by the legislative branch, the city council, not by the mayor or his Innovation Guru.
All this aside, Jason has some good ideas, data should drive decisions. When Bruce and I put together 4 winning campaigns our strategy was always based on data first. Messaging and fancy graphic design is secondary. We have to know if candidates can win, and the only way you figure that out is by running the numbers and telling those candidates what they have to do to achieve their goals. I have often been surprised that the city doesn’t have a full time data mining and analytical department running the numbers in all departments constantly. Maybe Jason will change that. Also, I have often been baffled we can’t fix our transit problem. You simply put a team on researching other markets as to what they do and what works. This isn’t rocket science kids. We have to admit it will cost money initially, just like a public ambulance service, but if you do it right to start with, you can make it efficient. Jason said it, it’s not going to be his ideas that fix problems but others. The most successful people in the world have never had original ideas, just fragments of other great ideas.
l3wis 
