Kathy Lantry, Public Works Director, may text snow alerts in another language to non-English speaking residents. It wasn't entirely her idea -- she credits City Council Member Chris Tolbert with the suggestion -- but it's the latest communication strategy to land in her lap, and she's open to it.
In fact, she's been open to a lot of new possibilities since becoming director of a department she had never previously expressed much interest in leading. The engineers and public works folks around her are still acclimating.
Former St. Paul City Council President Kathy Lantry at her pseudo-sorta-going-away party at City Hall, February 2015. Lantry became the city's Public Works Director soon after.
"I'm a very different leader for them," she said Friday, with a chuckle. "As soon as somebody comes up with an idea, I'm 'let's try it!' And as engineers, they try to be more thoughtful about things."
The former city council president stepped down from her elected seat this year after some 16 years to fill the opening created by the retirement of her predecessor, Rich Lallier, who had served the city in various capacities for 36 years.
Lantry has no background in engineering, but she knows how to ask the impertinent question (should have gone into journalism, we say. It's a growing field).
Sometimes, the philosophical questions roil engineers accustomed to finding the quickest way to get from Point A to Point B, both on paper and in road construction. Lantry points out that sometimes quicker is not better -- case in point, the citywide bicycle plan and St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman's 8-80 Initiative, which actually seek to slow down traffic in spots.
"Should we be about moving traffic as quickly as we can through neighborhoods? ... The fact that I'm asking questions and saying 'Why do we have to do things like that?' ... can cause a little bit of anxiety," Lantry said. "It's a very different culture in Public Works."
On July 6, Lantry will get some helping ask "Why?" from her longtime city council legislative aide, Ellen Biales, who she is bringing into the department as a large projects manager. "I am going to ask her to look at some really big issues, things like facilities planning, succession planning, the large strategies implemented by Public Works."
Why Biales, other than her friendship and loyalty over the years? For starters, Biales writes things down. "She's excellent when it comes to process," said Lantry. "There's a lot of information in Public Works that is held in people's memory." That's not too helpful when someone retires or stays home with a toothache, Lantry points out (well, the Scoop added the toothache part).
Codifying written policies and procedures will be a new direction for the department. New communications strategies will be key, like the possible multi-language snow alerts to inform an increasingly diverse audience to move their cars in a snow emergency. "Ellen is a phenomenal communicator," Lantry said.
"It's about letting people know what we're doing," Lantry added. "We need to make sure that the way we communicate with people today makes sense. There's this tendency to say 'that's the way we've always done things.'"
Is maneuvering Public Works in a somewhat new direction part of an elaborate attempt to butter up the masses in advance of a mayoral run in 2017? Sure, her name has been bandied about as a possible contender, but so have many others. Lantry isn't talking 2017 right now. She's got too many snow alerts to translate.
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