EP 12: The Food-Truck City Hall
Place your order! Local governments are taking after food trucks and serving up convenience at a curb near you. That's on this episode of Municipal Equation, the podcast from the N.C. League of Municipalities about today's challenges, trends and concepts for cities and towns. We talk with the City of Boston about its City Hall To Go program, which converted an old food truck into a city hall on wheels. Yes, that means it travels from hotspot to hotspot to make it easier for residents to connect with local government and access services. Since Boston pioneered it four years ago, several other U.S. cities have joined the fleet -- most recently Durham, North Carolina, with whom we discuss the program. Could it work in your hometown? Show notes: Boston's City Hall To Go - https://www.boston.gov/departments/city-hall-go Durham's City Hall On The Go - http://durhamnc.gov/2883/City-Hall-on-the-Go CityLab, "In Houston, Taco Trucks Serve Up Voter Registration" - http://www.citylab.com/politics/2016/09/food-trucks-serve-tacos-with-a-side-of-voter-registration/502034/
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Transcript
On this episode of Municipal Equation. We hope to really get out there, get out of the, you know, misconceptions about municipal government hiding away in city hall or it being difficult to navigate and really being approachable and out there,
to serve the the residents and the constituents. When a city government takes inspiration from a food truck, cool things can happen. My name is Ben Brown, and this is Municipal Equation from the North Carolina League of Municipalities, episode 12. Imagine you're waiting in line to place your order at a food truck. You're the fourth person back in line. It's Mexican food, smells fantastic. The first guy in line tells the guy inside the truck, I'll take the pork taquitos. They're quick. He gets his food, gets a drink, grabs a handful of napkins, and goes to find a place to sit. It's the next person's turn. She orders a loaded quesadilla and same thing, gets a drink, off she goes while they make her food. So now it's the guy in front of you. He asks for two soft tacos, extra packets of Tapatio, a drink, and a voter registration form. That might strike you funny, but it's not as unusual as you might think. At least not according to our recent article in CityLab about taco trucks adding voter registration to their menus. And this is something that was happening in cities across the country. As a political statement, yeah, and this isn't a political episode, but it is about taking government services as well as engagement to the road in creative food truck style. Just recently, the city of Durham, North Carolina launched a program called City Hall On The Go, with a revamped police wagon turned into a mobile city hall that travels from place to place in the city to make it easier for residents to access government services. It's a simple idea and effective idea. And this isn't the only one of its kind. A number of US cities have adopted the idea to make things not only easier for people to deal with government, but to also sort of pull down the cold rigid barrier that some people might perceive when it comes to getting things done at city hall. By all accounts, and I'm open to correction here if this isn't accurate, but by all accounts, this started in Boston with a program called City Hall To Go, where the city took an old food truck and transformed it into a city hall with wheels. And it's a big hit. Jacob Wessel with the city of Boston is in charge of the program.
Yeah. City Hall to Go is, a mobile service center that goes to different parts of the city and, is a place where folks can come in person and handle a lot of, city services. So that's everything from, you know, getting a residential parking permit to a dog license to filing a whole host of documents that one might need to file in person at city hall. It's inspired by the food trucks. Okay. The first iteration of it was in literally in a former food truck. Mhmm. Okay. It was, just much like the way that the city first developed our food truck program where we had to learn all the ins and outs of of where food trucks wanted to go and why they wanted to go certain places. We said it's a great opportunity to capitalize on folks being in different places at different times of the day and also using a mobile version, of this as a way to engage with citizens and also to go, where they are as opposed to making them come to city hall, which can be very inconvenient for someone who's, you know, not downtown in the middle of the day. Sure.
So and and actually, that's a good point. You know, Boston obviously terms of population and geography. And depending on where you're going, the commute can be lengthy in terms of time. On the flip side, this probably means that city hall to go, gets around quite a bit. Do you guys track the the ground that it's covering? Yeah. We haven't we don't track by mile, but we it visits,
Boston has, a variety of of different neighborhoods, and we try to visit them all, throughout the course of a month. So, from neighborhoods that are relatively close to to City Hall to ones that can take forty five minutes or an hour to get to City Hall by car sometimes, we we really try to get around everywhere and some places, particularly dependent upon, you know, where we see good traffic coming to the truck, you know, get out more than once, in a month and try to rotate on a regular schedule so that, we can be accessible to all of Boston's residents.
And so having that food truck association to it, I mean, this is kind of a leading question, but would you say that association and that perception of vehicles like this lends to a a more positive vibe about city government? I mean, are are you guys getting good feedback about the program in that way?
I we're getting great feedback. It's not necessarily being tied into a food truck, but, you know, oftentimes older city building, it's not, you know, hidden behind a, you know, a metal detector and you gotta go up in elevator and it's tough finding things oftentimes in in government buildings. Of course, we're we also have a plan on making our our city hall and other, government buildings more accessible and intuitive. But, being on a main street in a, you know, business district or near a community center, is really a great way for people to just discover city hall to go and get certain things out of the way that they've been meaning to do, but putting off because it can sometimes be inconvenient for them to go to city hall. It's also, you know, folks plan to go there, and it's just a lot easier. Maybe there's, it's near a train station, maybe it's, you know, walkable from their home, or or short distance by bike or even car and so that that can be convenient as well. And then lastly, it's a way to a lot of services that are available at City Hall to go are ones that are we are now starting to introduce on our website as well. So the city's website was recently revamped and we've got a whole team of folks who are working on making many more services accessible, on our website. But, that said, nothing really ever beats that that in person touch. So a lot of folks have questions. They're not sure where to go. They're confused a bit by, you know, bureaucracy or what have you. And knowing that you can, in your neighborhood, go find someone who is from city government there who can respond to any sorts of questions that you might have, is comforting to a lot of folks.
So, who drives the vehicle, and does it have a dedicated staff that people get to know? Or how does that work?
Yep. So, there's there's a few staff. I'm gonna do, myself and then, two full time staffers and a part time staffer. And so the full time staff can, drive the truck to its location. And, then there there are often almost always two people on-site who can help folks with whatever questions they might have.
So can can residents or, areas or events schedule a visitation from city hall to go? And if so, how is that done?
Yeah. They can request just so that we do leave sometimes open for scheduling of events, but we also have a regular schedule. So sometimes if we're able to work it into the schedule, we will also, have a presence at certain,
events. And do you find I guess, roughly at this point, it's been on the road for about four years. Are Bostonians getting acquainted with it? Is there a decent amount of awareness? And how are you getting the word out about the program?
So I think there is a fair amount of awareness. I mean, people will say, oh, yeah. The the the truck, the bright red truck. Yeah. I saw it in, you know, as I was walking to the grocery store the other day or, oh, yeah. That's where I paid my taxes or something like that. So, I would say, you know, I've heard, you know, anecdotally, that that people are aware of the truck. Of course, not everyone knows about it. And whether it's social media or, working with other city staffers who have a presence at neighborhood meetings, through our community centers, through our public school system. We are trying to use as many avenues as possible to get the word out and then also work on partnerships. So when we're going to a neighborhood, we wanna tell the local, you know, weekly newspaper or the local blog in that neighborhood that we're gonna be there. We have a list of folks in our locations in each neighborhood that we will reach out to, whether that's a lay leader from a church or, you know, a local business association to let them know. And, you know, maybe if you're going to see your dry cleaner, what have you, they're aware of it and, it could come up in conversation like that.
And what are some of the most popular services that people are accessing through city hall to go?
A lot of them have to do with parking. So, and and vehicular things that are required by the city. So resident parking stickers, renewal of other things as relates to cars, Other things that that folks are using City Hall to go for, paying excise taxes, birth certificates, business certificates, those sorts of things that that oftentimes are a bit more complex than, just filling out a a brief form online and and folks come to get a a business certified with our city clerk's office or, a birth certificate if they've, recently had a child. What about voter registration? Is that is that also offered? Yes. Voter registration is offered. We've we've, approaching 50 services, on the truck, which we call, our menu. Okay. There are a variety of of services that, I can point you to on our website, which are everything from, as I mentioned, a dog license to filing for an application for a business or registering the phone. And as part of that, you know, as we are partnering with various organizations, maybe it's a nonprofit or, for example, last year on National Voter Registration Day, the city held to go truck visited various schools and helped, high schoolers register to vote for the first time. So that was a wonderful partnership.
Oh, that's great. So how is it funded? I I mean, I suppose in the grand scheme, it's a pretty small part of the general government budget. Yep. So it's it's funded through the through the regular budget cycle through the general fund. So,
there's no special earmark or what have you. It's simply another program in the budget. We're housed in the civic engagement cabinet. So, we are part of that front facing forward facing, part of government, and and we sort of facilitate services where while we don't actually provide them. Right? If we're providing you a parking sticker that's actually through our transportation department. If we're, helping you get a business certificate that's through our city clerk's office and we're the facilitator.
And right now, is there just one city hall to go? And have there been talks about adding additional vehicles if so?
So there's one city hall to go vehicle. What we are now adding so last year, we noticed that during the winter, it it creates a challenge for us because having the truck we don't wanna have the truck running the whole time to try to have it heated. You know, having our staff, in the truck for three hours when it's 10 degrees out isn't something Right. That we would like them to do. So what we started doing is we started setting up just a smaller version of City Hall to go inside community centers, and we saw great traffic inside the community centers. We did a great job advertising them and made sure that there was adequate signage and and places where people were going for other things, say using a gym or dropping off their kid at a a program or seniors using that the community center for, a class or or something like that. They were then also able to take advantage of all of the city services that we offer. And, as part of that, we are now launching what we're calling neighborhoods. We've started in one community center, and we're working towards three by the end of the year where there will be a regularly scheduled, city hall to go staffer in a community center, multiple times a week that folks will be able to go visit. Well, this again,
very, very cool, very simple, but at the same time, pretty innovative. And I think it's something that we're gonna continue to see repeated in other cities around the country. Is there anything else that I might have missed about the program that you'd like to communicate?
No. I mean, I I look forward to seeing other iterations of it around the country, and, you know, we hope to continue to improve it and and really get out there, get out of the, you know, misconceptions about municipal government hiding away in city hall or it being difficult to navigate and really being approachable and out there, to serve the the residents and the constituents.
About a thousand miles south in Durham, North Carolina is a similar program with a similar name, City Hall On the Go, modeled directly after the Boston program. It's been on the streets since August. The city saw the name for it after a survey of residents reflected some divisions from city government.
And one of the concerns of the survey was a concern that people didn't feel connected to the city or city government and that they, felt that there was a lack of communication.
That's Linwood Best. He's the city's community engagement manager. He said their first instinct was to put a sort of city hall substation in a house in one of the less engaged neighborhoods. But then they quickly figured that if these residents aren't coming to city hall, they might not go to a substation either. Then they learned about Boston's city hall to go. That's a great idea.
So we talked with our partners. The police department said, oh, yeah. We have a truck that you can use, a crime, a crime unit truck that we can use, and all we had to do is is convert it. So we actually agreed with them. Let us get the truck and we have modified the truck and turn it to our city hall on the go. Best said it's about convenience, but also about rebuilding a relationship with the community.
It creates more face time, more human connection between government staffers and residents. Again, the idea is to go to the people who might not be the first inclined to speak their minds at city council meetings, for instance. And this opens communication toward understanding problems, understanding the role of city government, and having that two way conversation that some people think might be lacking with local government.
But back to convenience, City Hall on the Go allows residents to, for instance, pay their water bills right there. We have computers on board. Actually, I have two computers on board that we take off. Their Wi Fi connected. We have a printer. And so the people who can pay their water bills online, we'll be able to do that. We have if they wanna apply for jobs through our GeoGov, our system with the field of drone, we have the computers that can do that. And, also, we have a general one call system where people call in to express their concerns that they'd like to see to help them address. And we have that connectivity too. So that allows people to actually come and do those things instead of taking a long ride to downtown or or bus drive to downtown. They're able to do this in their own communities. And we're there to help them to do this. So we have people who are experienced in online training that we help them navigate through the system online. And so we're very excited about having that out in the community.
And you might be wondering if it's working. Well, the feedback has been very positive.
The people we are actually doing surveys at each stop to try to find out because this is new. It's a pilot program. So what we're trying to do is find what services do you want on the truck that we may not have at the current time. And people are letting us know certain things that we don't have that we are looking to get in our services we're interested in, and, sharing the experience.
I'll have links to information about City Hall to Go and City Hall on the Go in the show notes for this episode at soundcloud.com/municipalequation. If your city has a program like this, let me know. Email me at bbrown@nclm.org or contact me on Twitter. The handle is at muni equation. That's at m u n I equation. A couple other cities I know of that have launched programs like this include Dallas, Texas and Bridgeport, Connecticut. And we'd also love to do more episodes about creative ways that local governments are working to humanize themselves and get closer with residents and make engagement easy and fun. So send me your ideas or links to news stories or programs that might inspire future episodes here. This podcast is made possible by the North Carolina League of Municipalities online at ncln.0rg. Got some great episodes coming up, including focuses on drones and what they might mean for local government, what all goes into a city rebranding itself, and to look at creative PR and neighborhood engagement for police. Lots to come. Talk to you soon. This has Ben Brown.
