MATTHEW TULLY

Tully: Steve Goldsmith wants to reboot local government

Matthew Tully

Stephen Goldsmith looks at local government and sees opportunity amid the chaos — the chaos of strained budgets, increasing demands on public services, and social challenges that seem to be growing more complicated with every passing year.

For the former Indianapolis mayor, who was known for rejecting the status quo, the solution to government’s problems lies in part on accepting two realities. First, he said, “There is not simply enough money to do what government needs to do.” And second, most governments are structured in ways that make no sense for the 21st Century, in what he calls “a one-size fits-all widget making process that is a waste of resources.”

What Goldsmith sees in most cities are impersonal and slow-moving bureaucracies built around systems and departments, rules and bureaucratic box-checking, and not around neighborhoods and the best interests of residents. What he envisions is a radical shift that strips government of its clunkiness and uses social media, data and new technologies to help it be both more efficient and better at engaging residents.

Along the way, government could do a whole lot more for less money.

“You should be able to have an Amazon-level relationship with government,” he said of the online retail giant. “You should to be able to define your relationship with government. But you can’t right now; the system is totally antiquated.”

A smart government, he said, could use the information residents voluntarily give it to send alerts about construction work that is likely to disrupt their commutes. It could use social media to seek grades on the services residents received from a government office, and input on the services they need. It could better use analytics to predict where, say, the next fires are likely to occur, and then station emergency service closer to those neighborhoods. It could use social media to engage residents in a way that ensures attention is not paid only to “the squeaky wheel” but to the broader public.

“If you change the way government operates and use the tools available today we can dramatically change the way government serves its people,” Goldsmith said, as we talked recently about his new book: “The Responsive City: Engaging Communities Through Data-Smart Governance.” “It could be more personal. More targeted.”

Goldsmith was the last Indianapolis mayor to take office in the digital dark ages. He won his first election to lead the city in 1991, back when you could count all the websites in the world on your fingers. A wonk in every way, he shook up the city with privatization efforts and regulatory streamlining, and he continued Downtown’s rebirth, earning national attention for bringing innovation into government. He also made sure Indy was at the forefront of allowing residents to do things such as pay parking tickets online.

His political career stalled after losing a campaign for governor in 1996, and he attracted a series of unflattering headlines during a rocky stint as the deputy mayor for operations in New York City in 2010 and 2011. As we talked at a Downtown Starbucks, he made a self-deprecating joke about what many have labeled his abrasive management style. But the past bumps didn’t seem to bother him; his focus is clearly on the future.

An idea man at heart, he now heads a government-innovation program at Harvard University, consults frequently and has worked in Washington, D.C., on both national policy and local neighborhood redevelopments. He isn’t in town often, but the 67-year-old Broad Ripple High graduate, who seems a lot younger, told me Indianapolis remains his home.

With his new book, Goldsmith is urging city governments to embrace innovation. It’s a hard sell; most mayors spend their days dealing with the latest emergency or complaint, and most employees have so much work to do that stepping back to think about the big picture is a luxury.

“You can’t do it with people who have fulltime responsibilities day to day,” he said. “Someone has to have the job of driving innovation and showing the benefits of it. But once you start it, the effectiveness of city government improves so much that it creates a momentum.”

For instance, he said, you could use data to better predict problem properties before they become eyesores. You could identify the most repetitive pothole areas but then save money by determining why those corners are so prone to potholes. You could more effectively take on youth obesity with neighborhood-level data. You can grade workers and contractors more on outcomes than on their adherence of processes that help nobody.

“There is a perverse incentive to respond to problems rather than to prevent them,” Goldsmith said. “We teach (government workers) not to think. We don’t give them enough tools to do the job they are capable of doing.”

In Goldsmith you see a guy who seems like he would love to have another crack at the job of mayor. That’s not likely to happen, of course. But whoever has the job after the next election would be wise to pick his brain.

“It’d be more fun today,” he said of being mayor. “The problems are greater, but the tools are better. Some of the problems may be more resistant to change. But with all the tools we now have, it’d be so much easier to transform government.”

The question, then, is whether anyone in local government is up to the challenge of doing it.

You can reach me at matthew.tully@indystar.com or atTwitter.com/matthewltully