Putting Veterans to Work in Pensacola, FL

They wore the nation’s uniform, many where highly trained in specialized fields. They worked hard, did hard jobs and did jobs many people would never do. Some of them went above and beyond the call of duty, yes, some were hero’s. DC Reeves is the mayor of Pensacola, FL and a strong advocate for putting veterans to work after their military service.

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Transcription

David Martin: This is the good government show.

DC Reeves: I owned a brewery. I used to cover football for a living. Then I became the mayor. I think it’s our duty. It’s our service as a city, as private enterprise, to invest in people who certainly have invested in us, and in some way, shape or form. So I think there’s a just the element of duty to do that.

I think the most effective mayors know what they know and know what they don’t know. Every decision we make is something that we need to be able to defend, even when it’s not fun. You know, even when you get a deal, give difficult news. I’m liberated and empowered by the idea that I can wake up every day and say, I don’t care about being the president one day.

I don’t care about, oh, I’m doing this because I love this community. Period. And if this is all I do, great. I the classic thing you hire for attitude and train for skill, nostalgia, you know, I always say, is the enemy of progress, you know. Well, because this is how we’ve always done it.

David Martin: They served in the military. They served in all branches, some in combat roles, some in other roles, men and women. And eventually they leave the service and start new careers. One mayor is working to make sure that those that served get a fair chance, and a helping hand to move on to their life once they’re out of the military.

Welcome to the Good Government show. I’m Dave Martin. First, help us show the message of good government by liking us and sharing us where we are. We’re on Facebook, we’re on YouTube, Instagram and Blue Sky. Please share a show with your friends and have us right here. We’re listening. You could review would be nice and join our good government show community.

Check out our website for the link. I met Pensacola, Florida mayor DK Reeves at the Conference of Mayors at a conference earlier this year. He had just come out of moderating a breakout session called Hiring America’s Heroes Harnessing the Power of the Veteran Workforce. That’s what we talked about. As Mary’s will tell you, if you fly a plane or work on a plane for the Navy or the Marines, at some point, you were stationed in Pensacola.

It’s a huge Navy town. He says the military presence in Pensacola makes up like 40% of the city’s economy. His city puts vets to work. He says what vets bring to any job is a sense of accountability and instant credibility. He says hiring people who can manage people is a smart way to make a quality hire. He also says there’s a lot of misconceptions about veterans in the workforce.

Look past that, he says, and look at the veterans and see what they can bring to a new role. And it turns out he’s a former newspaper reporter who covered, of all things Florida State football. So go Noles. We talked before the football season kicked off, but sadly, the discussion about the Seminole football team might still be less accurate this season two.

But the season is not over yet. Not yet. Coming up, my conversation with DC Reeves, mayor of Pensacola, Florida.

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Welcome to the Good Government show I have with me DC Reeves, the mayor of Pensacola, Florida. Welcome to the Good Government Show. Nice to have you.

DC Reeves: Thank you for having me.

David Martin: No. Thank you. And also a fellow Seminoles, Florida State University.

DC Reeves: That’s what I like to hear.

David Martin: Journals.

DC Reeves: Yeah. It’s a tough year this past year.

David Martin: I was you know what? We have a very good golf team. Very good women’s softball team.

DC Reeves: Fair enough.

David Martin: Golf was get a little.

DC Reeves: Amnesia to the fall.

David Martin: Volleyball. Baseball is going well. So you know what? The rugby team is doing very well. So we’re all good. Are you from Pensacola originally?

DC Reeves: I am, I was born and raised in Pensacola, and, and actually was a sportswriter. That’s what I did most of my professional career covered, Florida State. I was an editor of the school paper there. The.

David Martin: Osceola or something else.

DC Reeves: Yeah, the FSU is. It was called the Florida Flambeau back in the day.

David Martin: Oh, the same book.

DC Reeves: Yeah. And then I, went home, worked at the newsroom for four years, back to Tallahassee at war. Chant the FSU website. Right. And then got hired by Tuscaloosa News, covered Alabama for two years and then moved back home in 2015. So I’ve been so most of my life has been spent in Pensacola, but I’ve been back for about ten years.

David Martin: All right. Great. And, nice to see a newspaper reporter who’s who’s moved on and is doing well.

DC Reeves: Yeah, helps meet the press conferences. You know, and, I usually know what they might be asking.

David Martin: So the reason why I wanted to talk with you is because you just came out of, of a seminar. We’re here at the Conference of Mayors. That’s all the background noise. And you talked about hiring vets. Tell me about this program. Because this is good government in action.

DC Reeves: Yeah. Look, look, it’s called Florida and Florida House district one has the largest single collection of veterans in the of any congressional district in the United States of America. So what does that mean? Simply, I can tell you, the city of Pensacola alone because of just one of those military installations, Pensacola Naval Air Station, is 40% of our economy.

And and that.

David Martin: Is a huge Navy base. If you don’t know, Pensacola is a Navy town, huge Navy base, huge Navy population.

DC Reeves: And it is it they it’s called, the cradle of naval aviation. And the way to put it is if you in the Navy or Marines, if you fly anything or work on anything that flies, you spend time learning how to do that in Pensacola, Florida. So, we have lots of veterans who, who, are there 30, 40 years ago.

And then we, they see our beautiful beach and they come back and retire. Right. I like all different walks and moments in life. Just my city alone. 40% of the economy is fueled, by our military base. And, so, so this is, of course, a geographic, important priority for us. But as our conversation with fellow mayors all over the country is, is, you know, this is about putting good people and putting our heroes and jobs.

I mean, at the end of the day, quality of life is important for every citizen we have. But it takes some intentionality to say we’re going to make a concerted effort, to take the heroes and all the skills that they built through our government, through it, through their time in the in service. How can we translate that, for them to be, successful and build quality of life and build quality within our city government?

So, for example, you know, and, so I had my city administrator, Tim Kinsella, who was the former base commander and school nurse, with me and sharing his story. And, and so it’s definitely an effort in Pensacola, and I’m very encouraged to see, the interest in that, with mayors around the country.

David Martin: I know that certainly in the last several years, the military has gone through very difficult times to serve. The servicemen and women have gone through very difficult times. What’s the challenges in getting them jobs? I mean, these are people who are well-trained, who sacrificed. But I but yet I know there’s mental health issues. There’s homeless issues.

How do you fix that?

DC Reeves: Yeah, I.

David Martin: Have you fixed.

DC Reeves: Everything. Know, there’s no such thing as ever fixing everything. That’s why it’s always a work in progress. But, you know, and Tim Kinsella, my city administrator, touched on it in our meeting, you know, and says, you know, shared his story and saying, hey, I’ve, I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD. That doesn’t mean, you know, that that’s caused any sacrifice, to, our effort at the city of Pensacola, in kind of beating back some of the, the stereotypes that that we all hear.

So I was not a military service as a civilian, and as someone who owned a business, before this and now running the city, you you hear those things?

David Martin: What? You’re a military family is your your.

DC Reeves: Parents and my my my grandfather, earned two purple hearts in World War two. So? So I’ve been around military, service, a long time. And, of course, growing up, if you’re always around, you know.

David Martin: Just big time to tell you that. One of my college roommates grew up in Pensacola. His dad was Navy. He’s became an Air Force pilot.

DC Reeves: Yeah. Well, he he lost his way, I guess. Yeah. But, you know, it. I think it’s important to point out when you really look at the data and look at the facts. Another misperception, that I would say I heard, you know, coming in to this job and other jobs is. Well, if you’ve been in military service, you know, you you wake up early and you stay, you know, you’re you’re prompt and you’re on time and you can’t think outside the box.

You know, you’re you’re so used to this structure, it’s just not the case, you know, and the data suggests that. And so, you know, I think the first challenge would be for any for and this isn’t just for anybody listening that owns that private business, you know, owns companies is to try to, you know, really pass the cursory mention of a, you know, of what about mental health?

What about, you know, their their ability to be creative and, you know, I would dive deeper and really examine that there’s there are a lot more positive things that come out of, someone serving in the military, and that, that really could, would thwart some of those misperceptions that, somehow moving into the private world, that that somehow wouldn’t translate.

David Martin: And what about moving into the public sector, into government? Have you had success in translating, transitioning some of these guys into working for the city?

DC Reeves: Yeah, it’s actually just had a great not just fire, right. But we had a great conversation actually with, with one of the panelists on our panel that with, DoD about, the cybersecurity training that they’re trying to put in that’s actually working both ways. It’s, can we get more civilians upskilled quickly into, into cyber security jobs, whether that be that they’re civilian or military?

It what we’re focused on and it’s a fight we’re always going to be in is how do we continue to provide more assets and, and more, incentives, and awareness, that for our military population to know that they’re welcomed in, they’re valued. So, so we continue to work on that. Tim has been with me for four months and again, knows has forgotten more than I have ever will ever know about the how the military operates and the profile of of sailors and soldiers.

David Martin: And is it hard to be not a military person yourself to sort of get inside the the head, if you will, of the military?

DC Reeves: No. You know, what I feel like is, I think the most effective mayors know what they know and know what they don’t know. And and so we try to bring on when I went to pick a city administrator, you know, all those myths we talk about, we’ll there might be too structure. They might, you know, but, hey, I was an entrepreneur.

I need a little structure in my life, right? Yeah, yeah. So it’s knowing what you know and knowing what you don’t know. And so now.

David Martin: We’re out of time. Next time, place.

DC Reeves: Exactly, exactly. So, I mean, to have, to me, my role as an entrepreneur, former entrepreneur and business owner means, I can provide in this conversation without being military. And, you know, it’s funny. I’ll use a sports analogy. I use this example all the time. Sometimes athletes would get upset and, if you wrote about something, they’d say, well, you never played, you know, football at Alabama.

No one said that to me, but you’d hear that, you know, you never played football, and that was some type of qualifier. And, our retort is journalist was always oil. Well, I hope you’ve never reviewed a movie then, unless you’re a director. You know, I mean, meaning, you know, you if you do something long enough and become familiar enough, you can contribute.

So I feel like my lane in this conversation is I know I may not know what it’s like to serve in the military, but I do know what businesses look for. I do know how to beat back the stigma, since I know both sides of the glass. I do know how to go to a business owner and say, hey, you know, don’t over blow this mental health thing because you heard something on TV, you know, oh, don’t don’t, assume that they all they do show up on time and leave on time and they don’t know how to critically think.

So I look at my role in this more not as the, the subject matter expert, but as the bridge, you know, to to bridge between private enterprise and private investment and saying that, hey, this is important. And let me tell you why. As a former business owner, I believe this is important.

David Martin: So what would you tell a business owner about hiring? Is that.

DC Reeves: What I tell you is there’s so many amazing things. We tell stories, all the time. Tim and I actually were at dinner last night about, just the incredible heroism and service, during the, you know, the the young soldiers during the terrorist attack, on base at Pensacola while he was commander, and, the amazing thing that these people did in such a harrowing time and some of those same people are looking for jobs, you know, I mean, and and you wouldn’t believe what they did that day.

And, and so to me, number one, we we should be intentional to honor the people who have, who have protected this country and who are willing to do what many are not, which is put their life on the line. So so I think it’s our duty. It’s our service as a city, as private enterprise, to invest in people who certainly have invested in us, and in some way, shape or form.

So I think there’s a just the element of duty to do that, I think is number one. And number two is I can just speak from personal experience, both from, all the way from the city administrator through some of our department directors, and, and through being in the geography of Pensacola, Florida, the amazing work, that these veterans do and how they transform teams.

Yeah, that’s the work I see as a business owner is when you put them in supervisory roles and, the type of output that you get, the efficiency that you get, and the employee engagement that you get has been, at least anecdotally, in my experience, has been a real, the credibility that, that a military veteran brings into a room, you know, in a private division or a department or in a city department is really amazing.

And I get to watch that firsthand.

David Martin: Is there any area, where veterans are especially effective in the private sector or public sector?

DC Reeves: You know, I think if we go back to the structure stereotype, let me tell you, which is there is truth to, but it’s not that they that they don’t think outside the box. I believe the strength one is commanding the respect and clear expectations. You know, I think a lot of times. Yeah, we’re all our bureaucracy, okay.

At some level, whether we want to admit it or not, we, our city governments are our bureaucracy. We want to be as little as possible. Certainly I do in the city of Pensacola. So, some I always say 80% of failure is ambiguity. And when you’re leading a city, there’s lots of ambiguity. Sometimes within how your message is, the mayor gets conveyed to different departments, all of that.

And a lot of it isn’t because people are trying to mislead anyone. It’s because, there isn’t clear outlines of of accountability. And expectation. So I would say, the credibility that a veteran has when they walk in the room, especially as a supervisor as well as, to eliminate ambiguity. And in the military, ambiguity is failure as well as we all know.

And so to say, hey, here’s the expectation of this meeting, here’s the expectation of these improvements that we’re going to make all of those things. I feel like that clarity and accountability, it’s something that to me, a non military member can’t, won’t have that same ability when they walk in a room the way that Tim has when he walks into our room.

A department director.

David Martin: Is there an area that you’ve seen where they have flourished? Law enforcement, firefighting, technology, you know, housing authority, you know, maintenance, I don’t know, I mean, I mean, you see that all across the board?

DC Reeves: Sure. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned it earlier and and it’s accurate. Obviously you’ll see a lot of, military members in the first report, you know, police and fire from a skill set standpoint, you know, that seems to be the most natural. But I would say this, every job we have, in a city at the end of the day, and we should probably do a better job of recognizing it, is managing people.

I mean, every day I will take someone who knows how to manage people over an industry expert 100 times out of 100, because, you know, the classic thing, you hire for attitude and train for skill. You know, I would rather have someone that knows how to manage people and how to move them. You know, how to get them to feel good coming in every day.

To me, that is the challenge of all leadership. And, so, so no, it’s not necessarily hey there. You know, you know, military members are great in public works are in sanitation, are in police are on fire. But they are great at managing people and setting expectations. And, and I think, that really cross-pollinating, around every department.

David Martin: All right. We have a question here. I’m going to I’m going to get to it quickly. Yes. And we’re going to come back. Once you wrap up this episode of The Good Government Show, give a listen to our friends over at Good News for lefties. This daily podcast highlights news stories that show there’s more good news out there.

Other people in government are really trying to do the right thing. That’s good news for lefties. Listen, we’re listening now.

After you get done with this episode, hear more good government stories with our friends at How to Really Run a City for mayors Kasim Reid of Atlanta and Michael Nutter, a Philadelphia, and their co-host, journalist and author Larry Platt talk with guests and other mayors about how to really get stuff done in cities around the nation. Check them out where you’re listening now or through their nonprofit news site, The Philadelphia Citizen.

Dot org slash podcasts. So here’s our question here. I’m going to try to do the short and you talk too long. So this is not my fault that we’re running late. You’re your answer I’m very confused. Define good government. How long have you been mayor and how long? How long have you been inside government now?

Yeah. So, I’ve been mayor for a little over two years. Okay, so from November of 22 and it’s. I was this is my first, role in government, first job in government.

So define good government.

DC Reeves: Hey, you know, at the end of the day, I believe, and I’ll say this uniquely as a, as a business owner turned mayor, I forget I’m in politics sometimes. It hasn’t been that long since I was a private business. But it’s a good thing. Yeah, sometimes. Good. Sometimes. But here, at the end of the day, what I believe a citizen should expect from their mayor, from whatever level is, when we’re making business decisions and initiative decisions about your community is we should be treating these dollars and treating these people as if they were ours.

And, I mean, as if they were our family, our dollars, as if they were our own. And and I know that sounds simplistic to say, well, wouldn’t we all? No, not necessarily. I mean, there’s there’s lots of things where, you know, I wake up every day feeling the responsibility to say, these are every decision we make is something that we need to be able to defend, even when it’s not fun.

You know, even when you get a deal, you know, give difficult news, that that our center, a good government should be, in the roller coaster of optics and media and stories and where our city is going, we should always be able to to look someone in eye and say, hey, you may not like this. What we’re doing in parking or at, with your garbage or with your parks.

But what I can tell you is, I can guarantee you that the decisions that we make are data driven, and we treat your money like as if it was my own money. And and I think that is very, very important that you should be able to have the transparency in decision making. That shows exactly that.

David Martin: How do you know if you’re doing a good job? I mean, you’re two years away from an election. How do you know in.

DC Reeves: The Facebook comments, I know, Facebook. Yeah, I know that’s a good job. Yeah, yeah. Well, well, my joke would normally be well, as long as, half the people are mad at me for one side and half for mad it from the other. I must be doing a good job. You know, it’s, But no, but, you know, you can poll.

You can get a sense of what things are going on, but I, I worry secondarily about, you know, what, what’s my approval rating or, all that because at the end of the day, I signed up to do this job, because I’m going to grow old in the city of Pensacola. It’s where I’m from is where my ten year old is going to grow up.

And, so I’m liberated and empowered by the idea that I can wake up every day and say, I don’t care about being the president one day. I don’t care about, oh, I’m doing this because I love this community, period. And if this is all I do, great. If not. So, so we don’t measure it much. We continue to make data driven decisions.

We continue to treat your dollars as if they were our own dollars in our wallet, and the care that we would expect those to be taken with. So, so we don’t worry about that.

David Martin: How should people hold you accountable in the job that you say you’re going to do and the things that you say you’re going to do? And if they don’t like what they’re seeing, what should they do?

DC Reeves: Well, you know, I’ll give you an example that top of mind for us right now, we have a citywide strategic plan for the first time ever. And, you know, I told our community, why why do people roll their eyes when they say, oh, another plan, you know, collect dust on a shelf? You know, those types of things?

Well, it’s because the mayor is supposed to be the implementer of it. And, coming from journalism, you know, there’s an expected level of transparency, that there’s an expected level of being able to defend decisions that you have. And I think our administration has built a really good reputation in Pensacola to say that when we’re coming forward with something, there aren’t flippant, willy nilly decisions.

I mean, these are decisions that have that are data based, evidence based, and we’re willing to stand on the fire and defend those, because we feel, that that those are things that, that are good for our community. So, you know, I feel like the role of a mayor should be, even when it’s not fun, is to be transparent, to be forthcoming about what you said you’re going to do and to be accountable.

David Martin: Two years in, what did you what have you learned about government that you didn’t know? Now that you’re in the job?

DC Reeves: Well, we all come in, with the noble intent to, make things go faster. And, and I.

David Martin: Think I don’t wear the sky.

DC Reeves: And, and as a guy that was in private business where, you know, when I owned my business before, I could wake up the next day and decide to pivot immediately and that be that, but, that that does not work. It necessarily government. That shouldn’t be a rationale for inaction. There are ways that we’ve sped it up.

We we look at our procurement, our permitting processes, the way a business owner would. So we’re proud of our track record of decreasing it. But there’s, there’s lots of legitimate reasons why things take a little bit longer to do sometimes. And, you know, whether it be procurement, making sure everybody’s got an opportunity, making sure veterans have an opportunity in their businesses to bid on contracts, for example.

So there’s things that just naturally are not going to be avoidable, the way that as a former entrepreneur, you’d walk in and think you could just change it all and make things happen overnight. So I would say that’s probably the been the hardest one to, to get over is, even when we started to narrow some of those deltas, the delta still exists nonetheless.

David Martin: Where do you get your news from?

DC Reeves: From a variety of sources. I feel like, as a mayor, we should have a duty to not, just listen to news from the place that we agree with most, but, to hear different perspectives because we represent different people, across our city.

David Martin: Who inspires you? Do you have a political hero?

DC Reeves: You know, honestly, it’s, you know, we everyone can get on here and say, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan and all those things. As a Republican mayor, obviously. I mean, I think those kind of, you know, go go without saying, but honestly, some of the heroes that I have, are folks locally that have just figured out a way to lead a community with honor.

David Martin: Do you have people that you call on? And you can, of course, check in on.

DC Reeves: Our former state senator, Doug Bronson. He became the first appropriations chair in the, for our area. Remember, where we’re if you don’t know where Pensacola, Florida is, where the closest city to Arizona and California in Florida, we are all all the way where? Eight hours to Houston and nine hours of Miami. Just to give you a perspective.

So, we are way, way, way, way up, by the Alabama state line. And, and so we the.

David Martin: Gulf Coast of.

DC Reeves: Florida, that’s. Yeah, the very western point of the Panhandle. And, and so, it’s rare sometimes, you know, we get a punch above our weight class when it comes to state politics, right? We get sometimes get forgotten in conversations about Jacksonville and Orlando and Tampa and Miami. So we had appropriations chair Doug Bronx and, that district one, appropriations for the Florida Senate, which is hadn’t happened in 50 years.

Why is that? Because he, he he’s a great guy that serves with honor and credibility and trust and, and, and so I, I know I’ll never be as accomplishes, example as Doug Bronson has been in terms of him being. Yeah. Well, yeah, I got some years to go. I’m 40, but, but yeah, I look at some of these local officials that have been effective and they can do it in an honorable way.

David Martin: Did you ever imagine you were going to run for office? I mean, you said you started out as a sports reporter.

DC Reeves: Yeah. You know, so my my dad was, in his 20s, was in the state legislature back in 1967, 68. He’s 86 now. And, so I don’t remember any of that. I wasn’t he was a city councilman. I don’t I was never around when he was an active politician. Okay. But of course, you know, you you’re around politics after that.

And so I, you know, I got indoctrinated, I joked, I listened to enough, cell phone conversations with the bag. Cell phone. You know, that my dad would Velcro out and, you know, and, you know, you don’t realize till you’re knocking doors, that how much you you sponge up, you know, and, so, so I was around politics, but.

No, I mean, if you if I was on this radio show three years ago, I would have said no. Four years ago, I would have said, I’m not running for anything. So, you know what turned you around? Yeah. Well, you know, honestly, I always try to do, you know, I think God puts me in a position to do the next right thing, you know, and and it’s and and so people say, what are your political aspirations?

I said none, you know, I’m going to do I’m going to focus on this job. And that’s not filibustering. And, or that I’ve got some grand plan. Yeah. The liberating feeling that I’m doing this and I can be done in politics. That’s okay. Or maybe I won’t be, but that the job at hand is to make decisions that are best for the city of Pensacola.

So, so, yeah, this is all know I owned a brewery before, but, I was a sportswriter before, so, I’ll have a high school kid. I’ll say, hey, did you major in political science? I was like, no, the opposite of that. I was, I owned a brewery. I used to cover football for a living.

Then I became the mayor. All right.

David Martin: Two questions to go. Yes. It’s been a while since I’ve been to Pensacola. What’s. What’s the best thing to eat in Pensacola? What do we, What are we going? What? What do you got?

DC Reeves: Oh, man. Well, you know, it’s funny. We have a ton of great restaurants. It Union public House is top of mine because I just was there. Awesome food. But you know what happens? Everybody comes to visit and says, take us to the best seafood place. You know, grandma on the beach is great. Pearl and horn.

David Martin: What’s your order there?

DC Reeves: You know, I’m not as adventurous a seafood eater as you should be as a Pensacola. And, but I am, you know, you know, there’s some you can get some nice. Ma. He’s a nice snapper right out of the Gulf. Yeah. You know, so I’ll usually go to a fish. I’m not an oyster guy.

I was.

David Martin: Just going to ask you about.

DC Reeves: Oysters. No, I’m not. I’m not adventurous. And I was.

David Martin:  A restaurant sucker at the first.

DC Reeves: Come on. Oh, there you go. Okay. Well, then. Yeah, then. Then I’ll save the oysters for you.

David Martin: All right. Very good. We have not talked at all about Pensacola, and I guess we’ll have to have another conversation a couple of years down the road. What? You’ve what? You’ve really grown into the job. But give me an example of some good government that you’ve been able to get through in your city, in Pensacola.

DC Reeves: Yeah. You know, I think the first and foremost, like you would in any business, we, took a, you know, a, a fine tooth comb of, of looking through, how we compensate people and, and the size of government. I’ll give an example. We, we looked at our, salaries when we got to the city pinnacle, and we realized our workforce at the city was at in the 20th percentile in in government, not in private.

So four out of five governments paid more than we did. And, so how do we solve.

David Martin: That affects your ability to hire people and, and police officers and workers and.

DC Reeves: And sanitation service that you expect with your tax money. So, you know, it’s funny, someone may hear that and say, well, wait a second, mayor. You’re saying, you know, this is good, good, efficient government by spending more money? It is. And here’s why. Because, number one, what you don’t want is empty positions on your police department and your fire department.

At the end of the day, we need to provide the service of which, you’re being, that your tax dollars are contributing to. But I would say within that we started to focus on quality and less on quantity. So while we did that, we also eliminated 24 positions, to say, oh, well, just because we’ve always had this job nostalgia, you know, I always say, is the enemy of progress, you know.

Well, because just how we’ve always done it. And so, I thought we took really a business perspective of saying, let’s pay these jobs the way they need to be paid. And that also means getting government a little bit smaller and say, that doesn’t just mean let’s add 50 more jobs in government can fall into that trap. Local government can fall into that trap.

So so we focus on quality and less on quantity and we’ve really started to see the results in employee engagement and productivity. Because we’ve been very, very busy on lots of big generational projects. And we’ve been able to do that. Why? Because we’re paying people enough money to be able to do those jobs.

David Martin: Was there an issue that you ran on?

DC Reeves: Well, public safety is always going to be number one. It was three safety, housing and jobs. And as a as an associate to call in, we knew that that, that what is our community without public safety. Nothing. I mean no initiative I can tell you about. I can give you 100 in Pensacola. None of them matter if you, and we were actually picked the number four safest city in the United States.

David Martin: So I really am trying to wrap this up for you. I have to ask you this question. Please. Housing is the issue across the nation. What are you doing in Pensacola? To make it.

DC Reeves: Better, we have to attack housing at every level. And where we as citizens fall into the trap is we think, oh, if 100 only of affordable housing units are built, is that helping the affordable housing crisis? Absolutely not. True. You, I would recommend anybody interested in this topic listening to research that we have a supply issue.

Period. So what kind of housing will I take in Pensacola? I’ll take homeless transitional to $2 million condos. I’ll take them all. Because we will not solve this at at by choosing only 80%. Am I or only 120 or only veterans are only, seniors that we need all of it. So, our doors should be collectively be open to incentivizing the growth of bringing on more units because when 100 units come into a city within three years, that creates organically 41 affordable units, 100 market rate, 100 new condos just coming to your town, 41 within three years are going to be open for affordable because of the migration to, market.

So that’s what I would say is we need to educate ourselves as citizens, as leaders. That that this is not a one step approach to, say, build more affordable housing. So what are we doing? We’ve got literally six different projects attacking it at every single income level.

David Martin: DC Reeves, the mayor of Pensacola, Florida. Thank you and good luck to you and your continued success. In getting veterans work, we owe it to the past.

DC Reeves: Hey. Thank you. Thank you so much for having this. Great.

David Martin: Thank you, I think I did in time. Thanks very much. I want to hear more about good government. Check out another show I host leading Iowa good Government in Iowa cities. I host the show with Brad Cavanagh, mayor of Dubuque, Iowa, and the immediate past president of the Iowa League of Cities. Together, we talked to leaders in Iowa cities.

We talk about what works and what good government looks like in Iowa. Join us right here. We listening now that’s leading Iowa. Good government in Iowa. Cities.

When we hire military veterans, what we’re doing is taking those that served all of us and all the skills they acquired and putting them to work. And for those who work in government, we’re putting them back to work for all of us. Again, you hire for attitude. You train for skill. I like that explanation of how to hire.

I also like this approach to refining government, especially his approach to jobs. He said nostalgia can be the enemy of progress and surely that won’t go over with everyone. But there is something to be said for that approach to government. I also liked his answer to what is good government. He said, you treat the money you’re spending like it’s your own.

That means you think about where your hard earned dollars are going, and you make sure you’re not wasting your own money. Sounds like good government to me. Now I need to go back to Pensacola for some good fresh fish. Probably caught just a few hours before it was on my plate. Well, that’s our show. Thanks for listening. Please like us and share this with your friends and radio is right here where you’re listening.

And check out our website. Good government show.com for extras. Help us keep telling stories of good government in action everywhere. Join us again for another episode right here. I’m Dave Martin and this is the Good Government show. Get it, get it, get it. The Good Government show is a Valley Park production. Jim Ludlow, Dave Martin, that’s me and David Snyder are the executive producers.

Our show is edited and produced by Jason Stershic. Please subscribe, then share and like us and review us. That’s the best way to make sure we’re able to keep telling these stories of our government working for all of us. Then listen to the next episode of The Good Government Show.

**This transcription was created using digital tools and has not been edited by a live person. We apologize for any discrepancies or errors.