The moment the storm hit, I knew our local elected leaders were going to need their own support. That the pressure on them in public to know the answer would burden the process. My colleague Jess Zimbabwe runs a leadership fellowship program for local government officials out of ULI. We’ve already talked about creating a peer network for any local official who wants starting with a kick off meeting where we’d match ours with her graduates and or officials from other disaster communities. (I immediately reached out to my friend/colleague long time Monroe County Commissioner George Neugent for example. He also sits on Gulf wide BP board. He’s game.)
