City of Mount Vernon Accepted into Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Program
Program designed to help U.S. Cities address social & economic recovery from COVID-19
June 30, 2020- Today, Mayor Patterson-Howard and senior staff were accepted into the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiatives U.S. Cities Recovery Leadership Program. The competitive program focuses on social & economic recovery and provides leadership development, additional data support, assistance for mayors to respond to emerging challenges and preparing cities to socially, racially, and economically equitable recovery solutions.
Mayor Patterson-Howard said, “This is a tremendous moment for the City of Mount Vernon. We can join the global conversation on how to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic with new ideas and solution-based programming to help our community. I’m thankful to the Bloomberg Harvard team for accepting Mount Vernon into this small, but intense cohort of mayors. I am looking forward to showcasing the innovative ways we have dealt with COVID-19 here in Mount Vernon. The resources that Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership program can bring to Mount Vernon will be essential to how we plan our new normal.”
Mayor Patterson-Howard and three senior officials will participate in monthly leadership series with mayors and staffers from around the world. These leadership series will explore solutions and actions that focused on equitable recovery, building of trust of residents, crisis budgeting and fiscal recovery and supporting the city workforce during a period of profound change and uncertainty.
The U.S. Cities Recovery Leadership Program will put mayors through intensive sessions facilitated by Harvard faculty, expert guests, case studies and peer group working sessions. The program will help the City of Mount Vernon emerge with new ways to approach COVID-19 recovery. The key goals of the program are as follows:
• Developing new policy by addressing problems holistically, weighing multiple values and interests, using data and evidence to diagnose problems, adopting promising practices to the local context, collaborating across sectoral and interjurisdictional boundaries, and deploying agile problem-solving.
• Managing the organization by effectively setting and communicating vision and direction, reinventing operations and reconfiguring the municipal workforce, leading diverse and dispersed teams remotely, operating under fiscal constraints, and driving government performance.
• Leading civic and resident engagement by fostering trust through clear, transparent and empathetic communication, mobilizing residents, collaborating with other sectors, and tapping into the city’s creative potential to develop new ways forward.
