City of Glendale 2018-19

City of Glendale

Incorporated in 1910, the city of Glendale was initially a small, farming town that grew into a prosperous city with a bustling downtown. Known as “Arizona’s Antique Capital” due to the large number of antique shops in its downtown corridor, Glendale’s past remains visible with many historic buildings and popular public events. Today, the city is home to many notable landmarks such as the State Farm football stadium, Gilar River Arena and historic Manistee Ranch. The combination of history, modern attractions and events, and nature has contributed to Glendale becoming a thriving city that is attractive to both residents and visitors alike.

Glendale faces several social, environmental and economic challenges; some that are common to cities across Arizona and others that are as unique as the city itself. These include water management and conservation, insufficient budgets, and sustainability impacts of city facilities. Partnering with Project Cities allows ASU students and the city of Glendale to co-create solutions that are tailored to the city while providing students hands-on experience with communities that prepare them for future careers.

City of Glendale projects

Recycling program enhancement plan

The city of Glendale seeks to enhance its municipal recycling program in order to keep up with the rapidly evolving recycling market. This project will review the current recycling efforts, compile best practices, and generate recommendations to enhance or improve the program. The recommendations will include developing methods to increase recycling participation, increase landfill diversion, and improve the quality of materials recovered.

Additionally, the city of Glendale is seeking recommendations to enhance its outreach and education strategies, including social media presence. Particular attention will be given to the changes in the international recycling market and evaluating the impacts of bans, restrictions, and requirements implemented by them, along with methods by which the city can increase its commodity sales of the collected materials. Finally, recommendations will be accompanied with appropriate social and monetary cost impacts of any proposed changes, as well as the cost impact of not making any changes.

Fall 2019 final summary report

Resilient Recycling and Adapting to a Changing Market

Above-ground chemical storage tanks

The city of Glendale manages over 135 above-ground storage tanks (ASTs), which store a variety of hazardous chemicals used in everything from treating drinking water to fueling vehicles. Nationwide, the regulatory framework around municipal ASTs is inconsistent and disorganized. In order to abate potential safety and environmental pollution risks, Glendale staff have requested assistance in compiling best practices and distilling the varied regulatory needs into that which is most applicable to the City of Glendale.

For this project, a class of students conducted research to compile the best practices and recommendations for Glendale’s AST management program. This included investigating academic literature and professional publications, as well as consulting with other cities to discover policies and procedures that could assist Glendale in ensuring their AST program prevents leaks, properly maintains equipment, and secures the safety of the residents.

Spring 2019 final summary report

Best Management Practices for Aboveground Storage Tanks

Fleet electrification transition planning

The city of Glendale maintains a large vehicle fleet of over 1,300 vehicles, trailers and other maintenance equipment. The city aims to decrease their fossil fuel consumption, carbon emissions and maintenance costs by transitioning a portion of their fleet to electric vehicles. To accomplish this, the city would need to invest in the upfront costs for charging stations, electrical upgrades and changes to their maintenance program.

Students addressed a wide range of research questions to provide information that would support of this transition. They produced recommendations and plans around charging stations, public relations, strategic partnerships, finances, and maintenance, along with lessons and best practices from other communities that have made this transition. The final result was intended to assist Glendale in their passenger vehicles fleet to electric, as well as to identify infrastructure needs.

Spring 2019 final summary report

Paving the Way for a Sustainable Municipal Fleet

Sustainability options for Glendale facilities master plan

Since the 2008 recession, the city of Glendale has put off constructing new facilities to house operations and management functions as well as public use facilities. In the next few years there will be a spate of new facilities built which will replace sub-standard facilities and add new facilities.

The purpose of the project was to help the city develop standards for buildings that use low carbon systems, techniques, and materials, and conserve water, energy, and land. The goals was to adopt a third part standard or hybrid of high performance building standards for building design consultants and contractors to work toward.

Fall 2018 final summary report

Building Sustainability into Municipal Facilities

Digital media policy and strategy

Glendale has a robust and state of the art presence in conventional media like television and print. However, they have a limited digital and social media presence in a world where a large portion of public communication takes place through those means. Glendale is hiring a social media manager in the near future, without any clear social media policy or strategy.

This project was broken into two main components: Social media policy (guiding rules and regulations) and social media strategy (best practices and specific recommendations for Glendale’s social media presence). The purpose of the policy project was for students to create a comprehensive social media policy that will guide city staff as they use social media channels moving forward. Students developed policies, rules and procedures for engaging, creating, vetting, delivering, and archiving social media communications.

The purpose of the strategy project was for students to create a comprehensive social media program, and strategy to help the city communicate with their constituencies about city issues, events and initiatives. Students developed a strategy that identifies diverse audiences as well as appropriate strategies, plans, and platforms for reaching targeted audiences while observing the digital media policy.

Fall 2018 final summary report

Leveraging Social Media for Community Engagement

Multi-generation community engagement

As is common among many cities, public engagement in Glendale is often limited to people who have the time or resources to provide feedback in traditional public forums like public meetings, hearings and other events hosted by the city. People in younger, under-served, lower-income, and vulnerable population groups are often excluded from processes that directly affect their health, economic well-being, and opportunities for self-improvement.

The purpose of the project was to identify excluded audiences, residing in Glendale and find ways to include their voices in city forums. Engaging young leaders is especially important to the city managers, since they will be the future leaders of the community.

Fall 2018 final summary report

Activating the Next Generation of Community Leaders