Getting up at 5 a.m. isn’t always easy. Wes Hare, city manager of Albany, Oregon,  acknowledges as much. Yet that is how he has begun his day for almost 15 years, with an early morning jog. Although he had fallen out of the habit for a time during his previous stint as city manager of La Grande, Oregon, Hare’s passion for running was reignited when a good friend who was into mountain climbing encouraged him to get back in shape so that they could do some climbing together.

Hare’s enthusiasm for exercise has heavily influenced his approach to local government management. For him, one of the city’s key functions is to create a safe environment for physical activity, and in Albany he has been instrumental in shaping initiatives to create a healthier community, especially for youth.

With strong support from the city’s active Bicycle and Pedestrian  Advisory Commission, Hare has seized opportunities to integrate a health perspective into a number of ongoing projects. He also became a member of ICMA’s Active Living Ambassadors program, which has strengthened his determination and provided a constant flow of new information and connections about community design and health issues. As an ambassador, Hare receives monthly e-newsletters and personalized technical assistance to support projects tied to his health-related goals. Those projects cover the gamut. For example, Albany recently received funding for a bike trail that will provide a connection to the city of Corvallis, located 10 miles away. And a few years ago, Albany’s city council  approved a process to promote cluster development in North Albany Village, a development where pedestrian-friendly design and village-style commercial centers in residential neighborhoods will encourage walking and biking.

Increasingly Hare is turning his attention to the challenge of making it easier for children to be active. The national Safe Routes to School (SRTS) movement came up on his radar screen through his work with “some very motivated citizens” on the bike-pedestrian commission and his involvement in ICMA’s ambassadors program. As he looked at the trends, including an emerging diabetes epidemic among children and a sharp decline in the percentage of kids who walk and bike to school, Hare was shocked. In Albany, surveys conducted at two elementary schools and one middle school showed that only 10 percent of the students were walking or bicycling to school. But a generation ago, a majority of all kids walked or biked to school. “You’d have thought someone would have raised the alarms, he said. None of us really even noticed.

Hare found it unsettling that this profound change had occurred so quickly. That caught  my attention. I look around and see what is happening to us,” he noted. Look, maybe as a city manager this is something I can do to have a positive influence. After learning more about the SRTS program and its goal to increase the number of students walking or biking to school, Hare got involved in Albany’s SRTS program. He currently chairs a committee of 10 community members who meet monthly to discuss goals and strategies, and five schools are active in the city SRTS program.

The city’s goal is to ensure that students can walk or bike to school safely. Achieving it means designating police to patrol pedestrian routes and to control traffic, as well as making infrastructure improvements to sidewalks, bike lanes, and crosswalks. Hare notes that these efforts complement the four themes laid out in Albany's strategic plan: a safe community, great neighborhoods, a healthy economy, and effective government. How safe are we if we don't know whether our kids can walk or bike to school, he said. Part of a great neighborhood is one where someone feels comfortable.

Albany’s efforts are succeeding. After the city won approval of a bond for new school construction in November 2006, city staff and the SRTS committee were influential in locating a site for a new elementary school smack in the middle of a residential development downtown, Hare said. By avoiding having the school built on the outskirts of the city, they ensured that students would be able to reach it safely by walking or biking. Hare attributes their success partly to the close partnership that evolved between the city and school district on both the site selection and the bond referendum. It was just a very collegial relationship, and it continues to be that way, he said.

He also points to the fact that many community members have come together to support Albany's SRTS program, which is one of the reasons he has become so engaged in the initiative. It provides an opportunity to interact with families, giving him a chance to work with parents, students, and other community members he wouldn't otherwise get to know. Albany's schools have been participating in the International Walk to School day, an annual event that takes place in October in communities in more than 40 countries. Parents and community members help organize walking school buses, contests, prizes, and other celebratory activities.

Hare values the significant involvement of parent volunteers. He tells the story of how, at one school, staff and parents decided they really needed a pedestrian pathway to connect the school to a nearby neighborhood to make it safe for students to get to school. Students ended up coming in with their parents to pitch the idea of including the project in the city's capital improvement plan. It's the kind of thing he hopes to see more of with Albany's Safe Routes to School program.

I think the awareness is certainly starting to build, he said. Hare compares the evolving recognition of the health risks associated with obesity with what happened with smoking 20 years ago. When it first started, a lot of people blew it off, he said of early antismoking campaigns. But over time, the message began to sink in and the percentage of people smoking fell dramatically. I think we have to take the same approach with active living and healthy eating. In other words, he sees Safe Routes to School becoming much more than a set of buzzwords. Once you get momentum and stay at it you can make a difference, Hare said.

Emily Salomon
International City/County Management Association