‘Time to start stepping up’
Improved communication is main goal, for now, of new mayor
LANSDALE » After a month-anda-half as Lansdale’s mayor, Garry Herbert is settling into a routine.
That routine includes office hours every Tuesday and Saturday, council meetings every other Wednesday, and answering the same few questions about who he is and why he ran for mayor.
“We moved here about threeand-a-half years ago, and I wanted to get involved, I wanted to be a part of my community. I told my wife, ‘I think it’s time for our generation to start stepping up, and being a part of it,’” he said.
“I kind of like the idea of being a young 30-something mayor. It’s a trend across America, not just in Lansdale, and it is time for my generation to step up, and start leading, and creating the world that we want to see,” Herbert said.
Herbert grew up in a small town in upstate New York, with only 42 people in his high school graduating class and his nearest neighbor several miles away. After working
in communications for a local state senator and finishing his degree at Ithaca College, Herbert and his nowwife moved to Lansdale to be closer to her family, who hail from Spruce Street — and fell in love with the borough, and its generous and diverse population, right away.
“We are a fantastic location. We’re at a crossroads of suburban, urban, exurbs, all of that. And we’ve got a ton of varied populations: we have people from all over the world living here,” Herbert said.
“We have all of the opportunities to make that into whatever we want it to be, which is a thrilling thing to think about...a little daunting, but absolutely thrilling,” he said.
Since taking office in January, Herbert has held open office hours every Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (his day job in communications lets him work remotely) and Saturdays
from 9 a.m. to noon at borough hall, 1 Vine St. — his bare office walls will be decorated soon, he says. Most of his visitors so far have been residents looking to get to know him, so Herbert suggests asking him about his two rescue dogs, soccer (he has played for over 20 years as a striker, and is an avid Philadelphia Union fan), ice sports including hockey and figure skating, Syracuse University basketball, or watching Donovan McNabb during his years at Syracuse in the late 1990s.
“He would drop back 20 yards, and then rush forward 30 yards, beyond the line of scrimmage, for a total of 50 yards. It was incredible to watch him play in college,” Herbert said.
What are his main goals as mayor? Herbert says he plans to push for new and innovative ways to use technology to help the borough communicate better, and find efficiencies and more effective says to help the public, such as the borough’s recently developed online road mapping system. Opening up communication is a top priority, to try to build engagement with residents who may not be able to make it to monthly meetings, but still have questions or issues to be addressed.
“I really want to have this role have better communication as mayor. Not as ‘the guy that is the mayor,’ but as ‘the mayor,’” Herbert said.
“The only constant is change, so we have to find a way to manage that change, and grow with it, and have it be change, but be Lansdale’s change, have it be reflective of our community,” he said.
An update to the borough’s website is currently underway, and Herbert said he’s open to any suggestions from the public on how to make local government more responsive to residents’ concerns and issues, through existing boards and bodies like the borough communication commission, or in other ways residents suggest.
“Not just more userfriendly for myself, but more user-friendly for the residents of the borough:
how can they communicate with me? Schedule time with me? How can they work with me on an issue they’re concerned about? I want all of that, and I want it to be convenient to them, because that is the world they live in,” he said.
Picking up his Android smartphone (he alternates between Droid and iPhone), Herbert said he hopes to bring local government to residents’ fingertips, and has already started talks with council members and staff on how to make that happen.
“This is how residents are interacting with everyone, from their businesses, to their government, to how they pay for their parking ticket. It can all be done with this device,” he said.
Was his victory last November a result of his own effort, or a larger trend for Democrats across the area?
“I don’t know that I can know that. I know what I did: I know that I knocked on over 2,000 doors, I know that I spoke to people about issues they cared about, and they responded to that,” he said.
“The turnout on election day was not that much higher than it was in pervious years, so the question isn’t that there was some blue wave here in Lansdale. I think I did touch a chord with people, and I did say things that resonate with them,” he said. “Politics is still about relating to people, and still about working for people. It’s still about doing things for other people, being in service to others, and that is what I plan on doing.”
So far he has met with local Cub Scouts, attending a clothing drive at the North Penn Mosque, and represented the borough at the opening of a new wing of a local health and rehabilitation center. Herbert said he enjoys the ceremony, but is more interested in policy: “having worked in a state senator’s office, I know how local politics and government works. I know when it’s working, and when it’s working well, so I plan on getting heavily involved in that.”
As Herbert spoke before council’s committee meetings Feb. 7, councilman Leon Angelichio stopped in to say hello, and said he hopes residents appreciate Herbert’s sincerity and dedication.
“What he says is what he means. He is the genuine article, unmatched integrity — in the year we’ve known each other, I have never had a reason to doubt that what he has said has been from the heart, and absolutely true,” Angelichio said.
For now, Herbert says he’ll sit in on meetings of council’s public safety committee, as nominal head of the borough’s police force, and said he was extremely impressed with their response to the Super Bowl victory celebrations, and parade traffic, earlier this month.
He’s also keeping a close eye on the borough’s planned skate park project, since he lives in the ward where it will be located, and sees it as an example of a project where staff, elected officials, and the public have worked together to shape a project that will benefit them all.
“I just want to do the best job that I can, and represent my community the best way possible, and have a positive impact on the place where I live,” Herbert said.
“The whole world could be different in four years. Everything could be completely different, and it likely will be. My job is to stay ahead of that, and help shape that. We’ll see what that looks like, but I hope to leave an imprint,” he said.
To contact Lansdale Mayor Garry Herbert, call 215-361-8310, email Mayor@ lansdale.org or search for “Friends of Garry Herbert” on Facebook.
“I just want to do the best job that I can, and represent my community the best way possible, and have a positive impact on the place where I live.” Garry Herbert, Lansdale mayor