Business Innovators Radio - The Inspired Impact Podcast with Judy Carlson-Interview with Stephanie Piko, Mayor of the City of Centennial, Colorado

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

Since taking office as Centennial’s Mayor in 2018, Stephanie Piko has led the City with a focus on innovation, strategic growth and community engagement. With over a decade of public service experience, Mayor Piko has established herself as a dedicated leader committed to creating a vibrant, connected and sustainable City.During her first term, Mayor Piko was instrumental in developing Centennial’s strategic plan, laying the groundwork for future growth while ensuring that the City’s mission, vision and values remain at the forefront of decision-making. Her leadership in technology and infrastructure investments has proven invaluable in modernizing the City’s services, such as the implementation of AI-driven traffic solutions and enhancing public safety.Mayor Piko has served on the National League of Cities (NLC) Board of Directors since 2019 and currently serves on the NLC Advisory Council, the NLC Research Advisory Committee, and as Co-Chair of the first joint NLC/National Governors Association committee on Workforce Development.Her leadership extends beyond her local and national roles; she serves on key regional boards, including the Denver South Economic Development Partnership Board of Directors and as Chair of the Denver South Transportation Management Association. Her leadership and advocacy efforts have been recognized through numerous accolades, including being named Woman of the Year by both the Aurora Chamber of Commerce and The Villager.https://www.centennialco.gov/https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-piko-63a4b622/**********************************************************Judy is the CEO & Founder of the Judy Carlson Financial Group. She helps her clients design, build, and implement fully integrated and coordinated financial plans from today through life expectancy and legacy.She is an Independent Fiduciary and Comprehensive Financial Planner who specializes in Wealth Decumulation Strategies. Judy is a CPA, Investment Advisor Representative, Life and Health Insurance Licensed, and Long-Term Care Certified.Judy’s mission is to educate and empower her clients with an all-inclusive financial plan that encourages and motivates them to pursue their lifetime financial goals and dreams.Learn More: https://judycarlson.com/Investment Adviser Representative of and advisory services offered through Royal Fund Management, LLC, an SEC Registered Adviser.The Inspired Impact Podcasthttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/the-inspired-impact-podcast/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/the-inspired-impact-podcast-with-judy-carlson-interview-with-stephanie-piko-mayor-of-the-city-of-centennial-colorado

Welcome to the Inspired Impact Podcast, where dedicated female professionals share how they inspire impact every day. Authentic stories, passionate commitment, lives transformed. I'm your host, Judy Carlson. Welcome to today's episode of the Inspired Impact Podcast. I have a very special guest today. I've known her for years. become good friends. And I want to introduce you to Mayor Stephanie Pico. Welcome to the podcast. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. So as we start most podcasts, we just want to know what

has transpired in your life. What journey have you been on? And how has that brought you to the mayor of Centennial? Well, you know, as everyone's journey is, it gets, it seems like it's getting longer and longer as I go through life. This story gets a little bit bigger. But, you know, as a mom, business owner, entrepreneur, wife, partner with my husband and business, you kind of get a focus on your family. You get a focus on how best to protect your assets, to protect your investments that you make in people and places.

and I started out working when we moved to Colorado in 2001, my family moved into a brand new neighborhood with a brand new school. My kids were just starting kindergarten, so got involved with the school and helping out how I could help there and started out in the computer lab there because that's what I did for my jobs before that and did all the IT services for people. So I was just helping out. Met a bunch of people through the school district also got involved in our neighborhood because I wanted our neighborhood to be reflective of the entire population of people that live there, including people with kids. And it tends to be that most people that end up on boards, H-2A boards and stuff, tend to have the time.

So they usually aren't the people that have kids. They're usually retired. And so it was just important to me to make sure that we had that representation in our neighborhood too, that we were thinking about all the families that live here. And, you know, I, I, I guess I take it from the old adage of, from my, my dad would just say, if you're not going to do anything about it, don't complain. And so then it's kind of, I guess that's kind of carries forward on everything because I got, you know, got involved with the school, made sure that, that there were enough people working to help make our school great. and then our neighborhood as well invited, you know, more and more people to be a part of it

and made it fun, I guess, for people to do that. And in some of those endeavors, I met different people at the city of Centennial and they got, you know, interest in my background and were very encouraging. And again, a brand new city that was just getting started, needed a lot of help from volunteers to make things happen. And so ended up volunteering to chair the open space board, which was in charge of figuring out how to spend the tax dollars that were coming in from the Arapaho County Open Space Tax. And I also ended up being a planning and zoning commissioner for a while as a volunteer. And, you know, all these things just kind of circulated to, kept circulating together and you kept you kind of keep seeing the same meeting the same people in the

same in different circles but it's always the same people that are are there participating so um got you know just got to know people got encouraged by them decided when the time was right with my the age of my kids to run for city council ran for city council for six years really enjoyed the uh the policy side of what we do and the challenges um having that background of The background information can really change your perspective and how you approach different things. And then I was encouraged to run for mayor. And again, I really appreciate the structure of the City of Centennial and how it operates. And I think it's worth preserving.

I think it's worth encouraging other institutions to kind of follow suit. So that's pretty much what I've done as mayor is go out and really be a strong advocate for how the City of Centennial operates. but also setting other things in motion within our community that follow that same principle for smaller government, you know, kind of stay in your lane, know what you exactly want to do and focus on where you belong, not trying to be everything to everybody. So, you know, I've been mayor. This is my seventh year as mayor. I'm term limited and I'll next year will be my last year as the mayor of Centennial.

So I know it's going to be a very big and exciting year with a lot of demands on my time for next year. But I'm going to just have fun with it next year and enjoy it. Now, your influence has gone well beyond the city of Centennial as well into Washington, D.C. and other mayors and other communities. Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, so in one of the things as mayor and not just mayor as a city council person, actually, I started getting involved with the National League of Cities. And the National League of Cities is an organization that has exactly what it sounds like. It's all the cities that come together and advocate for policies in Washington, D.C. that impact cities. And so I enjoy getting involved in that.

It was one thing there wasn't a whole lot of representation from. Colorado at the time. So we kind of wanted to make sure that we had that Western influence into the national organization that goes out and advocates for policies. I think it's great to bring a different perspective into that organization and have, you know, fought to make, to be, I've been pretty loud, I think, in the organization to make sure people are realizing that there's not just East Coast point of views or West Coast point of views, but there's Middle America kind of point of views.

And so making sure they're thinking about the small towns and the people that are rural and, you know, areas that have less of a population for sure than some of those highly concentrated areas of the country. So it's been great. I enjoyed being part of the leadership, was able to bring in a lot of conversations, especially with my technology background around deployment of fiber networks around Internet access, people and also here in our area, fentanyl was a big problem early in the Colorado community and maybe not quite as made aware enough in some of those national stories. So it's able to really bring a conversation around fentanyl to the national level at the National League of Cities as well. Wow. And your technical background has been made an impact in the city of Centennial being that you got involved early on in the early stages of the city. Tell us a little bit about how

that has helped Centennial. Yeah, I think you kind of never know, you know, where things are going to end up taking you. And it was never, I never really thought that I would be an IT person. I was just kind of always good at it. I had a knack for it. And when I was in college, they didn't have that many. It was either, you know, a computer engineer or nothing. There were no other degrees in anything that was computer science, so speak. But I ended up when I worked, I used, I went out in college. I worked for Apple computers on campus, which sounds kind of silly. But I sold computers and taught people how to use Macintosh computers at the time.

And when I got my first job in Michigan, I actually moved up to Michigan to live with my husband and and my job there. I'm laughed because it's it's kind of ironic, but I guess that the big thing was they switched us to windows. And no one knew how to use a mouse. And because I knew how to run a Mac and touch computer, it was like, oh, well, you just do this, this, this, and this. And the next thing you know, I'm, you know, running all the training sessions on how to teach people to click. It kind of rolled right into the elementary school about, okay, now I've got a bunch of kindergartners.

I'm teaching them how to click on a mouse too and how to click open files. So it just kind of, you know, grew, but I ended up, you know, running in both places, ran, you know, servers. It wasn't hard for me. I would run the servers, run the systems. Things were not, there was no cloud back then. So everything was on site, on premise. and some ways a lot easier to manage.

But did that for that. So when I got involved at the city level, it was easy for me to understand where there were gaps in our technology. Siloes, if you will, is another term that people recognize. And then they need to build the next infrastructure, which was fiber. And so pushed really hard in 2012

to get a fiber initiative through the city and out to the electorate to vote on to actually approve the city and constructing a fiber network and using resources to do that because the state of Colorado legislature had banned municipalities from exploring that unless they got voter approval to do so. So we had that. We got 75% of the voters approved us looking into how to develop that technology. And so we ended up building a fiber. fiber ring in Centennial. And we deploy it as dark fiber and utilize it internally for traffic

management systems that are being more and more so AI driven to create efficiencies in the traffic system throughout the city. But then taking it a step further, we lease dark fiber out to other institutions that need to make connections that are harder to find. So it's turned into a great asset for the city for the cost of deployment, it's been very much a reward for the city to have. And so we've completed that network in 2019. And that just kind of put me on a platform too where I work closely with some of the Smart Cities Alliances in Colorado. They started a Smart City Alliance.

We were the first city to be a part of that coalition. And that's kind of set me up on that platform to speak to it. and what we can do as municipalities in having technical expertise in different areas that can bring more efficiency into the city. Wow. So you've made such a big impact on the city, on businesses in the city. Tell us a little bit about some of the impacts you've made on individuals in the city who have come to you for advice or conversations. I know there's been a lot of them, Stephanie. Yeah. Yeah, I know. It's great to have, to be able to help people by kind of cutting through either, you know, red tape or just misunderstandings as to how the system actually works or what's the best way to utilize your time to have the most impact as an individual and trying to get involved and change things.

You know, one of the things I'm probably most proud of is, is getting our faith community to start a faith council that is not under the city, but it is part of what we utilize to help get our messaging out about what we can do to help individuals, either experiencing homelessness or individuals that are in need of some either financial resources or to help with rent or to help with food banks and things of that nature. And it's really become a great arm of the city to do that soft side, if you will, of what needs to be done to create a community. And as I told a lot of the participants that we have in the Faith Council from the churches all across the city is that,

you know, they have an opportunity to share what the city is doing to help impact their community in a positive way and they tend to have an audience that is consistent that shows up on weekends that they, you know, that trust the voice that they're listening to at their, at their church. And I've told them, I'm like, I don't have that. I can hold a town hall and no one will come. No one comes. You know, we don't get a lot of people to city hall. We don't have a platform where I can go out and speak and capture you know, hundreds of people in the community at one time, but they do. And so a lot of that has really helped bridge that connection between people in need in our community and the resources that are available to them locally to help them. And so whether, and in doing all of that,

it's been an adventure to say to be able to go out and have that kind of impact, and especially in our homeless community. I've had, I had one individual that was, I'll say a resident of Centennial, but homeless. And she and I would have lunch together in the park. And she would tell me what, you know, what was really like, what the experiences really are and, you know, kind of what to watch out for, to know, you know, that the truth, I guess, about what it's like to be in some of those situations and to really make a difference with her. And then to make that, you know, use that to make better connections. And so we, one of the things I did was I learned through a number of other channels, but of how those things are very individual based. And so we actually have a homeless

liaison that we have at the city now. And she is direct on the ground. So all she does, does is go through the city, talk to different businesses that might know of people that are either frequenting their business that are homeless or that need assistance and then finding them and reaching out. And she's been able to get individuals housed over the last year and a half that she's been working with us in the city. And it's really is, and it's a very individual story. You never know what the reason is for someone that is having trouble. But there's so many resources out there. Again, it's breaking down those barriers and helping people get to the information that they need that I think has the most impact.

Wow. The word I wrote down was you're a bridge builder. So you identify something. And then you get down to the bare bones of what's happening on the ground, in the park, having lunch. and then take it from there. And now you have this liaison in the city that's helping the entire city. I mean, that's amazing, Stephanie. That's amazing.

Yeah, I think one of the, you know, the frustrating thing, what you hear just anecdotally is, you know, people get frustrated. They throw their hands up at the air and said, why isn't there anybody doing anything about this? And I just wanted the opportunity to tell people there are a lot of people doing a lot of things about this. And here's where it is. And so I think it empowers the community to feel, one, a sense of reassurance that there isn't just nothing happening in different spaces. But also that they can be a part of the solution too. if they just know what to do.

So whether it's, you know, one particular, you know, church that has, you know, the ability to provide for people locally, I think it's much better than having to try to send people into a system that is not tailored to meet the needs of an individual. It's tailored to meet the, you know, the big group. And it's really more than that. Right. No, I love your messaging. here in Colorado, of course, almost every day there's something in the news about what's

happening in Denver, and that's a completely different system than you've established in Centennial. So thank you for sharing the messaging on that. That is very insightful. I do have a question about being a female professional. You've gone through a lot of life now. You've been a mayor for almost two full terms. Tell me about your experience, being female in this environment you're in? I've actually had a very good experience being female. I think it was, and sometimes it was advantageous. I think in this community, there is no hesitation at all to having a female in any type of role.

When I first got into office, we've had a majority of female on council, I think, since the entire time I've been on council. Like I'd have to do the math to go back and look. I'm sure there were a few odds, but it was either very even or, and now, you know, it's a majority. I actually was at one point in time, the way things could have gone, we could have had an entire female city council on there. I was hoping not because I just, I don't think that then you don't have all the voices in the room, right? You don't want it to be that. You want it to be very diverse. She wanted to capture all different sides of a story. But in this region between the local mayors and the local elected officials,

there's always been a great mix of men and women that work very well together. And I haven't ever experienced any type of negative about it. You know, there might be a couple of people that might feel that way or maybe might not take you as seriously until they actually speak with you. And then they're like, oh, okay, yeah, we're good. So, yeah, it's been, I think it's a great, it's a great community. There's, we have a lot of strong aspects in our area that have really strong women leadership. So I think we're fortunate.

I've always been curious about the collaboration between other mayors in, I don't know, South Denver. Is that fair to say? Tell me a little bit. about that. I'm really curious about that. You know, it's been, it's been a lot of fun. And I have to give hats off to my predecessor, Kathy Newn. She had started, you know, a mayor's munch, we call it. And we get together once a month for lunch, all of the mayors in, and this area in Arapaho County. And we, you know,

can't always make every single one. But we do pretty good job. We rotate around and go to different restaurants across each other's jurisdictions to get to know different entities. And, you know, it's a lot of times it's kind of commiserating maybe a little bit on either what the state legislature's doing to us now or just the environment of that we're in about people feeling so emboldened in some cases to be not behave maybe in a way that we all expected people to behave in the past. But yeah, we have a great group of people that, I think it makes a big difference because I know them all. We, you know, we will text each other and, you know, find out, feel, you know, cheer each other up when we need it. Right. Right. Empathy when they need that. When

things happen in different communities, you know, we, we know each other and we've got, you know, other shoulders to lean on. And I would say it, it was said to me at one point in time that being a mayor is a different hat. And unless you've done it, you really don't get it. And I think that that's kind of true. It is a very unique, unique role, unique responsibility. And it's really hard to describe to people how much you do because they just don't realize how much is actually growing in their community around them. And that needs to be nurtured and sometimes needs to be weeded. So, right. Wow. know how to balance a lot of things.

And I'm surprised at even for myself that sometimes is, is I know a lot about a lot. And it used to just be, you might know a lot about a little, but no, it's now it's a lot about a lot. So it'll be interesting when I'm not mayor anymore to see what, what I do with all the information that's in my head. Something really good, I'm sure, because a couple of other mayors have been termed.

limited and rotated off and still to be determined for you. Yeah. Pivoting just a little because I have a heart for it, but you started the Centennial Arts and Cultural Foundation. Just share with us kind of as we're beginning to wrap up here about how did that become an initiative that you wanted to start and what has. How has it impacted your city? Well, I would have to say that part of my National League of Cities efforts, we end up touring cities all across the country.

So we have our conferences and stuff and places I never would have gone. Cities I'd never been to, never would have visited probably if I hadn't had the reason to go there for this conference. And, you know, I've always, especially with Centennial being a younger, younger, newer city, we didn't have any type of, you know, established art program or culture program. You know, you've got the communities around us that have been around for a while or have taken strong initiatives to support the arts. And if you look at Centennial's model of government, there's just not a real appropriate place for that. And as a budget conscious person, I often would be stressed, I think, if I had to choose between tax dollars going to support the arts or fixing infrastructure. And I know infrastructure is really boring and a lot of people don't, you know, think it's pretty. But it's very important to making sure that you can sustain your city going forward.

And so to not have those things in conflict, we had a citizens group get together. There were a few of us on council that wanted to explore what we could do, what our options were as a city to see how we could encourage art in public places. And just to have one more place where citizens can feel that they're connected to their community. And so we had a citizens group get together and explore what other cities do, what our neighboring cities do, and came up with the response that the best solution would be to have a nonprofit because it could work outside of the city and not necessarily having to fall under all of the same kind of rules and operating regulations that happen with the city. plus it could take donations more readily. And so a group of us on city council got together and started the Centennial Arts and Cultural Foundation. And we received our nonprofit status in 2021. And one of the first project we headed up was, if you've seen around town, how the utility boxes get decorated.

The city has the only ones that the city controls are the ones that manage traffic. And so the traffic boxes are on usually every corner that has an intersection is got a traffic box on that. So we decided that we were contracted by the city to figure out how to make those prettier and more fun. So we've done three rounds now of wraps. And so we're very excited that we have art throughout the city. It's a great way to inexpensively share art. So as opposed to having a statue in the park where everyone has to come to the park and go see it, this is in their neighborhood and their community and well received. And then I'm very excited that we just yesterday actually had our mural unveiling.

We were able to do our first public mural that was sponsored by Ting as a local business that gave us the funds that we needed to get the mural in place. but we had a great opportunity to have local artists participate in the selection process. And then what I have really enjoyed, and I think is very different because everybody keeps telling me that I'm doing something that no one's used the software for before. But the way we work, the system is have artists submit, but then we recruit citizens to be the judges for the art. And so it's not a city staff and it's not the elected officials. It is citizens of the centennial that are participating and looking at all the art and selecting what art is going into their public spaces.

And I think that's that apparently has become quite unique in how we manage it. And it is kind of a lot more work because it wasn't really set up to be that way. but I think it's the best way to have buy-in for what's there. And it doesn't fall on the shoulders of any one individual to say, if people are criticizing something, it's like, well, this is what the citizens voted for. There were 20 people or 30 people that participated, and they, you know, they are the ones who two picked it.

And so it's nice to have that. And it's nice to have that background and know that you've got the buy-in. And so we're looking forward to our next couple of projects we have long term in our head. One of them is we're working, we would like to work with K-9 Beck the Blue to our SRO program for our school resource officers. Sorry. For the lingo. They also have the therapy dogs that go into our schools in Littleton Public Schools and Cherry Creek Schools. And it has been a program that has been embraced.

loved and adored by everyone. And so we want to do a commemorative bronze statue in our city park to encourage it right near, hopefully near the splash pad that we have so that the kids can go and get their picture taken with their dog because schools all have one. And then we want to have our patrol dogs recognized as well. So we'll have two of those bronzes, hopefully. And then, you know, it'll be a, it's a year-long project for sure to get that completed. And then we'd like to do also, one of the charges of the foundation is to start capturing the history of Centennial before we all forget.

We're running out of people that were here 20 years ago when it all started. So we're going to set up a dedication garden at City Center Park. The council's been approved that. And so we're looking at what it will look like, how it will be designed, and how we will incorporate the citizens of Centennial into the dedication garden that honors the time commitment that they've put in to not only build the city, but to build a community. So they don't have to be. It's not about elected officials.

It's not about any particular aspect of the city. It's just people who have really made a difference in our campus. community can be recognized and thanked for their time commitment to the city. So what I've come away with so far is when someone's moving into a new community from potentially out of state and they land in, let's say, Centennial, unbeknownst that there's all this other stuff going on in the city of Centennial, how important it is for citizens to really to get inside of their city and understand it and get to know it. You've opened up a whole new avenue in this whole art side of your city that, you know, brings in more interest from some of the citizens.

But wow, what an amazing work is done. And I'm sure it's the same in all the other communities here in South Denver. We got Lone Tree and Highlands Ranch and Parker and all these other communities. but to know a little bit more about Centennial, this has been fantastic, Stephanie. So it's kind of come back around when I think about you in particular to what your dad said. Don't do anything about it. Don't complain about it. And I'll tell you what, you're the exact. You know, you're doing a lot of things about a lot of things and you do know a lot about a lot.

So congratulations. But so if people are interested in learning more about it. you or meeting you or getting involved in the city, what would be a way or some ways for people to do that? So you can always go to, I'm easy to find it on the city website as well. You can just Google or search mayor and my information will pop up. But I do have a personal website, Stephanie pico.com, that I used for my campaigns and kind of just keep it up to date. but there's a contact option through there to send me an email if there's something you're interested in, whether it's inside the city or outside the city or in the politics or how you run for office

or anything about the Arts Foundation too. We're always looking for supporters for that to help volunteer and keep it running. And I'm trying to set it up to in a way that when I walk away from it, It'll be sufficient and be able to run on its own and keep going with some of the traditions that we're starting at Centennial. Yeah, well, that's one of the strong characteristics of a leader is to leave it in great shape for the next one to just continue right on from there. So, well, this has been amazing. I can't wait to see what your life is going to look like in a couple more years. maybe you'll be the national...

You and everyone else. Yeah, maybe you'll be the national spokesperson for arts, art councils in communities that are newer or don't currently have of using the software you've developed programs you're putting in place. Yeah, it is one of those things you feel like, really, no one's ever done this before? Every time I'm like, really, no one's ever done this before? The same thing with our homeowner.

liaison. I've seen it in a couple of modeled like that in a couple of other cities, which kind of, you know, triggered the idea. But then I really met like locally to find out what's how, what some people have done successfully and how they've, you have to be a very special person to go out into the community to do that. We're very fortunate to find. Yeah. Just for the for the job. And, you know, we've got great partners in our law enforcement agencies and our mental health co-responders. But it is, it's like, okay, well, we're going to. going to do it this way. And so we've kind of split ourselves off from how others do it, but it's been very successful so far. Right. So innovative. Wow, I love it. This has been fabulous.

Well, our listeners are going to really enjoy listening to this, Stephanie. So thank you so much for being with us today and looking forward to your bright future. Thank you. Well, next year will be fun. So I'm glad I got a chance to jump on now, and hopefully we can catch up again another time. That would be great. Love that. Thank you. Thanks so much for joining us for the Inspired Impact Podcast. To listen to past episodes, please visit theinspiredimpactpodcast.com.