Workplace in Focus Podcast Episode 8 Transcript

COVID-19 affects every area differently. Hear directly from the Mayor of Tempe on the local challenges the city has faced, solutions they have implemented and his personal experience with the virus.

[ANNOUNCER] You have questions about what’s impacting the healthcare system – from pandemics to products. We have answers. Welcome to Banner|Aetna Workplace in Focus. Now here's your host, Banner|Aetna Market Head of Sales, Jon Dingledine.

[DINGLEDINE]: Hello everybody. Welcome back to this edition of Banner|Aetna Workplace in Focus. We are really excited today to have the newly elected mayor of Tempe Arizona, Corey Woods with us today. So Corey welcome we’re glad you’re here. 

[MAYOR WOODS]: Thank you so much John. Appreciate you having me. 

[DINGLEDINE]: So here you are, you’re the new Mayor of Tempe. You were sworn in a few weeks ago. During the campaign, COVID-19 was not an issue since it predated the election, but now how daunting a challenge is it to take office in the middle of a pandemic? Can you tell us what it’s like? 

[MAYOR WOODS]: It’s exceptionally challenging. One of the things that we’re trying to do is how do we sort of keep life as normal in the middle of a global pandemic. So it’s a very challenging difficult situation to deal with. I know one of the things I was actually out doing earlier today was walking around in downtown Tempe in Mill Avenue with a mask on. Walking into businesses talking to a lot of our local merchants and trying to, you know, make sure we can do whatever we can to do to promote and to drive up revenue for them. Whether it’s going to be people dining in, or getting curbside takeout, walking in to simply grab a couple of quick items. 

So we were really trying to highlight a lot of our businesses that are doing the right things and enforcing the city of Tempe’s local mask ordinance. But also try to do whatever we can from a city standpoint to make sure that our businesses and communities know that we do support them.

I should also say on a personal level, I went through my own bout with COVID, being diagnosed at the end of June. It was probably for me I would say roughly 2-3 days of very much acute symptoms between running a fever and very severe body aches. I had sort of the telltale sign of losing taste and smell during that process, that hampered my sense of taste. You know I’m glad to say I’m 100% recovered right now, but I can speak from personal experience that COVID-19 is a very serious virus, it’s a very serious illness and we have to do whatever we can to stop the spread. And I think even having it myself has really helped to warn me about how challenging, how daunting this is as an elected official during this time. 

But it also really has sort of made me redouble my efforts to make sure that no one else has to get this and no one else has to experience it. 

[DINGLEDINE]: Yeah absolutely we appreciate you sharing your personal story there. You're feeling fine right now though, you did say that? Everything’s good back to work, you’ve got two jobs you're juggling so feeling all right? 

[MAYOR WOODS]: Yeah, I’m feeling great actually. You know it’s one of the questions I get from folks a lot is you know how are we feeling? When I put things out on my social media page saying that, hey, I’m doing fine and you know I’m still working both jobs, and I’m working out. And I think people always still kind of wonder, yeah, I know he’s saying that, but I’ve seen a lot of people who they’re referring to in the media as long haulers and folks who are really having longstanding symptoms. 

We’ve all seen the stories of people who have unfortunately passed away as a result of contracting COVID-19. But I’m very fortunate that my case was a very mild one comparatively speaking and I’m 100%, working full-time and doing everything I was doing before. 

[DINGLEDINE]: That’s great to hear. So Tempe employs, the city of Tempe employs about 1,600 people serving around 200,000 residents. We know you had a mix of people working from home, and some still coming into work. What sort of challenges is the city facing to deliver services when people aren’t on site, and what’s been the biggest challenges you're facing?

[MAYOR WOODS]: I would say one of the things I’m the most proud to talk about and to report on is that our city has been working from home for the most part for the last four or five months, but I have not heard residents complain to me, or send me emails, or send me phone calls, or make phone calls telling me that they are feeling as if the service has dropped off due to most of our employees working from home. 

Of course there were certain employees that if you are picking up trash, if you’re a police officer or fire fighter. Those are jobs which clearly have no capacity to work from home. They’re coming in every single day. But what I’ve heard from the residents I’ve spoken with – the bunch that email me day in, day out including saturdays and sundays – that they haven’t really seen much in the way of service drop off. They feel as if the employees of the city of Tempe are still performing at their really high level, and so I’m really excited to report that today – we really are despite COVID-19 and the seriousness of it, we really haven’t skipped a beat when it comes to providing high quality services to the residents of Tempe. 

[DINGLEDINE]: One of the things I’ve heard that I’ve loved to hear more about is that the city of Tempe has taken a data-driven approach to fighting COVID-19. You’re partnering with ASU on a project that analyzes cities’ wastewater to check for the presence of COVID-19 biomarkers. That sounds fascinating – and a little bit gross. But can you tell us how that works? 

[MAYOR WOODS]: It’s definitely a really interesting project that I’m glad that we could partner with the University to do that. The exciting thing is, what it allows us to do is to collect data and then microtarget areas that might become hotspots. So as opposed to kind of putting all of our resources in every part of the city, which we all know is very challenging to do given the spread of this pandemic, it really does allow for us to know where some hotspot areas might happen to be, and go make sure that we can put adequate resources or set up testing facilities and really surge those particular places. 

We identified a couple of hotspots as a result of that really innovative work and having done a study of analyzing wastewater to make sure that we really deployed resources in a very quick, efficient fashion and to employ rapid testing. So it’s a really good project and innovative. It’s one of the benefits of having the largest public university and a really top level research facility such as ASU right in our backyard. So we’re taking full advantage of that partnership, and doing everything we can do to keep our residents and our folks safe. 

[DINGLEDINE]: Sounds like you're doing a terrific job and certainly innovating to keep everybody safe, which is fantastic. Over the past few months, what surprises have you experienced in the middle of such an unprecedented time? As an elected leader, what’s the big takeaway from the pandemic? 

[MAYOR WOODS]: I would probably argue it’s not as much surprises as it is that the interesting part is, you get people on every side of an issue. You get folks, especially since we’ve been talking so much about COVID-19, I can say on that track. There are folks who will email you and say, you know, we really need to close everything down and not let anything be open. You know bars, restaurants, other shops, public parks, other types of facilities, gyms, movies, movie theatre. And you know you have other people on the other end of the spectrum who say everything should be reopened. You know, we can’t afford the mental health or emotional challenges people face as a result of not having any human interaction and not being able to carry on their normal lives is equally if not more damaging. 

So I get emails like that from people on both sides of the issue almost every day of the week. And so the biggest challenge for someone in my position is how to take all of that information in and still make sure you’re looking at the public health data to make the best decision you can possibly make, but to really try to weigh and balance all of those things to produce the best possible public policy that really does try to make sure that we’re not entirely shutting down our economy and people who are still in business can afford to make money and feed their families and take care of their kids. But also to make sure we’re doing everything we can to protect public health, people’s safety, and well being. But it’s a challenge I’ll be quite honest in telling you that. And I think that might be interesting information to have for some folks, because many times we tend to in the current world spend a lot of time with people who share our own personal political viewpoints. You know, people who are liberal or progressive, hang out with other folks that have that disposition. Folks who are conservative hang out with folks who are conservative. And so everyone in their respective circles is saying, I can’t understand why the elected officials aren’t doing this, everyone that I know says to do this. And I’m like, yes, but there’s a whole other group of people on a different side of the issue who are saying we shouldn’t be doing that. 

So I think that that might be the thing that frankly isn’t very surprising to me, but might be very surprising to hear from the folks that are watching this podcast. 

[DINGLEDINE]: It’s a lot about information and education, and bringing that to people so that they can make the best decisions possible. So here we are hopefully coming out of the height of the pandemic. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Any thoughts there? 

[MAYOR WOODS]: I think there is absolutely light at the end of the tunnel. I think we always have to, you know, while moderating the public health care data and making sure that we are basing our decisions on science. I think that we always though have to believe and make sure we are spreading hope that we are coming out of the maybe worst part of this, and that light at some point will get back to normal as we knew it prior to COVID-19.

Once again, that means that we have to be vigilant when it comes to fighting COVID-19 and stopping the spread. I mean, when I tell people to wear a mask, it’s not because we’re trying to hurt people, it’s not because we’re trying to frustrate anyone. What we’re trying to do is make sure the people stay healthy and trying to make sure that we prevent a second shutdown of our economy. So I think that as long as we do these things. We wear our masks in public places, especially in areas where we can’t remain physically distant from others. If we make sure that we stay home as much as humanly possible, because that truly is the safest place for you to be. I think as long as we take some of these common sense measures, I think we will continue to see the prevalence of this virus go down and sooner rather than later we will be able to resume life as we knew it beforehand. 

[DINGLEDINE]: One thing that’s evident Mayor Woods is that you are providing some terrific and tremendous leadership for the people at Tempe. So first and foremost, thank you for that. We are writing the playbook, each page. We add a page everyday. So thank you for your leadership. Thank you for your time joining us today. We greatly appreciate it. 

[MAYOR WOODS]: Thank you. I really appreciate it. I would say just like you would say, you’re adding a different page to the playbook every day, so are we. I would just say this kind of lastly that you know governing is a science to a certain degree, but it’s also an art. It really is about trying to look at some of the sort of empirical, objective data that you might have not just on COVID-19 but on a whole host of issues that affect our residents and people who happen to work within the city. It’s also an art form about how do you have all of the competing interests.

And so I guess that’s probably the toughest, most challenging, but also the most interesting part of my job. But I enjoy each and every day of it. I get a chance to speak with folks like yourself and great people at Banner\Aetna, so I just really appreciate the opportunity and if I could ever be of any help or assistance to anyone on your end please don’t ever hesitate to reach out to me. 

[DINGLEDINE]: We’ll certainly take you up on that. Thank you again and thank you to everybody listening to this episode Banner\Aetna Workplace in Focus. We’re glad you joined us today. Tune in again as we falcon another issue and have another exciting guest that discusses how the pandemic is being impacted and how our health is being impacted. Thank you everyone 

[ANNOUNCER]: You’ve been listening to Banner Aetna Workplace in Focus. Learn more at banneraetna.com.