ITHACA, N.Y.—Delancia Browning is one of two finalists to be Ithaca’s first city manager. The Washington, D.C. native has a little over a decade of experience working in state and local government, most recently as an associate director in the office of the Mayor of Baltimore, M.D.
Ithacans voted last year to transition from mayoral leadership of the city to a city manager model. The city manager would function as the CEO of the city — they would take over the drafting and management of the city budget, handle negotiation with labor unions and would have direct oversight of department heads. Mayor-elect Rob Cantelmo, once sworn in, will retain the legislative and ceremonial duties of the city leader.
Ithaca’s city manager is inheriting leadership over a workforce still struggling to deal with staffing shortages. Browning said that filling vacancies across the city would be her “top priority” if hired for the role.
Browning fielded questions from Common Council members and city department heads in a series of public, in-person interviews on Nov. 8. She is being considered alongside City of Ithaca Chief of Staff Deb Mohlenhoff for the city manager position after a third finalist for the job unexpectedly withdrew their application.
Mohlenoff’s is scheduled for an interview Monday.
Browning said that while she’d be new to Ithaca, the prospect of moving to the city felt like a “full circle moment” — she considered attending Ithaca College for her undergraduate studies after high school.
“I was like […] ‘Here’s this opportunity for me to go to a city that I was going to want to live in for at least four years of my life, in my younger days,'” Browning said.
Browning said she was able to tour the city before boarding her flight back to D.C., and that she has been looking to set down roots in a new city. She said Ithaca feels like an ideal place to live and raise her 11-year-old daughter.
Browning sees a lot of similarities between Washington, D.C. and Ithaca. She said D.C.’s residents, like Ithaca’s, are often deeply involved and interested in local government, even if they aren’t directly affiliated with the federal government. Browning said communication, both within staff ranks and outwardly, had been a major focus for her in her work.
“D.C. is a very big political town and all our community members are very vocal [on local matters] too,” Browning said during her interview with council members.
From 2013 to 2021, Browning worked in city government in Washington D.C., primarily in that city’s Department of Human Services’ homeless services department.
Browning’s approach to addressing homelessness featured prominently in questions by Common Council members, who were quick to bring up the debate over how to address issues in the Jungle, the large homeless encampment on Ithaca’s West End.
The City of Ithaca and Tompkins County have formed working groups, and are taking their first concrete steps to addressing the homelessness in Ithaca. The moves, such as Ithaca’s Common Council establishing a sanctioned encampment area, come after years of what has been described as a tacit acceptance of the homeless population in Ithaca.
In 2018, Browning helped oversee the relocation of the hundreds of residents of the troubled D.C. General, a former hospital-turned-“megashelter” that once served as the district’s largest homeless shelter. For years, advocates and city officials had been working to shutter the ailing shelter and replace it with newer, safer facilities.
“It was identifying what families we could put into permanent housing solutions, giving them their own places through supportive housing vouchers,” Browning said. “[It was] seeing if there are some families who can we divert back to the community with their loved ones. So looking at all of these different [housing] opportunities, letting [residents] know that just because this change is happening does not mean that we’re going to stop [serving] you.”
Ithaca is different from larger cities because the city itself largely does not provide homeless services — that task largely falls on Tompkins County.
Browning said that a smaller or non-existent budget for homeless services doesn’t deter her — she said she is prepared to collaborate with county officials, nonprofits and other non-governmental service providers, like those within the Continuum of Care, a coalition of nonprofits and official agencies aimed at addressing homelessness in Tompkins County.
She also said she wants to utilize her experience applying for state and federal grants to try to bring in outside funding so that the city does have funding to address homelessness.
Growing up in the nation’s political center, Browning said she developed an interest in the inner workings of government from a fairly early age.
“One of my geek out moments [as a teen] — and people probably thought that I was weird — but I would literally sit and watch our council hearings,” Browning laughed. “I was really invested very early on in life in how local government works and thinking about ways that I could help solve those issues.”
Browning said she once considered elected office, but realized that she prefers to be the one on the ground, keeping things running smoothly. She called the city manager role as a “dream job.”
“[As a city employee], I’m not beholden to any particular political ideas or anything like that. It allows me the flexibility to really effectuate policy,” Browning said.
The Common Council recently voted to amend the official role of the city manager so that someone could be removed from the role by a simple majority vote rather than a two-thirds majority. Browning said that factor doesn’t deter her.
“I’m used to dealing with different personalities and being able to adapt and adjust accordingly, but I’m going to allow my work to speak for itself,” Browning said.
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