PCC Local Time

Maggie Dobbs is a trained city planner (Rutgers) who spent a decade writing comprehensive plans across Montgomery County before stepping into her current role as Borough Manager of Narberth, Pennsylvania, a half-square-mile community tucked inside Lower Merion Township just outside of Philadelphia. She arrived after a period of leadership turnover. What she found was not a small job. It was a dense one.
Host Brandon Ford and co-host Nancy Hess have a wide ranging conversation with Maggie that moves through the real experience of borough management: the math of running a full municipal government — police, public works, library, eleven miles of road — with fifteen people and a fraction of a township’s budget; the intimacy that makes boroughs special and the same intimacy that makes criticism land close to the heart; and the reality that wearing every hat in the building demands more knowledge, not less, than specializing in a larger organization.
Maggie is candid about walking into a community that had cycled through five managers in four years, what it took to steady that ship, and why her focus is on building standard operating procedures so the day-to-day can run itself. Along the way, the crew explores Narberth’s housing story — how a historically working-class rail town became the highest median sales price in Montgomery County — and what that shift means for a community once referred to as “Mayberry,” still sorting out who it is.
MuniSquare is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

“My job gets in the way of me doing my job.”— Maggie Dobbs — on the borough manager’s capacity problem“Your hats are wearing hats. It’s a lot.”— Maggie Dobbs — on generalist demands in a small-staff borough
"If I had a campaign slogan, it would be policy and procedure. My big push has been standard operating procedures. I want to think less about the day-to-day. I want the day-to-day to essentially run itself because we've already figured it out. I don't want to have to answer questions I've answered again." — Maggie Dobbs, on her first-year management strategy

🔥 Hot Takes
Five Realities Before You Take the Seat
Your job will crowd out your job. Protect space for strategic work.
SOPs are not paperwork. They are oxygen.
Fill your blind spots early. Pride is expensive.
Proactive information reduces political friction.
Borough leadership is not smaller. It’s closer.

Timestamps
0:00 – Introducing Maggie and Narberth
1:18 – The “donut hole” geography inside Lower Merion
2:09 – Maggie’s path: NJ Dept. of Agriculture → Rutgers → Planning
3:30 – Montgomery County Planning Commission & contract planning model
5:49 – Writing four comprehensive plans; interviewing...

There is a polite fiction in local government that serving “at the pleasure of the governing body” rests securely on mutual trust. Often it does. Increasingly, it can feel more fragile.
In today’s political climate, the employment relationship between elected officials and their chief administrative officer deserves a closer examination. What protections actually exist? Who advocates for the manager when circumstances shift?
In this episode of Generation on the Rise, Eden Ratliff and Dave Pribulka sit down with Brad Gotshall to explore what it means to become, in his words, a “free agent.” They examine contracts and severance, and they also confront questions of reputation, professional identity, and the personal weight of transitions that can be political, strategic, or simply inevitable.
MuniSquare is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

⏱️ Timestamps
00:00 – Cold open, book banter, introductions
04:30 – Brad’s background: elected official at 17 to professional manager
09:30 – Transition to Warren County and “free agency”
11:30 – Protecting yourself as a manager: personal and professional buckets
13:30 – Contract negotiations: learning the hard way
16:00 – Do managers need representation?
19:00 – The loneliness of severance negotiations
22:00 – Lower Paxton: no contract, negotiated exit
26:00 – Recruiter’s role in negotiations
31:00 – Severance pushback and board dynamics
37:00 – Creative contract structures (Rehoboth example)
39:30 – Should managers use agents?
41:30 – Legal review vs. negotiation support
43:00 – Preserving reputation under NDAs
45:30 – Building a personal brand before crisis hits
48:00 – No-fault divorce vs. political dismissal
50:00 – Wrap-up and Part Two teaser

Eden and Dave are joined by guest Jeffrey Stonehill, Borough Manager of Chambersburg Pennsylvania. They begin with an examination of how crises today differ from those Jeffrey encountered when he began in the field. Although they traverse the doom and gloom of dealing with crisis in the profession, they return to the core reasons they remain in the field.
Contrasting generational perspectives and recognition of the vulnerability that comes with commitment and transitions make this episode a memorable one.
Subscribe to MuniSquare on Substack for more content like this.
“If everything is a crisis, nothing is.” - EdenYou have to have a little bit of self-confidence. I will find the place, I will find the role, I will find the journey. It's like the actor—the Broadway play closes, what do they do the next day? You need to have confidence that it will work itself out. - Jeffrey"There is a lightness of being after you're gone that almost hits as you're walking out the door. That's when I realized how much pressure I'd been under. That feeling is quickly replaced by this feeling of not being a part of something bigger than yourself anymore. When that ends, especially if it ends abruptly, it's a hard realization to wake up one morning and your calendar is empty." - Dave

Hot Takes:

🔥Crisis has always been part of the job. The pressure isn’t new — the speed is.
🔥Not every issue deserves full emotional escalation.
🔥Fire Suppression ≠ Fire Prevention. Be proactive.
🔥 The communities you serve will continue without you—and that's okay.
🔥Leaving a community requires a grieving process, even when it's your choice to leave.
🔥The work is meaningful. Despite the pressure, leaders would not trade the experience.

Timestamps
00:00 - Cold open and greetings
03:47 - Welcome and introduction to Generation on the Rise
04:42 - Introducing first-time guest Jeffrey Stonehill
06:32 - Jeffrey’s career journey: From SUNY grad to 40-year manager
08:15 - The “crisis as normal” phenomenon in local government
11:45 - Why municipalities attract constant crisis
15:20 - The evolution of pressure: Then vs. now
19:30 - Harrisburg bankruptcy and advisory board experience
24:10 - The psychological toll of perpetual emergency management
28:45 - Learning to disconnect (or trying to)
33:20 - The loneliness of municipal management
37:50 - Why managers struggle to share burdens
42:15 - Transitioning between communities: The Disney tradition
45:40 - The grieving process when you leave a community
49:18 - Taking care of yourself and your family
50:05 - Despite everything: Why we love this profession
52:03 - Closing thoughts and next week’s preview

Hey listeners, if you like video with your podcast, check out this episode on Spotify with the video feed included. Don't forget to hit the follow button. And subscribe to MuniSQuare where you will find more on the Pioneering Change Community channel.
"We are all one elected official away from a hostile work environment.” - Dave
“Yeah, but if it gets that bad, why would you stay?" - Eden
Today on Generation on the Rise, what starts as tactical shop talk evolves into a revealing examination of professional isolation, with Dave pushing hard on systemic advocacy gaps while Eden counters with self-reliance pragmatism. By the end, they’re debating whether the profession’s recruitment crisis stems from lack of awareness or legitimate wariness about the job’s inherent instability.
“Labor relations are high risk, high reward. When it goes bad, it goes bad fast.” - Brandon
Hot Takes:
Generational dynamics within unions have shifted bargaining leverage.
Don’t wait until negotiation year to build trust.
Personnel management is on-the-job training, no matter your preparation.
Managers lack advocacy structures..

In this kickoff-to-2026 episode of Generation on the Rise, hosts Dave Pribulka, Brandon Ford, and Eden Ratliff tackle the question: what is the real role of a municipal manager in forming local government policy?
Generation on the Rise is produced by Nancy Hess (Publisher of MuniSquare) and features Eden Ratliff (Middletown Township Manager, Bucks County PA), Brandon Ford (Lower Merion Assistant Township Manager, Montgomery County PA, and Dave Pribulka (Bellefonte Borough Manager, Centre County PA)
MuniSquare is a reader-supported publication. To subscribe to this feed, receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
This is a great listen for anyone interested in the work of local government or just wants to understand how it really works. Be sure to leave your comments and questions for the crew to tackle in a future episode.
“Our job is to inform the process, respect the outcome, and then deliver with enthusiasm.” - Eden
“We took ‘leaf blower ban’ as a goal and did what staff does—we turned it into options, wrote the ordinance, and recommended a seasonal ban. The board said, ‘Thanks, but we want a full ban.’ And that’s democracy.” - Brandon
“Sometimes the textbook says, ‘The board sets policy, the manager administers.’ The real work is everything in between—the translation, the conflict, the opportunity costs.” - Dave
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 – New Year banter & Y2K
03:30 – First-week-back routines & “Purge Day”
06:30 – Reorganization meetings as the “real” New Year
09:00 – Setting up the topic: managers and policy formation
10:00 – Textbook council–manager model vs reality
12:00 – How Eden reads and frames board policy priorities
13:30 – Who really sets the agenda? Chair vs manager
14:30 – Is capital equipment a policy question?
16:00 – Municipal vs nonprofit vs corporate boards
17:30 – Disagreeing with the board and processing it at home
21:00 – Culture, roles, and “no big emotions” about policy
24:00 – Translating decisions up and down the organization
28:00 – “Negotiation” vs expectations and culture
29:30 – When managers do and don’t make recommendations
33:00 – Budgets, tax policy, and whether a balanced budget is a recommendation
36:00 – Assistant manager perspective: one functional unit
38:00 – Preemption, home rule, and plastic-bag bans
44:00 – Inertia, backlash, and revisiting policy after it “marinates”
47:00 – What’s distinctive about the Generation on the Rise cohort?
48:00 – When operations are failing and the manager must force the policy conversation
49:00 – Closing reflections & takeaways