The exit interview
Downtown West Palm Beach fixture Raphael Clemente discusses the difficult balancing act at play to maintain a thriving urban center.
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Stet News’ Joel Engelhardt sat down May 23 with Raphael Clemente, who is ending an 18-year run at the West Palm Beach Downtown Development Authority, 14 years as executive director. Clemente talked about the balance his agency must strike between the demands of oft-times competing parties, such as the city, retailers, developers and the new residents who are making the city center their home. This interview has been edited for brevity but reflects his exact words.
Stet News’ Joel Engelhardt: You presented your resignation at the last meeting, and the board accepted it and agreed to bring in your successor, Teneka James-Feaman.
Raphael Clemente: Correct.
Stet: And your last day will be June 18.
Clemente: That'll be my final day. And then I plan to start my new position at Quantum Foundation with Palm Beach Venture Philanthropy, a new program started there, on July 1st.
Stet: Give me a layman's guide to what the DDA does, and where does its money come from?
Clemente: The DDA, the Downtown Development Authority, is a special district. We are formed and regulated by the state Legislature. … Our geographic area is just shy of a square mile. So if you're thinking of the downtown proper that would be … Flagler Bridge to the Royal Park Bridge and Australian Avenue to Flagler Drive. Much of CityPlace is carved out of it, some of it is within.
Stet: Which part is within?
Clemente: Everything north of Gardenia.
Stet: And so where do you derive your money?
Clemente: Our funding is split in two. We levy a millage on any taxable properties in our district. Our millage rate right now is 0.97 mills. … When we reduced our millage from 2 to 1 (about 2006), we entered into an agreement with the city and the CRA (West Palm Beach Community Redevelopment Agency) whereby they would make up the value of that mill we no longer levy.
Stet: And what does that spell out in terms of how much revenue you receive each year from the nearly 1 mill?
Clemente: This year we’ll receive about, I'm guessing, about $3.5 million.
Stet: And then that is matched by the CRA?
Clemente: Correct.
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Density is a good thing
Stet: So over your tenure, this downtown has exploded. … With that growth, your budget has grown. You have more money to spend, as does the CRA. Can you talk a little bit about how incredible the growth has been? I mean, this corner of the country versus if you were in the Northeast or somewhere else?
Clemente: It's interesting. We started talking about this plan, right, the Downtown Master Plan. You know the vision the city leadership and private sector had in the mid-’90s for a downtown that was vibrant, charming, walkable, unique, authentic, that has come to be. This plan has come to life. You know, it’s had changes and updates but the place that was envisioned and worked for and invested in, with public and private money, has happened and is continuing to happen. The challenges we have of traffic and other things are growing pains. These are, I don't want to say they're good problems, but they’re problems of growth and problems of improvement. They’re problems many other cities wish they had right now.
So you know the comparison to other places that haven't had a return to work, haven't had a residential boom, haven't had continued investment in urban cores, particularly post-COVID, we have that. This isn't by accident. I think that West Palm Beach has benefited greatly from making some smart moves, from good planning. As an urban planner myself, certainly in its urban center, a lot of really good decisions were made.
Stet: Give me some examples.
Clemente: Focusing on walkability, encouraging density, encouraging residential development.
Stet: Let's talk about density. I think a reaction among many who travel downtown is that density isn't often seen as a positive. Why do you see density as a positive?
Clemente: Well, that's what urban centers are, by definition, that is what they are built to do, to be dense, vibrant, intense places. And West Palm Beach has made those investments, has made investments in infrastructure and the transportation within the area. And we're seeing the value of that, you know, people are coming here.
Stet: So if you build infrastructure to handle large amounts of people, you want large amounts of people to live and take advantage of all that infrastructure.
Clemente: That's the goal. Is it messy creating that? Is it a linear process? No, it's not. City building, whether it's private investment or government, nothing is linear, nothing is going to happen exactly as it's written in a plan. But over time, as you asked the question, where have we gone in, at least in my 18 and a half years at this organization, what was intended and sought after, by the public and by the leadership in our city has, generally speaking, come to pass.
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Stet: As a walkability guy, back in 1996, when CityPlace was vying for the right to build, one of the competitors proposed a flyover over the tracks and over Tamarind Avenue right where the Kravis Center is, and the convention center was maybe gonna go. And that was something that the administration at the time under Nancy Graham vehemently objected to. CityPlace did not make that proposal. And as a result, you still hear to this day people saying we need a flyover and so as a walkability guy, how do you feel about the proposal for a flyover at the tracks and Tamarind?
Clemente: That'd be disastrous.
Stet: Why is that?
Clemente: There's many reasons why. The first reason is if we could move more cars, where do we move them to? Do we just continue to build bigger and taller and more grotesque parking garages? So we have a place that is walkable, unquestionably right? Once you're here, it's great. Getting here, particularly from out west, can be a challenge. A flyover to allow more single-occupant cars, or even multiple-occupant cars, private vehicles, to crush into our urban center is antithetical to the idea of what a downtown is about.
Instead of investing millions or billions in a flyover, we should be investing that same amount of money in transit. When people get on convenient, safe, affordable transit and come into downtown without their cars, people that don't want to drive to begin with. That is what smart, effective, financially responsible, environmentally responsible planning is all about.
Stet: Is that the idea behind the increase in parking fees — that they would discourage people driving their car into downtown parking?
Clemente: No. Parking fees had not been increased in a decade maybe? And what we were seeing was you could not find parking. … The garages were full. Every on-street space was full. It's a market decision. There was no intention in raising parking fees to discourage people from driving.
Stet: Or to come?
Clemente: Or to coming. We have seen a better outcome now with an adjusted parking fee than what we had at a lower parking rate. And you know, everybody says, ‘Make parking free, parking should be free’ — you'll never find a parking space.
Nobody likes to pay for parking. But parking is reality. People are gonna keep driving. I'm not anti-car at all. We need to plan and build and manage our place for people to be able to drive to it. But at the same time, we also need to give people other options.
Every year, we do an intercept survey of men and women on the street here in downtown and we also do a survey of a 20-mile radius. … And every year increasingly, more people say that they arrived at wherever they're being surveyed — Clematis by Night, CityPlace, Wednesday lunch hour, happy hour on Friday, or the Greenmarket — they say they got to wherever they're being surveyed increasingly without the use of a car. More people walk, more people bike, more people use rideshare, more people use transit every year.
Stet: Are we talking about significant numbers of people or just more.
Clemente: Significant numbers. I'll show you the data. Also more people every year say, if given the option ‘What would you like to do?’ every year more and more people, even more than are using other modes, every year more people say if I was given the option I would rather not drive. So I mean the demand is there. We just don't have the system to satisfy the demand. We haven't built the system, so to speak.
Stet: You're not a city body. And you always were a go-between between the retailers and either the city or whoever. And there was also a conflict when CityPlace arrived with new retailers between the old Clematis Street retailer front and the new CityPlace, which has gone through a lot of change lately. So where does that stand?
Clemente: I think there definitely were times early in my tenure here where there wasn't a balance. Clematis was struggling. CityPlace, later on The Square, was thriving. … It was like, you know, not a boom-and-bust cycle but it was certainly you know, one was doing well, the other wasn't doing great, and it would switch, flip-flop, back and forth. I feel like now, with as much energy and investment has happened here and continues to happen by Related/CityPlace and continues to happen by a number of different players in downtown: Brand Atlantic, Jeff Green, others coming in investing tremendous amounts of money in our historic city center, I feel like it's as balanced as it's ever been.
Certainly our ground floor vacancy rate is the lowest it's ever been in my time here. Very, very low. The spaces that are empty are either under construction and being built out. … So traffic is as high as it's ever been, foot-traffic in downtown. But again, obviously a lot of that has to do with a steadily rising residential population, steadily rising office population. So that built-in audience is here and it looks like they're spending money.
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Marijuana dispensaries and social connections
Stet: There has been pushback to the number of marijuana dispensaries on the street.
Clemente: We pushed back on that as well.
Stet: How do you feel that they help or hinder the street?
Clemente: Obviously, the state legalized medical marijuana dispensaries. Back when that was teed up and looked like it was going to be approved, the DDA, did ask the city to consider some type of regulation on dispensaries. In fact, that was an issue that downtown stakeholders raised and said, ‘Would you help us advocate for this?’
Stet: Especially because you have a lot of nightclubs.
Clemente: Yeah, nightlife. You have a walking street. You’re the center, you know, Clematis Street is, certainly, it's our cultural heart, it’s our entertainment district. So regulation didn't happen at that early stage. But then as we started to see a proliferation, the DDA board, did pass a resolution, sent a letter to the city, asking them to please consider some sort of regulatory framework in the Downtown Master Plan area. Which the city did, in fact, they went even further and they … put a moratorium on any new dispensary citywide, which, you know, wasn't our intention.
Stet: So why did the DDA think that there were enough here?
Clemente: It is a perception issue. You know, when you've got on main corners, right downstairs from us, you know, at Main and Main, so to speak, Clematis and Olive, you have something that not everybody feels is compatible with their neighborhood (or) storefront. And you know, the perception of the board was that we should ask for this to be enough.
Stet: Does it bring customers downtown?
Clemente: I don't see a lot of customers. I don't see a lot of people coming and going from dispensaries. Not like I see from a restaurant, like I see from Duffy’s or Grease Burger Bar. Or O'Shea's. There's a difference between a dispensary and a pub. I would go meet you at a pub. I go meet you at O'Shea's and we could have a burger and a beer and have this conversation there. We could talk. Or I can meet you and get to know you there. I might just bump into you and you know, we'd become friends. And when you look at what makes cities really work well, urban places in particular, it's sociability. The ability to socialize and connect with others that you have something in common with is really, really important for urban places.
The library events, a restaurant or a bar, serve as those Third Places, you've probably heard that term. Right? It's not your home. It's not your work. It's that place where you go and you meet other people. Even if you don't know somebody there. You're all there together and you'll find people that you feel connection with. That's the most important thing for humans, right? It's the No. 1 thing. We're social creatures. Different types of businesses fulfill that role in different ways or not and as sitting here as like the nerdy urban planner, dispensaries, particularly on prime corner locations that could be something else that would add to that social fabric, sort of take away that opportunity.
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314 Clematis buyout
Stet: Meanwhile, the city took 314 Clematis off the market for a long time trying to do something … and it didn't happen. And they recently agreed to terms with a developer who wants to put in a restaurant. So the idea of an incubator for small businesses is no longer in play. And how do you feel about how it has transpired?
Clemente: I mean, look, a lot happened. COVID happened. The market changed. So much changed. The DDA was involved with the 314 Clematis project. I believe very much that that would have been a really exciting, impactful project.
Stet: Can you explain what was proposed there?
Clemente: The Thoroughfare was an idea that was a Knight (Foundation) Cities Challenge grant winner and the idea was that a space would be created on Main Street, where, you know, small business, there's not a lot of small spaces on Clematis.
Stet: This (314 Clematis) is a former Woolworths.
Clemente: Yes. It was Z Gallerie. And then it was Off the Hookah. It's 14,000 square feet. So you have this really, really big space. And the 12 for 12 project was the Knight Cities Challenge grant winner and this was a national challenge.
Stet: This was pre-COVID?
Clemente: Oh, yes, pre-COVID. And the idea was to create that type of space on the ground floor. Investment was made. The project was well underway. The DDA was a partner in that. COVID came and everything, not just that, ground to a halt. And as we emerged from COVID it was just an entirely different world.
Stet: How so?
Clemente: I mean, tolerance for taking risks. The cost of rents, the demand for this place. Could you get labor? Like everything got tabled. And as we came out of that, you know, it was a different world. The idea that we could reactivate that project — it became apparent that, you know, the opportunity had passed for that.
Stet: Is it a disappointment to come back to it as ‘Oh, we're just going to be another restaurant on Clematis Street?’
Clemente: No, it would have been wonderful if The Thoroughfare project could have happened. … I think that the new project there with Brand Atlantic at the helm is going to be great.
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Photo Centre on Clematis
Stet: OK. So that's going to happen. And the city has also made a move on the Photographic Centre at the library. Now if you remember, when the library was to be put there, enlivening Clematis Street on that block, which had been dead for so long because of the closed D&D Centre, was a major goal. And there was a feeling that the Photo Centre didn't enliven the block. And so, do you have any insight into what might go there or any thoughts on what should go there?
Clemente: I don't have any insight into what might go there. I think it would be exciting for an active use there.
Stet: But the city hasn't talked to the DDA about what should go there?
Clemente: Not yet.
Stet: So then let's put on your urban planning hat. What would make an active use there, another restaurant?
Clemente: I'll tell you what. We should be getting a retail gap analysis that we commissioned from Cushman Wakefield, commercial real estate brokerage, within a week. … We often fall into the trap, if I've learned something, is we, the collective we — the public, urban planners, leadership — of saying that should go there. What we really need is, you know, sushi or not more sushi or what we really need is an Indian restaurant or a flower shop, but we really don't know.
Stet: Plus you’re at the mercy of market forces. The Indian restaurant might not want to be down there. You'd have to have a willing tenant.
Clemente: Correct. You took the words out of my mouth. We are at the mercy of market forces. So having a data-driven approach to this, as government, to make informed decisions, helps us do two things. If it's the ground floor or the library, the Photo Centre, it helps the CRA make a better decision. You got data. Here's what the data says would probably be a good choice. But then it helps us, the DDA, which we do work with businesses that want to be here and with landlords that are looking for a tenant. It helps us zero in on if we're going to incentivize anything, what should we be incentivizing?
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What does the DDA do?
Stet: This is a good opportunity for you to tell me more about your staffing because you say you do marketing, you reach out to businesses. What else do you do with your budget?
Clemente: About 50 percent of our budget is public realm maintenance. Pressure-cleaning sidewalks, picking up litter, landscaping, those hanging baskets out the window, the planted beds, the no gum on the sidewalk, the banners on the light poles.
Stet: Cleaning up after a wild Saturday night?
Clemente: Cleaning up after a Monday lunch hour even. We put a lot of effort and money into the cleanliness and quality of the public space. That is the best thing that we can do to make sure that residents feel like their neighborhood is clean and welcoming and safe and vibrant. It's the best thing that we can do for existing businesses that are here as tenants already and businesses that may come and look at the place and make a decision on whether they want to be here or not.
Stet: And is there any policing?
Clemente: We still do pay for additional police security. … About $600,000 a year of additional policing.
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500 block of Clematis
Stet: The 500 block has been a subject of a lot of controversy over the last few years. And a lot of people feel like the city's actions have been to the detriment of efforts to bring people to the 500 block to make it more walkable, the closing of the alley, which has not been replaced with anything. The refusal to allow street closures, which were extremely popular. Where does the DDA fit in that? What is your position on those?
Clemente: Well we, the DDA, was, along with the city or the CRA, I don't remember exactly, was originally a sponsor of and supporter of that weekly closure of the 500 block. In fact, we pulled the permit for that. And it was a good way to test the idea of a pedestrianized street. Right? And we did that and we were happily participating in that. But as the permit-holder, we're responsible for compliance with … regulations and rules. The parameters of the permit were being regularly violated. Over and over and over again, and at a certain point, when it came for permit renewal, We said ‘Look, our names are on the permit.’
Stet: What were the violations?
Clemente: Live music when it shouldn't have been there, food trucks. A number of things that were being brought to my attention. Hey, this is not part of your permit agreement. Please talk to the business owners, which we did. There was plenty of communication on that. At a certain point, when the permit came up to be renewed, we said we're not going to renew the permit, the businesses, if you want to renew the permit, go right ahead.
Stet: And they took it over, right?
Clemente: Which they did. They took it over at that point.
Stet: So it went another year or two, without the DDA being the permit-holder?
Clemente: Right. It continued on. Banyan closed. Traffic increased. Construction started. We don't have any regulatory authority, event permits or otherwise. But the city opted to not renew the permit.
Stet: So has there been a detriment to the downtown?
Clemente: I don't think so. We heard complaints from people east of it, that it was diminishing traffic coming east, so there's an upside and a downside to so many things with public space.
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Balancing conflicting forces
Stet: And the DDA is often in the middle. For 30 years, the DDA has been the one that has to try to work between competing retailers. I mean, they're not all friends. They're actually going for the same dollar.
Clemente: And we can't pick winners and losers. We have to, as a public agency, do everything we can possibly do to make sure we treat everybody fair. We give everybody an opportunity. I have had an open-door policy as long as I've been in this office. Before I was executive director, I would give anybody five minutes, at least. And it has served me very well. And I hope it has served the downtown community well. But increasingly, I think that rarely is it business owners with competing interests that wind up being like this. Increasingly, and the more complex problem to solve, is that of the rapidly growing neighborhood that is downtown.
Stet: Its residences?
Clemente: Correct. It's people's quality of life.
Stet: There are literally thousands of residences.
Clemente: About 10,000 residents.
Stet: 10,000? in your one square mile?
Clemente: Correct.
Stet: And it used to be what?
Clemente: Couple thousand. 2,500. And that has to be balanced. I mean, honestly, the DDA has played that role and increasingly, in trying to help balance out residential growth and growing business intensity. This isn't unique to West Palm Beach. This happens in every city center. … Even if you don't have an entertainment district, you've still got a loading zone. You've got garbage cans being emptied early in the morning. You've got people out late at night, you know, you've got traffic. This is the nature of an urban place.
And a big part of it, Joel, is can we keep things clean? Can we keep things attractive? Just the public space. But then you know those other impacts, like noise, like traffic, we go to great lengths to try to manage those things. We've hired noise consultants, we've worked closely with community events, with event producers like we have with the sanitation department. Like I've ridden garbage trucks at 6 o'clock in the morning. I've gone many times to people's condo units to see what they're seeing.
Stet: Why have you ridden garbage trucks?
Clemente: Because when they come out at 6 o'clock in the morning to empty a Dumpster or or a trash compactor, there's noise and is that noise being amplified in a way that affects folks 10 stories up in a building on that alleyway?
Stet: So what did you find out?
Clemente: It does. It's real.
Stet: And what was the solution?
Clemente: We worked at that time with the public works director. They changed the route to arrive at that particular alleyway a little later in the day. But then their challenge is they can't pull the garbage truck into an alleyway at 10 o'clock in the morning when they're gonna get parked in or, you know, there's a traffic backup. They've got to get it done when they’ve got to get it done. This is threading the needle literally, of balancing the desires and demands of an urban place. … You can fix it but it doesn't stay fixed. I live by that.
CityPlace
Stet: I wanted to talk to you a little bit about CityPlace. First of all, the shift in CityPlace from being primarily retail with some residential to now moving toward getting rid of the movie theater and moving toward office and a lot of residential as well as some retail but it really has given up a lot of the restaurants that were pivotal at the beginning. So how does that fit into the downtown mix? And how do the two sides of downtown work together?
Clemente: I would say that for sure, at least from my perspective, (CityPlace developer) Related has been a great partner. They do impeccable public realm maintenance.
Stet: Of their development?
Clemente: Yeah, the public spaces, within their area and around it, frankly, around it. I often think, we got to keep up, like that's been a positive pressure for me: Is the DDA doing the best that we can to keep up with how public spaces are maintained in CityPlace because the user of that space, the man or woman on the street, the visitors downtown, the resident, they don't care that that's Related’s property or this isn't. Why is it nice over there and why isn't it quite as nice over here? So that's been what I would say is a positive pressure for us to stay in step.
But on the big picture, you know, I feel like if we had a different partner than Related, and when the market was down … they could have said ‘This ain't working. And we're out of here.’ And frankly, we'd be left with like a smoking crater. We all saw what happened on the New River. Remember, Riverwalk in Fort Lauderdale. That whole thing got flattened to the ground. Tremendous loss.
… I often want to laugh when I hear people bashing Related because they're investing and developing. When, if they did the opposite, if they just didn't invest, and just let it sit or, worse, walked away, we would be in big, big trouble. … I feel like they upped the game. Everybody else ups their game. Things balance out.
I'll give you an example. For a very long time, people would come to me as a DDA director and say, ‘When are we going to get some business? The streets are dead. The storefronts are vacant. There's no cranes in the air. We need Class A office. What are we going to do, Clemente?’ And now it's happening. Right? And people are saying to me, sometimes, ‘It's too much development, it's too busy.’ You know? What did Yogi Berra say? ‘Nobody goes there anymore. That place is way too crowded.’
It's like downtown has done what we've all designed it to do and hoped it would do. It's grown. It's thrived. It's become valuable. Square foot rents are up. Visitation is up. Customer traffic is up. Class A office buildings are coming out of the ground. People are moving in. It's a high-demand place. It is a potent, intense center, city, neighborhood and business district. West Palm Beach is lucky to have it. The region is lucky to have it. It is the economic engine of the region.
Stet: The downtown, not related to CityPlace only?
Clemente: No, no, I mean, including, inclusive of. Now, we've got Nora coming. Like it is the economic engine of this place. And there's problems, right? There's traffic, there's affordability issues, those things are being worked on. But you know, again, this isn't a linear process. What I'm excited about and what I love about our city is that people care enough about it that they fight over it. That they push and shove. They get mad. They voice their concerns. And it moves us. It moves us toward solutions. I mean, honestly, that's how we got this master plan in the ‘90s. People were fed up with a dead downtown. That's how I firmly believe we're gonna get to transit. That's how I firmly believe we're gonna get to affordable housing. That's how I firmly believe we're gonna get to community development like we want it to be. Because in West Palm Beach, people give a damn. People give a damn so much. … There's a lot of people passionate about this place and they will stand up and fight for it. I love that. I love that.
That's what I love most about my job is that people come to me and are like, ‘What are you gonna do?’ Or ‘How can I help you?’ As a resident of Flamingo Park, I want this place to succeed as much as anybody else does. I'm raising my kids here. I spent way too much on a house here, I don't want to leave, I love it.
Homelessness
Stet: There's one area of your budget we didn't discuss and that is actions taken to help with the issue of homelessness. … I'd love to hear your thoughts as you're departing on the homeless situation, paring the various points of view from those who say they shouldn't be here to those who say they should be helped. And what the DDA is doing about it.
Clemente: First of all, yes, they should be helped. Yes. 100 percent. I mean, it's not just a professional opinion. It's my personal conviction that people living on the street need help. No person who is healthy, chooses to live on the street. It's the most complex problem I've dealt with, personally, professionally, by far. I'm often a little bit perplexed as to why people think that it is a city's issue or a county's issue, when it's a societal issue.
The driving forces that are putting people on the street are affordability, mental health, two big big ones, right? I'm sure there's people that have terrible tragic stories about how they ended up homeless. But the problem is getting them out of that. There are so few resources. And the idea that this can be solved by a city or a special district is absurd. It can't. Can we do our very best to mitigate it and to manage it at the street level? We do our very best, as does the city, as do the advocacy organizations and a lot of individuals, just kind people. But to address the problem, we need state and/or federal help, money, programs, guidance.
Stet: You got state help. They passed a law that says homeless people can't sleep on the street.
Clemente: That's not help.
Stet: OK, I know you put some money toward (homelessness). Can you explain?
Clemente: Sure. For many years, as long as I've been here, we've always contributed funding, in one way or another, to programs to help the homeless. We used to donate to the Vicker's House, the city's program — the emergency ride home program. … As we move forward, you probably remember that the DDA in 2019 I think or 2018, we started the Clean Team, which was a project we did with the Lord’s Place, where people that were coming out of homelessness or out of incarceration would get a job working in downtown with our planning team, our street-cleaning program. That was great. It was growing. We were working collaboratively on it. And then COVID hit. Everything stopped. Remote work, you name it. There was nothing going on. That program got mothballed. We never really brought it back.
Stet: So how does that influence or impact the crisis?
Clemente: When we thought about bringing that program back, the need was so great. The need to clean public space and pick up garbage was so great, we decided we needed professional help and we had to hire a contractor and that's when we started working with Image, who's been fantastic. … But we really had to up our game there. Like post-COVID was when we really pivoted toward public realm maintenance.
Stet: So are there any other programs with the homeless?
Clemente: We also invest money into the city's outreach program.
Stet: What is that?
Clemente: The city has, under Housing Community Development, their homeless outreach and services team, which goes out and engages people where they are on the street and helps them get to resources. … We help fund that program because the problem is so focused in downtown. And we also invested in additional policing. We're not under the illusion and I hope this gets in, we understand we can't police our way out of homelessness. We know it. But if people are breaking the law, we have to deal with it. It has to be dealt with, whether they're homeless or not. And that's been a big part of our push for that.
Stet: What about the requirement that people get a permit to feed the homeless, which has been very controversial?
Clemente: I think there was some case law on that. They might change that. But having seen the impact of it. There's a public impact. I mean, people need to be fed, 100 percent. But when you distribute food particularly in to-go containers in a public park or on the street, the impact of that can often be a lot of mess to clean up. I thought just asking folks to get a permit to distribute food en masse, I thought it made a lot of sense.
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His successor, Teneka James-Feaman
Stet: And that leads to my final question, which is to talk about your successor, Teneka James. And if you could tell me why you recommended her.
Clemente: Well, gosh, where do I start? People have seen me out front of this organization for a long time. I was Melissa Wohlust’s associate director and when she fell ill, I was interim director. Unfortunately, she couldn't return to work. … Since that time, I've had the opportunity to lead this organization. And I've done my best to make myself accessible and present, visible to the community that funds our operations, that asks us to provide services and do good things for them. What they haven't often seen is the team behind me and without Teneka, and the rest of this team, I would have crashed into more walls and flown off more cliffs than I already did. By far. If we have succeeded as an organization, it is entirely because of this team. Of which I am one.
Stet: And why is she a good person to lead it?
Clemente: Teneka has been effectively the co-leader of this organization, really, with me since I've been hired. She's been associate director as long as I've been the executive director. … What she has brought to the organization is creativity, thoughtful planning, great management. I'm really good at seeing we’re at A and I'm already looking to Z. She's already writing B to Y. Her ability to build a plan and execute that plan is fantastic.
… She is an honest broker. She says exactly what she's thinking, sets clear expectations and listens. … What this organization does best is it doesn't work for the community or for the city. It works with those different interests together and tries to find a solution. … I think that if there is any logical successor to me, it's clearly Teneka.
Stet: I want to thank you very much for a very interesting interview.
Clemente: You’re welcome.
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