Leo Mantey is blunt about the need for change in public administration.
“The attitude that we’ve always done it this way is killing city governments,” he says. “Not just in Richmond but everywhere I’ve worked.”
After a decade honing his skills in cities across Texas, Mantey was hired by the director of Richmond’s Planning and Development Review department in 2022 to counteract that attitude, specifically to slash the amount of time it takes real estate developers to move through the city’s review process.
A significant bottleneck was the initial review of site plans. Within a year of his hiring, that process went from an average of more than 45 days to 15. “I said, ‘We can still do better,’” says Mantey. “So actually, from the beginning of this year, we are down to 13 days.”
Officials from other Virginia cities like Alexandria and Charlottesville have started reaching out to him looking for secrets to his success.
Mantey says the key has been breaking down silos between departments. He couldn’t have done that without the unwavering support of his bosses, he says, and also that his priority has been instilling a customer service attitude throughout city government.
“I want to make things better for the citizens of Richmond,” he says. “And so, with customer service in mind, I was not afraid to go to the public works department, for instance, and tell them to do what is right. My goal has been to create an enabling environment for us to thrive together.”
Originally from Ghana, Mantey came to America after enrolling at the University of Texas. “I joke that, when I came into the country, I tasted American bacon and eggs and I was like, ‘This is so good I’m not going back,’” he laughs.
Mantey passes on his expertise through guest lecturing stints at VCU, even while he works toward his Ph.D. in public administration at Liberty University. His main focus these days is tackling the bottlenecks facing the Shockoe Project that seeks to create an educational institute and museum on 10 acres in Shockoe Valley.
“It’s a very sensitive project and there’s a lot of politics around it,” he says. “I’ve squeezed myself into the middle to streamline it. Process improvement is key because, if the system is not done right, everything below it will be broken.”
