Representatives from Salem’s government, nonprofits and community are back in school to learn how to improve public safety in Salem.

The city is one of 12 participating in an intensive program from the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, which helps cities address a multifaceted issue through collaborative problem-solving and with long-term vision. 

Mayor Julie Hoy applied to the program as part of her initiative to address public safety issues in downtown Salem. Her pitch was among those accepted in August 2025. 

While the program is fully funded by Bloomberg-Harvard, a group of seven Salem leaders has been putting in about eight hours a week of extra work between homework, Zoom classes and group study sessions. 

The program gives city leaders a chance to step out of daily work in their individual lanes. Participants say it’s already reshaped how they think about their jobs and how to approach projects.

Salem has applied for a summer fellow from Harvard to help assess work underway to improve safety and livability in downtown Salem. If an applicant is matched with the city, they’ll come to Salem with a goal of applying lessons learned to northeast Salem.

“Without committing to exactly what this journey will look like, we do plan to utilize our experience through this downtown pilot project to develop initiatives for northeast Salem,” Assistant Police Chief Brandon Ditto said in an email.

Even though the work has been intensive, participants in a group interview with Salem Reporter were enthusiastic. They say the program feels like an unprecedented collaboration addressing a community issue which put everyone’s perspectives on the table.

“It feels like going back to school. I love that part,” said Tiffany Bulgin, founder and manager of Isaac’s Room and IKE Box. The nonprofit which employs young people from foster care, alternative education programs, juvenile corrections and others in need of support at downtown coffee shops. 

So far, participants said much of the work has been in defining what “public safety” even means, and defining the full scope of the problem before jumping into costly solutions. 

It began last year with a group of 30 volunteers throughout the community, who have since been divided into seven categories. Each group now has a designated leader going back to school on their behalf, tasked with representing the group’s priorities and perspectives. 

The seven group leaders will head to Cambridge, Massachusetts, this month to get hands-on and in-person training alongside people working in cities around the world.

That trip comes after two senior city employees visited New York City last August. They toured unique projects, talking with the managers who got the projects done.

Ditto lit up while describing The High Line, a former elevated railroad track which, over the last two decades, has been transformed into a public park and walking paths with greenery, public art and vendors.

“It’s beautiful, it’s incredible. And then you got these great views that you could walk along and see the city. It’s brilliant,” he said. 

Ditto traveled with Courtney Knox Busch, assistant city manager. She described the trip as “very cool, very intense.”

The two had homework each night to prepare for the next day. In between, they would discuss Salem’s challenges with other members of the cohort. 

It showed them what’s possible when a project considers every possible perspective beyond the most acute problem.

The focus of the trip, and of the project so far, has been about taking the time to define the problem before jumping into solutions.

“When people would bring up solutions, they would almost slap their hand and be like ‘No, not there yet,’” Ditto said. “It is: ‘What is the problem?’ And you keep diving deeper and deeper … so you can really have long-term change.”

For Salem, the pitch that the team was initially given by Hoy was to address public safety in downtown Salem.

Knox Busch said the Bloomberg Harvard project compliments but is different than the city’s Safe, Clean and Healthy Salem initiative. That effort recently expanded the police and cleaning teams addressing homeless encampments to seven days a week.

“No knocking (Safe, Clean and Healthy), it’s awesome, but compared to what we’re doing here, it’s fairly myopic. It’s focused on what the city can do to change conditions. This is more like how we, as a community, inclusively approach this challenge,” she said. 

The group agreed that the emphasis on how the community as a whole can address public safety feels like the first of its kind in Salem. 

Ditto said that the support from Bloomberg Harvard was the nudge over hurdles of budget constraints and time commitments.

“This is the first that I’ve seen of a community-wide effort to this degree, and to be so intentional about how you’re addressing the problem and how you’re really analyzing things,” Ditto said. “We want to make it safe and well downtown, and there’s a lot to that. But that was prioritized, and it was like: ‘Okay, full steam ahead, how do we build this coalition properly?’”

Everyone in the group said they’d had “lightbulb moments” since starting the courses, which are guided by Harvard professors and include breakout rooms with leaders in other cities. Their cohort of 12 come from as near as Eugene and as far as Sofia, Bulgaria, and Monrovia, Liberia.

Bulgin, who has worked in downtown Salem for three decades, said that talking to people working in other cities has been eye-opening. 

“We’re doing stuff that they’re not doing, and they’re doing stuff that we’re not doing,” Bulgin said. “(When) other cities similar to our demographic and size have already succeeded in completing something, it’s so much easier to glean, and so I’m excited about that.”

Roberto Garcia of the Salem Leadership Foundation said that he’s been talking to people in other cities who are facing the same challenges of crime, vandalism and addiction.

“I’m just a neighbor, I’m just a community member, and I’m invited to the table,” he said. “These are the folks that are facing this every day. To hear (program leaders) say: ‘We want to hear what you have to say, we want to hear your input, your suggestions, your feedback,’ I’ve been impressed with that.”

For Knox Busch, her lightbulb moment was during discussions about creating public value through their work.

“We have a tendency to really drill into what we can measure as evidence of change. What I like about the public value theory is it actually is encouraging you to think outside of what you can measure,” she said.

One intangible measure, which they’re still examining, is how to create community pride.

“That’s scary. Even as I say it, it’s scary to be held accountable for that outcome. But on the other hand, it’s inspirational. It just pivots, and changes how we’re thinking about the problem,” Knox Busch said. 

Ditto recalled a case study from Tokyo Station in Japan which turned a failing rail system into a source of community pride. Rail workers, who had been villified, became a respected profession through a campaign that included merchandising and emphasizing the artistry behind cleaning trains.

“They have pride in their work and their organization, and it just changed everything. Some of those intangibles, like pride, is something we struggle with as a police department,” Ditto said. “How do you measure how much you trust the police department? You can do surveys, you can do connection and outreach and things like that. There’s always voices missing. So how do you find that? … The only way is through this type of intentional engagement.”

Ditto said that any public safety solution that doesn’t consider the impact to everyone, especially harm to vulnerable people, will do more harm than good. He said he’s content to keep studying the scope of the problem itself along with the cohort.

“The work that I’ve been reading, and the videos that we’ve been watching and the conversations, that’s come up repeatedly that we don’t want to create a problem,” Ditto said. “There’s so much value in taking it slow.”

Each said they were excited for the trip to Harvard.

Garcia said that he’s expecting to return with a good handle on the pathway forward, and even more perspectives to consider.

“From the very beginning, I’ve been hopeful that we can make a difference,” Garcia said. “I”m hoping to have a good perspective on next steps, what we can do next and what we’re bringing back to Salem to implement.”

There will still be six virtual classes to attend after the group of seven Salem leaders returns from their trip. They plan to reconvene the larger group of 30 community representatives in April, and plan to present what they’ve learned to the city council around the end of the month.

“We are committed to continuing our support of the cross boundary collaboration that we’ve started,” Knox Bush said in an email.

CLARIFICATION: This story was updated to clarify that the summer fellow program will depend on whether the city gets a matching applicant.

Contact reporter Abbey McDonald: [email protected] or 503-575-1251.

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