Deborah Mohlenhoff is a public-sector executive, leadership educator, and community strategist with more than 20 years of experience spanning city government, higher education, and nonprofit leadership.

She most recently served as the founding City Manager for the City of Ithaca, New York, where she established the city’s first professional administrative structure and led major efforts to modernize operations, strengthen leadership capacity, and align budgets and policy with community priorities.

In this podcast, she shares her insights on:

• Vacancy Tax - What is it and how it is being used
• Strict vs. UnStrict ordinances - how they help or restrict businesses.
• When storefronts sit empty, is that a market issue or a policy issue?
• Do we build more housing to attract businesses, or attract businesses to justify more housing? Which comes first?
• Are commercial lease structures quietly working against long-term small business success?
• Has cannabis legalization strengthened Ithica's downtown — or complicated it? 
• If you could change one economic lever tomorrow to unlock growth, what would it be?

  and bunch of ear nuggets along the way.

  
  

Mahfam, is the Owner and Operator of two businesses in Chandler AZ.

In this conversation, she talks about:

1. Why she choose to set up her business in Chandler vs other neighboring cities
2. What was the hardest part of getting off the ground and where did she feel most unsupported?
3. What city or local government processes were surprisingly helpful and which ones slowed you down more than expected?
4. How did she learn about local business resources grants, programs, permits, or support and what made that easy or difficult?”
5. Her perspective as a small business owner, what does ‘support from the city’ actually mean in real, practical terms?
6. Suggestion to city of Chandler's economic development team on what would help other SMBs in their area.

and bunch of ear nuggets along the way.

Tara Palacios: Dir. BizLaunch Arlington Economic Development shares her point of view on the following:

• Starting and sustaining a business.
• Programs for SMBs: Local Rewards Program, SOAR Initiative, ReLocate Program, etc.
• What’s a recent SMB success win in your city that you’re genuinely proud of?
• What part of your economic development work do you think is most misunderstood but actually matters a lot?
• What’s one assumption about small businesses that your team has had to unlearn?
• If you could redesign your support for businesses from scratch today, what would you stop doing immediately?
• What’s a piece of feedback from a business owner that stayed with you?

And bunch of ear nuggets along the way.