Dan Zimmerman is a quintessential under-the-radar, always-assessing-potential kind of municipal manager. His career demonstrates the value of commitment to the long game and the outsized results that can come from investment in regionalization. He recently retired as manager of Warwick Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. His work speaks for itself. Over his career he has sheparded the creation of a regional police department, a 7.1 miles rails to trails project and a portfolio of development projects which includes the original site of the ever expanding, world renowned, Rock Lititz which creates stage and sound effects and event production for world class musical talent. Lady Gaga, U2, Usher, Taylor Swift, BTS, Beyonce - just to name a few - arrive here to prepare for their world tours. SHOW NOTES: 9:34 Core identity of Lititz 11:37 Value Warwick Township brought to the region 13:15 Engagement, e.g., work with HS students to create video; message, “here is why we need to change.” 17:25 Regional Police Project But the one thing that guided that was whatever the conversation is, it is got to be on what is the benefit for all the members? There can't be any individualism. And the other thing we said was everybody's dirty laundry has to stay at the door…whether it’s pension liabilities or disciplinary actions and whatever, we wanted to start with a clean slate. And so that had to be understood. If we were going to go forward the new entity was not going to take on any of the burdens from the past. …It is one of the best things we have ever done. The efficiency, the professionalism, it actually brought the municipalities closer together. It just has worked out. It exceeded our expectations. 24:57 Rails to Trails In the case of the Warwick, the trail way, which actually involved five municipalities, it took 15 years for us to realize …First was ownership of the railroads. And that was really convoluted that took us several years to untangle it because it ended up going through federal bankruptcy court. So you actually had a federal mandate. It was not a rail bank, like typical abandoned railroad right away as it were. So we had to untangle that. Then we actually had a private owner who bought the right away the seven miles worth of right away out of bankruptcy. So then we had to deal with a private owner. And then we finally got to the property owners, so in Warwick alone we had 150 different property owners adjacent to that rail bed. So we had to deal with their issues. So it took a number of years. Again, the first time it was mentioned it was 1975. So it was a long-term goal of the municipality. Today it is probably one of the most cherished assets. People love that trail. We would have a riot if we tried to close it down. But it just took time. Letting the soup stew for a while. There are times you move forward fast, and then there's times you just sit back and let it settle for a little while until, it's okay to move forward again. Again, we have a very small staff, so … it's it matter of judging when you need to get behind something and really push hard. And then there's other times where you're going to tell someone, Hey, can you run with this for a little while? And then let me know when you need a little bit of help. 31:05 Rock Lititz Something that came out of the comprehensive plan is that, the boards want to change. We wanted to diversify our development portfolio. Just like an investment portfolio, you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket. So we wanted, for tax base, for community services, for job creation, we wanted to make sure we were attracting industrial growth. At the same time. We coupled agricultural preservation with that same initiative, we are the largest transferable development right program in the state. And the board through that challenge came out and said, Hey, not only do we want to develop industrially, but we want you to sell TDR so we can preserve farms. …so...