Jerusalem Solomon

About Jerusalem Solomon

Jerusalem Solomon serves as Director of Public Engagement in Arlington’s Office of the County Manager. In her current role, she helps design and implement resources for stronger community engagement across the County. This includes building and strengthening relationships, developing strategies for community input, and enhancing use of in person and online engagement tools. In her prior role as a community engagement manager for the County’s Department of Parks and Recreation, she helped design opportunities for community members to share their thoughts on various park projects including those related to development, renovations, programming, planning and more. With data analysis and the development of meaningful reports, she helped decision makers get a better sense of community sentiments and use community input to help inform next steps. Major projects included the kickoff to the Forestry and Natural Resources Plan, the Metropolitan Park Public Space, the New Park at South Eads Street and Army Navy Drive and more. Before her work with the Department of Parks and Recreation, Jerusalem was a community engagement specialist in the County Manager’s Office where she worked on County-wide projects such as the Big Idea Roundtables, budget engagement, the Capital Improvement Plan and more. She served on the team that helped develop the Six-Step Public Engagement Guide for Capital Projects and trained hundreds of staff- once after its development and then again as a refresher training. In this role, Jerusalem also led the coordination of the Arlington County Government section of the County Fair—helping to innovatively promote getting counted in the 2020 census while educating fairgoers on the many programs and services provided by the County. Her favorite part of this role was being able to support engagement across departments and beyond by serving as a facilitator, making connections with stakeholders and consulting where helpful. Jerusalem credits most of her engagement foundation to her work as a 12th grade English teacher in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She values the classroom skills and experience that have shaped the way she works on cultivating safe, accessible and meaningful spaces for communities to engage right here in Arlington. Jerusalem graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2013 where she got her B.A. in Mass Communications and then from Louisiana State University in 2016 where she got her Master’s in Public Administration.

Experience

1. Management Intern- County Manager\'s Office

   Arlington County Government

   Nov 2017 — Present · Arlington, VA, US

Education

• Virginia Commonwealth University

  Bachelors of Science, Mass Communications, Public Relations

  2009 — 2013

• Louisiana State University

  Master of Public Administration (M.P.A.)

  2014 — 2016