Episode 933: All politics is local

Zain 0:02

This is a strategist episode 933. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Corey Hogan, Stephen Carter. Guys, nothing is going on in this country of ours. Absolutely nothing. Well,

Corey 0:14

Well, let's see. We've had a federal budget. We've had a BC budget. The province of Ontario is on fire. The province of Alberta is more on fire, but we somehow care less.

Corey 0:27

There is new climate targets. There is a fight between Liberal cabinet ministers, where they are kind of fat shaming people online. I mean, there is so much to talk about. But all of it sucks compared to the thing that I think we actually need to talk about. Now,

Zain 0:43

Now, is that thing that Doug Ford has more BlackBerrys than me? Because I have, of course, now you can't see this, produced three BlackBerrys. By the way, so the story is that Doug Ford uses a BlackBerry and it can't download his attachments. And then he's got a pile of BlackBerrys on his desk. That is also a major news story. Carter, you're saying hold on because you want to top that.

Carter 1:06

No, Ford's crocodile tears are there. I mean, there's the Kenny must resign letter that's circulating. these things are all happening right now this could be like the biggest news week we've ever faced but

Corey 1:20

not that's not what you're talking about cory is it not not not even remotely i'm talking about an injustice that has happened that is just a little too common in

Corey 1:30

small towns and main streets from coast

Corey 1:33

coast to coast to coast in this country here and it's the tyranny of a city hall that gets in the way of hot eats and cool treats and

Zain 1:40

and that's why why we're jumping into our first segment, the Queen's Gambit. Guys, let's

Zain 1:49

let's talk about it. And Corey, I rarely do this. I'm relinquishing my context-setting role on this show to you to give us some context. Lay it on us. This is what we want to talk about. This is what needs to be talked about. Lay it on us, Corey.

Corey 2:05

In 2019, in the city of Calgary, the jewel of the Western Western Prairies on a street just north of downtown. Street called Center Street because it's central to our lives and our communities. There was a little

Corey 2:19

little fast food restaurant called Dairy Queen. People

Carter 2:22

People have heard of Dairy Queen. Yeah. Yeah.

Corey 2:24

Yeah. You know what? People have heard of it because people get together there. They have dilly bars. They have memories. They have times that will never be forgotten. They've got door handles that are shaped like a giant spoon. There's the giant spoon.

Corey 2:39

But you know what?

Corey 2:41

Just put all of that out of your memory. Think about all of the children who will no longer be able to enjoy this because in 2019, this particular Dairy Queen burned down. And while you would think it would be a pretty straightforward thing to sort of rebuild it brick by brick like Wayne Manor in a Batman movie, the fucking city of Calgary development department has said no to the owners of the lot that they cannot rebuild the thing that was there just before COVID hit. Like, this is not like they're trying to build something new there. They're trying to rebuild the building that was there. And it's mostly because, you know, at the risk of sounding like Rick Bell, you know, the apparatchikets at City Hall think they've got a better idea for what to do with the land. They

Corey 3:24

They think that now that it's been raised

Corey 3:26

raised of what was on it, they can finally build something that's more to their liking. And so they've rejected the permit that this older couple who own the lot have put forward, this immigrant success story family who were the franchisees wanted to build. And they've just said, no, why don't you build a five-story tower with a Yogan cruise in the base instead with a bit more of a setback? You know, this is one of these kind of small level injustices that really do tend to get people to organize, you know, and galvanize people like me who live in the neighborhood and say, how

Corey 4:00

how can I convince, you

Corey 4:02

you know, the people around me to take up this cause and move this cause forward and try to undo this terrible thing that the city has done?

Zain 4:11

Stephen Carter, Dairy Queen, a heartbeat of Center Street, known for its progressive pricing. I mean, some days you drive by and the sign says, burgers, today only, $0.79.

Zain 4:24

Other days, say burger, $4.99. I don't get it. I don't understand how, but

Corey 4:29

but they know. Well, it depends on how much

Zain 4:29

much money you have. That's the bucket. It's progressive pricing model, perhaps one of my favorite elements. Stephen Carter, we eulogize, but we're not going to eulogize so much on this show. but I'm going to give you a moment to perhaps share any Center Street Dairy Queen memories you may have had.

Carter 4:47

Well, Zane, I've driven past it. And by driving past it, I felt a real connection. That

Carter 4:56

That connection of driving past it many, many times on my way, usually to McDonald's, which is only four blocks north. But, you know, I felt connected to Corey's monologue there. I feel the deep injustice now as well. of not being able to buy a dilly bar or a soft serve dipped. So I'm feeling the pain that Corey's bringing to this.

Zain 5:19

Corey, we tackle the big issues here, and we tackle them with our strategic brain. So let's break this down. Let's actually spend time on this. You know, people have been asking for a while in a deep dive episode. Here you go, folks.

Zain 5:35

Fuck it. Here you go. So, Corey, there's some really interesting characters in this story. Let's start there, right? Obviously, let's tease them out a bit.

Zain 5:46

There's the immigrant success story family that was the franchisee of this Dairy Queen. There's the old couple that owns this plot of land that wants to retire and say, no, we're pro-Dairy Queen. We've liked that Dairy Queen on this land, and that's what we want. And we want to, I don't know if they said cash out, but quite literally say, They have that predictability of a Dairy Queen. And then there's a city with its density model. And this is on Center Street and only a couple hundred meters away from a new LRT station. So this has got a cast of characters. And we need to strategize. Let's start with perhaps some strategies. If you are indeed helping this family and this landowner. Can I couple them as one? Let's just start there. Do you think, because they seem to share the same interests of

Corey 6:33

of perhaps having... Let's call them the first members of the Coalition for Common Sense in City Hall.

Carter 6:39

Oh, wonderful. Okay, excellent, Corey. We're taking it to this level, are we? Well, Corey, maybe you've already posited

Zain 6:45

posited an idea and put it on the table. Is that where we're starting? Are we starting a coalition? Is that the first thing that this group or this family and this couple need to do? do?

Corey 6:56

No, I think the first thing they need to do is actually find people who are going to be individually interested and remain individuals as much as we're going to kind of cluster them for the purposes of this conversation. It's those stories that really, I think, accentuate just how kind of unbelievable

Corey 7:12

unbelievable that the city is acting in this particular context. Because of course, if it was 12345 Alberta Limited, who was trying to get this done, it wouldn't have nearly the the same punch. So I think if you are interested in convincing your neighbors to help build a groundswell to help convince the city to reverse its decision upon appeal, which is happening in two weeks, you've got to keep kind of central to that everybody's story here, you've got to keep in mind that these are actual people. This isn't just you know, some planners fetish for having higher density development on on Center Street. These were people's livelihoods. You know, it's It's sort of like, imagine if your house was on Center Street. Sure. There are houses on Center Street. There's lots of houses on Center Street in that rough proximity, too. If your house burned down and you're like, I'm going to rebuild my house. This is such an important part of my life. And the city said, yeah, sorry about that. No. How would you feel about that?

Zain 8:08

let's talk about that. I will start there.

Zain 8:12

do you agree with the story mantra? And if so, what sort of stories need to be told?

Carter 8:16

Well, this is about redrafting the story itself. It's not actually about Dairy

Carter 8:20

Dairy Queen being on Center Street and the type of business that it is. It's about drafting a narrative that everybody can see themselves in. So we've talked often about putting a story in place where people can see themselves as characters in that story. So Corey has started to begin the conversation of what if my house burned down? What if my house burned down and I wasn't allowed to rebuild my house, this thing that I have tremendous connection to. But even that is kind of the specific. And what I'm interested in is

Carter 8:48

the general story. And the general story that I've just quickly jotted

Carter 8:51

jotted down is when planning meets people, why

Carter 8:56

why do the people always lose?

Zain 9:02

So tease that out for us, just so everyone can understand. So

Carter 9:05

So people have this sense that there's a machine that's against them, right? And let's just call that machine, you know, we can call it City Hall, or we can call it the Planning Department, or we can call it whatever. But what

Carter 9:15

what it is, is the rules and regulations that the city creates for

Carter 9:18

for governing the city and the design of the city. So if you create a story, you know, the story's as old as time, you know, you've got daniel versus uh goliath or whatever the david

Corey 9:33

danny was against your

Carter 9:39

yeah danny was against the lions i'm remembering now but you've got david versus goliath right so what you want to do is take a familiar story like david and goliath and now recast the characters so the characters are you know planning department is Goliath. The city of Calgary is the bully in this situation. The underdog are the people. Now you have, as Corey is addressing, the specific characters, right? You know, the elderly couple with the land, the immigrant couple that are, you know, the success story that come to the country just only a few short years ago and have already established a successful business that just happened to burn down through bad luck, not their own, nothing that they did, just bad luck. And of roles and you make sure that people can see themselves in it and with a central moral right the biblical stories or the moral tales that we tell ourselves that we tell our children all of them have a central moral that we're supposed to learn and the central moral of this particular story is that people must stand up to planning people

Carter 10:39

people must stand up to planning or planning will always win and people will always lose so that's why we're recrafting it as if when the the planning meets the people, why

Carter 10:49

why do people always lose? Because people don't stand up against them.

Zain 10:53

Nicely done, Carter. You know, often in public narrative, we've got this concept of the three stories, the story of me, the story of we, the story of now. You've actually done that. I don't know if you've teased it out specifically for folks, but why this group, why the community needs to get involved, why the urgency to act, and what the future state could look like with or without action. So you've kind of stated those. Corey, you wanted to jump in, and then I've got, I'm going to get super tactical with you guys, because we know the timeline here. It's two weeks. So I want to get really tactical in a second as to how these individuals, without the use of expensive consultants, right, finds airtime, gets their story out, etc. But Corey, I'll let you get in your thoughts first, and then we'll go a little bit deeper. The

Corey 11:31

The root of all of this is story.

Corey 11:33

And that is why we start with people, because ultimately, it is about a narrative that you are trying to craft. And when you're talking about any kind of campaign, when you're talking about moving moving towards a decision point and trying to convince people at that decision point to take your road rather than the other person's road. It is about crafting the narrative that we've gone on here. So this really is the starting point. You look at the elements of story that are available to you. You look to the most compelling ones. You've both provided different frameworks, but fundamentally, when you talk about strategy work, that is where we began. You want to look at what's in front of you. You want to take the components that are available, take this effectuation approach. But always, always, you're looking at the components of story.

Zain 12:15

I appreciate that. So we're on the same page. We've got a set of characters. We're going to give them roles. We're going to construct a story. Carter, let's get more specific. Two weeks, reverse engineer a rough tactical timeline for me. So let's talk about the ends, the ideal ends for them. They get to go to... Corey, correct me if I'm wrong. This is a Subcommittee on Planning for Appeal. Is that correct? I think it's the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board. Okay, so it's an appeal board. Carter, that's what happens in two weeks. That's the ends. Talk to me about what an ideal outcome for them is. And then let's give us a rough skeleton of what some tactics look like. Corey, I'm going to ask you to add to those from what Carter suggests.

Carter 12:58

Well, basically, what we're going to look for is amplification right off the bat. So So the amplification has begun with global television, but you need to continue the amplification for the next two weeks. So

Carter 13:08

So the first thing that they need to do is make sure that tomorrow morning they're on QR 770 or, you know, they're talking to the QR 770 producers and they're saying this is what this is a local story. We need to be on the drive show for seven minutes talking about this or we need to get 15 minutes on the on the Rob Breckenridge show. and we're going to talk about not just our situation but the situation much a lot broader than that our situation isn't unique this is why you have to cover it not because uh this this type of thing happens all the time but because you know we're the ones fighting just to rebuild our dairy queen but the guys down the street that are building the arena they're not running into these types of problems this is a bit you know this is a bigger systemic issue and we're the ones fighting and you have to be on our side so the pitch needs to be made to other media outlets to amplify and then you have to find your message

Carter 13:59

message carriers if you will people who are going to carry this forward so a number of people started to retweet the article find out who those people are connect with those people engage you'd

Zain 14:08

you'd like direct message them and say hey we're like the the franchisees or we're the landowner is that what you do like do it

Carter 14:14

it in public do it right on them do it right on the email like so people who are running for council in ward seven eight um two, four, right? Put all the areas together. Who else is running in Ward 9? Who's running in Ward 10? Make sure that all of those people who are running... Because that's

Zain 14:30

that's where this LRT, that's the reason, is that what you're suggesting?

Carter 14:32

Right. And every proponent for the Green Line needs to be asked, is this what you meant when you started to fight for the Green Line? Is this the thing that you wanted to see happen? Is small business owners that were just trying to make ends meet would be somehow disadvantaged by your plans you created for the Green Line? So you legitimately

Zain 14:51

legitimately try to make yourself a symbol or a proxy for this larger conversation? Or do you want to isolate this as this is our issue and let's this injustice just be about us?

Carter 15:05

An injustice to one is meaningless. An injustice to all of us is something that we all fear, right?

Carter 15:10

right? So this is one of the things I always talk about is the casting of others in the story, right? If it's just a story with one person who is just a person, then it doesn't work. If it's a person who is an everyman, then it does work. If that everyman could be you, if you could see yourself, if you could see your parents in this situation where they could lose it all just by a fire and then the city of Calgary would be fighting against them, that's what you want to see. And so you're trying to bring on allies by putting them into difficult positions to gain you amplification. so

Carter 15:43

so you're you're you're going after multiple threads all at the same time because you only have two weeks and it's going to take two three four days to get everybody all on side then the weekend you know next week is going to come you

Carter 15:55

you got to keep pushing all the way through this and for me it's about amplification and increasing the number of voices that are going to tell a story even if it's not your specific story all at the same time cory

Zain 16:07

cory i'm coming to you in a sec give me one second i want to have a quick follow-up with carter carter talk to me about about media relations. You and I have been on campaigns together. This is your specialty in some ways, especially when the campaign cycle is on. You know how to get coverage. You've talked to me a bit about the story. Tell me the tactics of pitching radio. You've gotten global to cover you already. That seems to be the soul strike. I could be wrong. But are you going back to that well? How are you getting other media outlets to do it? Are you going exclusive? Are you DMing? Give me the tactics. What's happening here?

Carter 16:39

What I'm trying to do is figure out which outlet it wants which conflict right

Carter 16:42

right so let's say that we're going with qr 77 which for all those who are listening from around the around across the country and around the world it's calgary's redneck radio especially

Zain 16:50

especially in norway and singapore big markets for us go ahead listen

Carter 16:53

listen norway has been very helpful we plummeted in the last little while but nonetheless the norwegians are there for us um calgary

Carter 17:01

calgary redneck radio wants conflict so why not give them that conflict right find that you you know, talk about the local councillors, talk about the people who have been promoting the green line, and bring that conflict into the discussion and bring it into the pitch, right? So say, we would love it if the local councillor came on and defended the position of the city, while you're talking about your position as a small business owner, right?

Carter 17:26

right? So you don't want to find people who are with you, you want to find people who are against you. Because ultimately, ultimately, the conflict is what the media want to cover. The media framed this issue as the David and Goliath story that we're talking about, because David and Goliath is an interesting story to listen to.

Zain 17:43

One of my favorite Stephen Carter quotes, and I don't know if this is attributable to you, but people can use it unattributed. No conflict, no interest. I remember you saying that to me at one point. Corey, add to Stephen's tactics here. He's provided an ends. He's provided a media relations hook. Scaffold it. Add a bit more. What else do folks folks need to do and then we'll go even deeper in terms of the how did they do it what's the what's the way to engineer some of this stuff well

Corey 18:07

well if we're talking about building out that story and steven's given a lot of uh of good points on how you generate media interest essentially there are you know there's a there's a small matrix of things you can do to generate media interest and one of the big ones really is well local stories are great immediacy is great conflict is great human interest is great and you've got a number of these components here that can allow you to then push forward and pitch something out. When you want to talk about that conflict, there's one ready-made in the rejection. So if you go to the appeals board and you can kind of pull up why the city rejected it, one of the things you see is that the local councillor, the Ward 7 councillor,

Corey 18:46

strongly recommended that it not go forward. And this strongly recommending refusal, when you go through it,

Corey 18:54

actually provides a couple of lines that almost sound super villainy that i don't think are going to do counsel fairly feral any kind of favors if this does become an issue because you

Corey 19:02

you know for example we are sympathetic to the owner and the franchisee but this situation actually represents an opportunity for them to build something so much better on the site than what is proposed like that's just shitty it's like well your thing sucked oh um we are mindful this standalone restaurant with a drive-thru existed on this site previously and would still exist had it not burned down however that did happen well

Corey 19:23

well thanks for your

Corey 19:24

uh you know that's

Corey 19:26

that's that's just not very human and to steven's point about the process becoming like why does planning beat people why

Corey 19:35

why does planning exist if not for people why are all of a sudden we going to start making decisions uh based on you

Corey 19:43

know visions of a city that people want not a life that was lived and uh and kind of framing that story out further They're encouraging groups like QR 77 to say, well, why don't we go to Counselor Farrell for comment? Why don't we ask her exactly why she's got a problem with this and get some of those juicy quotes in audio soundbites that you can then run against the retiring

Corey 20:06

retiring senior couple and the immigrant

Corey 20:10

immigrant success story gone wrong thanks to the city. I

Corey 20:14

I mean, that if you are looking to kind of create the tension that will allow you to get the kind

Corey 20:19

kind of volume you need to ultimately reverse a decision like this, that's gold.

Zain 20:24

Yeah, for those that are on the edge of their seats, we will also be covering the city aspect of this, of what their strategy should look like. So do not worry. That's coming. Sorry,

Zain 20:33

Sorry, I'm just checking one of my four BlackBerrys just to make sure I've got no messages. Carter, Corey, either of you, there's a list of tactics on the digital side. What should they be engaging in? Should they be doing social media or should they just be finding allies on social media? There's even an instinct or an impulse, I should say, to do like one of those change.org petitions or start an email to your counselor situation. What's useful? What's not? Give me your take with the two-week timeline. What's tactically and strategically sound? Carter, you're going to jump in first. Corey, I'll let you go thereafter.

Carter 21:06

Yeah, I think that change.org is a great way to go. And I wouldn't be afraid of a little hyperbole. I mean, it's all about how you craft the discussion. Right. Like, imagine this. I mean, imagine that you

Carter 21:16

you wanted to put a freeway in.

Carter 21:18

What's the easiest way to put a freeway in? Everybody's house burns down. Right. Like this. This goes too far. It goes too fast. Right. All of a sudden, you want a better building, and all of a sudden, mine burns down, and you punish me because of that? Did you want my building to burn down? Like, this is not – these are the questions, the rhetorical questions or the hyperbolic questions that should be asked. Because ultimately, I mean, you almost can't go too far. Don't make it personal. Make it questions. You know, don't attack.

Carter 21:50

Pull back. Ask questions. make sure that people have the opportunity to interject but you know the tactics of a change.org petition um emailing people uh getting people to to share the story online uh asking people what would happen if it was their parents what would you do if it was your parents um you

Carter 22:10

you know making it personal um on social media becomes a really positive and really powerful thing and ultimately Ultimately casting, casting a villain and casting a hero, right? Make the, make the older folks, the franchisees, the owners of the franchise, make the immigrants, make them the heroes of the story and then make sure that you've got a villain. And the beautiful thing, like, like Corey reading those quotes, you've got a ready-made villain. The villain is there because of

Carter 22:41

of actions that she's taken, not because of actions that you're even, you know, implying. This story will write itself. Make sure that it's shared broadly and that it is immediate.

Carter 22:52

Also give people the opportunity to write their own stories within it, right? One of the things about grassroots— What does that look like, Carter, tactically?

Zain 23:00

Are you just doing a hashtag and saying, you know, write your story here? Or what exactly would you suggest that that look like from a tactical perspective?

Carter 23:09

Tell me what would happen to your family.

Carter 23:11

Tell me what would happen to your family if your parents lost their business. this.

Carter 23:15

Tell me what would happen to their retirement. Tell me what would happen to you as a child. Tell me what would happen to their parents.

Carter 23:22

This is personal for this family, but make it personal for other people's families. And I would do that. I would just simply take the story that Global did, and I would simply say, what would happen to your family if this happened to you?

Zain 23:37

Corey, same question for you. The digital tactics, what to do, what to avoid, avoid, how to layer them in? What do you think?

Corey 23:44

Well, let's be realistic. When you're talking about something with two weeks to go, you don't have time for a lot of tactics. So you're going to be looking off the shelf. This is not time to start getting cute with micro-targeting or anything like that. Not that I believe those resources would be necessarily available to the proponents in any case. And if you wanted to organize people to support them, again, you've got two weeks. There's not really time for that. So you've really got two streams that you can take. One is big, and they're not mutually exclusive. You can run them both at the same time. And I would recommend that you do one of them is big story low touch and the other one is local story high touch and carter has talked a bit about in fact so have i but this big story low touch this idea you get some media coverage that you broaden the issue you make it about not just one family but lots of families and for that there's a few things i want to say one is you look for the bigger point and

Corey 24:29

and we've talked a bit about that in a couple of different ways but imagine you know like the general foundational unfairness of you had it it burned down through you

Corey 24:37

you know just like like this total random act, and you're not allowed to rebuild it. Like there's almost what I would call the, there

Corey 24:43

there ought to be a law test to that, right? If it burns down, there ought to be a law that you get to rebuild it exactly as it was. No questions asked. Like, why do you even need to go through this development permit nonsense, right? I think that's something people could get behind. And you've made a broader point there. And when you start creating critical mass on that, that actually can kind of sometimes scare, you

Corey 25:02

planning groups like that to say like, oh, we might lose the whole kit If we don't give a little bit here, and that might be an opportunity to move back. And that's really where you can start using tactics like a change.org, because it's a bigger thing more people can get behind. They're hearing the story, you're asking them to push towards something very specific, you can push it towards lots of lawmakers, not just not just an appeal board that may or may not care about those things. things uh you know they'll send emails it's not necessarily going to be these high touch communications that with the local story you would have but you can get a lot of people with lesser interest to get involved because they just they they agree to the principle the other stream that you can take is the local story high touch so it's people who maybe live in the neighborhood maybe have fond memories of their kids going to that dairy queen maybe they just realize that right across the street from this is a fucking parking lot at the safeway and so who gives a If it's not a transit oriented development, the entire stretch of that part of Center Street is kind of a wasteland of low density things, you know, with exceptions. So, you know, and they can send in, you know, the angrier, you know, more bespoke communications to their counselor, they can phone 311, they can leave complaints, they can write letters, they can phone up these offices, and they can create noise that is

Corey 26:19

is harder to ignore, because it's not form, right? Right. Like they're in the neighborhood. And, you know, at that point it becomes difficult,

Corey 26:26

difficult, difficult for an elected official because now they're just being non-responsive to the community around them. And even even in the case of Councillor Farrell, who's not running again, you don't like to see your community up in arms by things like that. So those are the two basic streams you take. And depending on the stream, you're going to have different tactics that you're going to want to apply. But again, I'll go back to with two weeks, there's not much time to do anything beyond tell people to just run and do whatever they can.

Zain 26:56

perhaps a cohort of people, like an audience here, that would overlap, that would have tremendous sympathy for an immigrant family, immigrant success story, an elderly couple, but may also have sympathy for density, being

Zain 27:12

being like, this is something we want. How do you navigate? How do you kind of tell this in a way that someone's political tribalism doesn't get in the way of perhaps wanting to support this family or this couple?

Carter 27:27

Well, I think that if we were to draw really broad parallels, you'd see that the immigrant family building the business does kind of get you some of those progressive points, right? Right. Like the density. And Corey's also raised that the specifics of the situation, we're not rebuilding a Dairy Queen in a in a crowded landscape of no land available. This

Carter 27:47

This this land has been been available for quite some time because they've been planning the green line up it for a long time. This is not a new idea. This is something that's been planned for a long time, decades, really. and

Carter 28:01

and that density is going to come.

Carter 28:04

So the reality is the Dairy Queen is not going to be the density obstacle. The density is available for the transit-oriented design that people want to see on that side. They just, do you have to do it at the expense of a person who's lost their business to fire? Or can you just do it with the rest of the land that's down there? So making sure that you're achieving the goals of everybody, you're achieving the business person's goals, you're achieving the city's goals, you're achieving the the broader community's goals to reduce taxation or whatever other topics they wish to bring into it but the point of the exercise should be we can still achieve what you want without you hurting me cory

Zain 28:41

cory same question well

Corey 28:43

well i'm gonna maybe just take another point at this too and it's you know the the idea of the local context is so important so i'll throw one that probably means something to calgarians will absolutely not mean anything to anybody outside side of calgary uh but we have a local landmark a a drive-in called peter's drive-through uh or peter's drive-in um that's on 16th avenue and it is certainly not transit oriented design it backs up 16th avenue which is for the non-calgarians that's actually trans canada highway like you will have a whole lane lost in the summertime as people are trying to go get milkshakes milk burgers from this place and um what

Corey 29:19

what would drew farrell do if peter's drive-through burndown would

Corey 29:22

would would it be like too bad so sad you don't get to rebuild not transit oriented is that really where we're at is that what we're thinking right now as a city would you go as far

Zain 29:31

far as in your communications if you're this family or this couple making the peters comparison

Corey 29:37

think i would probably let other people carry the water for it on that point but why not why is it okay for one organization and not another like let's be serious here uh we are always going to have a city that accommodates varying levels of density even if you go to new york you're going going to run into the odd lot that looks rather undeveloped. And it's just, it's not, it's not fair, ultimately, that you would treat people in this fashion when they did nothing wrong.

Zain 30:03

Carter, any final comments to add before we jump to the city side of things? Do you want to crystallize your strategy? Or do you want to kind of capstone it in any way for this first tranche of folks? And I'll give you the same opportunity, Corey, to do the same. So Carter, Carter, jump in first with your capstone for what this strategy looks like. And then we'll let's flip the script and go on the other side.

Carter 30:24

Let me just provide a summary. I think you need to know your story. I

Carter 30:27

I think you need to know the characters. I want to know who the protagonist and the antagonist are. I want to know the central points of conflict. I want to know who your allies are. All of those things should be articulated on a piece of paper. And then finally,

Carter 30:40

finally, and this can't be lost, because one of the things that sometimes I think we do is we focus so much on communications and the political piece that we forget that you actually have to know the process as well. So make sure you know the process. Make sure you know the steps of the appeal. Make sure you know what happens after the appeal. Is this thing dead on arrival? Who needs to vote in which way? What pressures do you need to be able to put on them? Because knowing the process and knowing the people that you're trying to influence, you're not trying to influence the broader population of the city of Calgary. You are trying to put specific influence influence on the government. And this is why, you know, this little example of the Dairy Queen is actually really important in the overall scheme of things. Because let's say that you're trying to influence the coal mines, or the, you know, the coal mining in the Rocky Mountains, or you're trying to influence nuclear power in Ontario, or you're trying to influence hydro in Quebec, all of the same principles apply. You

Carter 31:35

You have to be able to put those, the storytelling and all of those other tools are designed to apply pressure to the decision maker. That's why why you're doing it. So make sure you know who you're applying it to and what the process is by which they're going to make their decision.

Zain 31:50

Corey, same thing, summarize and perhaps add a capstone from your perspective.

Corey 31:54

Well, Stephen sort of jumped into where I was going to go because we had talked a lot about story. We talked a lot about tactics, but we'd missed a very important point, which is how do you win? Who

Corey 32:02

is your audience? Who is actually making this decision? And how is that decision determined? And finally, is that decision final or is there a further appeal? Can you take it all the way to council? How does that look? What does that look like? Who decides there? So you do need to map out the win condition and the appeals that are available to you. And you've got to have a good understanding of that or else you might end up winning the public conversation but lose.

Corey 32:25

Because ultimately, all you will have done is made things deeply uncomfortable for a councillor who's already retiring, but you will not have gotten your Dairy Queen rebuilt. So the appeals board is made up of 22 people who are appointed by the city. And you've got to understand a little little bit about them and you've got to understand a little bit about the decision-making process of the appeals board what has worked in the past what does tend to change minds at this point look at what works and what doesn't and replicate what works that's not to say you shouldn't continue to create pressure putting light on a process like this is often a way to get people to change their minds even if they are non-elected but rather appointed because all of a sudden they're dealing with a certain amount of heat that they've never had to deal with before and really just knowing that the public is looking over your back and judging what you're doing you're going to act a little bit better so that's not just that's not to discount anything we've said about to have a media strategy that's nothing about creating pressure on elected officials and pressure in general but you've got to be aware that that alone might not be enough you've got to understand the

Corey 33:25

rules of the game you're playing right you can't just walk onto the field with your baseball bat and say oh shit this is a soccer pitch because then you're going to just look like a fool in two weeks so so think about the game you're playing let's

Zain 33:38

let's flip the the script, Carter. Two weeks, city, all defensive posture. Are they going aggressive? What are you advising if you're city planning right now, knowing that this has hit the media for comments? And perhaps you know, perhaps you don't, that there might be a public campaign waged against you. What is your posture and what's your framework for strategy before we get into tactics?

Carter 34:02

There are three options, I think, you can take if you're the city of Calgary. You can try and and win this. Now, the law is probably on your side, the zoning is probably on your side, you can probably win this just outright. The other is that you could lose. So those are the two easiest ones, you can win, or you can lose. And losing is going to be extremely painful, because you don't want to be setting precedent, you don't want this type of situation, you know, this type of argument to be able to carry be carried forward. Well, you allowed a drive through here, why wouldn't you allow a drive-thru over there. The issue of precedence is one that the city of Calgary certainly will not want to be falling into. So the third one, I'm just going to call the win-win. And I would suggest that the city of Calgary brain

Carter 34:48

brain trust, start figuring out what a win-win might look like. Do we need to build the diary queen on this particular piece of property? Is there another piece of property that we could maybe do a trade for? Is there a way that we could to purchase the land is there is there what

Carter 35:02

what what could we do so

Carter 35:04

so that the city of calgary would win the corporation of the city of calgary would win in that it owns a piece of property that it knows will be very valuable as

Carter 35:11

as it moves forward into into redevelopment uh but these these these entrepreneurs these people who were who

Carter 35:18

who were hurt through no fault of their own also get the opportunity to continue um with with their life stream of building up a dairy queen and providing providing Corey with dilly bars. So developing some sort of a win-win posturing might be something that maybe

Carter 35:34

maybe the elected officials might try and do, where they try and figure out if there's another way that they can solve this particular problem.

Carter 35:43

I would hesitate if I was the city to just dive headlong into the we're going to win this at all costs model. I think it will be a very painful couple of weeks for them if they do.

Zain 35:54

Carter, is your recommendation win-win?

Carter 35:57

I think the win-win is the way to go. I think that you should be talking to them about, you know, the city's goal is simply to increase density. It's not to fuck over these people, right?

Carter 36:07

right? The city is not trying to hurt the entrepreneur. The city is not saying, you know what, we've

Carter 36:13

we've got too many dairy queens.

Carter 36:15

We should take one of these dairy queens out, and so we've got an opportunity, so we're going to take this dairy queen out. That's not their posture. Their positioning simply is this is a very highly valued piece of land where at some point in the relatively near future for a city, but could be a long time for an entrepreneur, this is going to be a very valuable piece of property. Why not try and figure out if there's a place where this could go? You know what? We need a dairy queen in this community. We have a piece of property that's vacant on 9th Avenue in Inglewood. How does that sound? Where there's a particular other win. We're trying to build an arena. Do you want the franchise? I'm just throwing it out there um

Zain 36:59

you mean naming rights for the arena is

Carter 37:01

is that what you know I meant like literally you can own the Calgary Flames I'm throwing it I'm just you know things against the wall see what sticks so but the I think that if they go for the straight up win the risk of loss is just too high Corey

Zain 37:14

Corey do you agree with Carter's framework or do you want to add to his win loss win win framework let's start there to rather than have you create your own and see if you want to add to it? And do you agree with it?

Corey 37:25

Anytime you have a situation like this, you have an interesting asymmetry, right? And it manifests in a lot of different ways. For the people who

Corey 37:32

who are affected, it's everything. For the city, it's almost nothing. It's like a point of principle. Yes, you can't lose every point of principle or else the city falls apart from a planning point of view. But it's not, it's, you know, it's, I doubt it's anybody's hill to die on in the city. And so what's important when you're at the city is keeping that in mind and not letting sort of pride get in the way if that makes sense and understanding what makes sense for you actually to fight and say well that principle's got value down the road if i let go on this we may have eight other problems down the road and that's that's too problematic and what is just all

Corey 38:04

all right well maybe this was a mistake and i think in general large organizations like like governments um are

Corey 38:10

are well positioned but maybe in practice don't often avail themselves of the well let's just not do look this was a mistake like we were just wrong on this and who gives a shit like we didn't think a ton about this this is their whole livelihood why are we going down this road because i really doubt that drew farrell sat there and really mulled over this issue i'm not even convinced that she herself did this it could have very easily been somebody in her office and so when you start thinking about what comes next um step one is really saying gut

Corey 38:39

gut check do we want to do this is this worth it do we care right and if you you still care that i think you've got to go to where steven uh is which is is there a is there a clawback for or a climb down for everybody here is there an opportunity to say okay

Corey 38:53

okay well we're just going to set you back a little bit further or you can have your drive-through but you can only access the drive-through off the avenue not the street or or what like there there is possibly something you can do that is face saving and maybe even meets your strategic objectives or at least some Some of them or most of them, but allows you not to be the villain in this story going forward. And it can leave everybody with sort of a happy feeling of a responsive city. And look how that all worked out for everyone. I think the absolute last thing you want to do in a city is just, well, I don't say absolute last.

Corey 39:26

It better really matter to you if you're not willing to avail yourself of any of those things. Because, especially if volume gets louder, especially if people get crankier, because it's not like this is something that couldn't hurt you in a bunch of other ways. If people start feeling more ill will towards the city planning department, like that may hurt you in a hundred different ways. And so I guess that's my final point.

Corey 39:49

Just at the start, as I would say, is does this matter to you? And maybe you'll say, yes, it could hurt me in a bunch of ways if I let this go. It

Corey 39:56

It can hurt you in a bunch of ways if you don't let this go. And you've got to be honest with yourself about the calculations on those things. And remember, as a city, as a government, you have a ton of options here, options that the plaintiffs do not have. And so it's in some ways incumbent upon you to help find the solution because your flexibility far exceeds their own. Your sophistication far exceeds their own. And you have the ability to diffuse this in a way that they do not, frankly.

Zain 40:24

What's your recommendation, Corey, amongst the list of conditions you've sat in the list of options?

Corey 40:30

Well, I'm not sitting in the planning department. And so it better be just you go through those things one by one. Step one.

Corey 40:38

Okay. Gut check time. Does it actually make any sense that we did this? And if the answer is no, back

Corey 40:43

back down. You know, send a note from Counselor Farrell's office saying, you know what? Upon reflection, we pull back our objections. And that would probably be enough for the board, the appeal board. They'd probably say, well, that's just fine, right? Step two is saying, okay, well, do I have something else that I can offer? The benefit of going to that step two, Zane, is even if the proponent says, screw

Corey 41:08

screw you, I don't want that, you've at least helped

Corey 41:13

pass the reasonable person test, right? So even at this point, if they continue to make noise, you can say, well, look, we came to them with options. We tried to make this work. And you look a little bit less unreasonable. That's not to say you're going to be perfectly inoculated, but it provides a certain amount of inoculation.

Corey 41:28

If you are not even willing to go that far, and if you want to go to the mattresses about this thing,

Corey 41:34

mean, I have a hard time believing that's the right play.

Corey 41:37

But if it is, the

Corey 41:39

tactics you have to go are a little more hard-nosed. right it has to be more along the lines of they

Corey 41:44

they always knew this was never a possibility you have to write a different story just as they have written a story about them being the victims you have to write a story about them having to know this was going to be the case i'm not saying you have to suggest that that you know negligence caused the fire or anything like that but you have to say this has been on the books forever they've always known if this land was you know changed in any way shape or form they wouldn't be allowed to build that close you've got to start getting getting that story out but again do

Corey 42:11

do you really want to like it you know that's what i would say to anybody uh in the city right now like does this make any sense are you just gonna have three jackasses with like a very broadly listened to political strategy podcast talk about this for an hour if you continue down this road are we gonna do a whole series on this you bet we will

Corey 42:32

got nothing new thursday

Zain 42:33

yeah Yeah, that's fine. Fuck the headlines. Carter, Corey

Zain 42:37

Corey talked about an asymmetry, but there's also another type of asymmetry, which is the political sort of wins, right? If this was two political parties or two political entities, we would say that the loss column is not available to either of them because no one wants to lose. lose in this case the loss column for the city is just laying your sword down to cory's point is that something that they need to be mindful of what a what an l looks like for them like or is it fine just to lay down your sword and be like oh i'm sorry not a big deal like we're fine just not even playing for the win-win but the l is okay for us give me your calculation if you're city planning department i

Carter 43:11

i think that the loss is terrible if you're the city planning department i think that if if you just take the loss you're in real trouble because um the the rules mean something there's a reason why you're doing what you're doing um cory's proposed compromise right compromise is different than loss right i want

Carter 43:29

want to tease those

Zain 43:29

those two things out but one of the first conditions is we could just drop this yeah

Corey 43:33

yeah no i think that you might want to just gut check and say it's not worth it for us it's very easy to say this is a one-off it literally burned down but maybe it's not maybe this is a problem maybe when things burn down people try to rebuild them and the city doesn't want them all the time or

Carter 43:47

or maybe this is just the most important important piece of land or this is an example that needs to be set for the rest this is like the

Corey 43:54

the this is the lot in the house up where they're building the mall around

Carter 43:57

around that just makes

Corey 43:57

makes them more of the villains here well

Carter 43:59

well you know we have to watch up again i guess i think that um

Carter 44:03

um first three and a half minutes go make me cry um but the point is that planning

Carter 44:09

planning matters right let's not play this game that the planning doesn't matter but i think that the circumstances of this particular situation are so unique that it's going to be very, very difficult for the city of Calgary not to take something vaguely resembling a loss unless they set out to create the win-win.

Zain 44:28

Corey, we talked about tactics for the first group, the family and the couple. Talk to me about tactics for the city. They may not want to use them, but if you're in that city planning meeting and maybe heading up comms for them, you're saying, what sort of things do they want What sort of tools do they want to have ready? Is it a statement? Is it putting some allies together? Is it some conversations with admin and council? What sort of comms work would have to happen knowing the same deadline that they're up against on the city planning side? Well,

Corey 44:58

Well, that is an interesting question to me because obviously those conversations occurred because there was a television clip about this. It was on Global News and there was an interview

Corey 45:08

interview with somebody from the city planning department, I believe. I'd have to go and check. Seems like it, right. And, you know, the comments were like, yeah,

Corey 45:16

yeah, obviously we'd like something better on the lot, which I don't think were helpful to the city. So I wonder if that was just somebody inexperienced in the media who drifted from their key messages for just a minute because they did something that is kind of like the classic do not in a media interview, which is they repeated the charge almost, right? Like, do

Corey 45:34

do you just want something better for the lot? Well, obviously, we want something better for the lot. That could not possibly have been your key message, right?

Corey 45:42

But, you know, you've got to sit there and you've got to say, who's going to speak to this? What are they going to say? and they've got to also remember always in always always always in communications if you hear nothing else in this episode hear this not communicating is always an option and i think actually in many ways if i had seen that same news story tonight and the the comment had been uh we reached out for the city for comment and they didn't get back to us probably would have been better for the city right

Corey 46:07

right because you wouldn't have created the two sides that steven and i were talking about where there's good guys and bad guys and you know you've got these really sympathetic pathetic characters on one side and somebody who seems to be just looking at it from the point of view of like what's the zoning of this particular thing on the other not a great look right and uh and but ultimately as the city you've got to say it doesn't make any sense to engage with this right because to uh to the points we were making earlier about having one side fight the other side and that creates media interest and that creates public interest well

Corey 46:41

really great way not to do is to not engage. You don't get the other side. And then there's only so many times you can talk about the one person's side. The story can't be kicked perpetually if only one person is doing the talking because they won't have anything new to say after the first cycle. Yeah,

Zain 46:54

Yeah, it's like a ball that doesn't necessarily have any bounce to it. Carter, same question for you. What's the city planning department need to do in terms of comms tactics right now? What are they building

Zain 47:03

building and what are they deploying?

Carter 47:06

Well, I'm loathe to do the don't talk. I think that Corey's made a a very good argument for it, so I'll leave. I will say

Carter 47:15

that I heard what he said, and it makes total sense. But let me just play the other side and say that the city is going to go out with a robust defense. I think that if they're going to jump out with a robust defense, then make sure you've got key messages and a properly trained spokesperson. Make

Carter 47:32

Make sure that you've got someone who can say the things that need to be said.

Carter 47:35

This is a very valuable piece of property. It is only going to become more valuable as we build the green line.

Carter 47:41

What the city of Calgary is promising to this landowner is significantly

Carter 47:45

significantly more valuable than a Dairy Queen at this particular moment. And regarding the people who sadly, sadly lost their Dairy Queen, you

Carter 47:55

you know, the reason they're able to build back is because they got a substantial insurance settlement. And I'm sure they'll be able to find an even more adequate piece of property for them to rebuild in the the city of calgary city of calgary is open for business we're going to facilitate making sure that that piece of product that they find the right piece of property and that we can get them up and running as soon as possible it's just unfortunate that the piece that they were on isn't going to be the piece that they're going to be on in the future but we're going to make sure they're going to be successful because we know that the city of calgary loves their dilly bars and we love dilly bars too in fact i'm going to be the first one to buy a dilly bar at their their new location cory

Corey 48:32

cory it's not bad compelling message you like it look i mean i think realistically um there are a few things they would latch on to there but you know i think if you're going to go and you've got a competent spokesperson on it that's also an avenue you can take but that's that's a different act that's a tightrope walk and that's committing because all of a sudden you've got to sort of carry that message through an awful lot of different channels and that's um oh

Carter 48:53

oh it would be it's not always easy it would have to be someone who really knows their shit

Carter 48:58

Who knows how to deflect a question? Who knows how to bring something in? Who knows how to, aw, shucks. Aw, shucks, Dave. You just tried to catch me in a, you just tried to catch me. Aw, shucks it. You know, you're not going to get me today.

Zain 49:10

I hear you volunteering. Guys, let's talk about one final thing. Let's talk about one final thing before we move on.

Zain 49:18

Candidates, politicians, those are the X factor here, right? This is not just city planning department v. couple and family. This is also politicians. Corey, let's start with you. What X factor do you need to plan? What X factor do you need to think about? Carter has left. I think Carter's got to opt out of

Corey 49:37

of this question. Yeah, he does. His

Carter 49:38

is a candidate. Carter is going to opt out of this question. Are we declaring

Corey 49:42

declaring a conflict of interest, Corey? I think this is clearly a conflict of interest. Lay it on

Zain 49:46

on me. Why do you think I started with you? Well,

Corey 49:47

Well, I assumed it was because Steve just lost his mind here. Yeah.

Corey 49:53

Well, that's a very unique to the candidate question

Corey 49:59

question and answer. What I'm saying is it's going to be different depending on what your strategy is. So if your strategy is to be kind of the local person, then yeah, you're going to want to mix it up. Let

Zain 50:07

me ask you in a slightly different way. If you're either of the two parties, the city or this couple and this family, how are you trying to leverage candidates? How are you trying to maybe not play them, but are you trying to, as you're

Corey 50:21

you're trying to get allies, like, how does it work from their perspective? Let me be clear on that question. I mean, I think absolutely if I am the – I

Corey 50:29

I keep calling them plaintiffs or proponents or whatever you want to call them. But I would absolutely be reaching out to each councillor and saying, do you think this is fair? Especially given that we know Councillor Farrell's office sent comments that were purportedly from her, like saying that all

Corey 50:45

all of these things about being strongly opposed, you have to imagine that weighed into it. If you had a different councillor, maybe you'd have a different outcome. So I think it's actually entirely reasonable to ask different councillors or candidates for council. what they would do and how they feel about the particular matter and force some people to take a stand there. It's also a good opportunity to, you

Corey 51:04

you know, again, create more volume and more conversation on this. You bring in more players who naturally have megaphones, who naturally have constituencies, who could amplify it to their base and it could result in additional conversation.

Zain 51:16

I'm not going to ask you the counselor question, but I'm going to ask you to summarize and capstone the city strategy. strategy anything to to add to what we've already talked about in terms of either the framework that you've introduced the characters and and either the messaging and then any further elements you want to you want to add before we close out on here i

Carter 51:34

i just think that the city has to be very careful not to be the villain right the you know the the casting of this role is relatively straightforward the city is going to be the villain um so to that end you can try and avoid things like Corey was talking about, or you can try and recast yourself as a willing partner in renegotiating and trying to develop a new win-win. But the villain role, now, alternatively, big city, man, who's going to care? But it's going to be a rough two weeks because that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.

Zain 52:07

Corey, same question for you. Capstone this for us around the city. Anything to add to the the framework anything to add to the to the messaging and any final thoughts you

Corey 52:19

know cities get themselves into trouble when they start doing things that they want more than the people want i mean that's true of any kind of polity anytime you get elected there but i it just doesn't make an awful lot of sense to pick this fight unless you really mean to pick this fight so step one is just to say do

Corey 52:39

do do i want to pick this fight step two is to say are there options that might might satisfy these things provide a bit of a climb down and

Corey 52:45

and if you get to step three um

Corey 52:48

just be prepared for a bit of pain and then if you're gonna if you want to avoid that pain you're

Corey 52:53

you're gonna have to put some resourcing into it you can't just say well this is annoying but it's not a big deal so i'm going to give it to i

Corey 52:59

i don't know who was the planning person i'm not trying to denigrate them but don't give it to a second stringer from a media point of view give it to somebody who can handle it who can go out there and frame these things out and yeah it might be something that's It's

Corey 53:10

quote-unquote beneath a more prominent spokesperson, but that's how you keep it from becoming a bigger issue.

Zain 53:17

We'll leave that segment there. Moving on to our final segment, our over, under, and our lightning round. Guys, are you ready? I'm very excited.

Zain 53:24

Stephen Carter, let's start with you. What is the optimal price for two Dairy Queen hamburgers?

Carter 53:28

The optimal price is, I

Carter 53:31

I think it's $7 total. I think you can pay $6.99 and you can get two burgers now.

Zain 53:38

Okay. I'm asking optimal price, not what it is. Corey, what's the optimal price of two hamburgers from Dairy Queen? It's $1.58, Zane. $1.58 is correct. Thank you so much, Corey. I really appreciate that. Carter, overrated, underrated. When you go to Dairy Queen and then they do your blizzard and they flip it upside down to show you that it's not like leaking blizzard, you know, that move, is that overrated or is that underrated? That's

Carter 53:59

That's underrated. I mean, that's why we, you know, that's the place to go. That's the move you want to see. Otherwise, you're just going and getting a freaking uh mcflurry who needs that that's just not right overrated

Zain 54:10

overrated underrated that little flip move that they do it seems like it's like page one of the handbook uh what do you think

Corey 54:16

think it's underrated because people think oh it's nothing it's no big deal i have seen it fall out and

Corey 54:23

yeah it happens one time in a thousand one time in a thousand but you live for that drama once you've seen it once you're just waiting for it to happen again that's

Corey 54:30

pretty good and uh it's It's just a very exciting moment every time you go to Dairy Queen.

Zain 54:37

I like that. Carter, on a scale of 1 to 10, I have to ask you, on a scale of 1 to 10, the spoon door handles, I mean, they're my favorite, so you know my score, but the spoon door handles on a scale of 1 to 10, what are you giving them?

Carter 54:49

Oh, they're a 10. They're an absolute, you couldn't ask for anything more on brand. They're perfect. And they frankly make me want to lick the door handle, which that's got to count for something, right?

Zain 55:01

Thank you, Carter. Carter. Really, really do appreciate it. Corey, a scale of 1 to 10, these spoon door handles.

Corey 55:07

I give them a 5. My problem with them is that they're kind of awkward sometimes if you're reaching for them, and it's not quite the angle that you want.

Corey 55:16

Corey, second to last

Zain 55:17

last question. I'll start with you on this. In two weeks' time, is this decision reversed?

Zain 55:24

If there's justice in the universe, yes, Zane. It will be. Carter, in two weeks' time, is this decision reversed?

Carter 55:30

That'd be a dilly-dilly good decision.

Zain 55:33

Carter, final question. I'll start with you. Overrated, underrated, Dairy Queen?

Carter 55:37

Underrated. It's really the star of the cool treats and hot eats environment.

Zain 55:45

Corey, the final question I have to ask. Overrated, underrated, Dairy Queen itself?

Corey 55:49

It's underrated. It's one of those places where I never think I want to go, and then I get there and I think, this is awesome. This is fantastic. What beats a blizzard? What beats a banana split? Banana

Carter 55:59

Banana split is the thing that we should all be talking about. That's what we should have been talking about.

Zain 56:03

Next Thursday, there's always time. That's a wrap on episode 933 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Belge. With me, as always, Stephen Carter, Corey Hogan, and we'll see you next time.

Transcript