When it was revealed that our neighborhood was about to lose a block of housing for a barren surface parking lot, I began with some pointed questions. Unfortunately, that went nowhere, and our association was told, in the closing minutes of the meeting, that there was nothing that could be done by that point.
But that wasn't the case. And as the only one in the room with a degree in Public Administration, I knew it — which meant that the responsibility to act fell on me particularly hard.
See, I knew they still needed approval from the City Plan Commission, as well as the Judiciary and Administration Committee, and a final approval from the full Common Council. I also knew how to use that process to pump the brakes on things like this. Perhaps most importantly, I had developed great relationships with the various players in that process. Meaning, not only did I know what to do and who to work with, I knew what to say and what not to say as well.
So, after the meeting was adjourned, and after the communications team for the medical juggernaut tried their best to calm my concerns and the concerns that the rest of the residents were beginning to feel, this is where I began to employ every communications and relationship management skill and intuition I had.
The first step was to get the full Executive Board of our neighborhood association on the same page about what to do next. That proved harder than it should have though, because one of our board members - who was also a member of the City Council - was unable to attend our emergency executive meeting, and worse still, my Co-Chair was a doctor at that very medical institution, and her husband was the fourth member of our association's Executive Board - so both had a financial stake in this fight which put them in a very awkward position, and neither of them was involved in developing the neighborhood-campus plan, as I was, or had a background in urban planning or public administration, as I did.
But after much deliberation, I eventually persuaded them to differ the management of this issue to me.
And days later, I was making my case to the City Plan Commission that they deny the corporation's request, and I made sure the press was there to get the story - knowing all the while, that there was no chance that I would be able to persuade such a large corporation to change course when they had already invested so much to get to that point already... at least not through personal persuasion - I simply didn't have enough personal leverage. I tried persuading them to compromise in private by that point already, but they wouldn't budge. I knew that my only shot was to try this in the Court of Public Opinion and turn the tables. That was the leverage I had available to me if I was willing to go and grab it.
And even though I understood all the risks involved, I saw the leverage available to me, and I went for it. I got the first series of stories written - with the clear strategic intent of shining the brightest possible spotlight on the issue, putting the powerful corporation on defense and carefully controlling the narrative every step of the way.
That's just what happened. The stories were written, and all followed the same narrative:
'Overzealous and all-powerful corporation is going back to its old ways of bulldozing housing for low-income people for their own short-term gain in a fragile neighborhood that has been doing its best to revitalize itself...'
At that City Plan Commission meeting, my strategy began to pay off.
The City's Planning Department publicly stated their opposition to the effort to raze nine houses for a parking lot, and the City's Planning Commission heard my pleas for the opportunity to gather more neighborhood input and work out a compromise with the medical institution, and subsequently recommended the request for the permit be referred for 30 days - and in so doing, they were handing me and our neighborhood association the golden gift of time; time to reason and find common ground with the major employer in the backyard of our neighborhood, and precious time to keep the heat on.
And right on cue, the stories began to roll in...
