# Doug's Anne Jarvis Impression

An episode of [Rose City Politics](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1247337855), 23 Sep 2023, 43 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/56910752/doug_s_anne_jarvis_impression.mp3

Jon, Melinda and Doug talk about beach volleyball and ABC recruitment, which leads to a discussion on populism, communications and process. There's a little bit of fun in here too. Rose City Politics is brought to you with the kind support of LiUNA Local 625: Building Better Communities. Support the show at Patreon.com/RoseCityPolitics. Read our stuff in Biz X Magazine or online at BizXMagazine.com and RoseCityPolitics.ca.

## Transcript

[0:24] Hey, everyone, welcome to Rosity Politics. It is September the twenty third.
[0:28] It's a Saturday. Our regular panel includes Doug Star Tory, Melinda Monroe,
[0:32] and myself, John lid Key. You can support us at patreon dot
[0:36] com slash Rose City Politics. We're in Bizex magazine, online everywhere and only
[0:41] banned some places. Rosby Politics also broadcast live on take thanks to the kind
[0:44] of support of UNA sixty five building Better Communities. We all made it down
[0:49] here today. We we we we prompted in the chat, Hey, let's
[0:53] let's have a thing today this afternoon one o'clock. It's one fifteen, said,
[0:58] a little bit late to the start, but we're here. We did
[1:00] the thing the chat intended for us to do. I'm not sure how comfortable
[1:03] I am with you, like sort of announcing the precise time that. Yeah,
[1:11] lots of fun recording from the rose Land Clubhouse. Yeah, exactly every
[1:15] week, every side of that. And who knows what time z owner it
[1:19] is because we always zoom in from different places. Yeah. I know.
[1:23] The chat though, is great. We get to have some fun and some
[1:26] banter and yeah, I was chatting with Da McDonald. I think it was
[1:29] on error. Off here. Oh god, this is happening too often where
[1:32] I go. I really hope I'm not betraying confidences because I immediately going mature
[1:37] all the confidences. But I don't think he'll get mad. The idea that
[1:40] we all have, like you know that one chat that you just can't defend
[1:44] at all. Every post is worse than the one before it, and if
[1:48] you were to ever have to stand in front of like a judge, it
[1:49] would just your whole life would fall apart. And there's just there's there's no
[1:53] defense to it. And I had brought up that I knew that this was
[1:57] the case when I joined Rose City Politic and I got addict into the chat
[2:00] that said RCP this one, so as to make clear there was another one
[2:06] that I'm being at. There were there were many, And it's funny that
[2:09] you say that our CP this one is an artifact. Okay. You have
[2:15] to think back to five or six years ago when in the chaotic period when
[2:21] we suddenly became a podcast for reasons, we had to stand up our entire
[2:27] digital footprint like Lickity Split, and one of the things we needed to do
[2:31] was establish a Facebook presence and do all that stuff, and you know,
[2:37] we're not always the most technically savvy. We don't always do the maximum homework
[2:43] when we're setting stuff up. So we created a couple of different like you
[2:46] know, all the different weird variations that Facebook has of groups and pages and
[2:52] clubs and things, right, we tried a bunch of them, and we
[2:55] had a chat thread going and we were using it when people started adding themselves
[3:00] to it. And in fact, the person who added themselves was an Jarvis
[3:05] with oh no and added herself to our chat tread uh, and we were
[3:09] like, well, what the fuck is this? This is not this can't
[3:14] be good. So OURCP, this one is the one that we were supposed
[3:17] to use to dump all our dirt and all of our ship because we had
[3:22] all the security settings locked down and nobody else was going to get in there.
[3:25] What a terrible feature where the outside public could add themselves into You're like,
[3:30] hot, gospat. It wasn't fun. No, it wasn't good.
[3:34] Oh I can only imagine the stomach drop. Yeah, but you see,
[3:37] like and Jarvis has joined the chat, Like why I was? I was?
[3:40] I happened to be in the thread live and see that like that notification
[3:45] top up on my screen and it was you know at the time. You
[3:49] have to remember like aj at this time was a columnist, not retired,
[3:53] nothing like that. And that's that's a name that strikes a bit of terror,
[4:00] you know, An Jarvis, like you had to bring your a game
[4:02] when you were talking to Anne Jarvis and like or else she would evisceerate you.
[4:06] And so to just see her randomly like like just imagine standing in the
[4:12] smoking section outside of high school in a circle with your buddies and and Jervis,
[4:18] Oh, hold on, what are you boys talking about? Right?
[4:20] Like you to write a call. So that was approximately what happened. And
[4:27] that's why it's called OURCP this one. Oh, that's too funny. Before
[4:30] we get on track, it's fun to still be off track. The worst
[4:33] I had with that regard we had been opened maybe a couple months at higher
[4:39] Limits. And it's Sunday, eight thirty at night and I get an email
[4:45] Robert Fife Globe and Mail that's not a good one. And it was just
[4:48] like, oh, this is not fucking good. And I read the email
[4:51] and it goes you were listed on the list of people who attended a Bill
[4:57] Blair fundraiser and you're with a weed organized were you there? Did you pay
[5:01] for the ticket? Was this illegal lobbying? And I was just like,
[5:04] I will respond tomorrow at nine oh one am when I'm in the office,
[5:09] and he went, well, that's not enough time for prince submission. It's
[5:13] just like, well that's fucking excellent. Found the cheat code on that one,
[5:19] So like that was you know, And then I read the article the
[5:21] next day and it was like John Lydkey illegally improperly lobbied and front page Globe
[5:28] and Mail not great. Dawson Chen calls me Win's a star and he goes,
[5:32] hey, John, I see this story here Globe and Mail. Uh,
[5:35] I want to talk about it. I go there's nothing there, absolutely
[5:38] nothing. It's just nonsense. That's how he starts the article. There's nothing
[5:44] there. It's nonsense, which makes it look like, of course there's a
[5:46] lot. It was like a fifty dollars ticket all that to say we're back
[5:50] on track, which is, so are you actually advising Phoenix Kiss and John
[5:55] Mutton now? But super bad audience. But they didn't mean to. I
[6:00] just I just maybe they like this Lakey guy. He's got it like We're
[6:04] gonna follow him. We're starting off strong. We got some episode title contenders
[6:12] all ready. John's corrupt. Well, let's talk about something that's not corrupt.
[6:19] The Counselor's Cup. That's place downtown a couple days ago. Last week
[6:26] Whenever Windsor, Counselor's Karen McKenzie and Angelo Marignani crushed Counselor's Ronaldo Augustino and Jim
[6:31] Morrison in the first ever Council Cup as they showed off the new Downtown Beach
[6:35] volleyball court. I took on bridge right off the bat, and I spoke
[6:40] with Ronaldo about this and I said, Hey, is it called the Counselor's
[6:43] Cup because the mayor said, there's no fucking way in hell I'm playing,
[6:46] And he went, no, not at all. In fact, Dilkins and
[6:49] Tac Tac, we're supposed to be a tag team that was going to play
[6:54] against everyone, and then you know, busy schedules. Unfortunately that's too much
[7:00] on excuses. I would have been fun. Yeah, I was actually really
[7:02] happy to hear that it wasn't just you know, you know, the counselors
[7:06] with the exclusion. Although now I do take a little bit of umbrage that
[7:10] it's called the Counselor's cup. How do you go and invite the mare in
[7:12] next time around? Could have been the counsel Come on, like, we've
[7:15] been through this. You've got a pedantic municipal uh you know, act specialists
[7:18] here to only one vote. Everyone's ull accounts the same, just you know,
[7:24] so he's one of the counselors. He just gets to wear the pretty
[7:27] little chain of office when he sits in his chair. And the strong the
[7:30] strong mayor's cup doesn't sound yeah, because in a strong mayor's cup is like
[7:33] then he'd only have to what is he got a two thirds majority, so
[7:35] he guess have two players and he plays against one person on the other side.
[7:40] That's a strong mayor's cup. Excellent mellenda. I think technically the strong
[7:44] Mayor's cup is that even though it was Councilor McKenzie a maer Yanni that one,
[7:48] it was actually drud Elkins that one. That's how strong mare powers or
[7:51] They all roll up hill. They say that, you know, water flows
[7:56] downhill, but it will flow uphill for money. The same thing with elections
[8:00] and take sports tournaments at the city level, they roll straight into the Marit's
[8:05] office, if if, if he won, it would be a permanent installation
[8:11] at bright Lights, well it's a bit cold. It would be a permanent
[8:16] installation in the news civic paths or somewhere. It would we can all agree
[8:20] it would warm our hearts where it was. I really like this one.
[8:24] Uh it's fun, you know, Listen, Ronaldo is like seemingly making city
[8:28] council like incredibly enjoyable. And I don't want to go taking all the fan
[8:33] fare away from the BIA, which I know was involved in this, but
[8:37] it's just I've never, I don't know, I've never been interested in city
[8:39] council because it wasn't like dirty and crass and cynical and like this is everything
[8:45] that I hate to see. So I watch it like I'm watching Fox News
[8:48] or something, Whereas in this case, it's like this is a fun term,
[8:52] Like it's we talked about wanting a chaos council and like I wouldn't say
[8:56] it's chaos, but like it's it's fun, you know. I think that
[9:01] in a story to step on your Milinda, but I think that this is
[9:05] more the norm for windsor politics than kind of the the stuffy and a little
[9:13] bit a little bit boring kind of counsel that we've had for the last twenty
[9:18] years, like this, like colorful people. We we have a tradition of
[9:22] colorful politicians and windsor just not so much recently. So it's kind of a
[9:26] return to form. I think Mayor Burr would have loved this. It's more
[9:31] than I think it's I think it's more than colorful though. I think because
[9:33] we see where you see this as at other levels of government when specifically because
[9:37] at other levels of government people have to be away from home. So there's
[9:41] a long tradition of like hockey leagues amongst members of parliament where they play on
[9:46] the same team with members of the opposition or you know, with they with
[9:48] other parties, and the same at Queen's Park. I think what we're seeing,
[9:52] what Rinaldo or councilor statement has been able to do, is to say
[9:56] we can actually have fun together. We can demonstrate a certain amount of solidarity
[10:00] in our role as local leadership without having to just hate each other's scots like
[10:05] there's been this. So what I think we've seen in winter is that there's
[10:07] been this shift of if I don't like you y're dead to me. And
[10:11] what Councilor Agestino and some of that the councilors are bringing back is I may
[10:15] not like you, but that doesn't mean we don't have a shared role as
[10:16] leaders in the community and an obligation to make it safe for people to actually
[10:20] engage with people they don't like. Sorry, I took a fun topic and
[10:24] made off this is good, and you know, I think what's really interesting
[10:28] as well. And you know, I mentioned this to Councilor Agastino, and
[10:31] I don't mean to suggest that he's doing it this way intentionally, but it's
[10:35] an interesting counterbalance to the weight of the mayor's office and the tools and levers
[10:39] that it controls, just being as you know, the head of counsel the
[10:43] ability to direct resources, whether it be funds or you know, get heads
[10:46] of departments actually help city counselors instead of impeding efforts or whatnot. It's it's
[10:52] such an interesting counterbalance to just see, like, you know, the way
[10:56] that democratic organizations should be. We're all here talking together, like the six
[11:01] five that we think is built in doesn't necessarily have to be. Maybe if
[11:05] we're grabbing a couple of drinks after you work or spiking a volleyball, we
[11:09] end up finding note that we both have a lot of shared mutual interests and
[11:13] you're not just locked into the camp of the the side that you think someone
[11:16] is. I think populism has become a bit of a dirty word in recent
[11:22] years, and for good reason, like there has been some dark and nasty
[11:24] populism in democracies around the world and including in Canada. But I think I
[11:31] think that like finding a way to meet the people where they are and engaging
[11:39] in things that will capture people's attention and interest, is a very positive form
[11:43] of populism. Doing beach volleyball with counselors is going to engage a whole segment
[11:50] of the population who are completely not interested in mill rates. And I think
[11:56] as well, the thing that is consistent about what Rinaldo has been doing as
[12:01] a counselor in terms of his actions in the community, Rinaldo has deployed the
[12:07] grass roots and in a way that I don't think, I don't think anybody
[12:13] else around the table has quite the same amount of respect. Is not the
[12:18] word the same trust in the grassroots that Rinaldo does, and I think that
[12:24] a big part of what we've see as success and engagement and so many people
[12:30] enjoying the things that are happening is that the grassroots is the best part of
[12:33] Windsor and he's the only one who's really connecting with it. He's I mean,
[12:37] we talked about this often. He's a promoter, he's in the hospitality
[12:39] sector. He understands that if you don't have the buy in of the people
[12:43] to walk in the place and give you five dollars out of their pocket,
[12:46] you're not going to be doing business much longer. It's not a front facing
[12:50] business where you're actively seeking out clientele, right. And that's not to say
[12:54] there's not marketing and all that stuff that's wrapped in to try to get more
[12:56] people in. But that's such a different perspective than a lawyer. And actually
[13:01] no lawyer sitting around the table right now, no, no, But I
[13:05] had it was until I had a conversation recently that brought up this kind of
[13:09] concept to me again that you know that whether you're good at transactional politics or
[13:13] whether you're good at sort of like party or personality politics. So you the
[13:18] party says you must be X or do X, then you do X or
[13:22] your personality. Pol I don't like that guy, and I'm never going to
[13:24] be supportive of anything they do. But I think what we see, what
[13:26] we want to see municipally, and I'm certainly seeing with some of our counselors
[13:30] now, is that they're really good at that transactional politics. Like I'm having
[13:33] an interaction with you, and then a different interaction with you, in a
[13:37] different interaction with you, and I'm not judging any of those interactions by some
[13:39] kind of template that says I must always oppose this kind of idea or I
[13:45] must always opposed this kind of person I can actually say in this in this
[13:50] situation, this is the best constellation of options. And that's good. That's
[13:54] what we should at this municipalment. We're not allowed to have parties. We've
[13:58] got only eleven people and they all can walk to each other's houses. You
[14:01] know, basically, is a city so small we should be in that kind
[14:05] of transactional kind of a relationship rather than I'm on this side of the six
[14:11] and I'm on this side of the five, and if you cross that line,
[14:13] I'm going to you're dead to me. It is kind of unnatural,
[14:16] isn't it M. Yeah, it's I don't know. We uh. I
[14:22] do feel like the political culture of city Council has been frozen for a long
[14:26] time, and not in like and static, I guess is a better word
[14:31] than frozen. It's been very static, and I'm hopeful that I think that
[14:35] we may be seeing a little bit of a breakup of those like sort of
[14:39] you know, trench warfare like immovable lines that we've seen for the past eight
[14:43] years. It doesn't feel intractable, which is like the first time I've I
[14:50] don't, I guess felt optimistic. Yeah. Now having said that, though,
[14:56] I think what really has to happen next because I do think that like
[15:00] I do think that some barriers have been broken and that that conversations can happen.
[15:05] But what has to happen next is the quality of the conversation has to
[15:07] get elevated, and I do think that counselors are well positioned to do that.
[15:13] Having a volleyball like a sand volleyball tournament is fantastic. You're getting people's
[15:16] attention, you're bringing people together, You're showing that we can have fun and
[15:20] be collegial, even if we're not always going to see eye to eye or
[15:24] even disagree on how resources should be divided, which is a pretty big difference,
[15:30] right, But but I think that that counselors counselors should should probably try
[15:37] a little bit more positive public engagement in terms of this kind of engagement.
[15:45] This kind of engagement, but let's talk about real stuff. You know.
[15:48] I just think that there's there are better quality conversations to be had than sort
[15:54] of like talking points and outrage. And I'd really like to see us start
[15:58] evolving towards that we were seeing. I think just this week it looks like
[16:02] are very soon starting the ward meetings, right, So the ordinary those ward
[16:06] meetings are kind of you know, a bunch of people give speeches and maybe
[16:10] there's a shrette. You can walk around and look at some signs, or
[16:14] you can you can you know, put a question forward and get vetted before
[16:18] you can ask it. Those kind of thing. It's very it's very one
[16:21] sign in. But like, what if it was actually set up to be
[16:22] way more fun where we actually trust the grassroots or you know, we designed
[16:27] it in such and I know that city administrators have time time have tried to
[16:32] do something more interactive and it's not you know, you get the Colonel Mustard
[16:36] showing up, who's mad about the fact it is Alice's got rats in it
[16:38] or whatever it is, and that dominates the whole thing and trying to But
[16:41] there are people who are professional facilitators, who are who are skilled at ensuring
[16:45] that those communications happen. What if those meetings were fun instead of just Okay,
[16:52] we've just come to tell you how great we are and we're going to
[16:53] put some power point sides with our pictures on it. They sure aren't fun
[16:56] now, they sure aren't. But you know what, when you start talking
[17:02] about making ward meetings more accessible, where my mind goes is that part of
[17:06] the problem is that right now there is a significant portion of the population that
[17:11] is inflamed and toxic. And if you create circumstances where the public can come
[17:17] and be heard and speak loudly, you're you've got to factor that in.
[17:22] I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying you've got a factor in the
[17:25] wackos. Sure, And so maybe that's why beach ball goal works because nobody
[17:30] was out there with their fifteen minutes city signs, right, But it's a
[17:33] problem because how do you how do you move the conversation to issues. If
[17:37] that's a barrier, you know it's a It's a really complex one, right,
[17:42] because the easy answer is like to shut it down and shut them out
[17:45] of the process and be like, you guys aren't civilized. You can't be
[17:48] in here. You're detracting from things. But unfortunately democracy, I mean,
[17:52] you run a phone in, show John, So like, how do you
[17:53] do it on a phone? And show I can tell you that I'm not
[17:56] an elected official, so it's my way or the highway, and like when
[18:00] you want to take it starts to feel rough. I can kill the phone
[18:03] call or take control or put them on mute or take a beat. But
[18:07] like that's very different than like people showing up. I mean, look just
[18:11] with the school board, yeah, and canceling the meetings they went. We
[18:15] have to keep ourselves safe, our staff safe, the public safe, and
[18:19] we can't do that right now. And I want to, like, maybe
[18:23] not that specific issue, but look at the issue of vaccination. Sure,
[18:27] where I think it is not completely irrational to have concerns and questions and want
[18:36] to dig and want to starting from the position of I'm skeptical of a vaccine,
[18:41] I don't think it's like an inherently illegitimate position. But when when a
[18:48] position gets coopted, when it gets Look, I'm just going to say that
[18:53] I think most of the people who are responsible for spreading anti vax missinformation and
[19:00] inflaming people, most of the folks responsible for that don't care, do not
[19:04] give a fuck about vaccinations, like at all. Right, it's just sort
[19:10] of cynical exploitation of a concern or an issue. And I don't know,
[19:18] I don't know how you get at a good discussion. Like one of the
[19:22] things that really disheartened me during COVID was that we were blanket dismissing like whole
[19:29] sort of swaths of opinion. And I get why, because the arguments you
[19:33] got were garbage. You could see that that many of the people engaging in
[19:38] them were transparently disingenuous or or just being shitty. But but I think that
[19:47] there's like I don't agree with those positions. Like obviously I'm a strong advocate
[19:51] for vaccination. I think that vaccination is a wonderful, like you know,
[19:55] miracle of modern science that we shouldn't turn our back on. But I don't
[19:57] think that I'm always right about everything, and that I don't need to listen
[20:02] to the perspective of others. And so in some ways I think that populist
[20:06] exploitation robs us of the opportunity to examine a position that has something to say,
[20:12] Well, you know, it's interesting, this one, this one,
[20:15] this pandemic around. I was reading, as you know, some may have
[20:19] chosen to do at the outset of the pandemic, the Great Flu, looking
[20:23] back at the Spanish Flu, and one of the biggest tools they had to
[20:27] keep control at that time was the fact that's World War One and there was
[20:32] just immense war censorship. Just then. They had like messages before movies and
[20:38] people in the newsrooms that looked over what you printed and said, nope,
[20:42] this story's ripped up. We're from the government censorship office. And that's how
[20:47] they decided to deal with it. And this time around, you know,
[20:48] with social media, it was the complete opposite. Under that thing, anyone
[20:52] can talk and everyone has an opinion, and let it all out there and
[20:55] we'll have it in a debate of society. And God forbid, now here's
[20:57] Donald Trump telling us to stick a light bulb up your asshole, because that's
[21:02] gonna happen. Well, you know, people are thinking, I mean,
[21:03] we're not going to talk about vaccination a meeting, but oh the show But
[21:07] people have been against vaccination in violent in actually violent ways since vary elation in
[21:11] the eighteenth century, right, I think that. But I want to take
[21:15] from light bulb up the asshole. I'm just saying it's in the universe or
[21:21] possible show titles. Are you going to question my process during the show man,
[21:26] Not at all. I'm just so happy that was what was happening.
[21:27] It's not a ship take like Dawn to make it fun of me. Sorry,
[21:32] Melinda, excuse me when I get my microphone back on after all that
[21:36] drama. And it's a good It's actually kind of a good segue because what
[21:38] I was going to say is rather than talk about vaccinations, I want to
[21:41] talk about violence and public meetings and what's violent and what's not at public meetings
[21:45] and how tolerant we are of shouting people down. Is shouting a meeting down
[21:52] to the point that it has to close violent or is it just democracy?
[21:56] Right? So we didn't get through that meeting, So we're gonna have to
[21:57] come back next week, and we're gonna I'm back the week after. We're
[22:00] going to come back the week after, and in between those meetings, we're
[22:03] going to try and engage in ways that maybe say why are you shouting us
[22:07] down? What have we missed that we need to do differently? So is
[22:10] it you start shouting and the cops arrived, or you start shouting and democracy
[22:14] happens. Because I'm not convinced that these meetings that are getting shut down immediately
[22:18] are getting shut down because people are truly dangerous. It's because people are shouting
[22:22] down a process that we don't like being shouted down. And as someone who
[22:25] has shouted down meetings, I'm not entirely sure that it's a violence. It's
[22:29] an act of violence. It's an active democracy. And yes, sure have
[22:33] the cops there and make sure that people start throwing, you know, throwing
[22:36] their pitchforks or their fire bombs or whatever are taken care of. But if
[22:38] all you're doing is standing up and saying shame, shame, shame, shame,
[22:41] shame, then that's your right. Like who says that that meeting has
[22:45] to be only those ten people are allowed to actually say things in the room,
[22:49] So you know, disruption is a legitimate tactic. I mean this is
[22:55] what strikes are, right, You're not you know, I'm certainly not gonna
[23:00] be sit here in Windsor and say strikes are not a legitimate tactic. And
[23:03] this is that is that is the same type of thing. It's a kind
[23:07] of in person denial of service attack the only thing. And you know,
[23:11] it's a relatively modern approach to democracy that it doesn't include any violence, right,
[23:18] And and in lots of parts of the world, democracy and violence go
[23:22] together like like two things that go together. Really well, you see all
[23:27] those, You see all those my best analogy of the night. Two things
[23:33] to go together, like two things ago together. John is just ripping up
[23:37] my am eight under resume, no, sir, and the call so oh
[23:45] man, but say podcasts and violence go together? Democracy, democracy and violence.
[23:52] But but having said that, I think that democracy is effective and the
[23:59] differs between democracy and mob rule. Democracy is effective when it is designed and
[24:07] when it is structured so that that outcomes according to sort of a predetermined idea
[24:15] of how power should be distributed and how right who has standing and who doesn't
[24:21] all that stuff. And all I'm saying about that is that we have to
[24:23] design our spaces carefully. If if we think that disrupting a meeting with yelling
[24:32] is a legitimate tactic. How many people makes it legitimate? Is it three
[24:37] or is it thirty? Because if if you're in a room where three people
[24:41] can shout it down, then is that still democracy? But the question to
[24:47] me is not is why are those three people trying to shout it down?
[24:51] Because we've talked listeners to rocity policies are not going to be strangers to the
[24:56] current mayor in this previous term, saying to people, city council is just
[25:02] theater. And so you finally get noticed that something important in your community is
[25:06] happening because it gets a news story that week before the council meeting. What
[25:08] you don't know is there is now nothing you can do about it. Zero
[25:12] And if you show up at that meeting and you delegate and they all just
[25:15] smile wanly at you and then carry on to do the thing you want,
[25:18] why aren't you standing up and screaming the house down about how non democratic that
[25:23] situation is. How come you're not invited into those conversations a lot sooner so
[25:29] you can actually influence the decision. So there are three people shouting the house
[25:32] down because it's fundamentally unfair what has just happened. So the process itself,
[25:37] I don't know that. I don't know that everyone around that council table agrees
[25:42] with that perspective on democracy. I think there are a lot of folks around
[25:47] the table whose perspective is that the role of the role of the voting public
[25:52] is to pass judgment after the fact on the decisions that have been made.
[25:55] So don't bother delegating, don't come to committee meetings. Well, well,
[25:57] isn't that. What isn't that what council is theater really means? I think
[26:00] it is. And then in our whole plan on voting, we're coming back
[26:03] because we're gonna move to our next topic is the Council has just issued a
[26:07] notice that they'd like people to apply to gain agency sports and committees. Why
[26:11] be on one of those if it's got no point? Why and why?
[26:15] Indeed, especially that the sorry John was like flailing because we were like,
[26:19] wait, this is christ you guys all right now I'm writing things down that
[26:30] are edit points on this. John just said something unacceptable, folks, Great,
[26:37] it's gonna be the great hang right before that, no one knows what
[26:41] it was well, that's fine, we'll leave it right there. YEA.
[26:42] One thing I did notice recently, and I believe was Councilor Marignani had asked
[26:48] counsel about how they advertise stuff that goes on at council, and it was
[26:55] saying specifically, like we only use the Windsor Star. It's twenty twenty three,
[27:00] like so many other forums, that we could be doing it, should
[27:03] we so administration by it really is, because I mean, when we talk
[27:07] about Melinda, it's to your point, I find out because the Star or
[27:11] am AE hundred or CTV puts out the story that says we're going to rip
[27:15] out every bike lane that weight not mind, we're going to fix the bandshell
[27:18] or whatever the one's topic is. Yeah, it's nothing can be done.
[27:22] You're well past the point of no return. It should have been done months
[27:26] ago at the committee process. We are, you know, cynical enough.
[27:30] I think we could all say that this is a process designed as such,
[27:34] have it printed out in an update at the bottom of the right page of
[27:40] the Windsor Star on page four and a you know, business card size ad.
[27:45] But I don't think that's I don't think that's fair because to say that
[27:49] it was designed that way is to kind of put the onus on on like
[27:55] the folks who first started taking out newspaper ads, right right, Like,
[28:00] and I have lots I have lots of things to say about windsor council decisions
[28:04] in the lead paint era. But I don't think that I don't think I
[28:10] don't think you can blame them for this one. Thank you, John,
[28:12] I worked on that one. I don't think you can blame them for this
[28:18] one because it's not posting notices in the newspaper like when it was decided in
[28:23] nineteen twenty eight or whatever was perfectly like sound idea, right, the it's
[28:30] exploitable now exactly, So I don't think that. I think there's an important
[28:34] distinction to draw between systems that are designed in a certain way and systems that
[28:41] are hacked, right, and that are hacked and in some ways, like
[28:45] you know, through attrition, right. The the fact that the notice only
[28:52] goes into the print newspaper in twenty twenty three is now an obfuscation tactic.
[28:57] In nineteen twenty three that was like a you know, a bold new frontier
[29:00] in transparency. You're the big news story. Oh my God, did you
[29:03] hear that we're building a new band? Sell everyone, come on out of
[29:06] the meeting. Well, and I think it's kind of hacked on both sides
[29:11] in the sense that the print media, you know, becomes more and more
[29:14] and more and more expensive, and so oh well the government publications, government
[29:18] buys of print ad god, are a big form of our revenue. And
[29:21] we can have a full page ad. So now that all the city can
[29:23] afford is you know, a business card out of the bottom of the everything.
[29:26] Why does the government just print a newspaper? Wow? Government just print
[29:30] a newspaper? Oh yeah, well we practically are now. Yes, we've
[29:33] got the best of both worlds, don't we. And we can't go on
[29:37] Facebook to get our news anymore? No, you can post it in the
[29:40] comments though. Yeah, yeah, you know, there is somebody who I
[29:44] don't really want to publicize, but there is somebody who used to run up
[29:47] political commentary Facebook group and now they have taken to posting the text of articles
[29:52] in comments. Yeah. Like, I don't know, man. The Facebook
[29:57] no news on Facebook thing actually brought me back to Facebook. I have been
[30:03] experimenting and toying with a little bit like also the decline of Twitter has also
[30:07] maybe, well it's true, like Buddy, I have been checking every four
[30:11] of them I used to be logged into in two thousand and two, just
[30:15] in case that one's a good one. Blue Sky Blues Guy is starting and
[30:18] it's got some issues, but it's getting better, and and all the econ,
[30:22] all the Twitter econ people have moved to Blue Sky. So Blue Sky
[30:25] econ is pretty good. The invites are starting. The Sky still I have
[30:29] a presence. I'm not sold. It's still clunky. Yeah, oh,
[30:33] I mean it's a I hate that. It's a serious conversation, like all
[30:37] our social media networks are really terrible. Yeah, but that matters unfortunately,
[30:44] and so I SEQ is failing. But yeah, we keep coming back to
[30:47] this. How do you so that the jug you already said, the public
[30:49] got engaged with the volleyball, but it needs to now be about issues.
[30:52] So what do you do? You put up like a rolling you know,
[30:56] billboard at the volleyball. So so here's what's coming up next? A city
[31:00] council. I don't know what if, like, how do you get that?
[31:03] How do you say, well, you know, eight months from now
[31:06] city council is going to vote on reducing the speed limb to fortyklometers an hour.
[31:14] We need you to start having meetings, to come to these committee meetings
[31:17] and here's the schedule. Or do we just say it eight months from now
[31:19] and they say we're going to go go to forty columns an hour and then
[31:22] people come and shout it down because they don't want it. What if what
[31:23] if the clerk had an instagram? What if the clerk had an instagram that
[31:30] that that identified the issues right and the stage they're at. What if the
[31:37] clerk had an instagram and just like was was you know, hey, garbage
[31:41] collection is going to committee. Garbage collection is going to committee, and you
[31:47] know that means that that in three to six months you could see a change
[31:48] in how your garbage collection happens. Because I shouldn't communications just be doing this?
[31:53] Well that would be I mean, it would be communicating. This is
[31:56] my point. Do you have an Instagram page? This is my point?
[31:59] Like like why? Because because I do you really think that that citizen engagement,
[32:06] meaningful citizen engagement is a priority or a criteria that gets you promoted in
[32:10] the City of winds Or Comm's department, Like, like, no kidding around
[32:14] do you really think that that isn't it is in any way a metric there?
[32:20] I expect it probably is a metric, to be fair, I think
[32:22] it probably is a metric. It's that the way the choice of what you
[32:27] count is, you know, do you count like hits on your Instagram page
[32:30] versus hits on your Instagram page followed by someone coming to a meeting? Like?
[32:35] You know, it's it's that. It's that. It's that metric tests
[32:38] that I use with my clients. As I say, you can count,
[32:42] you know, how many times somebody does something, but you can also count
[32:45] how many times that thing mattered. And the second part of that's really hard.
[32:47] The first part is, you know, how is your basic your metric
[32:51] is how many times did you meet me? But you know that's fine.
[32:53] How many times did you did you meet me? It was a lot,
[32:55] But how many times did meeting me actually change something? That metrics harder to
[33:00] meet. And I bet they're The issue is it's hard to figure that out
[33:02] and they're not measuring that. I'm sure they're measuring the number of times people
[33:06] click through the measure the number of times you know, they measure homing field
[33:08] come to council meetings. But is it are they rewarded for making it more?
[33:13] It's willful ignorance of the tools that are available. Last year, on
[33:17] the other podcast, I interviewed Nator Cha, who is I believe he's a
[33:22] VP now with Enveronics Analytics, and he talked to me. If I remember
[33:29] correctly, it was the City of London about the City of London hiring Enveronics
[33:34] to support a community engagement around parks policy and if you know it's mean medium
[33:42] and moose, you should go back and listen if you're interested, because it
[33:45] was quite an illuminating conversation. But Nator talked about canvassing social media campaign ways
[33:52] for people to engage electronically, taking all of this information that they gathered through
[33:58] an active community facing campaign and then combining it with the demographic data that they
[34:02] collect so that they can understand the neighborhoods and perhaps provide some weights. You
[34:07] know these folks are, We know they're way less likely to engage, so
[34:12] we need to weight them up a little more because the you know, the
[34:15] folks in word two just don't want to talk to the canvasers as much as
[34:19] the folks in word one. All of that work commissioned by the Municipality of
[34:23] London in order to really truly elicit a fair and the most what the state
[34:31] of the art in terms of our capability to measure sentiment. They did that.
[34:37] So what Windsor is doing is completely inadequate, and the next city,
[34:42] the next city over, is doing it in a totally different and much more
[34:45] sophisticated way. It's willful ignorance. Well, we have done pretty good jobs
[34:51] of things. It's just that what happens, I think, and perhaps it's
[34:52] a bit of you know, Unfortunately for buying forensic City Hall, they don't
[34:55] get rewarded for doing that. So the Act of Transportation Plan, it was
[35:00] a chun of engagement with people and they worked really hard and there was and
[35:05] then the thing got approved and it is just as if it never happens.
[35:07] We have two types. True, it was a good you're right, that
[35:10] was a great consultation. Sorry to step on you. Now it's fine.
[35:13] We got two types of public engagement and wins. There there's the public engagement
[35:16] that's meant to be shelved because it's not gonna go the way that we want.
[35:22] And then there's the public engagement that's designed to come to the outcome that
[35:25] was already decided right outside. Well, that's the only kind we like,
[35:29] and that's the only kind that works right, quite frankly. But because the
[35:31] other kind doesn't get into the report right and you get it, you get
[35:35] an interpretive paragraph instead of showing the actual results of the of the survey that
[35:40] we did to find out what people's budget priorities were. The summary was,
[35:45] well, they're too stupid to know, so I'm just gonna tell yet,
[35:47] you know what, So as I listened to you, I'm thinking about how
[35:50] interesting is from a political perspective. So they talk about politics is whether you're
[35:53] in the front dragging everybody behind you, or whether you're watching where the parade's
[35:58] going and jumping in front. So we're still stuck in this kind of we're
[36:00] dragging you from the front, instead of we did this public consultation. It
[36:05] turns out the public wants something completely different than I wanted. I'm getting in
[36:07] front of that. Now they're wrong. It's you know, I'm just going
[36:12] to make them do this thing they hate and then everyone's going to be grouchy.
[36:15] Instead of turns out the public really like this Okay, I'm going to
[36:17] pretend I was behind it all along. That piece is sort of missing.
[36:22] This missing with certain of the of the politicians. There are others who I
[36:27] think are recognizing the value of that, and you see them, they see
[36:30] them change their position when they realize where the public's going. But the senior
[36:35] leadership at the political table still are very much like we're dragging you there,
[36:38] whether you want to go there or not. You know what's interesting and I'm
[36:42] possibly worth thinking about, is the difference in this town when an issue that
[36:47] is, you know, an issue comes up and it is in some way
[36:51] tied to a culture war issue, it's in some way a social issue,
[36:55] it's in some way tied to something where the majority of the population have predetermined
[37:00] positions. Those conversations, I think go pretty good, like they're messy and
[37:06] people yell at each other and whatever. But I actually think that windsor can
[37:10] have like, uh, you know, you go go look at the different
[37:15] social media where winds or rights meet each other and like the issue of the
[37:20] issue of the protest and the counter protest, and that that is a robust
[37:23] conversation, a very robust conversation being had in public But when when you don't
[37:30] have that that pre existing uh structure, When when the general public is like,
[37:37] I don't know what my opinion on curb height is right, I don't
[37:40] know how big a lot should be. I don't know if we should pay
[37:44] for rat rat like extermination or not. Then our public conversations are super weak
[37:50] in their elite lead. And I think that I think that it it possibly
[37:54] is appreciated in the corridors of power. Well, look at the house let
[38:00] at Elliott Street that Ronaldo paid to have painted up. I think that's like
[38:04] the perfect kind of example of a you have a polarized opinion based off of
[38:07] misconceived facts. It's private house, it's not on the heritage register. Who
[38:12] the fuck are you to have an opinion about what someone does with their own
[38:15] private abode after, you know, money shows up to paint it and people
[38:19] volunteer their time. But it got a lot of conversation, right Ronald again,
[38:22] and we talked about that. Ronaldo knew exactly what he was doing with
[38:24] it, and he got that outcome. But I mean gutter conversation absolutely.
[38:30] I mean it's there were some really really awful comments that people said, oh
[38:35] well, now, I just get to see crackheads shooting up in front of
[38:37] a colorful house. Yes, yes, that is that is the outcome.
[38:42] But the conversation did tract. Yeah, so it's interesting. And I think,
[38:45] like going back to what we were talking about in the beach volleyball segment,
[38:51] counselors have a tremendous opportunity to elevate these conversations. And you know who
[38:57] used to really be good at this was Reno talking about the process and publicizing
[39:04] the process and educating the public about the process as it was happening. That's
[39:08] something that I think is you know, Borderline did that more than than I've
[39:13] seen other counselors do it. The other the other one I wasn't in his
[39:19] wards, so I didn't get his newsletter. But Eric, because Marichik did
[39:22] a fair bit with that too, in terms of you know, publicizing his
[39:27] votes, talking about the reasoning and explaining his rationale, like those kind of
[39:31] those kind of things that kind of like meaningful substantive communication with the public.
[39:37] That has its place too, along with the like you know, with the
[39:40] fun stuff and the spray paint and the viet volleyball. That has a place
[39:44] too, And and I think too few do it. It's a good point
[39:47] that the counselors could do that make more of a point we talked about,
[39:51] how you know, you find out the thing is going to counsel when it's
[39:53] way too late. As the counselors could do a you know, could make
[39:58] that part of their role is to say to their on their award Facebook pages
[40:00] this we're talking about this here now and in October of twenty twenty three,
[40:05] it's going to be probably an issue at counsel in March of twenty twenty four.
[40:08] Come and talk to me about what you think about it, so that
[40:12] I can start to know what I need to be doing, and they could
[40:15] be doing more of that. And I don't follow the counselors very Facebook pages
[40:17] very close because Facebook seems to always think I need to see somebody's ad for
[40:22] two years ago, but you know, that is an option and to get
[40:25] onto their newsletters. I think that some are pretty happy not to have to
[40:30] do that kind of stuff because they can just skate by with the votes that
[40:34] they get and get elected and not have to worry about engaging whatsoever. Phoning
[40:39] it in as a you know, perfectly viable strategy if you have no shame.
[40:44] But I think the point of electing retired people was that they could be
[40:46] full time counsel. Though sometimes someone once said maybe that they were going to
[40:51] be a Bulton counselor Yeah, but that's not how they're going to use their
[40:53] full time. I'm full time. As long as there's like a cool party
[40:59] happening, right right, I'd love to go to that. Is it the
[41:01] same chicken? Though? I don't know, maybe not. I know you
[41:05] have to give a lot of speeches in here, account, you know,
[41:08] I don't know. Do we want to dive into the next conversation about ABC's
[41:12] I feel like we could almost probably instead wrap things up instead of diving into
[41:15] a whole other one. Sure, hey, why not, Let's let's just
[41:21] cut it here. This is a good conversation. I enjoyed it. Oh,
[41:23] I thought so too, alright, except for that one part where I
[41:25] went so far. Yeah, and you had to cut that out of buddy.
[41:30] You're you know, you're just trusting that I'm going to edit it so
[41:34] that the public does not know the depth of your depravity. You know what,
[41:37] that person knows what they did and why it was wrong, and they're
[41:43] lucky that it's being held back from public and where the light bulb landed.
[41:47] Where the light bulb landed, folks ro city politics. This was a fun
[41:52] one. Glad to be joined by Melinda Monroe, Doug star Tory, myself
[41:55] John Lidkey. We are in Bizex magazine, online everywhere, banned in some
[42:00] places, and able to broadcast live on tape thanks to the kind support of
[42:04] Leuna six two five Building Better Communities

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