Greetings, and welcome back to ZacCast, your official podcast for local government nerdery. Today, I hope that we, uh, really fulfill that. I kinda was, uh, thinking about it this morning, Patrick, if we're actually gonna get to this conversation.

Mm-hmm.

Kinda felt like Matt Damon at the end of Saving Private Ryan, when Tom Hanks is, like, dying on the bridge, and he's looking at him, and he just says, "Earn this." Like, today, we're gonna earn that badge of local government nerdery, so-

Yeah.

Uh, how you been, Pat?

I'm good. I feel like I've been avoiding this conversation. First off, I wanted everybody to know before we started this, I feel like you meditated there for a minute to kinda get in the, you know-

Get in the zone?

Get in the zone. And so I-

I thought for a minute about just actually starting it by saying hi to you-

No

... and then I was like, "No," 'cause I need to get that local government nerdery tagline in.

You gotta get it in?

Yeah.

I, I feel like you're really gonna be on your game, though, now, 'cause you're fully prepared for the moment.

I, I, I think... I hope so.

Absolutely.

I hope I am.

Well, so we're gonna talk about two things today on the podcast. We're gonna talk about, uh, the Scottie Scheffler incident, uh, from a city management perspective. I think this is gonna be a very interesting conversation. We've had a lot of offline conversation with the Zach team about the Scottie Scheffler incident. Uh, there's been, you know, different pieces of that. And then the second thing we're gonna talk about, which I have been avoiding like the plague, and Chad has been continuing to throw up, is... Chad, what, what's your official title? Progressivism?

No, it's the kind of problems that cities are.

The kind of problems that cities are. Okay, we're gonna talk about the difficulties that surround progressivism in city government. That's basically-

Not progressivism, the progressive movement specifically.

Uh, o- okay, the progressive movement.

A specific timeframe in which the way that we looked at cities changed.

Okay, so if you're looking for a good, uh, mellow, monotone voice and a nap, you can hang on for that conversation towards the end.

I'll do my best to add some-

I'm sorry, Chad. I'm sorry! I should have been better.

No, you're good. I'm gonna add some vocal fries-

Okay

... into the, uh, the conversation here so that we can, um, make it a little bit more NPR-ish.

Oh, that was-

Really put some people to sleep.

You actually did it very well, actually, right there.

Thank you.

That was... Thank you. Um, I do have to note that, um, so far in the regionals, uh, Texas is up, okay? So Texas softball did defeat the Aggie softball team and knock us out. Uh, but we-

Never any doubt

... we did make it hard on you, right, in a, in a very close game. We knocked you into the second bracket there, and, uh, you had to come back up to beat us again.

Yeah.

And so, you know, understandable.

To-

It's gonna be a little different-

But we-

... in baseball, though, Chad.

You wanna know what-

It's gonna be a little different

... my favorite joke?

You already started it. Oh, hold on. Timeout. Let's-

No, real quick, I, I... This is gonna be-

No, you never let me get to the good Aggie stuff.

This, I will wait you, I promise.

Okay.

This is gonna get out of context.

Okay.

My favorite Ted Lasso joke is he says something about, "That must be what that lady on The Office was always talking about."

Nice.

I, I, yeah, I, I was really just biting my tongue not to do a, "That's what she said," a minute ago.

Yes, you know what it's like being an Aggie and Ted Lasso fan is the believe sign has been torn up-

It's the whole thing for you

... like, 45 million times, and we just keep taping it together and putting it on the wall. That's Aggie fandom for you. But this time, we believe. We are the number three baseball team in the nation. Uh, we... I, I actually think we got a good draw. I think, uh, it's gonna be interesting. It's us, um... I can't remember who we're playing, but you guys are playing the Raging Cajuns in your first-round game, which could be a dangerous matchup. Uh, they're a pretty good little baseball team, so it should be, you know, interesting where, where things go.

Once you get to this point, everyone's good.

Eh, I mean, I'm not sure. I, I, I-

Everyone's, everyone's pretty good.

I, I mean, let's, let's be realistic.

I'm not saying everyone-

If you take-

... could win it. I'm saying once you get to this point, everyone's pretty good.

Yeah, and I don't wanna get too deep into this, 'cause not everybody loves the sports talk, but if you take Max Belu out of that lineup at Texas, I'm not sure Texas is very good. Just gonna go ahead and, and let's, let's go ahead and chalk up that NIL money he's gonna get at Texas University, I'm sure.

If you take Johnny Manziel off the 2011 Aggie team, they don't win crap.

So I actually don't disagree with that-

So, so what's the problem?

... because I'm a reasonable-minded individual.

So what... My point is, who cares?

I mean, just look at the Alabama game.

My point is, who cares?

Oh, I care.

Texas doesn't win against USC if without Vince Young, and we had him-

And I have plenty of text evidence-

... and we won. So who cares?

I have plenty of text evidence, hashtag receipts, that show that you care, 'cause anytime I bring it up, I probably get, like, 50 text messages back.

Well-

You like to dig me six feet deep.

I do like to dig you six feet deep because the point is, like, y- you just hear, "Poke me," and, "Poke me," and, "Poke me"-

I do

... I'm just like, "Guys, we have been to the College World Series 38 times. Every other year on average, we are in Omaha. If we don't make it this year, we'll probably be back next year. Like, the odds are pretty good we'll be back next year." Like, this is your chance.

This, this-

This is your year.

And I'm going to Omaha this year, right, for a baseball tournament. I'm gonna be there.

God, I hope we knock you out, and you have to go through and watch someone else play.

Man, I'm gonna be so bitter about it if that happens. I will be. But, uh, and then I do have to say, poor Maria. Uh, we just- she just happened to be on a text string that we started talking about sports, and-

Look, I gave her some Aggie love, right?

Uh-huh.

She just had some big news. I said... I gave her a whoop.

Yeah.

And then Patrick's like: "Oh, I got receipts now of Chad saying whoop." I was like, "I do that sometimes for, for you guys. I, I show you a little bit of love."

Are we allowed to share Maria's big news? We'll make that a surprise later.

Yeah, we'll let her-

Yeah, we'll let her share that.

handle her own business.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's awesome. You can check her LinkedIn and see if she's updated anything.

Not yet. It takes, it takes a little while.

Okay.

And then it, it'll pop up on LinkedIn.

Yeah.

There's still a process. Anyways, let's jump into Scottie Scheffler. So anybody who hasn't been-

Set the stage

... yeah, anybody who hasn't been living on planet Earth, because this has been the lead story on every news station for, you know, two weeks, I guess, at this point, right? Um, Scottie Scheffler going to a golf tournament in the rain in a lightning storm. There was a tragic event where somebody was struck and killed.... uh, pretty close to the entry of the Louisville Golf Course that they were playing the US Open at. Scottie Scheffler was-

US Open, or it probably doesn't matter, but the US Open or the PGA Championship?

Ah, sorry, PGA Championship, right?

I think so.

I don't know. I don't watch that much golf.

It's, it's kind of a... I'm sorry to-

Yeah

... jump in there.

It is what it is.

It's not what we're talking about.

Yeah. Okay. Anyways, he has a very early tee time. It's still dark outside. It's raining. Um, he pulls in. There's actually different video perspectives now, so the initial story was, is that he pulled in, an officer told him to stop. The officer basically jumped on his car as he continued, and he dragged the officer. That was the initial story. The officer wrote that up in reports. Uh, and, and I want everybody to know, we, we are talking about this not from an opinion standpoint. We're talking about this from a city management standpoint. So I'm gonna talk about all of the things as a city manager that went through my head when this occurred, right? Uh, and obviously, lots of text strings with friends that are city managers, and you guys, and our team, uh, and we're, we're kind of talking about the nightmare that occurred. So there are members of the press that are in the line that see this, so there are very quick initial reports that the officer's statement does not match the reporters-

Reality

... the, the, the reporters behind it. I mean, when I say reporters, literally the guys who were doing the broadcast, I think for CBS, were in the car behind him, right? Trying to get in. Uh, and it's really quick and initial, like, there's video of his arrest. The reporter actually gets out of the car and videos the officers. The officers are very heated. Um, it is a very tense moment on that video. Uh, you can get all of this on Twitter if you're gonna city nerd out on this because for me, the city nerd out was, what happened, what did we do, what did we do right, what did we do wrong? That's what I'm going through. So the video shows officers, multiple officers, basically stating to the reporters, "Get back in your car," or, "Get out of the way. I'm going to arrest you. If you don't get out of the way, I'm going to arrest you." They notify the officers that they're credentialed press. The officers still tell them to get out of the way but then start treating them differently in the video. That's, that was something that I noticed as well. "Hey, I need you to get..." It, it gets calmer. Once it- once they figure out that the press is watching, things get a little calmer. Um, the officer then gets transported to the hospital for a scrape on his leg and a ripped pair of pants. I think they were $80 pants.

$80.

Yes, this is, this is what took off on Twitter, right, was the $80 pants. Um, Scottie Scheffler gets arrested. The thing that was extremely telling to me is he was arrested for felony assault of an officer and failure to, uh, to heed command, basically, and he's released before his tee time, right? So he goes, he gets in. He's released even before his tee time. I want to stop there before we get any other information, and I want to talk about what our initial thoughts were just on that piece of information that we had on the initial arrest. 'Cause this is all happening in the morning. I, I think it happens at, like, 7:00 o'clock in the morning, right? Like, really early.

Yeah, Eastern Time-

Eastern Time

... so it's, like, before anyone wakes up.

Yeah, correct, so-

Uh, like, over here, 'cause I'm fully asleep.

But you and I, you and I wake up and, um, you know, I- that's when I start checking the news because we're doing our NewsZac news stuff, right? And so a lot of times I jump on my app, and I start checking the news early in the morning. I usually spend about 30 minutes in the morning doing that, and I, I text everybody. I'm like, "Hey, have you seen this?" And obviously, Doug is, like, a huge golf guy, so Doug is, like, all over the Scottie Scheffler stuff. So your initial response?

Okay, so my initial response to him being booked and then released?

Yes.

Well, I mean, there's, I guess, a couple ways you could look at it, right? He's the number one golfer in the world.

Correct.

Um, there's already conflicting reports coming out on social media about what happened. Um, most likely, there was some degree of oopsies-

Mm-hmm

... like, going on internally, uh, and that they're gonna have a PR nightmare on their hands coming up. And so, like, how can we kind of mitigate that a little bit? Like, it- it- you can't... Based on what happened, like, you're not gonna be able to keep him in jail and make him miss his second round. Um, but the truth is, if it was actually as serious as the charges, then, you know, him being the number one golfer heading to the PGA Championship shouldn't have mattered. So to me, it's kind of a, an immediate red flag about something's a little bit fishy here.

Okay. I would agree with that. There was a... It- the immediate red flag for me was the officer on the scene's reaction to the press, right? That, that to me was, uh, as a city manager, this is an audit moment of what just occurred, right? Um, I need to say that Louisville, Kentucky, does not have a city manager. I think it's extremely important for everybody to understand here that, uh, this is a strong mayor form of government, mayor council. I think that plays a role in what happens down the road here. Uh, and now-

Probably worth noting that Louisville's had other issues-

They've had significant other issues

... very, very high-profile issues-

Yes

... in the past.

Um, in, in policing, and so my initial reaction to this was, since we're talking movie scenes, uh, my initial reaction is the scene from Hangover when he finally has to pick up the phone and call the fiancée, right?

"We messed up."

We'll say, "messed up." That's not actually what he says in the movie, but he's like, "Uh, so we, we messed up." You know, so I- that was my initial reaction, and my other reaction was, "Man, I hope there's not a city manager sitting in Louisville because, wow, what a mess you're gonna have to clean up right here." Regardless of, of anything else that happens-... there are so many different factors that were occurring that morning, uh, and there were just so many mistakes made. And then we find out very quickly, the mayor does a press conference, he gets released. We figure out very quickly that the officer did not engage his body cam footage. Okay, I actually did a research ... Once again, city manager brain, I actually did some research to say, "What do they wear as body cams?" Right? 'Cause in the videos, there are lights flashing-

Mm-hmm

... in the background, and anybody who's in the business who wants to nerd out with me here for a second knows if those are Axon cameras, all those cameras are actually engaged by the lights on the vehicles. So if you're within so many feet of a vehicle, and those lights are on, all cameras within that area are automatically engaged to record. Uh, and that was something that they came out with, obviously, because officers were not engaging their cameras, or they would forget to engage their cameras. Um, and in police departments that are not, um, what we'd say in Texas, like, 143 cities, um, the penalties for not engaging a camera are typically very severe, uh, because it's, you know, it's a check or balance, and it creates a lot of liability when the camera's not engaged. But my nerdery was, "What do they use?" And they, they use Axon cameras, at least I could find some evidence that they use Axon cameras. And then not only that, um, so if that's the case, and I'm kind of getting out on a limb here, but I'm just saying it out loud, if that's the case, it wasn't that he engaged it, it's that he actually had to turn it off at some point, which may have happened while he was working traffic. But they had an accident where somebody was fatally killed, right? And this officer was working traffic due to that accident, and he disengaged his body cam footage.

So the, the ... I've heard the reporting, and I believe this came straight from that officer-

Mm-hmm

... that, like, um, the reason that it was not engaged is because he was called in earlier because of this accident, and he hadn't charged his camera. Which I guess maybe he was gonna charge it fully in the hour that he missed by coming in an hour early. I don't know.

Yeah.

But that was, that, that's a report that I have read.

So I, I read that report as well, right? Um, officers don't take their body cameras home, and why do they not take their body cameras home?

'Cause they'll forget them.

Well-

They don't charge them

... because they get, they get docked.

They, they also- and overnight, too, they upload the videos, and they're-

They, they upload the videos-

Yeah

... and they get docked, right? So to me, like, dude, there was just red flags screaming, right? Um, what also was a screaming red flag to me from just, like, an SOP standpoint was the officer claimed that he had to jump on the vehicle and got drug, right? Clearly a violation of any type of policing SOP.

Mm-hmm.

Right? So for, for me-

That's, that's not a de-escalation tactic-

It is not, it, it-

... when someone's driving five miles an hour through traffic to get into a golf course.

Correct. In today's world of policing, that's a big no-no, right? It's a big liability no-no. 'Cause, I mean, ultimately, what's that individual gonna do at that point? Like, you know, and, and then the other side of that is if you're c- if you're claiming that the vehicle is a, a weapon, a deadly weapon, which gets claimed a lot, right, by police departments. You ... If, if you look at Force Institute and the things that they talk about about vehicles ... You know, we had an incident as city managers where we had to deal with one of those as well. Um, but the, the reality of it is, is, like, why would you jump on the deadly vehicle? I, I just- and, and that's... I, I'm taking words from a former police chief that would say that, "This is why we don't do that." Uh, but ... Okay, so then we find out the body cam's not engaged. Then a couple of days passes, and it's- dude, it's like the, it's the worst PR disaster for Louisville because they start trickling out information, right? Instead of just releasing everything. Um, and I go, I go back to an MPA conference we had at UNT, and we always have these good speakers and things that go on, but there was a- there was one MPA conference, I don't know if you remember it, but they had somebody who came in who did PR after police incidents. And it was, "Get out there early, give a statement, like, a recorded statement, and then release everything you possibly can." It's basically what came out of that conversation. Well, Louisville doesn't do that. They just release stuff that is clearly inf- you know, not detrimental to the case, but also not ... But it, it was just weird. Like, it felt like the information that was being released was not fully disclosed, okay? So they release a pole camera video, and in the pole camera video, you can see the officer approach Scotty Scheffler's car, and in that video, there's no officer getting dragged at any point. And so then officials from the officer's point of view, or, like, the union or whoever's, you know, the Police Officer Association, then goes even deeper and says, "Well, it- you just can't see it in that video." It's like, wow, guys, okay, I see. But you can ... W- The thing you can see in that video, and I, I think you actually were the one who pointed this out first, is you can see the reaction of the officer when he believes his command, which is very quick, it's very dark, but you can see the initial reaction of the officer just escalate the situation, I mean, immediately.

He goes straight to 11-

He sh-

... in that video.

Right. He's red, right? You can tell. He's right in there, window opens, you can kind of see an arm in.

Well, he jumps up and, like, hits the car with something-

Well-

... whether it's his arm or, like-

Yeah

... a clipboard, I don't know. But he, like, jumps up in the air-

Correct

... and then comes down swinging, and then he goes, yeah, into the, either the door or the window. It's kind of hard to tell 'cause it's far away and dark, but-

Correct. And there's still a gate, by the way, to get into this facility, so, like, there's no word. It, it, it's madness what occurred.... So then that video comes out. Well, then Louisville really gets lit up, right? Like, at that point, it's, "Hey, it looks like this officer overreacted." The officer's getting torn up, you know, and not to take a side here, but at this point I'm thinking, rightfully so. And I send a text to everybody, and I'm like, "Hey, this is gonna get dismissed." And then t- I think it was this morning or yesterday, I can't remember-

Yeah, uh, I'm gonna push back on that a little bit.

Okay.

It was yesterday. It did get dismissed, but it got dismissed, my understanding, is through a mutual agreement.

Yes, because they don't wanna get sued.

Where they don't wanna get sued. And, and my, my one opinion on this is, like, I am in awe of Scottie Scheffler's sort of humility or grace in this scenario. I would not have been so graceful.

Okay, so hol- hold on. I, I wanna get to that, 'cause that's, like, my final point on this, right?

Mm-hmm.

But ultimately, it gets dismissed by fi- by a mutual agreement, and then in that same time period, another video leaks out, and it is a body cam footage video from another police officer that is interviewing Scottie Scheffler in the vehicle, right? And so you get a fully disclosed story from Scottie Scheffler about what he believes occurred, right, at the point of the incident, after he's already been read his rights, after he's already in a car and in handcuffs, right?

Which, by the way, don't do that, guys.

Yes. Um, we-

'Cause in the video, he, the officer is kind of leading him-

100%, yeah

... to a specific, uh, answer, right?

Correct.

He's like, it's not just like a neutral conversation about, "Hey, what happened? Okay, I... You know, we'll just take you at your word." It's like, "I'm trying to, to push you into a specific type of answer, because that's gonna help us in this case."

Correct. I, I just-

So don't, don't talk to police if you if you get arrested.

I, I, I will say this. Er, I have lots of family members that are both local police officers and federal officers, and they will tell you, "Just, just, you know, tell them you want to remain silent." And at that point, if they continue to ask questions, then some of that stuff can get thrown out. But the reality is, you just need to, you need to explain to them that you do not wanna talk. Uh, you wanna talk to your attorney, you don't wanna talk. Um, because I think, I think the one thing that comes out of this is, is, you know, anybody could make a mistake, no matter who you are, what your gender is, or what the color of your skin is, right? Anybody can make a mistake. Get there, which gets me to my final point. I don't like the agreed order, and the reason I don't like the agreed order is because Scottie Scheffler is a guy with means, and ability, and status, and you don't clean up what's going on in Louisville, Kentucky, if you do an agreed order, right? I don't like the fact that the police officer only got a written reprimand for not turning on his body cam-

Yeah

... or charging his body cam.

In the press release, they say he was, uh, he was counseled by his superior.

Correct. Yes, and, and I think, you know, personally for me... Let me say this differently. As a city manager, and I say again, Louisville, Kentucky, is a strong mayor form of government, which in my opinion, is why the PR disaster occurred after this. Because nobody was willing to hold the police department accountable, because it, it was votes, and endorsements, and everything else that happened. Just a terrible system for holding accountability there. And I do believe if you had a solid city manager with solid backbone and good morals, they would've an- they would've gone after this strong. But because Scottie Scheffler stepped away from it and said, "I just want to get it past me..." And I get it. Look, he's got a kid, all that type of stuff. But the reality is, is there is not a jury in the world that would've convicted Scottie Scheffler of assaulting a police officer by looking at those videos. And somebody needs to hold Louisville, Kentucky, accountable. It, it has to happen at the end of the day. It, it's... And now they just get to walk away, and this union gets to protect this police officer, and he's still walking the street. By the way, he lied in a government document and said he was drugged, and he still has a job. I, I, I do not understand that. I do not understand how this individual is still working the streets of Louisville, Kentucky, when it's clear as day that he's violated the public trust. And we do this to ourselves within city government. When we allow things like this to happen, when we allow these shields to occur between politics, and unions, and everybody else that gets involved in this, this is the situation that happens. An officer feels so empowered to go from 0 to 11, because somebody doesn't see his hand signal and doesn't even understand that he's a police officer, 'cause it's fully dark outside, and he's got a flashlight waved in the eye, right?

Yeah, he wasn't in uniform either, 'cause he was a detective.

Yeah, he's a detective.

Right, he's not, you know, like a patrol officer.

He- Scottie, in the interview, and the body cam footage g- got leaked out yesterday, in the interview says, "I thought it was a security guard, and he just didn't know that I was credentialed." Guys, so I'm... I, I'm actually, like, really upset at the, the city's function through this process. I'm really upset, and I hope that something more occurs. I doubt it will, you know, because I think everybody here was trying to salvage their relationship with the police department and the police union. But I'm also highly disappointed in Scottie Scheffler. I, I, I am. So I think it is very important to hold public officials accountable, whether that's me or anybody else. I, I feel like it is extremely important to hold people accountable, and if we don't hold people accountable, we lose the sense of trust, and if we lose the sense of trust-

It's game over.

It's- it is game over. Um-

Yeah.

And so-

I think that is doubly important when it comes to law enforcement.

100%.

Because the, the power that they have, that we grant them-... is disproportionate.

The power to say that Scotty Scheffler physically assaulted you as an officer on a felony count when it is clear as day now from the evidence that that never occurred, right? And if, if you say, "Well, you know, it, it happened here or there," look, they would have never had an agreed order at the end of the day to get out of this thing if they thought they had the evidence and the witnesses to show that this officer was drugged. Would never occur. And even if he was, why was he jumping on the car to begin with? That's the que- I mean, this is a dream for Dick Deguerin, right? I mean, it's a dream case. I just-- I don't know. That's, that's my two cents.

There's another element, too, though, because-

Sad

... not only did he get arrested, but the DA was gonna charge him and prosecute him, right? So, like, we've had this conversation before on this podcast, I think, that there really probably should be more separation between the, the frontline law enforcement and then the backend legal aspect of it, the prosecution. I think there needs to be-

Yeah

... a lot more skepticism and a lot less collaboration between the two. Uh, and this is one example, because, like, a DA should have been able to also look at this and say, "This isn't worth prosecuting." But there's something in there in the water that's connecting those two pieces together, and when, when you don't have any kind of-- when it's not acting as a check and balance, then you run into situations like this, too.

Oh, just follow the money, right? Like, legitimately just follow the money. If, if you look at a DA in a political race, go look at who the major sponsor of that DA's golf tournament political fundraiser is. I mean, that's, that's the world we live in, and because of that, we put ourselves in a situation where politics overlap actual behaviours, and that's what we see here in Louisville. And we just... Man, at the end of the day, we just have to hold people more accountable than what we do, and Scotty Scheffler had an opportunity, though. That's, that's the point that re- it really disappoints me. I'm not surprised by Louisville, Kentucky continuing Dennis Road. And I would tell people, "Hey, if you wanna change Louisville, Kentucky, because you've had multiple bad policing incidents at this point, I mean, really bad incidents at this point, if you wanna change it, go and get your charter changed. Become a city manager form of government, and also, put a third-party, um, internal audit division together in that charter as well. Somebody who can't be controlled by the politics, somebody who is independent, because ultimately, this is gonna continue to occur because your political setup creates this." I mean, that's, that's the point that I really wanna strike home as hard as I can. Everything there is politically set up to protect and not to identify and fix. So all right, you ready for your nerdy conversation?

Sure.

All right, let's roll.

Okay. So Patrick, uh, this is my second year now teaching this, this graduate course at UNT-

Yes

... on Economic and Community Development.

Professor Janousek.

No, please don't call me that. Um, so in the course of prepping this, I've had a lot of opportunity to just sort of think through some fundamental questions-

Okay

... with regard to city management. And I think it was actually, um, I think it was actually a book called Movement, written by two, two Dutch people. One is, like, a journalist, and one is a-- I don't know that he even really wrote it. He's more of an academic. He, he studies, like, transportation issues.

Okay.

And so at some point in this book, I tried to find it this morning, I couldn't find it, there's this offhand reference to how, like, architecture and city planning used to be located in their universities in, like, the sociology/anthropology departments. Just thinking about that really kind of clicked with a lot of, a lot of other things. So what I have been thinking about and talking to, and really, honestly, if I could kinda sum up the whole premise behind this class that I'm teaching, it's really that the progressive movement, like, the instigator behind the public administration discipline, really, really screwed the pooch. And so I thought maybe we'd just chat a little bit about, about that. Um-

Okay.

So if you want, I can kinda set the stage here-

Yeah

... and then we can go from there. Okay.

Yeah. I think you need to talk about who screwed the pooch first.

Okay. Public admin or, you know, Public Admin 101, in our case, uh, PATM 5010-

Yep

... starts with the professionalisation of city management, right? We have all these problems with patronage, with corruption, you know, yada, yada, yada. Enter the progressive movement, and that kinda is the basis for our field, right? Um, at the, at the same time, you have Taylorism, scientific management. Uh, you know, we're using scientific, rational methods and statistics to improve the efficiency of, of business operations, of manufacturing operations, right? Um, and we talk about things like Six Sigma. We've talked about Six Sigma in public administration, right? So, like, all of these kinds of things have infiltrated their way into p- uh, public administration, standardised and professionalised the industry, and there have been a lot of good things come from it, one of which is what we have just been talking about, right? The, the need for professional management and professional ethics beyond just political management. So I think there's plenty of good things, but the big, fundamental shift that occurred happened in the way that we actually view cities at this time. That's why I mentioned that it... like, the title would be The Kind of Problem Cities Are. So that actually comes from, uh, Death and Life of Great American Cities. It's the final chapter of Jane Jacobs' book. That's the title of it, "The Kind of Problem a City Is."... Around the time that she is writing this book, in the late '50s, early '60s, there's this new sort of field of science called complexity theory, complexity science, and there's a guy named Warren Weaver, he's wrote a- he wrote a paper where he kinda describes two different types of complexity problems: uh, disorganized complexity and organized complexity, okay? Problems that are, uh, identified as disorganized complexity are ones where you have lots of data points, lots of things that are interacting, but they're independent, so you have lots of independent variables, okay? These kinds of things you can really study and understand through statistical methods and, and, you know, like, all of the Stats 101, Stats 102 or 201, whatever. All of those sort of scientific statistical methods, those are really good for understanding disorganized complexity problems. Problems of organized complexity are problems where you actually have the, the- they're not independent variables, right? So all of the pieces in this problem are working together, uh, interacting with each other, causing, uh, emergent properties to emerge, if I can be redundant, um, in ways that you can't really understand ahead of time. Like, so these statistical methods do not work on problems of organized complexity, which is the exact kind of problem that a city is, right? It is a complex, adaptive system. It's human habitat.

Mm-hmm.

So all of these pieces are working together. In the meantime, we have built our entire management system designed around problem- like, a- analyzing cities as if they are problems of disorganized complexity, right? Zoning, in particular, came about in the early 1900s when cities were facing massive population growth because of the Industrial Revolution. So you have, like, the city of New York, I think it increased by 300% over a generation. This is an insane amount of growth that s- no one was prepared for, and so naturally, a lot of problems came with it: overcrowding, uh, public health issues, um, crime, disease, all kinds of things, right? And so we have this new concept of scientific management. Let's utilize it. And so what do we do? We start to, uh, plan for growth and organize growth based on separating uses and using our rational brains to organize how the city should be constructed, and that way, we can kind of avoid all of these problems. Um, we did the same thing in the housing market during the Depression.

Mm-hmm.

We've done the same thing in the architecture field with, like, the modern architecture movement is pretty much all about, like, separating functional uses and, and, and removing ornamentation from buildings so that they're, they're more about just the function of them than about, like, what they say about the, the place where they are located, right? They're not like part of a place. It's just a functional use. Um, things like parking requirements, right? Like scientific formulas for how many parking spaces, uh, a bar should have versus a nail salon. Urban renewal is very similar in, in terms of how it viewed the city, right? We have, we have slums, and we have, uh, blighted areas, so we're gonna raze them, and we're gonna put in these sort of towers in the park, and this, this is gonna solve all these problems, and then it didn't solve the problems.

Mm.

In many cases, it made them worse. And then, like in St. Louis, with Pruitt-Igoe, that was had to be demolished in, like, a decade, right?

Yeah.

So this is the world that Jane Jacobs is writing in. Um, but really, it, it hasn't gotten a whole lot better until just recently. But what happens is, or what happened is, we made this fundamental shift in how we view cities, and then about 50 years later, we realized that there are all these problems, but this whole world that we had built up, it had no tools in the toolbox left to actually address these problems. And so I think we're only really now coming around to thinking about them in, um, in a different way and realizing that cities are actually not, um, just mechanical systems that you can tinker around with and, and reason through. Like, they actually have emergent properties and, um, and really need to be looked at differently. The, the people that I have read who seem to understand cities best don't look at them from a very high level. They look at them at the ground level and then build up a framework of how things will work well and how things will work poorly. There's a whole documentary that was produced, I think, in the '80s maybe, I don't remember. Um, but it was, uh, made by the Project for Public Spaces, which was led by, uh, Holly Whyte. Um, he was a fascinating character in the, like, urbanism, the history of, of American urbanism. Um, but they, they took a bunch of sociology students, and they just videotaped New York parks for months on end and just studied: Why do people use this park more than that park? Why do they use this area more than this area? What about this feature versus that feature? And they really put together, like, a, a whole framework for how public space is used that is not like a high-level, um, analysis of it, where we can just kind of assume that people are cogs in a wheel, and they're... If I put a park here, they're gonna use it. It's actually looking at the psychology of how people view this space and how, how it matters and how it's involved in their daily lives. So anyway, that's kind of just been on my mind 'cause I'm starting this class again, and I figured it might be an interesting little topic here.

I think it's extremely interesting. I, I think the one thing that you actually bring up there that is... The fact that planning, urban planning from, like, an origin standpoint was really more in like a sociology, psychology field, right? Like, more in what I would consider like a soft science and not in like a, a hard, provable, you know, science from that standpoint. More about feelings than it was about, I mean, for lack of a better term, like data. Um-... I think that's a really interesting point, because I, I think it's something that we- and we talk about it all the time. You can't moneyball city government, right? You just- there, there are things that happen in city government. It's like a living, breathing organism, your city is, and if you try to do too much to moneyball it, like, you'll kill it at the end of the day. Um, I think zoning came around because, you know, they didn't want a coal-fired power plant next to a residential neighborhood, or, you know, they didn't want the trash dump in the middle of the city, or, you know, whatever that may be, right? There are lots of different terms that are there, but I think zoning came around... I would say, and I know you've read a lot of the Jane Jacobs stuff, and I've read a little bit of the Jane Jacobs stuff, 'cause you send me those books in the mail and try to get me to read them, but I think zoning started from a good spot, and I think zoning-

I think a lot of these things started from a good spot.

Correct. And I think zoning has really been overtaken by more of a NIMBYism, right? It's a, "I wanna keep people away," or I wanna y- for lack of a better term, "I wanna keep things away. I want everything to look very like what I like," right?

Yeah. So, uh, there are, I think, are examples of where zoning was instituted for good reasons, and then there are also examples where it was not. Like Berkeley, California's zoning was pretty much explicitly designed for racial seg- segregation-

Yeah

... economic segregation.

Yeah, historic parts of Houston, Texas, are that way, too. Still have actual deed restrictions that point out-

Mm

... the racial segregation, uh, in, in the initial development of those subdivisions. Um, and, and Houston, you know, hasn't even had zoning, right? So, um, you can really get the intent there, because they put it into an actual written deed restriction in the subdivision. Um, but I think it's extremely interesting to really talk in depth about the feel of a city, the life and breath of a city, and, like, how things develop and the livability of that area. It's very easy... The drug of city government is sprawl, right? 'Cause sprawl just is simple. It's green space, it's... I take a waterline to it, I take a sewer. It's like playing SimCity. If I put a waterline, sewer line down there, and it's raw property, then the market just fluctuates and goes, right? Just moves. It's very difficult to look at older square footages that are actually making you more money and costing you less expense, and trying to redevelop those from maybe the one-story, small neighborhood into a redeveloped community, right? Or what- whatever steps in the development process those are in. That's a much more difficult thing to do, because it takes a lot more time. Um, and it takes a more integrated staff to really see what's occurring within those subdivisions. I think a lot of what we do in cities is we don't really know what's occurring in the market. We, we, we can't see, 'cause it's so big. This is- this goes all the way back to my conversation of sometimes cities are just too large, uh, because it's... You can't, you can't grapple with what's occurring in the community. Not saying that there's not a scale issue in cities, like, that you can't have some economies of scale. You can, especially when you're in utilities. There's no doubt, utilities scale better than anything. But I think the, the important thing on this is, when, when I look at knowing an individual neighborhood or individual community that was built 50, 60 years ago, and understanding and maintaining that community to get a specific level of standard, or adding amenities to it, or adding livability items to it, and I think that's the key term. We don't really focus on livability. We focus on the building permit numbers, right? So that's the-

Yeah, I mean, we don't even really do a lot in s- You think of, like, a master-planned subdivision.

Mm-hmm.

So we're gonna have a requirement for, like, collectors, and those are gonna feed to the arterials, right? But, like, inside that, we don't do a whole lot of requiring of, like, how those streets are gonna work together, and how they're going to create, like, the, the actual public realm in that neighborhood. Like, our thoroughfare planning is extr- is completely limited to just thoroughfares, right? Like, we, we create these boxes, and that's where the development's gonna go, but then the developer gets to just kinda choose how that works.

Well, we treat-

Like, how they're gonna maximize their, um, return.

Yeah, we treat roads like waterlines, right? Like, "I need you to build so much capacity in this road, and then this capacity can now handle this subdivision," instead of we don't build self-sufficient developments, like cities within cities. We should be building cities within cities, right? I'm not saying that you can't live on an acre. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that there should be some mix of uses to make all that sustainable, and livable. You should be able to do at least a couple of the standard items in life, right? You should be able to live, eat, work, get neighborhood services. Like, there should be kind of a checklist, and you should be able to, like, check off a substantial number of those boxes. You may not be able to work there, right? But you should be able to check off a substantial amount of those boxes. Um, and in most of our communities, especially in Texas, in most of our communities, you can't check off more than two, right? I mean, I can tell you, in my neighborhood personally, I can't check off more than two. So-

Yeah. T- to me, I think the biggest question, or the bigger question, or maybe even just the more interesting question, is, like, you can tinker around the edges of all these things, and you can-... you can, the, a lot of these things are just tools, and maybe you can use them in better ways than we're using them. The bigger question is, if we're looking at cities the wrong way, I'm not sure it matters all that much.

Why?

Because if we're not... 'Cause we're answering the wrong questions.

So what questions should we be answering?

Well, Jan Gehl argues - he's a Danish architect - he argues that the battle for quality in city life is at the small scale, and I think there's a lot of value in, in that idea. Because we're- we look really, uh, at, at a high level at how things are going in our cities. But people don't live their lives at the high level, they live their lives at the small scale. And so if we're not actually addressing those problems, we're not really helping them as much as we could be, if we're helping them at all. Um, and so the, like, the biggest thing that I think about this paradigm shift that occurred 100-ish years ago, is in some ways we have, we have so narrowed what it means to build a city, uh, like, just narrowed the scope of it to where, like, we're, we're, we're trying to, what, decide, like, what percentage of land should be used for X, Y, or Z over the next 20 years. Like, that seems like a much broader view of a city's role in our development, but we're, we're not focusing on the things that actually make a place a place, right?

Mm-hmm.

So, like, that's why I say I think it's the wrong question that we're trying to answer with, with how we approach cities. Because in practice, we end up spending a lot of our energy thinking about things like, "No, I'm sorry, you can't, you can't sell tacos at this location. You can only sell sandwiches," or, you know, "You have to have X number of parking spaces for this use," or, uh, "this level of setback," or whatever. These are just really small questions, and they don't really focus at all on, like, the public realm and how people are actually living in our cities. I, I don't know. I just, I feel like it's worth a revisiting. And that's ki- I think... That's kind of like I said, the, the central premise of, of how I'm teaching this course. I'm not coming outright and saying, like, "The progressive movement screwed the pooch," or really, you know, caused all these problems. I'm trying to leave that more-

You're just saying we've been on this tr-

Trying to structure the-

... we've been on this train for so long, and why aren't we at least questioning the train?

Well, it's not even just, like, a question everything type of thing. It's like we used to build cities in one way, and then we, we used to build cities in one way, and then we came into these problems, and we changed the paradigm. And now we have also a bunch of problems. So let's look at what used to work and what's working now, and, like, try to find some path forward. But let's do that in a way that actually recognizes the kind of cities, kind of problems that cities are. Um, and st- we're, we're not gonna be able to reason through how everything is working and how everything fits together. The beauty of cities is that you can... They have these emergent properties. You bring people in of different backgrounds, different lifestyles, you know, different histories, different knowledge bases, and you put them together, and they create more than the sum of the parts.

Yeah.

But when we separate everything out, like, this price point of house goes here, and that price point of house goes there, like, we don't even have any ki- any kind of mingling anymore. So I don't know. I, I, just, it's just been on my mind a lot over the past year or two, that... And whe- whether it takes the form of, like, the Moneyball question or just my general antipathy towards zoning and how I've, I've always kinda felt like it was wrong-headed, um, I thi- I think I'm finally kind of building a framework for why that is, and so I'd just like to talk about it.

I, I think it's a r- really good conversation to talk openly about, right? Um, you talk about looking at cities from, like, the street level. I'm just not sure we do a really good job of that in general.

We don't. Our processes are not geared to that.

Correct.

And that's what I'm saying. Our processes are geared for a different question. And not only that, it's been like that for a long time. We're taught that.

Yes. We are 100% we're taught that. Um, I think there are some good cities out there, though, that do it differently. I, I, I'm not saying that all cities have grown terribly. I think there are some good cities out there that do it differently. Even cities that would be suburban in nature or car-centric, right? 'Cause I think this kinda gets chalked up to, we've just built too much of a car-centric community, and that's what a lot of people go to. When I get a-

I think it's a bigger question than that.

I do, too. I f- I feel like it's a much bigger qu- bigger question than that. Um, I don't know if there's, like, a single measurement, though, to figure out, like, the social side of where people are.

Yeah, you're falling into the trap, though.

What do you mean?

There isn't a single measure.

There is not. I don't think there is. That's what I was saying.

Yeah.

So-

But even, like, even postulating that there could be.

But I think we do surveys of cities, and now, like, cities do this, uh, I can't remember what the name of the product is called, but there's this product out there that just, like, constantly surveys-

ZinCity?

... ZinCity. And, like, we rely on... It, it's like we have, like, a presidential approval rating as a city, right? It's just a constantly moving number on how people feel about the job that you're doing, and so we react to that job instead of... And I'm just not sure that really measures how people feel about their community. Um, I think there are other measurements there. I think you can look at longevity of residents. You can look at health of residents. You know, we talk about blue zones and things like that. Like, there are-... there are just so many different moving parts and aspects of what makes a healthy community, I think it's very difficult to chalk it up to just one measure.

Uh, no, I would agree. I think the biggest-

Which is why it should be a softer science. That's kind of the point I'm making.

Yeah. I think, I think probably one of the biggest indicators that you could have of having a strong community is can they solve problems themselves? Like, not only are they capable of it, but are they empowered to solve problems by themselves?

A little more depth to that?

Do we have- do we prevent, through various policies and regulations, the ability of communities to solve their own problems?

Okay.

Okay.

So do we red tape our way out of solving actual problems?

Yeah.

Okay.

If a community can solve its own problem, then they don't have to come to the city for a solution.

Mm-hmm.

Right? That's a city that can adapt over time, that can change with the winds when, when necessary, right? That can, that can build trust within itself.

So you're saying our systems and our red tape prevent that from occurring in a lot of communities?

Yeah, but I don't wanna get too, like... I, I don't wanna get too bogged down on, on the regulation. I think it's, I think it's more of a mindset question.

Okay.

If... And honestly, this is one where- one area where I think Strong Towns has a really good mental model with their, like, small strike teams. Right, so they have, uh, or they recommend bringing in people from different departments across the city, and having them actually, like, walk, uh, very... Like, be responsible for a small area.

Mm-hmm.

Talk to people and residents, and see what their problems are, and then help them f- help them learn how to fix those problems. And sometimes we have to do things, like, if it's, you know, tree trimming so people can walk, uh, on the sidewalk, or if it's sidewalk repair or crosswalk painting. Like, some things are gonna be city functions. Um, but if we can do those kinds of small projects and actually improve the quality of life, then it em- can empower the residents in that area to look for other ways where they can solve those problems, too, right? It's gonna build trust within that area. And helping the, like, the livability of that, that place, it's not easy to do that at scale, but it's not easy to fix a city at scale, regardless of w- how you're doing it.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

And if you're trying to do it in a mechanistic way, then you're gonna run into more problems than if you're actually focusing on the small scale.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Okay. I, I mean, I, uh, w- we're not gonna solve all the world's problems right now, right? But that, that's, that's kind of a lot to chew on. So I, I don't know how you sleep at night with all those things running through your head all the time.

Man, I sleep, I sleep pretty well. The other day... So I have these headphones, like, this, the sleep mask with headphones-

Uh-huh

... so I can listen to, uh, podcasts while I go to bed, 'cause otherwise my brain will just churn, and I won't be able to fall asleep. I used to sleep with the TV on, I did that my whole life, but the light has started to kinda irritate us, uh, me and my wife. So she got me these headphone mask things, uh, for Christmas a couple years ago, and it's wonderful. But a couple of days ago, um, I wanted to watch a little, like, a three-minute video on Twitter before I turned on my, my podcast, and I woke up the next morning with it playing on a loop. Like, I didn't even last three minutes. It was wonderful.

It's fantastic. Well, that's all we have. Um, are we gonna be back in two weeks, or are we gonna have... I think I'm in town two weeks from now.

Yeah. You'll be in Omaha, I'll be in Orlando.

Mm-hmm.

So it may be, we may push a week, or we may just skip. It's gonna be also tougher, uh, in the summer.

Yeah.

So we will be back as soon as we can.

Yeah, correct. I, I don't think it's gonna be like last summer, where we take like three months off.

Oh, God.

We're gonna get something done, at least in July. So, uh, we're gonna be back to chitchat. It's a tough budget season, uh-

Mm-hmm

... for a lot of folks, so-

Yeah

... uh, we-

We've done a lot of sales tax forecast, and those numbers are not anywhere near as rosy as they were a couple years ago.

That's correct. And, uh, in fact, we kinda got so busy that Chad told me to c- stop calling people. So if you're a client, and you hadn't heard from me for a little while, it's because two weeks ago Chad said, "Uh, bandwidth," but-

I can't take anymore

... bandwidth. Yeah, so, uh, but we've, we've been fairly busy. We've got a couple of projects that we're gonna be doing, too, that I think are gonna be pretty cool. One of those, if the city goes through with it, I actually want to kinda talk about as we do it. I think that would be pretty cool, uh, 'cause I think it's gonna be a pretty cool project. Um, and it's- it would kinda, like, tie into us building almost, like, a new, uh, a little bit more, like, strategically built for each community software platform, and I think that would be pretty cool to talk about. So, uh, we're still, like, in the pitch phase, and, like, working through that, but one of our really creative cities, um, and, uh, and communities that we've worked with for years is pretty interested in this. So if we get that, I really... I even told Chad this before we talked about it, but I'd really like to talk through, like, what we're doing as we do it, uh, and kinda give people insights into our entire process. Um, you know, uh, we get asked by clients all the time, like, "You know, how do you come up with this or that?" Or, you know, those type of things. I think it would be cool to, like, really talk that through and, and put that into the podcast. So almost like Wall Street Journal does when they do, like, the special stuff. You know, they do, like, the, the trial for what's his name, and all that. There was also one thing I wanted to get to today, uh, and I just wanna ask you the question. So Scott Peterson is appealing, uh, his verdict, right? And I believe the Innocence Project is working for him on this, the, to check the DNA of, like, a-

Really?

... yeah, of, like, a, a mattress that was found in a burned-out vehicle. I just wanna know from you, 'cause my wife and I have this debate, do you think Scott Peterson was guilty or innocent?

I think he was guilty.

Okay. Okay. So I personally think there was not necessarily enough evidence to convict him.... I, I don't know if he was innocent.

It has been many, many years since I've-

Yes

... watched any kind of story about that.

Yeah.

But, um, I recall at the time, my, my view was that he was guilty.

Okay, so that's another thing I wanna come back to at a future point, so-

Yeah

I, I, that's-

Uh, it's always... That's an in- that's an interesting question, 'cause, like, you listen to the Serial podcast, right?

I do, yeah.

The first season?

I did.

S- yeah, so that was one of those scenarios where it's like, well, he, he might have done it. I don't really know for sure, but I didn't think that the evidence was sufficient to convict.

Yeah, and we agreed on that, right? I think-

That's a really tough spot to be in as a juror.

Yeah.

So-

You know-

I don't envy anyone who's had to be in that position, but-

I feel like-

That's how the system works, so...

I feel like our criminal justice system these days, though, is, um, I'm not sure we always convict beyond a reasonable doubt anymore, right? I, I feel like that's like... I don't know. There, there's just... I'm a natural skeptic, and, and I think most city managers are, right? That's, that's why we never get picked for juries. I just always laugh when I get a jury summons in Parker County, and I would walk into the district court, and, you know, and, and in Parker County, we only have, you know, like, two district court judges, right? And then there's a couple of county court at laws. But, um, both of the... Like, as soon as we would walk into that court, they would look at us and point and say, "Get out of here," 'cause they knew y- you're never gonna get selected as a city manager. Like, you're the type of person that you're gonna get struck by both sides willingly. Like, they- nobody wants you on that jury asking all the questions you're gonna ask.

I don't know, I, I feel like I'd be a really good juror.

I feel like I'd be a great juror, but, like, we're natural skeptics.

But I believe, I believe in the, the justice system as we have constructed it. I think it's a... I think it's probably better than any other kind of system we could have.

Right.

It's not perfect, but, like, democracy is the worst except for every other form of government. Um, so I, I think I'd be a good juror, but, yeah, I've never been on a jury.

Yeah, so anyways, interesting tidbit of information there, uh, and I just wanted to know that before I went on my, you know, month hiatus before we get back to this. Thought that was interesting. So all right, guys, we'll see y'all later, and, uh, if you got any questions, as always, reach out to us.

Thanks, Pat.

Thanks, man.