My Redacted Life: Chapter Fourteen

Mondays would come and I would be back at work. I walked a little taller now. I had my own client. Malvern was a nice town, not far away. They made bricks there and mainly minded their own business.

The city manager was a man named Ken Parker. We would form a friendship that would last decades. At the time, however, he was wary that I might do something to embarrass him or the city. That's never a good move in the consulting business.

Here’s how I chose to handle the mission.

After the deadline came for planning commission business submissions, I would pick up the material and analyze the cases. More often than not, there would be a request to change the zoning on a piece of property. I would look at several factors

- Would approval constitute so-called “spot-zoning?” This would involve a small parcel, the re-zoning of which would not be consistent with the land use plan and would grant benefits to one property owner that wouldn’t be granted to a neighbor.

- Would it conform to adopted plans?

- Would the re-zoning act as a destabilizing factor on the neighborhood, i.e. would the size, height, bulk, and traffic generated by the new use be inconsistent with the productive use of neighboring land?

- And, of course, who was making the request?

I would prepare a report, make copies, and we would mail them to the commissioners in time for the meeting. Wouldn’t you know it? The first time I did the report, the chairman of the planning commission made a request for a re-zoning. It was a bad one, but the chairman had married into power.

Being a fast learner, I honed a skill that would last me for an entire career. It involves a combination of doubletalk, misdirection, discombobulation, perplexity, and downright deviousness. I call it “implicit non-specific clarity.” Check it out. It’s in all the textbooks, I think.

Anyway, it worked. The commissioners didn’t bother to read my analysis. They simply approved the request as they would have had I charged up that hill with my guns blazing. I would live to fight another battle, somewhere else, on my terms, where I might have a chance of winning. Time changes the battlefield, patience promotes advantage, and circumstances even the odds.

I had learned that lesson from my former enemies in Southeast Asia. Good tactics and skill are not enough. One must have a winning strategy as well.

Yep.