We live in an age of universal deceit, and things are often not what they seem to be. Indeed, they are often the opposite of what they are presented to be. The City of Kansas City has held its citizens in contempt for as long as I’ve been observing it, and they use the same tactics over and over to deceive, discourage, misdirect, gaslight, and outright lie to us. Now, they want to formally adopt this process in order to put themselves above criticism.
To that end, your possible next mayor, Ryanna Parks-Shaw, has introduced a resolution to adopt “the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) standards as City’s guiding principles and approach toward public engagement”.
Looking online to find out what this IAP2 organization is all about, I mostly see their own web pages, and one independent advocate in New Zealand who wrote about “going beyond” the IAP2 standard. I have become increasingly suspicious of non-governmental organizations and non-profits since I often find that their true goals are contrary to their name and mission statement, and most of their revenue goes toward administration. The IAP falls under suspicion on these points.
Take a look at this flow chart from communityplaces.info. Note that the first step in the public engagement process is to “inform”. “To provide the public with balanced and objective information to assist them in understanding the problem, alternatives, opportunities and/or solutions.”
That might sound harmless to you if you haven’t had first-hand experience with this process. Note that it’s up to government bureaucrats to decide what “balanced and objective” is (as in “Fair and Balanced?”). Of course, they also define what the problem is, and what the possible solutions might be. In this way, they frame the problem so that the discussion will lead in a certain direction (no doubt the one that the City and the affiliation of corporations, agencies, law firms, NGOs, consultants, and other careerist interests are comfortable with). Also note that they define the potential solutions.
Having carried out the initial Shock and Awe “inform” stage, the public will be either brainwashed, mis-directed, or discouraged that their knowledge is at odds with what they are being told is an objective assessment.
I have several stories about how this has been carried out in the real world, but right now, we have the ongoing project called “The Future of Blue River Road”.
A meeting was held last April that is obviously the Inform stage of the process. The City conflated many issues with the simple collapse of a few hundred feet of the road surface, which has happened several times before, with all sorts of other irrelevant information, complete with authoritative yet discordant explanations. The attendance at the meeting was huge, with many people trying to object, question, or insert something counter to the gaslighting narrative they were being subjected to. They were immediately told to sit down and shut up, though of course in more polite terms. Many people left the meeting early, in disgust. A City engineer, known to me for giving a word-salad answer to a simple yes/no question a couple of years prior, presented 10 different options, none of which included doing what was regularly done about every 10 years during the 20th Century, and which the Public Works department is charged with doing: repair and maintain the road. When coupled with a lot of hand waving and high cost estimates, one would expect people to react just as I stated above: Most people were either discouraged that their beloved and needed parkway wouldn’t be repaired, or they bought the hogwash that had just been dumped on them. In fact, a man whom I’ve known for 18 years—who loves Blue River Road—came up to me talking about how you can’t fight nature. The ocean washes away the shoreline after all.
From the City’s point of view, that was actually a very successful meeting. Not only were many attendees either brainwashed or discouraged, the fact that so many people left early made it even better: They weren’t around to hear about the next phase of this Orwellian process, to go online and register your vote for which option you preferred. I should also mention that there were no sign-in sheets as well, which is highly unusual to say the least. In this way, they inhibited the community getting together to discuss the matter among themselves. At meetings where there have been sign-in sheets, I was told that the City wants to keep attendee contact data to themselves. You could submit a request for that information online, but you will probably get a reply that it’ll cost you, or maybe they’ll just never get back to you (a violation of the State’s Sunshine Law).
There was recently a second meeting about Blue River Road, and the attendance was much smaller than the first, a testament to the success or failure of the first meeting (depending on your point of view). Once again the meeting began with a presentation featuring statements that I know firsthand to be false, including their tally of votes for the options. Not surprisingly, they interpreted submitted comments in a way as to exclude the option that most of south KC really wants. What is most important to note about the second meeting is that there was no indication that the City has heard any of the criticisms from the public, except that nobody liked the first meeting. But, they didn’t re-do the first meeting. They proceeded on the assumption that the only problem was that it was too crowded and (though the meeting finished early) there was no opportunity to ask questions. So, the agenda of the second meeting, not revealed beforehand, was (after the presentation) to listen to everyone who wanted to comment. There were some good comments, but no indication that the information presented by the public would be respected.
In previous meetings about the road (before the current process), a very knowledgeable citizen who has worked in the construction business his whole life, and who knew the crews that used to work on the road, tried to give suggestions how the road could be put back into service for a reasonable cost. He was told to shut up (again, politely) and they would get back to him. On one occasion, they did, but there was no follow up. On the second occasion, nothing happened at all. I have talked to him since then, and he was at the April meeting. No doubt, he has become discouraged.
The IAP2 program may seem to “consult” and “involve” the public throughout the process. But the people in charge have probably already reached their conclusion, so how can their guidance be taken seriously? In the case of Blue River Road, the City’s objective is to do nothing, as has been demonstrated for the past 15 years. But, insofar as they can spend money on studies and presentations, they will be happy to do so. It goes toward the same “pigs at the trough” (to quote 1990s-era activist Mark Esping) I alluded to above. Actually fixing the road would create a future maintenance burden for the City in a part of town that has clearly been marked for dis-investment since at least the Barnes administration. The power in this City lies with the crowd who would rather see the Blue River Parkway gentrified as a playground mostly for residents who live miles away from the area.
Once resolution 250906 has been adopted, you can look forward to any future criticism of the City’s process of manipulating public opinion to be backed up with the response that they are following the widely-accepted standard of the International Association for Public Participation. That’ll shut you up.
