Edwards Manor House

05/26/2026

I’m all in!!!

05/23/2026

05/22/2026

C’mon down and join us at Katy Days! We’re running a Katy Days ticket special for the upcoming garden tour, 10.00 apiece or 2 for 20.000! We might even let you do 3 for 30 if you talk sweet. We’re located just west of the pavilion, the suns out and so should you be 🌷

05/21/2026

Sound like someplace you know??

I spent a decade giving towns technical advice they weren’t ready to use.

Update your zoning code. Apply for this grant. Create a TIF district. Fix your economic development strategy.

Then I’d come back a year later and nothing had changed.

I thought they weren’t listening. Turns out they were dealing with something more fundamental.

Low civic self-esteem. Community apathy. A complete lack of care or concern.

You can’t fix that with a grant application.

Most towns I work with are struggling with these issues. And it’s not their fault. Residents are simply responding to decades of choices that left them with very little to care about and very little to be proud of.

A community full of apathetic residents is going to be an apathetic community. A town with low self-esteem is going to struggle with confidence.

This is why every big new investment fails to make a difference. Why tourism numbers don’t matter. Why economic development wins don’t move the needle.

Because residents don’t give a damn about those things. And why should they?

Those numbers make officials excited. They make the CVB happy. But they don’t affect the vast majority of residents.

Here’s what I realized: Cities and towns behave just like the people who inhabit them.

And sometimes what a community needs isn’t a consultant. It’s a therapist.

Someone who understands that you can’t cure apathy with technical solutions. You have to address the emotional stuff first.

If people don’t care about their community, ask yourself: what would make YOU care?

If people aren’t proud of their town, ask: what would make YOU proud?

The answers to those questions are the actual answers.

You already understand human nature. You have all the insights you need.

05/15/2026

A healthy community will always have its fair share of pessimists and bullies, but in a strong civic culture, they are just a background noise in a sea of positive voices. They may pipe up from time to time, but they don’t dominate the conversation. It’s only when things go awry that they seize the moment to do whatever the opposite of shine is.

These civic bullies aren’t the real problem; they’ve always been there and always will be. The problem is when everyone else slinks away and gets quiet.

Civic bullies are like any other bullies, they thrive only when they’re allowed to. They fill the void when things go wrong. They grab the mic when no one else wants it, then act like they’re the only ones who can hold it. But like every other type of bully, they shrink in the face of strength.

We don’t need to eradicate these people. though that does sound tempting. We simply need to be willing to stand up to them. And here’s the secret that makes this entirely possible: Nearly no one
agrees with them. They are a minority, though a loud-ass minority. They are louder than everyone else because most of us don’t like to be loud. Most of us don’t enjoy indulging in pessimism. Most of us try to avoid conflict. But these maniacs revel in it.

One of the best lessons I’ve learned in dealing with civic bullies came from Ryan Fairchild, owner of Dry Lake Brewing in Great Bend, Kansas. A few years ago, he explained how he helped create the Positive Social Response Team when the comments section in local discussions became inundated with negativity. When the civic bat signal went out via text or email, everyone on the list would jump in with positive and supportive comments. Eventually, the bullies lost
their pulpit and receded into the background. When no one listens to a bully, the bully doesn’t have much to say.

The lesson is this: Bullies will always exist, but their voice is only heard when no one else is willing to talk. The goal isn’t to out-shout them. The goal is to get the rest of the community to say something.

When the vast, and all-too-silent, majority finds its voice, the bullies will lose theirs. If this work has taught me anything, it’s that nearly everyone is positive, helpful, supportive, civic-minded, kind, caring, and non-confrontational.

We don’t have to fight the bullies.

We just need to encourage the rest to speak up.