By Michael R. Shannon
“My name is Barbara Howard and I believe I'm the only witness to testify before this committee who has a contract out on her life.” That dramatic statement was the beginning of four hours of testimony before the Minneapolis City Council's Truth in Taxation Committee that set the agenda for 2005 budget discussions and put public safety at the top of the council's priority list.
It was a dramatic turnaround from only a week before.
At that time, in early November 2004, Mayor R. T. Rybak was working hard to pass a budget plan that cut eight police officers from the department's on–the–street strength of 637 officers. This would have resulted in the fewest number of officers in the last 25 years. Down from a high of 938 officers in 1997 to only 770 in 2005.
My client in this fight was the Police Officer's Federation of Minneapolis (MPF) and it was obvious that in the very few weeks before the budget vote of December 13, 2004 the federation would need reinforcements to win.
In fact we would have to employ all three of the “C's” of public information campaigns if we were to have a hope of winning. Those “C's” are:
Context
Coalition
Confrontation
Our first efforts were to build the coalition for the confrontation. Barbara Howard, quoted above, is the owner of a beauty shop in a part of the city plagued by drug dealers and disorder. Her frequent 911 calls and attempts to clean up the neighborhood had earned threats on her life and rumors of a contract to kill her.
Howard became the first member of the coalition and she was followed by homeowners, a pastor, businessmen and women, a mental health professional, community activists and a fraud investigator for a major downtown business.
These individuals volunteered to be witnesses at the city council's budget hearing and to appear at news conferences during the fight. They also worked to recruit friends and family to swell the ranks of citizens who wanted more, not fewer police officers.
That became the basis of the coalition. The context was provided by the city across the river, St. Paul, Minnesota.
Context is where facts or issues are put in perspective for citizens and those not intimately acquainted with the details of the controversy. In the abstract 637 police officers might sound like a lot to the average citizen. But when you add context, pointing out that 637 is fewer officers than were on the job on 9/11 and that during the time when Minneapolis was cutting police officers, St. Paul was adding officers, then the facts start to have an impact.
Yet all too often facts are not put in context for the public and as a result issues are defeated by half–truths and spin.
In the case of Minneapolis, the mayor based his case on the cut in funds provided to the city by the state of Minnesota. His contention was that with the cut in funding he was forced to cut the police budget and in fact he had cut the budgets of all city departments by 10 percent to make up for the shortfall.
In the abstract this makes sense. In context it is lunacy. St. Paul suffered from the same budget cuts, yet enlightened leadership in the Twin City was adding police officers. Instead of budget cutting by decimation, the St. Paul mayor cut the fat and pumped up the muscle.
Even though it's not the role of the MPF to set police policy in the city, the Federation felt it had to step in when elected leadership wasn't leading. But at the same time a police union asking for more police offices can seem self–serving, hence the need for the coalition. But in coalitions, bigger is always better and we had the added benefit of reinforcements from the invisible coalition: poll results. The MPF had recently done an opinion poll that showed the majority of voters overwhelmingly wanted more police officers.
Now it was a question of timing. We had only two weeks before the budget vote. The first was spent building the coalition, doing research and preparing for the budget hearing. From the date of the hearing until the vote was only eight days.
Normally I would have a news conference a week before the hearing to reveal the results of the poll demanding more police officers. Then on the morning of the budget hearing we would have another news conference featuring two or three of our most dramatic witnesses to give the media a teaser of their testimony. Then the rest of the week would be devoted to building pressure and the final ‘C,' confrontation.
Unfortunately, we didn't have the luxury of time. The morning of the hearing we had the news conference with the poll results. Since polls are just numbers and not visual, we had large color graphs made for the broadcast media with copies on CD for print media. During this news conference we made no mention of the witnesses we had scheduled for the hearing that afternoon.
Why not you might ask? Because we didn't want to give the media a choice in what to cover. It was important that the council members know the results of the survey, (we thoughtfully provided them with a copy of the graphs in their council mailbox that morning) but even more important that the council know the media and the public at large is aware of the survey.
If we had witnesses at the conference the danger is the media will cover the people and not the poll, defeating the purpose of the event. Besides, we already knew the hearing would be covered that afternoon, so our witnesses would not be ignored.
With that news conference we began the confrontation process.
The MPF received extensive broadcast coverage of the survey results and the newspaper the next day featured our budget hearing witnesses, which meant we were off to a good start.
Wednesday of that week we had another news conference to play a radio spot that began that morning comparing crime rates between Minneapolis and St. Paul.
The radio commercial we played for the assembled media began: “Minneapolis and St. Paul are the twin cities, but when it comes to violent crime — they're not so equal.
In Minneapolis we have an almost one third greater chance of being a victim. FBI statistics reveal 11.95 violent crimes per thousand residents, compared to St. Paul's 7.62.
So what's the difference between the two cities, other than your chances of staying alive?”
The spot closed by urging citizens to call their council member and demand they add more police officers. This is living dangerously. The corollary to Pavlov's Dogs is when the bell rings, there better be some dinner. If the public doesn't call when you ask them to, the political powers–that–be assume you are a paper tiger and your campaign collapses. The leadership of the MPF assured me calls would be no problem.
Once again we had good turnout for the news conference, but even better the salesman at radio station WCCO called that morning and said that after the spot ran callers swamped the station's switchboard asking for the mayor's phone number.
Why listeners call the radio station for the number instead of city hall remains a mystery, but we were very happy with the response. One of the more interesting calls that morning was from the Mayor Randy Kelly of St. Paul who thanked the radio station for all the kind words regarding safety in his city.
To keep the momentum on our side, the president of the MPF, John Delmonico, appeared on radio and TV talk shows throughout the week.
The public campaign was generating so much notice that Gov. Tim Pawlenty sent Mayor Rybak a letter advising him on how he could free up money to hire more officers.
The final effort came on Monday, December 13, when the council voted on the budget. Coalition members were again on hand for a news conference prior to the vote and they packed the council chambers.
The result of all the MPF's hard work was a council meeting dominated by public safety and a 2005 budget that did not cut a single police officer. In fact the council pledged to find ways to add officers in the coming year.
There were three elements that were crucial to the federation's success in this campaign. One, the issue of public safety and police officers was very important to the majority of voters in the city. Two, the MPF had the financial resources to take the issue to the public in a very visible manner. And three, the leadership of the Federation, President John Delmonico, Treasurer Lyall Delaney and the rest of the board of directors were active, motivated and extremely hard working.
Michael R. Shannon is president of MANDATE: Message, Media &
Public Relations. He is a Republican consultant who has
participated in over 70 elections and is three–time winner
of the Gold medal at the Houston International Film Festival;
a two–time American Association of Political Consultant's
Pollie award winner and a two–time National Silver
Microphone Award winner for his radio work. He can
be reached at Click here to contact this Author
