My Best Neighborhood Meeting Ever

Hang a Lantern on your Problem

The Story

I moved to Minneapolis on December 15, 2003, and within a week, our realtor had introduced me to the president of our neighborhood association. We had coffee, and he said,

“We’re having our annual meeting and elections for the board next month; you should come and run for the board.”

So I went, I ran, and I won a seat on the 11-member board of directors of the North Loop Neighborhood Association. A few months later, in April, the president announced that he had bought a new home in another neighborhood and he would be resigning from the board. He took me aside and told me that I ought to take his place, and the other board members seemed to think that was a good idea, and that’s how I became president of my neighborhood, five months after moving from halfway across the country. Our neighborhood and its association were both only a couple of years old at the time—it was a sleepy old industrial area that was starting to attract residents as old warehouses were being renovated into new condominiums. There still weren’t very many neighbors, however, so our monthly meetings were pretty dull. We did review a lot of proposals from developers hoping to build more condos in our neighborhood—and we were almost always supportive—but otherwise, there were eleven of us, a few partners, and a couple of people with business on the agenda, so twenty people was a big meeting. Even the annual meeting and board elections, which we noticed with a mailer to everyone in the neighborhood, rarely attracted more than thirty people, and in those early years, it was pretty easy to get a seat on the board if you showed up and could fog a mirror.

And then we learned that a man who ran some gentlemen’s clubs (strip joints) in the city had bought a vacant piece of property in the neighborhood and applied for a permit to build a new “music club” amongst all of our fancy new condos. Our neighborhood is on the Mississippi River, and many years ago, it had been home to railyards and maritime facilities. Apparently, the longshoremen and railroadmen patronized such “cultural amenities” more than anyone else in Minneapolis (or that’s what our elected officials wanted everyone to think), because the city had zoned all adult entertainment uses into a small area in our neighborhood. Yes, adult entertainment was there before we were, and if, like me, you use “Sex World,” a well-known establishment, as a landmark when you are giving someone directions to your home, then you had better be willing to accept these “LULUs” (locally undesirable land uses) as adding a certain kind of flavor to your neighborhood. This is all a long way around of saying that Strip Club Guy appeared to have the right to build his club. As you can imagine, not everyone was so accepting, so I called and invited him to come to the next monthly meeting and speak to our board, and he agreed. That is when I began to realize that I was soon going to run the biggest neighborhood meeting in the short history of the North Loop. A few weeks later, I met Strip Club Guy for coffee to talk about his project and our neighborhood’s interests. He was casually dressed, tan, and he seemed surprisingly unconcerned, while I was busy picturing myself trying to keep people from tarring and feathering him.

And then the big day arrived. I got there early to arrange the room and prepare my mind, while I wondered how I would control the crowd, assuming that Robert’s Rules of Order would be of little help. The meeting room we used was on the ground floor of one of the apartment buildings in our neighborhood, and it had big windows, which made it easier to see the many neighbors we had never met before streaming towards us from all directions. It was like the scene from Frankenstein, when all the angry villagers approach the castle with torches and pitchforks. There were probably 100 people in the room, many with prepared statements, looking like they were superior to everyone and ready to slay the dragon. At 7:00 PM, I called the meeting to order and went over the agenda. Strip Club Guy was near the beginning, and he was the only reason most people were there, so after approving the minutes of the previous meeting, I invited him to come up to the front of the room and stand next to me. He was dressed in a well-tailored suit, and I gave him a brief and respectful introduction, and then asked him to tell us all about himself and his proposed project. He stood relaxed, with his hands together in front of him, and as I recall, he said something like this:

“Hi everyone, my name is Strip Club Guy (not his real name). I am the third-generation owner of a family business that was started by my grandmother. Our business is vice, and we sell, booze, cigarettes and girls. It is all 100% legal and above board, and we have an excellent relationship with the City’s regulatory people. The project my partner and I are proposing is on a piece of land zoned for this kind of use….”

And on he went. But after those first few sentences, you could see the lights going out in the eyes of all the angry villagers, because he exposed himself completely, told them everything that they thought they were going to say to him, and stole all of their thunder. I was stunned and filled with admiration for Strip Club Guy, who gave one of the best presentations I have ever seen. There were still some condescending comments and questions during Q&A, including from a well-known and respected developer of many of the early buildings in the neighborhood. He was old, but big and powerfully built (and, it was rumored, he was a boxer who had gotten into some hot water for assaulting an IRS agent), and he made a dark and somewhat threatening speech. But it all bounced off of Strip Club Guy like a handful of dried peas, as he appeared not to notice the tone and kept his cool throughout. Indeed, he was the most prepared and well-behaved person in the room; he had us dead to rights, and he knew it. Even today, I laugh when I think about that meeting.

The Theory

Among other things, Chris Matthews has worked as a journalist, run for Congress in Pennsylvania (unsuccessfully), served as a speechwriter in the Carter administration, and as Chief of Staff to the famous Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill, during the Reagan administration. He is probably better known for his talk shows, The Chris Matthews Show, and Hardball with Chris Matthews, the title of which was based on a book he had written in 1988 called Hardball: How Politics is Played, Told By One Who Knows The Game. The book is a series of maxims—general rules—for people working in the political arena, illustrated with recent, relevant, and colorful examples drawn from Matthews’s own experiences of being in the room where it happened, or close by. As conservative journalist and commentator George Will proclaims in the blurb on the back cover of the book, “Matthews is half Huck Finn and half Machiavelli in this exuberant guide to the great game of politics.” Indeed, rather than spending time on hypothetical questions, Matthews states in the introduction that,

“ What we are discussing here is not political philosophy but practical method, not why but how,” quoting New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, who used to say, “There is no Republican way to collect garbage.”

Indeed, in Matthews’s book, there is very little “why” and a lot of “how.” The book is organized into four sections: “Alliances,” “Enemies,” “Deals,” and “Reputations,” and the maxim that explains Strip Club Guy’s successful Jujitsu at that North Loop neighborhood association meeting long ago is in the last section, Reputations, and is called, “Hang a lantern on your problem.” According to Matthews,

“If a question has been raised publicly about your personal background, you need to address the issue personally,” and, more directly, “It’s always better to be the bearer of your own bad news.”

More specifically, if some kind of bad news or truth about you is about to be made public, you are better off revealing it and framing the story yourself, rather than letting someone else—an enemy, perhaps—do the framing.

Matthews’s first example is of Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, who, at the beginning of his campaign for president, wrote down a list of his assets, including: "Not a lawyer, southerner, farmer, ethics, religious, and not part of the Washington scene. Most people would view this as a list of liabilities—as did his campaign staff—but Carter insisted,

“But I think we can make them into assets.”

He trumpeted those apparent weaknesses, rather than letting his opponent and the media do it, and, in the end, he ran as an outsider and won the election.

Here’s another example: Eight years later, after 73-year-old President Ronald Reagan performed poorly in a debate against former Vice President Walter Mondale, he and his campaign rightly assumed that age would be the number one question at the next debate, which it was. But Reagan was prepared, and when asked about it at the beginning, he said,

“I will not make my age an issue in this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”

It was a hilarious punchline that effectively ended Mondale’s campaign, as Reagan sailed to victory.

Let me offer one more recent and local example. A few years ago, I was taking my weekly walk with a friend and neighbor (who succeeded me as North Loop president), and we ran into a man we both knew as a lifelong resident of the neighborhood and a deeply engaged community member. He stopped us and said,

“You are just the two guys I wanted to talk to. Listen, I’m going to run for City Council, and I know I have some liabilities: I’m old, I’m white, and I’m a guy, but I think I have some pretty good ideas and want to talk to you about them.”

It was so transparent and disarming that we had to laugh. Everywhere he went, he led with that same line about his liabilities—being old, white, and a guy. He won that election and was recently reelected.

Time has moved on in the North Loop. Strip Club Guy built a new building on his land, but he had a zoning problem, so rather than an adult-oriented business, he had to operate strictly as a music venue. It was rumored that, shall we say, non-music-related activities took place on the second floor, or in the basement, but we never knew for sure. The business soon failed, and the building has since housed an event space, a church, a gym, and some other less controversial uses. The population in the neighborhood has grown from 1,500 in 2000 to almost 8,000 in 2025. And several hundred people now attend the annual Neighborhood Association meeting, where the board elections are highly contested, with current board members and committee chairs typically winning out over unknown people who decide to run at the last minute and show up for their first neighborhood meeting on election night.

The Lesson

In the spirit of Chris Matthews, I’ll use one of his anecdotes to explain the lesson. When writing about his Whitehouse years as Chief of Staff for President Jimmy Carter, Jody Powell noted that,

“It goes against human nature to stand up of your own free will and volunteer information that is bound to cause nothing but trouble.” And Yet, “No matter how smelly it seems to be at first, it always gets worse as it ages.”

Maxims—general rules—can be risky (once in a while, there may be good reasons NOT to follow the rule), but in almost all cases, it is probably wisest to “hang a lantern on your problem,” because if you do have a problem, it is far better for you to announce it—and frame it—than to let somebody else frame it for you.

“Keep your enemies in front of you.”

- Chris Matthews

“Daddy, why is that place selling legs?”

- My son, age five, in the back seat of the car, looking out the window at advertising on the strip club a few blocks from our house, while I was waiting for the red light to change.

A Post Script: This past week, a man named Peter Hafiz passed away, too young, at 65. Hafiz was the second-generation owner of a family-owned and operated “sin” business in Minneapolis (not to be confused with Strip Club Guy). I never met Hafiz, but in several articles and his obituary, many people, from current and past employees to local politicians, raved about what a wonderful and generous person he was. He was also deeply religious, and his funeral, which was held at the church his family had been attending for generations, was packed with hundreds of mourners.

My wife and I moved to Minneapolis in 2003, and for the first six years here, she walked to work downtown year-round, rain, shine, or snow. In Minnesota, property owners are required by law to shovel the public sidewalks that front their homes and businesses (the city does not plow them). That first winter, my wife noticed that the people who did the best job of clearing the sidewalks in front of their businesses in the North Loop and Warehouse District were the owners of those adult entertainment businesses—most likely as one way to stay on good terms with the regulatory folks from the City. One of those places she walked past every day was one of Peter Hafiz’s clubs, “Déjà vu,” the same place where my five-year-old son noticed that they were “selling legs.”

One last thing: A few years ago, I worked on a project for another sin-oriented business owner in the neighborhood, and he was both a great client and a very nice guy. So, this post is in honor of Peter Hafiz, Strip Club Guy, my former client, and all the other people who help keep my neighborhood interesting and colorful—and keep their sidewalks clear in winter. Lastly, with the holiday season upon us, perhaps this story offers us a good reminder of why we should err on the side of being generous and open-minded, and why we should not judge people we do not know. (See my previous post about not being judgmental.)

My thanks to the old friend who was also at that fateful neighborhood meeting with Strip Club Guy, and who reviewed several drafts, adding important and colorful details and another perspective.