Beyond the Comments: What It Really Takes To Communicate For Topeka | Dan Garrett

I just really fell in love with this area and it's been my home ever since. Our goal is to inform the public about every initiative that the city of Topeka has.

You want there to be no construction and you want there to be no potholes.

Exactly. Like they're out there. They this last week they built 650-something potholes.

What?

We got Dan Garrett, Director of Communications and Media Relations for the City of Topeka. Boom, I nailed that. You nailed it. Welcome to the studio, man. Thanks for being here, man. Yeah. Thank you. I'm excited. Heck yeah. So you are basically the PR person for the city of Topeka.

Yes. City, police, and fire kind of do all those. Okay. All the social media and all the messaging.

Before we get into your job, because I think this is going to be really interesting. Okay. Yeah. Because you, I mean, you run all the social media and do all the communication stuff for on behalf of the city. Correct. Give us a little bit about you. What's your background? What's your story? How'd you get here? Yeah, who's Dan Garrett?

Yeah, so I'm not originally from Topeka. I'm originally from St. Louis, born and raised.

Transplant.

Went to KU and then uh got an internship at KST News and then ended up getting a full-time job there. I thought it was going to be just a couple years here, you know, get your stepping stone, move on to a bigger city. But I just really fell in love with this area and it's been my home ever since. What about it? What what made you fall in love with the city? Um I think it's very similar to the uh my hometown. It has like kind of like this negative perception, but once you're in here, the people are so nice. It's just you know everyone. You can, I'm not a fan of traffic. I love that you can get anywhere in 15 to 20 minutes.

Yeah. Um and there's plenty to do. Are you from like the city of St. Louis? Are you from like outside St. Louis? Ferguson, Missouri. Yeah. St. Louis.

So yeah, you know that all that stuff that happened, very negative PR to that. So just kind of see saw how that went.

But yeah, is that kind of roughly similar size to Topeka?

Much smaller. So Ferguson is like, I think population 40,000, where we have 130. But we're a suburb of St. Louis. So you're still connected to all the other cities. Sure.

You're not actually like really leaving any city to get there. It's correct. You wouldn't realize when you're in one city versus the other.

Yeah.

Okay, so you're at KST. You had a full-time job there for a couple years. Yes. Now you're with the city. Uh what did that change look like?

Um it was very different. So I was a reporter on air for KST for three years. That was like my dream. All I wanted to do growing up. So I got to live that dream out. Um, very hard job. Just every day you have to give it your all. I mean, I do it in every job that I'm at, give it my all. But uh, how like this job where I don't have no, but like physically going out and interviewing people face to face every day. That that's tough. Um high energy. Yeah. A lot of energy. Yeah. I would say it was like giving like a final presentation every day. Okay. Because every day by five or six o'clock, I had to have my story done. It's like a high stress environment. Yes. Yeah. Um and then I went and started working for Topeka public schools, which I loved doing that. My mom was a substitute teacher growing up, so working in the public school system. Again, very similar school dynamic than what I was used to, and then did that for three years. And then now I've been working for the City of Topeka government. Yeah. And how long have you been with the city? Just over a year. I started in July of 2024.

Okay, so it's still fresh.

Still figuring everything out.

So the Facebook comments haven't scared you off yet.

No, just avoid the comments. Uh no, I got used to that working in the case. We actually printed off a list of our top 10. Yeah.

Okay, so walk us through. I mean, you essentially are the PR guy for the city of Topeka. What does that mean?

And I will say, we do have a team. It is not just me. I'm leading the team, but we have other people that help. Dan Garrett and Associates. Exactly.

Dude, you know what would have been hilarious if we were like on it for this? Like, you know how celebrities will do like read mean tweets on like Jimmy Kimmel or something? You're like as a representative of the city reading mean tweets about the city of Topeka. That would have been hilarious. That would have been sweating. That's honest. Yeah, this could have been awesome. Next time too. Try to give us a nice, shiny answer like this. Uh yes.

There's it's crazy. Like, I know people I've never met, but I know like the recurring people that comment on everything. So I feel like I know them. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Never interacted with them.

Okay, back us up. PR for the city to pick. What does that mean? What is your what does that look like?

So we run all of the social media accounts for the city. We update the website, but we also coordinate whenever any of our local media reach out to us. We make sure that we are answering all of their questions and letting that information out to the public. But what we do as a team, our goal is to inform the public about every initiative that the city of Topeka has. And I think that's a really fun thing to do because there's a lot going on in this city. Yeah. I bet. And so we don't promote the fun events. Sure. We more inform about updated laws, but we also have a lot of uh programs that people can take advantage of. And so that's what we try to get the word out.

Yeah, like opportunities and things like that.

Yes, a lot of like um equal access uh shelter. I just messed that one up. Uh, but we have like housing options and rental assistance, and if you want to get your sidewalk repaired, we'll do like a 50-50 program to help you. Yes, and just trying to get the word out. Yeah, that's awesome.

So, one of the things that we've talked about a lot, uh, it's kind of a running theme of this show, it's kind of the point of the show, honestly, is to help Topeka with its self-image, if you will. Yes. I gotta imagine being the PR person for a city that largely has a very negative view of itself is a very difficult job. What is that? What is it like kind of managing the image, which is what PR is kind of, right? Like managing the image of a city that has a very negative image of itself. Does that make sense?

Yes, no, it it can be challenging because you know, our population is very dedicated for the ongoings of what happens in the city, and we want everyone to be excited for everything we share, but that's just not the case. And we know that people are gonna react negatively when things are announced. Um, you know, when things are decided at the council level, you know, it's again, some people want certain things and other people don't. So you just know it's most of the time gonna be a mixed bag. Okay. And a lot of the things that we do to improve, people are not happy about. Sure. Aka road construction. Every time we are about to say, oh, we're gonna improve potholes. Potholes, exactly.

It is crazy because yeah, I mean, as a I mean, this is a I don't I don't know if this is a confession or what, but just like as a person in a city, it it's like you want your cake and eat it too. You want there to be no construction and you want there to be no potholes. Exactly. Which is impossible. Yes. So we try Especially in Kansas, you know, the weather on the concrete and all that.

It's gonna happen every year. And we know, like, again, I read the comments. We know what people are interested in, we know the potholes. So we do send out a weekly every week we send a newsletter out and we do how many potholes we filled today every year. Because we just know that's what people want to know. Yeah. Um to also give our street workers credit, like they're out there. They this last week they filled 650 something potholes. What? Every week. This week 650? Yes. Why do you think we're up to 52,000 potholes? Wow. Who counts? Like, how do you know there are that many? The public works department. They send me an email.

They're like, we're not going to be able to do that. This is like the this is like the national debt clock. There should be like a live clock. It's like goes up and down depending on the day. Like, dee- dee-dee-dee-dee. We fixed 650, it goes down a little bit. Yes.

And then people would think, okay, we filled 650 potholes. How are there any more left? Right. Right. And you know it's 650, that was just one neighborhood over there. Yeah. Yeah.

It's, you know, and then 300 more pop up.

Exactly. And uh not all of them are permanent fixes, you know, especially as we're getting to the winter time. You can't use the asphalt that will hold for a long amount of time. So a lot of the time we're doing a quick fix and then waiting until the hot asphalt. Yes, because it won't work in the cold weather. And so it's a big um plant or something that doesn't open until the spring. So we just do temporary fixes. So again, it's like we try to get this information out, but there's so much information to share that it just can't get it all out there.

It is interesting that on this show, potholes has become such a discussion point. Oh, it's everywhere. It's hilarious. Yeah. Anything else you'd like to tell people about potholes while we're on the subject.

I think that's my big spiel is that in the wintertime, it's not a permanent fix. Um use the C click fix app if you see a pothole. Otherwise, we can't and that's always an app. There's an app? I didn't know there was an app fix. Okay, pothole app. Tell us about the potfield. Tune in. Tune in. C C click fix. This is your exclusive. Like the letter C. Or no, spell the word C. S-E-E. You see it? Like, you click a picture of it and you fix it. Well, we fix it for you.

Yeah.

Um but it's not just for potholes. It's um if the you know code compliance, if some your neighbor's grass is too long or there's an abandoned vehicle. This is all for stuff that you can do it, and it goes directly to our property maintenance team, and that's how they catalog what needs to be. What if your neighbor has a Raiders flag in their front yard? That send it in. And send it in. Report them.

I don't know if I want to do that. I think I just want to keep complaining online.

And that's if I could have the public leave with anything, is to tell the city to when you have an issue. There's so many times that I'm part of all the scanner pages, so I'm watching, and there's a lot of times that there will be an issue at you know, an apartment or something, and it has not been reported to the city at all. So we're finding out with the public. So we try to jump on it and try to, you know, resolve the issue. But again, if we aren't told about it in advance, we can't do anything.

So a lot of the complaint comments, you're just responding with the link to the app. Link to the app, link to the app. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. I I didn't know there was an app. Yeah.

Well, let's switch gears. Okay. This year you had your first, as you described, PR fire. Yes. What was that? Give us the rundown. What was that like?

So I don't know if you guys were around last year in the winter, but we had a little bit of a one in a hundred year old, once in a hundred year snowstorm.

Yeah. Yeah. So that was crazy.

We got like 10 inches in like three days. Yeah. But the cherry on top of that was that there was three inches of ice underneath it. So it was a nightmare for our snow crews. They were running day and night trying to get the roads as clear as possible. Um, and so as my job, it's to make the public aware of what our crews are doing and then how the roads are.

So we So, like for if people are wondering, like, man, what are they even doing? That's your job is hey, we are working very hard. Yes. This is what they're doing. Yes.

You know, are you gonna have issues going out today? So we had our public works director doing interviews on the news, like bright and early at five in the morning, just so if people were heading out for the day, they would know what's going on. And so at the beginning, you know, we were doing our daily updates. I think people were okay for a couple days off, a little snow day. Um, but probably by the end of that first week is when people were really getting tired of, you know, the roads not being clear. But um, you know, we were doing as good as messaging as we could, and then eventually, you know, we said that we had hit every street, and that is where all hell broke loose. So we had hit every street, but we couldn't clear every street. And so a lot of them, they would go over it, and you're just getting that little bit off the top, but there's still ice underneath. And so even when they were clearing all the loose snow, but they're still hard. Yeah. And so they were dropping rock salt to it, but yeah, it's still the sun had to do its job. At that point, you can only scrape so much. You just had to let the sun melt. Yeah. And so that was when people were just, it was, you know, the one the headline that stood out is one of our outlets interviewed someone, and the quote in the headline was heads should roll. And that's just like, oh wow. So it's Heads should roll. Yes. You know, when you've got people that have been pulling, you know, back-to-back shifts trying to do it. And uh, I just, you know, want people to understand that other cities were having the same issues too. It wasn't just our cities.

Were there certain cities taking the weekend off? I think so. I think that might have happened. Yeah.

So plows, not even on the streets. Yeah. And so just knowing that, you know, just because you're hearing about it in this community, also taking a wide scope of it of just seeing how things happen in other cities too, is good to keep in mind.

Okay. So during that entire fiasco, you were the man, you and your team were the were the team behind the Facebook uh accounts, giving the updates. I imagine, and I guess tell me if I'm wrong, is it hard to not take some of those personally, or is that not too bad? Because you know, you're not the one, you're not, you're not the city, but I mean, you're you're the front lines reading all those.

It it is you it's hard to separate yourself because I also work with the people that are the brunt of the friends. Yeah. The people that I know have been working back to back, and we're meeting with them and we're having these meetings about how are the roads looking, how like they're pulling 24 hour, not 12 24 hour shifts, but they were doing like longer shifts just to to get everything cleared. So it is tough to see all that and seeing how hard people are working.

It blows my mind, and I don't know, maybe this is just a me thing, but it blows my mind the amount of people that love to get worked up over this, and they take it, they're angry. You know, this the streets aren't plowed, and you know, if someone's at fault, someone needs to be fired, they're all up at arms, and I'm sitting here like, yeah, I was one of the last neighborhoods to get cleared, and it wasn't very much an inconvenience, but it's like, do you think they're doing it on purpose? Like do you think they're making these posts laughing as they're making these posts?

They're out to get you out. Exactly.

Do we really think the city's out to get you? We're they're doing everything they can. It'll get cleared when it gets cleared. It just blows my mind the amount of people that will just get will be fuming in the comment section. And I'm like, come on.

And it's like, I mean, you know, a year removed from it, I think it was like a week or two uh experience. And then, but in the moment, people are like, this is and I and I don't want to diminish. I know people have to get to work and pay bills, and so that is what the driving force with all of this. Sure. But it is like it was a once in a hundred year stor storm. So it's you we have to manage it. And I think that's what I think you know, city government isn't recognized when things are going smoothly, because that's how it should be. It's just you turn on your faucet, you don't care how the water got here, you don't think about it. Yeah, but if there's a water boil advisory, then it's you know when things are out of the norm. So, you know, you're noticed when things are going wrong. For sure.

Yeah, yeah. That is brutal to only be noticed when you're doing a bad job. Yeah. Or when things go wrong, maybe it's a better way to say it. Yeah, that's crazy. Dang, man. So uh do you like doing what you do? I do, I do.

I know we were just talking about the the cons of it, but it is like I haven't slept in weeks. No. Oh, they're so I love the people that work for the city. They are really dedicated to what they do, and I think they're really good at what they do. I mean, besides what the fa Facebook comments might say, but um they are all very passionate. And I think if you saw how many after-hours meetings there are and all the the way that they care about their programs, I think it's it's a really cool thing. And so I tell that to my team is that when I we come into our office, I want it to be a space where we're can come to each other for help and we don't take things too seriously because everything on the outside is so dire all the time. And so I want it to be a space where we can bounce ideas off each other and then do those more fun things when those opportunities come up. And that's something too that I think has been interesting is we talk about the you know how you've seen some cities have really comedic posts and have fun angles, and we t we want to do that, but I don't know if the city has the appetite to talk about. I just I don't think our city is willing or wanting to see it in a joking manner. Yeah, you know. Oh, I guess so.

So I have some friends who will rename will remain nameless who tried to start a meme account uh for the city of Topeka. I don't know if it still exists or not. It went about how you think it would go, blew up in a very terrible people were like so offended by it.

Because they thought it was the city actually posting it.

No, no, no, no. They didn't think it was the city, they just thought it was too negative. Oh. Because it was like it was just like a meme account, just trying to like make jokes about anything and everything in the city of Topeka. And it was like it tanked. People were like, could not handle it. And so they like they stopped pretty quick. And I was like, I was kind of bokeh. I mean, because it's I and I think I understand. Like, I think when you have such a negative view of the city, it's you're just kind of like amplifying that. Whereas maybe like a healthy city could have a healthy, kind of self-deprecating, yes, but there's no healthy self-def self-deprecation, it's just like we're the worst and not we don't do anything right. So you're really just kind of amplifying that.

Yes, you know, and so I think I always tend to err on the side of like we're here to inform about stuff, and it would be fun to do more of that fun stuff, but I I again we leave it to our amazing partners at uh Visit to Pika and go to Pika to talk about the fun stuff and the things that are exciting. But we also want to highlight, you know, the city government. We do fun stuff and we can have fun with it. But there I follow a lot of uh social media pages about city government and people kind of spitball how they do. And uh they were this group was painting the lines on the road, and the truck had a malfunction and it spilled all the yellow paint, and the picture was just of the workers just drenched in yellow, and it was like, yeah, Mondays. But then they highlighted how awesome their street sweeping crews are and how you know, and I would love to do stuff like that. Yeah, but I just not sure how well.

Do you think is Wendy's kind of the one who blew that up? Wendy's like 10 years ago?

Yes, Wendy's was big. Uh Lawrence Police, they used to have really fun posts. Yes, yeah.

I remember it seems like every brand on social media is doing that. Like you'll see every now and then you'll come across a post and every brand is in the comments trying to take advantage of the viral trend or whatever.

And I think people look at us and they're like, why don't we do that? And I'm like, I just, you know, it's all fun until the wrong post gets made, and then it's like, yeah, let's how dare you make a joke about blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, or not even the wrong post, but it's it's all fun until you post during you know the snowstorm, and it's like, why are we making this post when you know you could be helping, you know, resources could be there?

It's just social media shovel. Exactly. Go out there. Exactly.

Yeah, oh, I get that. I didn't even think about that. But yeah, that would that would be probably not received super well in Topeka.

Are there uh are there cities that like you know, uh is it how would you measure when Topeka could be ready for something like that?

Like when could we know that like, okay, we can handle it now? So I am I love social media. I'm on it on my free time, surprisingly, but I have followed, like, we do have a lot of meme pages, like it is Topeka, my dudes, and stuff. And so I get to see the temperature of people, and um I don't know. It that is I think at some point you have to take a leap of faith and just try new things. And I think that's as I'm trying to get more comfortable in my role in this. Like, first I want to learn the basics, but then we might be able to try some fun stuff. But I don't know. That's like the co the question, I think.

So you kind of just like test it, it blew up, now we're not ready. And then a couple years later, okay, maybe it wasn't quite as bad this time.

I think and I think you do it with stuff that could be funny rather than and that's always the case. But I saw a lot of people with Taylor Swift dropped her new album, they were doing like the life of a pothole filler, you know, like stuff like that, where I think that could be a fun angle of it. Right.

Yeah, yeah, you hit the light-hearted stuff, you know. Yes, yeah, not the like already really negative things.

That would be tough. I mean, even like I'll write blogs on my real estate website about you know, moving to Topeka, reasons why you should, or uh, you know, the best things about the city, and I'll share them into a lot of these Facebook Facebook groups. And this past year, I've like stopped sharing them because I'm like every single one I share just gets comment after comment, like, why would you move here? Yada yada. Why would you and I'm like it's like, and of course, you know, it's written by me, it's all my at my website. I'm like, I don't need that. You need anonymous landing pages. Yeah, I mean, it's just like I don't even want to read that.

Uh so it's yeah, and if you look at other cities, it's the same thing. And that's where it's just like I want people to be aware of like this is where you live, this it's the perspective you want to have on it. And I feel like everyone wants to hate on their own hometowns, but it's what's the there is there's a name for this.

You guys both might be aware of it because it's a marketing principle or strategy, I think. Um someone told me I think it was like Coke that was doing it, but um basically the idea is like you know, if you can like rate your you know, one to ten customers, how well they like you, you know, like five, one to five would be like they hate your guts, they're not gonna buy your product. You know, six to ten is positive, nines and tens are your diehard fans.

Um wasn't that net promoter score that we were talking about?

No, it's different than well it might be it's might be related, but the idea is like you're you sell to you promote yourself to the people that you want to create. So the idea is like you don't sell to the people who hate your guts and try to move them up to medium, and you don't sell to the mediums hoping to get them up to a diehard, you just promote yourself to your diehard fans because you communicate the kinds of things that create more diehard fans, is the idea. Does that make sense? And so if you're constantly going after the people who hate your guts, then people are like, man, a lot of people hate their guts, like they must not be that good. Right. You know, but if you're talking like, man, we have a ton of diehard fans, then everyone else sees, wow, a lot of a lot of people love Coca-Cola or whatever, you know. Um is that something like the way we talk about our city, or I don't know.

I I definitely think I do think there's some truth to that, is where if you kind of just think it and believe it, then eventually people will get on board of it because it's almost like a trend to hate on it, you know? Yeah. Um and I do see, like, especially with Forge and Visit Tobika, we are growing that population of people that are dedicated to the city. Yeah. And I see those people that come to every city council meeting and they want to push the city in a better direction, which I think is really cool. It's just the people on social media are the people on social media. It's almost a different group. And so I think that's something I want people to remember too is while the Facebook comments may be negative, I mean, how many people want to leave just uplifting stuff? You know, usually the people that are upset want to shout it and get more people on board. So you can't only listen to the feedback from Facebook. Yeah.

And I do like what you said. There is a large portion of Topeka that there's a large portion of the population that doesn't care for Topeka. And the reality is they never will. Doesn't matter what you do.

Right.

Doesn't matter, you know, what's changed, there's always gonna be problems. And that's just the reality of living in a city with people. There's always gonna be problems, and those people are and are always gonna hate the city. So why would we spend a bunch of time, money, and resources trying to appease them? It's just it's just you're just in a lose-lose.

That's kind of the 80-20 principle in some ways, the like Pareto principle where like 80% of the work gets done by 20% of people. It's kind of the same, like the 20% are the most bought in, and the other 80% are like someone fix this terrible place, you know? Yeah.

Well, and people have got to read more than the headlines. I think that's a big issue, is they don't read the story, and so it might be a positive story, but the headline might not explain the whole thing, because it can explain the whole thing. And so I think people taking that extra step to figure out what is actually happening. But I think a good example of the city doing something that was not perceived well at the beginning, but I think people are on board is the the flag change. Yeah. We used to have a different city flag, and I was working in news, and everyone was like, Why would you change it? It's fine, it's history, and then the new design. Oh, I hate the new design, but everyone loves it now, and they're putting it on any. I think they did a great job. It's not copyrighted. Anyone in the city could utilize it for their business. Oh, that's cool. Yep, so it becomes more ownership. I've seen a lot of the bars, they put it on their hats and stuff. So it becomes the people's flag. That's awesome. I think people are resistant to change in any capacity, but then once you get over it, you're like, okay, it's cool, it's modern.

Once it becomes no longer a change and it's like, oh, that's just is what it is, people will hop on.

You guys heard that phrase that change feels like pain and loss. Uh-huh. Yeah, that's change feels like pain and loss.

So let's shift gears a little bit to some of the stuff you guys are doing on the city of Topeka. I don't know if it's just your social medias or if there's other places, but one of the things that I saw, and I didn't even know you were involved with, was the history of Topeka segments that you guys are doing. You want to tell us a little bit about that?

Yes. So we have two awesome video production specialists on our team. And so they are talented in making videos, and we were trying to come up with a recurring monthly video series that they could routinely turn around. And we have a lot of people on our team that were really into history, and there's just so many different historical facets of the city. And so we've kind of talked about how this would look, but it is a monthly video series about different parts of Topeka and looking at the historical aspect. So one of the episodes is the history of the police department, like when we officially started. Yeah, yeah. You know, law enforcement looked so different when it was like people riding horses, and you know, there was no law in order back then, you know, like how do we yeah, how do we set that up? And you know, have like being we were very uh one of the first to have like uh African American officers and female officers. So kind of looking into that. And we are also looking at the history of the different cemeteries here. So just each month trying to to highlight a different uh aspect of that. That's cool.

Uh like Brown versus Board. Is that too low of hanging fruit?

We would yeah, we want to try to do some some different things that you might not have known about before. So we're trying to change it up. Um, the other series that we do is Behind the Seal, where we want to highlight the different departments and the different groups at the city because people know about you know the the road construction and stuff, but what are the other jobs in city government and how do they help and stuff? So each month we go and highlight a different group of people working in the city.

So is that just like a video you guys put out once a month? Where can people find those? Is it just socials, or how is that?

Yep, it's on uh YouTube, Facebook, uh, Instagram, and then we also have channel four. Okay. So if you uh are a Cox customer, you get channel four, and so we keep all of our videos kind of playing on the loop there. Yeah. Oh, it's cool. Yeah, cool.

You know, uh obviously you said the city's not ready for funny content, but if they were, it might be really easy. You just recreate parks and rec scenes. Yes. Actual city employees.

I've seen uh other cities have done that. Oh, really? Yes, this social media page that we're with. It's pretty funny. That would be awesome. It was one, um, it was a city on the coast, and there was a hurricane coming, and it, you know, it had like hurricanes, a girl's name, yeah, and they had a woman on staff that had the same name. And so they were doing the office skit about like how rough of a week it was to have that name this year. That's hilarious. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That would be awesome.

So the Snowmageddon, as you called it, that was your first PR fire that you had to deal with. What are some of the other ones that maybe Topekans would recognize that were more difficult for you guys?

Um, one thing that happened a little more recently was um there was a police raid at the house, the transgender house, the bot house. And uh the one right across from uh Westboro Baptists or whatever. And you know, people woke up and the house had been vandalized. And quickly word was spreading that it was a hate crime. And that was not what happened. You know, there was someone in there that had committed crimes and police were trying to get that individual out of the house. Well, you know, word spreads fast. And uh, we were trying to get the press release out. We were trying to like tell the people, you know, it's not what it looks like, it was not. Right. Um, but the New York Times called me within like 20 minutes, and they're like, hey, we heard that you guys had like a house get, and I'm like, I know why you're calling it, it's not what you think. Give me like 20 minutes, but that's part of it too. We live in such a day, a day where you won't New York Times called you. Yeah, that's wild.

Issue aside, that's kind of cool.

Yeah. So we were able to, you know, squash the rumors, and but it's like you also want to be factual. You don't want to just rush out and you know, there's a little bit of like what happened last night. You know, I woke up like the same as everyone else. So we're trying to piece together what happened and make sure we're crossing our T's and dotting our I's before we make Any announcements, but you know, people were out there really quickly. Oh shit.

I remember when that that happened, seeing people outraged on social media was the first thing I saw. And I was like, wait, in Topeka, what? And so I remember looking like at any article I could find, and it said, like, wait, it doesn't seem like that's what actually happened. Like it seems like there's just it was coincidental. Yes, that it just happened to be that house. Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, if everyone takes a breath before when things like that happen, um, and and that's something that I want you know, people to know sometimes the lack of stories is good PR. Yeah. Because you wouldn't know, you know, the New York Times almost ran with that, and then we would have had a horrible national spotlight. Yeah. But you know, being able to quickly jump on and just like talking to like they're just a reporter, they heard this rumor. And so, you know, on the phone, I was like, hey, it's not what you think. Give me 10 minutes, and then you'll know the full story. Yeah. But you know, some people are afraid to just call back the New York Times and say, hold on, you know, stop the presses. That's wild.

That's kind of cool. So is that what are some of the other major have you been called by lots of major news outlets?

And um no, not not particularly. Uh we keep it, you know, kind of I guess that's probably good.

Because if you're getting called by the New York Times, it's probably usually not for a year. It's probably a bad thing. Yeah.

And we let Bob Ross and his crew, they they get the national, the positive, and you know. But we do get a lot.

It's kind of brutal. You're like the scapegoat of the city.

Yeah, I mean, and but that's also, you know, we do have some positive things going on, and we get a lot of visits from other cities that are coming to see our form of government and what we're doing great as a city. So I know it it seems like you know, we get noticed, or you know, our department people are asking questions about things that are negative, but you know, there's more to it. Yes, there is. And that's the stuff that gets the attention.

Sure. That is it is interesting, just the way you say it. Like, every city has people on Facebook. That's maybe like the bottom 10% of like, you know, the haters or whatever. Those are gonna be the most vocal, especially on social media. Every every city has that. It is, it seems like a good sign when your city is noticed by other city officials. That's a good sign. They're like, hey, you guys are doing so, like, despite what it appears on social media, and people don't realize, hey, every city has that. Just because you see comments doesn't mean it's actually as bad as it looks. Right. Other cities are calling our city to be like, hey, how do we do what you guys are doing? Exactly. That's a good that's really cool. That's a good sign.

I think, you know, with the momentum 2020 and momentum 2027, you know, we have people that are, you know, putting us in the right direction where other cities, I don't know, have that cohesive vision. Um, you know, we're uh getting ready to have the state of the community addressed, where we'll have the county and the city and the visit Tobeka, everyone, you know, highlight what is coming in the city. And so I think having those visions and having those tangible steps of what we're gonna do next, I think that's what other cities are looking at. My brother was on the city council from our hometown. And so he, you know, we were always, I was sending him like, well, we're doing this over here. And so he would bring that to them. And so, you know, we are, you know, if you're looking at Tobeka with from within, you know, there's some negative perceptions. But I think again, if you step outward, there's some really positive things, and I think people are noticing the city for that. Interesting. That's really cool. Wow, that is very interesting. And that's where I want people to also, you know, when the snow thing was happening, I was looking at the comments of other cities and I screenshotted them. And you could have put those comments to any it was the exact same story over it. And so people think like, you know, they'll comment, we're the only city that has this negative stuff. I'm like, it's not a good thing. Screenshot, screenshot, screenshot. You wouldn't know.

I were I brought the receipts.

Yeah, exactly. That's hilarious. But we just let it, you know, we don't argue with people. You know, it's free speech. You can say and we're not here to fight with anyone. You can comment what you want, and we're just trying to share about the initiatives and the the progress.

Is there because I know you can do it, but I'm trying to think if there's a reason why you guys don't. Is there a reason why you allow comments? So it is That's a good question.

Yes, because there are other entities that will turn off comments, and it has to be an all or nothing. So if we were to turn off comments, it would have to be on everything. Like no comments on anything. We couldn't let some people comment because it is your first amendment right. And if we delete comments or hide comments, that is a friend infringing on your first amendment right. Yeah, you're the government, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So you know, and it gets hard because sometimes people come for specific individuals, and it's hard to watch your coworkers, you know, get sh shown in a negative spotlight. And, you know, sometimes, you know, we'll be doing something fun, and I'm like, wow, this would be really cool to highlight, but you just don't want to put a, you know, let people be criticized like that, you know. And so sometimes I feel a little protective of people and I don't want to say, but yeah, we you know, that is something, you know, sometimes gets tossed around, like, do we turn off comments? But I think you know, it as much as it's hard to read sometimes, but that is what the people are thinking, yeah, and it's their right to comment that.

Uh you said something I think off-air that I thought was really interesting and really should just be a message to people, you know, saying those things behind a phone. Um you know, there are people on the other end of these city accounts, and when you're constantly commenting negative things and over and over and over again, like you told me you know the names, you don't know them, uh, but you're like, oh, that person's commenting again. And so, I mean, it gets seen. It's not like yeah, exactly. Uh or you know, before you post something, I bet so-and-so's gonna comment again. You you I mean, people see that. It's not like you're commenting and you're hiding behind a screen never to be seen. You know, people notice.

Yes, yes. And we and you know, people message us, and we we do look at those messages and we try to resolve every issue that we can. So again, if you tell us that there's a problem, we want to fix it, and we're not just gonna be like, oh, that's a hate comment. No, we look at it and I'm like, okay, how are people feeling about these things? Because that's kind of what I gauge to move on to the next thing.

I feel like if if I was in your position or whoever is like responding to comments, I would just have a chat GPT thread that's like, make this sound nice. Yeah. You know? So we we don't listen, pal, and then chat GPT is like, hello, sir, you know?

Yes. And we don't really respond to comments. We if someone asks a genuine question that we can answer, we answer it, but for the most part, because it gets so much back and forth. And so and if we do respond, it we don't it's our we only respond one time. Yeah. We're not doing back and forth. Yeah.

The amount of passive aggressive memes I would comment back with as the if I had if I was in charge of the city social media account would be insane.

Yeah. Yeah. Your first response is do you want Wendy's or the city of Topeka? Exactly. Uh Wendy's. Well then shut the heck up. You know, no one cares what you think. I know.

To know the people that do that at with those companies, that would that would be nice to do for one day.

It's funny to be able to have the branding to be able to back it up. Yeah. You know, like they can do it and not apologize for it. Because it's Wendy's. Yeah, they just do it. I have a buddy who was on that team right out of college who was like behind those. The Wendy scene? Well, and so he like it like totally set his whole career. Yeah, on the Wendy's marketing, yeah.

That's awesome. Wild. And that was another thing we've focused a lot on social media, but that's something I've learned too in this job is to reach the people that are not on social media because we do. I know that was something that when I came into this role, I'm like, you know, everyone's on social media, but there is a large population that they don't have phones or they don't have access to internet. So making sure that when we have events and stuff, that we don't just do a digital ad and send it off and we call it a day. Uh we have uh different departments and they've gotten really good about um we print off full-size standing banners and we put them at the public library and different places that we know to reach different populations so that everyone gets the opportunity to know about events and know about these initiatives that are coming up.

Yeah, that is smart. I think when you're young, you think the whole world's online. Yep. Yeah, yeah for sure. It's not true. No. Um I this is I think if my memory is correct, but this is before you were in your current position. But I'm wondering if you were at the news station when the New York governor threw Topeka under the bus. Were you around for that?

Oh, um I think I was working for the school district at that time. Oh, okay.

So you were out of you weren't a part of the I was just curious what that was like behind the scenes.

No, yeah. Well, uh shifting gears maybe to outside of your profession, but just a resident of Topeka. Um what do you like about Topeka? You're from St. Louis, you're here, you're self-proclaimed, you love the city, not only because it's your job and you kind of have to be the PR guy, but what what gets you going about the city? What are you excited about? Why why do you call Topeka home?

Well, I love all the food here, you know. Yeah. All the restaurants. I love how fast it's growing. I like, you know, I when I moved here, the pennant was the new restaurant. Right. And there's been so many new restaurants since then. And so it's like you can kind of uh put like timestamps on based on when restaurants open. Yeah. Um, but besides that, I love hiking. We uh take our dogs and go up Burnett's Mound all the time. And it's so cool right after work to just do a quick little 10-minute hike up there and you can see the whole city. We love going to Lake Shawnee and all that stuff. Um, I think that there's a lot of cool, you know, a bunch of different groups putting on events. So Halloween time, that is my jam. Okay. We love all the spooky stuff that goes on this year, yeah, this time of year.

You're a haunted house kind of guy? Oh, yeah. Where what's the go-to? So there's one out in the woods that yes, that they put on.

And that one is crazy. Like at some point you have to crawl through the woods. What is this? Oh gosh, now I can't think of the name of it, but I'll have to tell you after.

This this episode will probably be released after Halloween. So everyone needs to save this for a year from now.

Yes. Well, and there's some that I haven't gotten to do every year, but like uh one of the cemeteries does a seance in spirits. You can like go into a crypt and have some alcohol and talk to some spirits. Um did the the Tika Cemetery Ghost Tour every year. They like, and I like that one because yes, you're in a cemetery, but it's the Kansas Historical Society puts it on. And so you stand at a grave and they tell you the story of this person's life. Wow. So it's a lot of history in that. That's kind of cool. Yeah. So we ended up doing just random some stuff like that. Gary's berries everywhere.

What's the uh the haunted house in the woods? Like, what is that? I gotta figure that out.

It's in the county.

You have to sign a waiver.

Oh yes. Well, the first year we did it, I was like, okay, maybe.

I didn't I've never heard about this before. Yeah. Maybe after this we'll transition to some rapid fire. Because my guess is they won't be so rapid. Okay. Because we haven't talked a ton about Tiki yet.

Topeka haunted woods. It's a Topeka Haunted Woods. I believe so. Have you guys ever been to the haunted houses in Kansas City?

No, but I've heard they're epic.

You gotta go to the ones in St. Louis. Oh, really? Okay. Yes. They have uh, I think they're like ranked for like some of the best ones in the country. Yeah, they those are pretty scary.

Isn't there ones where you have to sign a waiver to like they can like touch you and stuff?

Yeah, I'm not that's I'm not interested in that.

No, I didn't know. I I don't know. I can pull that off. That's that's cool. Wild.

Well, let's transition to some rapid fire. We always like to end our time with some rapid fire questions, uh mostly about the city. But go to local restaurant and speaker.

Yeah. Okay, gosh. Okay. And how bad one rapid fire go to restaurant? Uh Mi Ranchito. I've never been. What is it? Mi Ranchito. I don't know. Yeah, it's across from the uh BB Theater and Johnny's or is that El Ranchito? El Ranchito. El Ranchet. Okay, so can we redo it?

Yep. El Ranchito. What's your favorite restaurant in Topeka? El Ranchito. Boom!

Boom. Great restaurant. Yeah, that place is good.

I don't think they're related, but there's one over in Auburn, too, that's real good. And Gambino's is right there as well. So I always get dessert pizza after.

Okay. Smart. Um go to date night spot. Like, what are you doing on a Friday night? Staying in. Yeah.

That's a real answer. Yeah.

Honestly, for somebody who's like talking all week, probably. I am a big homebody.

Yeah. You know, the pennant is great for some some drinks and some food and hanging out, just being downtown. Taco is pretty pretty cool and new. So that's good.

Love it. Heck yeah. It's awesome.

Uh good. Maybe a little uh Burnett's Mound hike. Yes. And we love going to the theater, the B. Have you seen a 4D movie?

No, I haven't seen a 4D movie.

Yeah, it's it's intense. We saw uh Mortal Kombat in 4D.

No, what is the fourth D? Like they move your chair.

They move your chair, and then if you're like watching the scary movie, like there's like prods in the back that'll like if someone gets like stabbed, it'll like poke you in your back. Are you serious? Yeah. Oh man. Really? I love the high adrenaline stuff. But yeah, in Mortal Kombat, every time there's a fight scene, your chair just starts throwing you around. Yeah. This is a lot.

Do they do like fog and like mist and stuff?

And like water will spray at you. Damn.

That's crazy. That's funny. When confession, when they were announcing the BB theaters or building it, I was so not against it. I didn't care, but I was like, there's no way this is gonna work. Topeka's not ready for this. You know, we can't have dinner at a at a movie theater with nice chairs. This is a Kansas City thing. And here we are. Here we are. It's our only theater now. I know, yeah, I know.

We used to have the Regal Unlimited and say we would go to Red Robin. Oh, the subscription? Yeah. Thanks. Oh, yeah. As many movies as we wanted.

It was Were you guys around when Movie Pass was popular? I was not. I wasn't either. I I lived in Manhattan at the time and none of the theaters took Movie Pass. But a lot of my closest friends lived in Lawrence and had Movie Pass. It was $10 a month, which seems insane.

Yeah, because that's one movie.

Yeah. And you it was unlimited. So my friends were like, you know, they lived in Lawrence, and I was like, maybe it's worth it, and I'll drive to Lawrence. Like it was like an hour away. But they would go to multiple movies at a time just for free. And then as soon as we moved out of Manhattan, MoviePass tanked and it didn't have it anymore.

Go to coffee shop in Topeka. Ooh, dialogue. Dialogue? Yeah. Okay.

The first one is right by my house. So they're cookies.

Oh cookies nonstop. That's true. This feels kind of mean to ask, but how many bottles did you hit on the way here? That is nasty. None.

I swear, this is a standard question. There's none because we filled in 650 this week.

That's right. That's right.

Let's go.

No bias. That was the perfect answer you could have given. Do you okay? Do you do home projects? Yes. Okay. If you are doing a home project, are you going to Home Depot, Lowe's, or Menards? Menards is my favorite. We live by an ace. You're getting along so well. What is yours? I'm just kidding. Menard's is the right answer. This is ours. Menard's is the right answer.

Okay, sorry. I cut you off. So Menards and then Ace Hardware is right around the corner. So when it's like the eighth trip to the hardware store for the same project, we're just going to ace at that point.

Yeah, well, we drive across town 50 times.

No. Yeah.

No.

What is something that you think Topeka is missing? Like a thing to do, a restaurant? Men's shopping. Men's shopping. Okay. Like clothing? Yes. Yes. Okay.

I felt okay, so I recently was part of Leadership Greater Topeka. Great experience, recommended to anyone that gets that opportunity. Really great at cultivating, but they asked us the same question. And I felt really bad because everyone's answers. I looked once the magazine came out, and everyone else's answers were very like well polished and like really serious topics. We need more like resources for people. Like men's fashion. But you know, I am trying to up my professional game, but just like, you know, like HM, which I've heard might be at the coming to the HM at the end. That would be cool. But just like more outlets and stuff just to get some like kind of legends-ish. Yes. But yeah. Cool. Yeah. Because Dillard's is cool and stuff, but it's it's expensive.

Dillard? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Uh any others? Missing any others? Is that it? I guess where can I feel like there's one more. I'm l I lost it. Yeah, I don't know. Where can people find you at? Whether personal social medias or if they want to follow the city of Topeka, where can they follow? Where can they find? Where can they stay informed?

Yep, City of Topeka on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, uh, Topeka.org. Um just those are all anything that's going on, you'll that's where you'll find me at.

Heck yeah. Dan, thanks so much for being here.

I did want to ask one question. It's not a rapid fire. I just thought it'd be interesting because you mentioned the state of the community address. When is that gonna be? Tell people when they can where they can watch that.

I believe it's November 6th. Actually, I didn't even know we did that. No, I didn't need it. I know. It's during the day, so it's kind of harder. And that you have to buy tickets. So it's not.

So it's not on TV or about a what are we live streamed somewhere? I don't think so. Oh no? Okay.

But it is so the uh Greater Topeka Partnership, State of the Community, November 6th, starts at 7 45, and it is at the town site towers ballroom. Yeah. It's you know, the mayor speaks, the county commissioners speak, and it's all about everything that's coming up. So it's a good place to get in the know of what's coming up. Yeah, sounds good.

So if you want to be in on what's going on, tune in. Hit that up.

You go there and then you subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's right. You'll have everything you need. That's right.

And you like uh Justin's blog posts.

That's right. Don't hate on my blog posts. That's right. Yes, no no negative comments. No negative. Dan, thanks so much for being here. Appreciate your time, man. Thank you.