In the Line of Duty

Sometimes you just need to swallow hard and move ahead.

I was working on this real-estate deal back in California for the company I was working for at the time. It was going to be very lucrative for us, but the local City stood to make no revenues off the project. It was going to be a land lease and the tenant would not be a sales tax source for the City.

The City Planning group wasn’t overly keen about the entire project and felt it did not meet its overall ‘image’ the city was trying to portray. The City had grand thoughts of their future and so on. Let us just say they saw themselves as more of a Malibu type community, upscale and very trendy. I saw them more like a 1997 Chevy Malibu, complete with a bad muffler and full of ‘gang-bangers’. (It is best not to share this sentiment when attempting to negotiate.)

So here we are sitting around a conference table at City Hall. We are trying to find a way to get the City to see our point of view and move forward on the project. We agree to new trees to line the road (none of course existed there before), new landscaping (none prior), curb cuts, sidewalks, fences to city code, etc. A ‘code’ that no one could produce, but be assured there IS one… somewhere. Then we come to the big stumbling block; they want a ‘new’ office building. We have already put in a Modular office building (see manufactured homes, as in trailers, home on wheels, etc.) and I am holding a copy of the City code that allows for this.

Keep in mind; the area we are discussing is next to two oil refineries and a collection of junkyards. When we first were looking at the site, formerly an above ground open pit ‘tank farm’ from the 1940’s, we had to carry sticks to drive away the wild dogs that roamed the property. These were the offspring from junkyard dogs that had over time drifted away from the junkyards. We even managed to tame a pit bull puppy and today, he guards the tenant’s area.

So we are at an impasse. Or are we?

I look over at the City Environmental Planner and notice an interesting necklace that she is wearing. It looks a lot like the jewelry I had seen in my younger days at Truck Stops sold along the Interstates.

I mentioned “what an interesting piece” it is. She thanks me and a smile breaks out on her face. (Apparently, a prized possession…) She explains proudly that her sister makes jewelry and had in fact made this lovely cameo for her. She pointed out that if I looked closely I would see that in fact, it was a likeness of her. (I saw a white oval with a really bad job of applying glue to some unknown, shiny stuff.)

I agreed it looked just like her as she had pointed out.

I asked her if she could ask her sister if it would be possible to make one for my wife. I explained my wife loved nice jewelry and it would make for a wonderful birthday present, seeing as her birthday was coming up quickly. (Her birthday was actually almost a year away.)

She asked if I had a picture of her, and I produced one from my wallet. The necklace would be done in a week, just in time for me to surprise my wife on her birthday. That would have been a major surprise indeed.

We went back to the meeting and amazingly, we were able to agree to a three-year time period around the Modular office building (trailer) vs. a ‘new’ building issue and moved on with the project. Everyone was happy!

The following week, I received a call telling me that my necklace was ready.

I went straight away, as my Scottish friends would say, to City Hall to ‘claim my prize.’ I am not sure what I was more amazed by, how ugly this thing was or the fact that it was going to cost me $160.00. I smiled, wrote a check, thanked her warmly, and headed back to my office.

I then turned it into my Boss on an Expense Report, adding “Don’t ask.’”

I gave the necklace to our Admin Assistant, the only person I knew who actually lived in this City, and moved on to the next task at hand.