Ticket Tyranny: Ken Grant's Battle for Due Process

In this episode, host Dara McBride interviews Ken Grant, a marketing director and social media innovator, who shares his experience of making a difference through civic engagement.

"Yes Genius!" is a podcast that explores the power of affirmative thinking, celebrating the impact of saying yes to unexpected opportunities and the unknown.

Transcript

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Welcome to Yes Genius, a podcast from Epic Marketing that celebrates the power of affirmative thinking. In each episode, we explore the power of saying yes to unexpected opportunities, career changes, even the unknown and the powerful results. Hello and welcome. I'm your host for this episode, Dara McBride. Joining me is Ken Grant, a seasoned marketing director, social media innovator, video producer, and in his words, a designated pot stirrer. He's worked in radio, print news, politics, and corporate communications. He's also an award-winning Bollywood dancer, more on that later, and can frequently be found out and about in Delaware meeting new people. Welcome, Ken. Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here. And yes, what we're going to talk about today is how I got that designated pot stirrer title. I'm so glad. There have been a few events where I've seen you at a distance and only recently was actually able to meet you in person. So I'm so glad that we're following up and having a bigger conversation. So as we both kind of alluded to, you're known as someone who says yes to showing up. Can you tell us about a time when you committed yourself to making a difference,  you said yes to making a difference through civic engagement, and what happened next? Sure, interestingly enough it started at a party. It was an art loop event back in, we are talking the fall of 2011, so we are going way, way, way back. And so we're there just having a good time. I'm talking with a friend who, you know, interestingly was responsible for the art loop, you know, continuing in Wilmington. And she said, you know, I just had this really horrible experience. Let me tell you about it. And what had happened, she, you know, as part of her work with the city of Wilmington, she went to a lot of meetings, many of them ran over time. She got parking tickets on a regular basis, and she said that was just the cost of doing business. You're there, you get a parking ticket, you pay the parking ticket, no big deal. Until one  day she comes home and there's a notice in her mailbox that she had not paid this one particular parking ticket and now there were late fees added on and It was well over $100. And so she went in the next day to figure it out. Okay, this should be easy to take care of. Went to the finance department and said, hey, I just found out about this ticket. I didn't know I had it. Can I, and I'm not disputing the ticket? I will gladly pay the ticket. But since I'm just now finding out about it, can we waive that late fee? And, you know, obviously a great response would have been, oh sure, no problem. An Okay response would have been, you know, sorry, we have procedures, but instead they had the worst response ever, which was to start insulting her, threatening her, telling her that they could boot her car right then and there if they wanted to, saying that she was a scofflaw who didn't pay her other bills on time and you know all kinds of stuff and she was you know really frustrated by that whole experience but because she was doing contract work for the city there was a clause in there that said you can't say anything bad about the city publicly. And I said, well, okay, that's great. And this was my "say yes" moment. I'm thinking that's, you know, I didn't sign such a contract. I am not bound by such a clause. You know, and the idea was let's just get this out there in the hopes of spurring a conversation and maybe getting some better customer service in this one  area. So at the time there was this fun computer program. You could create a little animated video. All you had to do was put in the text. It was a whole lot of fun. And so I created this fun little animated video that sort of recreated that scene with the Department of Finance. I changed her to a him to protect her identity and put it out there. And then I called up Rick Jensen of the Rick Jensen show on WDL. And I said, "Hey, Rick, check out this video. Why don't we play this on the air? And we'll talk about it for a couple of minutes." And he said, "Sure, OK." It'll be worth a few minutes of fun. And again, maybe the city will respond and hopefully treat people in a more decent manner. And then what happened was the phone lines lit up for two  hours as people were telling one horror story after another. For instance, the people who called in said that they would park their vehicle and reach down to get the change to put in the meter. This is the days before parking apps and everything else. And before they could get their change, there was a ticket on their windshield. And you would think, OK, that's kind of weird. And so they would file an appeal to that ticket saying, I was just trying to get out of the car. It didn't have time. And the appeal was denied, citing a part of the code that said, the money is to be in immediately. So that was one  example. We had people with residential parking permits who had accumulated dozens of tickets that they just had to keep appealing over and over and over again. You know, none were legitimate. And I mean, you know, there's, to me this was a broken system. And what was most frustrating was I knew about the efforts and I was part of the efforts of the city to convince people to come into the city of Wilmington, to come in and shop and dine and enjoy great music. There's so many great things that have been happening in Wilmington for years, but it has this stigma of not being a safe place. And so there would be billboards and ad campaigns, come to Wilmington and enjoy the nightlife, and it's really taking root now. But at the time it was frustrating to think, okay, the city is spending tens of thousands of dollars a month on this campaign to try to bring people in. And then they have policies in place and practices in place that appear to be telling people, no, stay out. If you come here, we will punish you. And so I started calling my contacts in the city and asking them like, "Hey, there's something broken here, can we fix it?" And their basic response was, "Hey, what can you do?" And I said, okay, I understand. I have a snarky- I think you took that to mean, what can I do? Pretty much. So yeah, I sent kind of a snarky email a little later on, said, oh, hey, I apologize for trying to get you guys to do this. I know you've got so much on your plate. Let me take care of it. I will help remedy this situation and educate the public on how to be better citizens and better parkers. And so we took all those absurd situations of people getting their tickets before they had time to get the money out and all that stuff and created what I called a series of public service announcement videos. And they were over-the-top absurd but pointed out you know all these different aspects. Pretty soon the news journal had some front page stories, Channel 10, Channel 6, Fox 29 came down, started doing stories on it. Next thing I know, I get a call from the city saying, hey, can we talk? And this was early 2012. We sat down, we had some really good productive conversations and a whole series of reforms came out of that. And I thought, OK, this is great. This is awesome. Basically, by summer of 2012, I said, OK, this is good. We've resolved this issue. And things were good for a little while and then 2016 started hearing rumblings that things weren't as good. And that's when I started doing more research into the root causes behind some of this stuff. And that's led to a multi-year experience now where a group of us have now been trying to address these issues. So we've got reports that have been written up by the University of Delaware. We have various measures that have been introduced in council. They have finally, finally, after years of talking about this, they've set up a system where instead of a $40 parking ticket, if you pay within the first two weeks, it's a $25 parking ticket, something much more in line with what we have in the region. We are still addressing things like the towing issue you know the city of Wilmington boots and tows more vehicles per capita than any other city we can find in the United States. That includes Chicago, Washington, DC, and other states. And so we're trying to get that resolved. A lawsuit was filed in 2021, which will finally be going before the third circuit court, US district court in July of 2024. So we're waiting to see. And that lawsuit basically deals with both the city's policies and the practices by the tow companies that the city had contracted with, have continued to contract with. And there's an interesting scheme in the middle of all of that. And as we're recording this, we're preparing to receive a couple of awards and recognitions from the Delaware Bar Association and the Delaware Center for Justice for all of these efforts. So It's nice to get that recognition from such great groups. And we're hoping that with the continued efforts and working with city council, we'll hopefully bring about more of these reforms that are so needed. Wow. So I don't know if you ever expected to become a parking reform advocate. And I don't know if we ever anticipated having a parking reform advocate on the podcast, but I think it's, you know, thinking about it, it's such a crucial aspect. I mean, your friend who was committed to going downtown, even though she knew she might get a ticket, I mean, I know people who are afraid to go places. You know, they say, I don't know what parking will be like. I don't know if I'll be able to find parking. I don't know if I'll be able to find parking. I don't know if I'll be able to pay for parking. I'm just not gonna go. And then, you know, that completely changes community. And that's the big part here is this whole system was set up purely as a revenue generating system. This has nothing to do with public safety. It has nothing to do with traffic flow through a city. Those things should and could easily be addressed if the city were to do a study to see what are the traffic patterns like now. The traffic rules that were set up in the 1990s, again designed specifically to raise revenue for the city, it's a very different city today than it was then. You know, at that time,

we all knew at 05: 12:18

00, the city rolls up at sidewalks and everybody goes home and there's, you know, there, there was no nightlife. There was no nothing to do on weekends or anything. These days, You have many more residents living downtown, which is awesome. You have a vibrant nightlife, a lot of things to do on the weekends. But I can tell you right now that when you show up at night or weekends when there's no parking enforcement whatsoever, that those are the times when it's probably needed most, especially for those that are double parking on Market Street and backing things up for blocks around. Now we have valet systems everywhere too. The valet systems, now those seem to be working okay, but again, it's it speaks to kind of what it takes to set up a system that works and the city just, you know, isn't taking the time to say okay What are the actual needs and then you get into some of the neighborhoods and that's where it's really become unfortunate that they've in this effort to maintain revenue streams, they seem to be targeting individuals who simply live in the city and are just, you know, they're parking in front of their home, they've got a parking permit, and yet they find, you know, tickets upon tickets. You know, the city just isn't seeming to address some of these basic issues. And there's confusing signage. And then there's absolutely no enforcement of some of the rogue tow companies that have operated in the city. So it's it's just a huge mess but when all you're worried about is can we get another $40 out of somebody or these days$25, whatever it takes, you know, that's all they're concerned about. And that's been demonstrated time and time again. But it does have, and I often say this for, you know, people go, oh, my gosh, parking tickets, really? You know, that's that's your big thing?  And the reality is, yes, it should be such a simple thing. And if it is a city, if an administration can't handle that, then how am I supposed to really trust them when it comes to economic development or public safety or education? All of these other things, it's like, if you can't do that part, okay. It's kind of the thing of like, if you can't make your bed in the morning, you know, are you really ready to face the day kind of thing? And this is sort of the, we're talking about making a bed, you know, It's handling a parking enforcement situation shouldn't be that difficult, but they've made it so. One  of the details that I appreciate about your story is that the little story within the story from going on the radio show and that you got two  hours worth of calls because I think that speaks to people simply wanting to be heard and recognized. And I'm curious what you understand or what you learned from saying yes to the civic engagement, you know, that was unexpected, that you wish you had known to anticipate. So, yes. So this also speaks to any systems that are, you know, where people recognize there needs to be some reform here. Again, this can apply to so many things. That one  of the things that a system will do, a bureaucracy, an organization, is try to isolate everybody, make them feel like they're the only one. And so when you throw something like that on the radio and people go, oh my gosh, yes, that resonates. You know, I had this experience and then another person calls and another person calls and you realize we're not alone in all of this. But you have a system that's constantly telling people, oh, what, you know, and that's been one  of the great things about the internet because before a business could kind of get away with this, as well as a government agency where you know you call and say hey there's a glitch in the system there's something wrong with the software there's something wrong here and they go oh gee we're not hearing that from anybody else you know And now we're living in a time where people can say, no, here's a thousand people who are having this situation. And one  of the things I just stumbled across recently that I highly, highly recommend, earlier this year, The BBC, I believe, had produced a series, or one  of the British television services, produced a series called Mr. Bates versus the Post Office, which deals with something very similar. It was a scandal in Great Britain, where people who had been hired on as postmasters for each little village and everything throughout the country were having problems with the software and the British government prosecuted 700 people for essentially embezzlement when it turned out it was a software problem the whole time. And every single one  of those 700 people were being told, you're the only one. Yeah, You're the only one that's dealing with this. So many times saying yes means I'm here to tell my story. I'm here to affirm this has been happening. And who else? It's the classic planting your flag kind of thing. So you have experience teaching a literal course on civic engagement. If someone wanted to say yes to speaking up about a systematic change that they think needs to happen, or being an ally, putting themselves in a room in a supportive position, what are the tools that they need in their proverbial toolbox? First, just an understanding that the entire system is designed to be resistant to change. So I know a lot of people have come to me over the years, you know, they see what I've done, you know, in this one  area, or maybe other areas where I've taken on a different cause or whatever. And they say, oh, there's this thing that's going on and I wanna do what you do. I wanna go out there and make a change. And I'm like, okay, great. So what's your plan? And they're like, I'm going to show up at the next council meeting and I'm going to speak my mind. Okay, great. And then?  You know, and they look at you like, what do you mean? And then, you know, it's like, that's not going to do anything. You know, it's like, it's, it's, It's a fine piece to an overall plan, but you have to understand that, again, that's what bureaucracies are based on, is setting up a system where people are allowed to come and speak their mind and thank God for the First Amendment. I'm a huge proponent of the First Amendment. I believe in people speaking their mind. But at the end of the day, it's designed to just say, oh, OK, great. Hope you enjoyed speaking your mind and next item on the agenda. To really be able to change things effectively requires persistence it also requires a lot of homework you need to know you know what is it what are the things that you're trying to change, how were they put in place in the first place, at what level. I tell people all the time, you don't call your U.S. Senator to complain about a pothole. And likewise, you don't go to your city council person to try to get something moved in Congress. You know, you need to just have a basic understanding of what are the, who are the real decision makers in this area? Is it a matter of something that needs to be done legislatively? Can it be done administratively? Figure out what exactly you're working with. Just had an example with a state representative talking about this issue with people collecting garbage in the early morning hours. And so, okay, you need to sit down and figure out who sets the rules on that. It turns out it's something that there's codes in the state level and the county level. The two don't quite match up. Do I need to talk to my county council person? Do I need to talk to my state legislator? Know that it can take a little bit of time to dig through, figure out what it is. And If we are talking about something that needs to be changed legislatively, that is something that it can be a multi-year process. You know, in the case of the British post office situation, that was something that went on from 1999 till 2013 before there was actually a court ruling that the government was wrong and all of these people's lives needed to be made right by the government. And so that was a good 15 years there. Here we are in 2024, they're still waiting for some of the justice to be served and for restitution and so forth. So it's, you need to really figure out, is this something that I wanna take on? I've had that conversation with several people when they come to me and say, this needs to change. And I'm like, great, how much are you willing to actually, you know, It's like sit down right now and figure out, I understand when the passions are high, you're ready to storm the gates or whatever, but the reality is if this thing goes on for two  years, three years, four years, are you still ready to follow through? Because I've heard from those who represent the system that they talk about the waves of people who come at them, wanna reform the system try to reform the system and you know oh gosh after four or five  years they just seem to go away you know as if that's justification for the system to just remain as it is. And it's like, oh, so in other words, you wore them down to the point where they were no longer willing to spend all their time writing the letters and showing up at the meetings and so forth. You're certainly committed for the long haul here. Your parking reform efforts have been in the works for over 10 years. I'm imagining you have, you know, quite the bench of supporters and people who are along with you for the ride. Can you tell me about the 3 most influential people in your life and how they impacted you? So, one  is a friend who unfortunately had passed away from a muscular disease a few years ago, but he was a tireless advocate. In his case, he was fighting for reforms in family law to bring about more fair and equitable issues for especially for fathers in those cases and and I just I remember he helped me with a lot of this stuff. He helped me with some other crusades. I would like to think that I helped him some as well, but he was just tireless in his efforts to try to help others in resolving court cases and again trying to change the actual system behind that. So Jim Brannon, behind that. So Jim Brannon definitely an inspiration in this. The entire Fines and Fees team - Lynn Keelhorn and Miriam Dede, Christian Willauer, Shanae Darby, Cheyenne Miller, Hannah Ashley, and these people have taken all this on and just been incredible in their ability to dig in, do research, work with some creative ideas. They've been really incredible to work with. I just learned recently, one  of them kind of was looking for a cause to support a few years back and started looking at, you know, do you help a village in India or a village in Africa or something and whether it's digging wells or whatever and realize no, there's things happening right here in Wilmington, Delaware and realize that that would probably be the best use of her time and efforts and I'm so grateful that she does just that and makes a huge difference. When it comes to saying yes, my six-year-old grandson was just in town recently. The family, my son's in the army, so travels around a bit. They're currently stationed in Texas. And the 4 grandkids were in town. The six-year-old has been taking piano lessons for about the past year. And so while he was in town, I had the opportunity to take him to his first jazz concert to hear Sharon Sable and Joe Holt and friends, and got to sit right behind the piano that has recently come to Delaware from the Kennedy Center where John Baptiste played it regularly. So that was kind of a cool thing. So I asked my grandson, do you want to go to this concert? He said, yes,  I want to go to the concert. OK, great. So we go to the concert. And after the concert, we're invited to the after party. And I turned to my grandson, and I said, do you want to go to the after party? And with all the enthusiasm in the world, he says, yes. And then he looks at me and he says,"What's an after party?" I thought, okay, that "yes," that is the embodiment of saying Yes to things that is just, gosh, yes, what is it? And I had this experience last year, it was so wild. A friend of mine texted me on a Monday and said, "Hey Ken, what are you doing Friday? How's your Friday?" And I'm figuring, okay, he wants to get together for coffee, grab lunch, catch up, you know, whatever. So I text back, "Hey, my Friday's open, you know, what are you thinking?" And he doesn't ask, he just says, "Okay, great, you're going to be the MC for a meeting that's being held between a group of Delaware government officials and a delegation from Ghana." And I'm like, okay, let's, let's roll with that. Sure, why not? And so that Friday, got to meet a great delegation from Ghana and meet up with some old friends in the state of Delaware who work on international trade issues and we had a great time. That all came about because this was an arrangement with the World Trade Center of Delaware. The president of the World Trade Center of Delaware was out of town at the time. This was kind of a last minute thing. So she reached out to me after she got back. She said,"Hey, I heard that you did a great job with the delegation from Ghana." I said, yes, it was a lot of fun. We had a good time. She says, "Great. So now are you ready to MC our annual dinner?" And I thought, okay, why not? So out of that, end up meeting one  of our ambassadors from Ireland and then learned a little Irish dance in the middle of that whole experience and everything. So yeah, once you get in the habit of saying yes to things, It's like you never know where things are going to lead. And so after emceeing the dinner, they then asked if I would serve on the board for the World Trade Center of Delaware. So yeah, we're having a good time with that. It doesn't stop. And of course, we have to touch on your Bollywood dancing career, if you can tell us the backstory of that. OK, so a few jobs back, I was working with a company. We're doing some international business. And we're getting ready for our first trip to India. I am a big Bollywood fan. I love Bollywood films, have loved them for years and Bollywood dance and everything. So The opportunity arose for us to go to a multicultural event at which there were some Bollywood dance troupe and I approached the dance instructor afterwards and said would you give us a few minutes of your time to teach us a few moves. And we caught that on film. And at that point, I told people I was a trained Bollywood dancer. 5 minutes, it works. But that was also then used when we went to India as a great icebreaker for some of the business meetings and stuff. It was great. We had fun. So we get back from that trip. And the Bollywood dance instructor reached out to me and said, "We were trying to arrange, I would love to have a Bollywood dance in the middle of the Middletown Peach Festival Parade. And anyone who shows up for practice gets to participate." Well, I said yes to that. I showed up week after week after week for rehearsal and it came time for the Middletown Peach Festival Parade and what turned out there was a group of just extraordinary, wonderful, talented young dancers and me. And so we performed in the middle of the parade route before the judges, had a great time, everybody seemed to enjoy themselves. And at the end of the day, I get home and I start going through my Facebook feed. And that's when I realized, oh, we won best group performance at the Middletown Beach Festival Parade. Therefore, I am an award-winning Bollywood dancer, and that is a title I am going to hold on to for the rest of my life. That's fantastic. And it all, you were committed to it. You said you showed up week after week. So that's your yes and perseverance. And so I was barely able to keep up when it came time to actually do the dance. But it was a lot of fun and I highly recommend it. And anybody and everybody out there should enjoy some good Bollywood movies from time to time. Absolutely. So it's been a pleasure talking with you. I'm going to switch gears into a rapid fire section where I think we've we have really gotten to know you, but these will just help us get to know you even more. So if you could magically become an expert in any skill overnight, what would it be? Programming AI, and understanding it. What is your go-to karaoke song and why? Fly Me to the Moon, which that's actually not the actual title, but that's the title that we all know it as, and it's just such a classic, and it's a great song to just throw out there. And then the second one, if they have it, I Put a Spell on You. The Screaming Jay Hawkins version will always be the best, but there's so many other great versions out there as well. And what is the most unusual or interesting job you've ever had? Oh my gosh, that is a great question. And of course, that's one  where I'm thinking, okay, you know, those doing it one  time, you know, yeah, let's define job, shall we? Can't say Bollywood dancer this time. Yeah, that's right. I never got paid to do that. So I guess that doesn't qualify as a job. Gosh, I mean, I've kind of been a roadie, but that's more, you know, help the band, you know, move stuff around. I don't know if I got paid for that. One of the interesting ones, I absolutely enjoyed running cable with this guy. He just needed help from time to time. And we're talking about the old-fashioned Cat 5 communications cable, and we would run it through offices and whatnot. But the most interesting day with that, we got a job running these cables for the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Agency in the federal building in Philadelphia and what that meant was we went in and they gave us these special visitors stickers. And I remember the person taking the one sticker, slapping it onto another sticker, peeling the whole thing off and then putting it on my jacket. And it looked really, really official. It almost looked like this official badge kind of thing. It was really cool. So all day long we're running these cables because that gave us access to the entire federal building because we had to run the cable up through all the other offices. A lot of fun. End of the day, dirty, grimy, you know, everything. I've got this DEA badge thing, which, you know, I'm like, oh, I don't want to give it back. So, you know, and I didn't say anything. So left with it still on, go to the local fast food place or whatever. And I go up to the counter, place my order. And I'm just, again, looking like there's dirt and grime everywhere and I've got this DEA thing. And I guess the clerk thought that I was maybe an undercover DEA agent or something. Wearing a badge. Yeah, well, you know, end of shift, whatever. And they're like, hey, I got you officer. I put in some extra fries for you and stuff. It was so cool. So I get home and I'm like, oh, this is the coolest thing ever. I carefully peel the badge off and set it on the table. And I'm thinking, Oh, you know, I'm going to laminate that thing. I'm going to, you know, It's like it can come in use. Yeah, you're getting more into the mind of Ken Grant here. And I get up the next morning, and the word expired is written all over this thing. So apparently, when they took the one sticker, slapped it onto the other one, it started a chemical reaction. And, you know, 24 hours later, that thing's useless. You know, it's just, that was a one  day thing. So that was, that was a wild experience. Yeah. It makes it a little more magical though. It does. Yeah. It was fun for a day. Okay, so our final section of the podcast, we know that AI is only as smart as people using it. And so for this section, we collaborated with Chat GPT for chat bot says. So as you mentioned recently, PBS Masterpiece recently launched the mini series drama, they're showing the BBC drama Mr. Bates versus the Post Office, which is, I know you watched and it's a true David versus Goliath story. So thinking about your own experiences, we asked Chat GPT to come up with assistance promoting a PBS masterpiece special about you and the true life dramatization of Ken Grant versus the Wilmington Parking Authority. So which of these four titles are you

most likely to pick? Ticket Trouble: 37:54

  Ken Grant Takes on Wilmington. The Parking

Paradox: 38:01

  Ken Grant's Battle for Due

Process. Ticket Tyranny: 38:04

  Ken Grant's

Last Stand. Parking Wars: 38:08

  Ken Grant's Battle for Fairness. Oh my gosh. That third one, I like, but I don't like the "last stand" part because I would like to think I've got a few more stands left in me. Oh, you're going to stand up for a lot of things, I am sure. Yeah, this isn't the, oh my gosh, let this just be the last battle. No, I don't, I, no. We could combine, we could do Ticket

Tyranny: 38:39

  Ken Grant's Battle for Due Process. That works for me, yes. And I did, I had so much fun with this. I did also ask it to come up with a little episode promo. I said, in this episode, Ken Grant and his allies seize a long awaited opportunity to confront the bureaucratic juggernaut of Wilmington city offices. And it goes on and on, I'll send it to you. But I can't wait to see our PBS station playlists. Now that may be, this is just so much fun. If anyone goes to appealingwilmington.com, They can see all the little fun videos that we did. And this is the other thing. I mean, we've covered the serious side of trying to get reform to happen. And again, we're talking about parking tickets. Now we are talking about in some cases, people's vehicles being taken from them. And, you know, the city still needs to address that. But for the most part, you know, kind of a low bar, you know, we're not talking about lives at stake. So with that comes a certain amount of freedom to be able to approach this a different way. So in July of 2023, when I realized that the city had gone a full year without allowing a single parking ticket appeal to make it to JP Court, I thought that was something worth marking. And so I showed up and again this video is available on appealingwilmington.com. I showed up at the city building with a bunch of balloons and cupcakes. And, you know, it's great that in the video you can see it, the guards just kind of like welcome the, you know, it's like, oh, balloons and cupcakes. Great. Yeah. Why not? And so I get into the lobby and set up the cupcakes and set up then the big sign explaining you know what we're marking there. We sent out invitations throughout the building and obviously the press was alerted. So about 40 minutes into it is when you know finally an armed guard comes over and says no shut this down take your balloons and your cupcakes and you know get out of here so yeah that's we could we could set that up as you know setting a siege to the city building or something like that. So that could be a fun episode. Yeah, I think, you know, you have used the word fun a couple of times to describe what you do. And I think that's so important because that must help you when you are committing to something year after year. And I think my poor attempt at adding another title to the list would

be Ken Grant: 41:28

Putting Fun in the Fundamentals of Civic Engagement. Well let's face it, if you know we've we've all seen that person who is frustrated with the situation and you know stands on the street corner with a bullhorn or has the big placard or whatever And that's someone you don't want to engage with, really. Or it's like, OK, we understand. You've got a grievance, whatever. But when you're able to use, and of course, you're talking about somebody who was raised on Monty Python, raised on some of this comedy that engages people and grabs their attention. And that's also the way for people to see just how absurd the situation is. So going back to 2011, 2012, those early videos where we're showing, you know, people how to properly park in Wilmington, you know, since they're saying that the money has to be in immediately. Well, The only way that I could figure to make that happen is to stop your car in the middle of the road, get out, put the money in the meter, and then park. And if that backs up traffic, well, hey, the city is the one  insisting that we do this. So it's like, we'll just follow that absurd logic right on through. So that grabs people's attention and helps them to realize, oh, this, yeah, the system doesn't really make sense. So, yeah, it's fun. But hopefully people, you know, realize there's some issues here, whether we're talking about people getting piled with tickets that may or may not be legitimate to, again, this whole thing about towing people's cars, booting people's cars, and doing so at a rate higher than any other city in the country. Clearly there's an economic matter there, not so much a public safety or traffic flow issue. Well, once again, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your multiple yes stories. It's been an absolute pleasure. If people would like to connect with you, find out more about Ken Grant or your numerous projects, where can they find you? So appealingwilmington.com is a good resource. Also, if you just put in Ken Grant, Delaware, for just about any of the socials or anything, you'll probably find me there. It's hard not to find me. To be fair, make sure it's Delaware because we found out that there was one time I was self-Googling and every once in a while it's okay. And I came across this testimonial, you know, Ken Grant speaking was enlightening, encouraging, changed my life, blah, blah, blah. And I'm sitting there reading this going, oh my gosh, I didn't realize, you know, what talk was that? And then dug a little deeper found out that there's a Ken Grant in Oregon who does public speaking. Apparently, he and I, you know, have the same hairstylist. We're both bald with a goatee. And it's amazing. I started going through, you know, some of his stuff, that's like, we have some of the same clothes. It is the craziest thing. So I reached out to him, I'm like, "Hey, I think I'm the East Coast, Ken Grant," you know, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, so we shoot messages back and forth every once in a while so and then there's a Ken Grant who's a photographer somewhere, a Ken Grant who's a prosecutor in England, so you know I you know we joke about someday getting you know a big convention of Ken Grants together or something and see what happens. But if you put in Ken Grant, Delaware, you should be able to find me easily. We'll find you. Well, thank you so much to the East Coast, Delaware-based Ken Grant for joining us. We will talk again with you soon, I'm sure. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to Yes Genius, a podcast from Epic Marketing. Join us again to hear more unique stories. In the meantime, find us on social media or online at epicmc2.com. Don't miss out. Remember to follow or subscribe wherever you get your genius content.