Good leashes make good dogs
Politics usually turns into shouting past each other. But sometimes, the clearest way to understand power is not in a debate hall or a think-tank — it’s in a walk through Central Park.
This dialogue is between Eli, a working-class New Yorker excited about a newly elected socialist-leaning mayor, and Jasiu, a Constitutional Civic Realist who prefers questions over speeches.
They’re not experts. They’re not policy wonks. They are college educated and aware. They are long-time New Yorkers that read the newspaper and independent media that use evidence, express uncertainty, and self-corrects.
And in the chaos of a dog park — with big dogs, small dogs, scuffles, leashes, and stubborn personalities — a simple idea emerges about how cities actually work:
No big power can be trusted. But all big powers can be balanced.
The following is their walk, exactly as it unfolded.
The Dialogue
They enter Central Park near the 72nd Street archway. Trotsky, Eli’s scruffy terrier, barrels forward, already dragging him toward a patch of grass.
1. The Mayor Seeks a Leash (An idealistic agenda)
ELI Mamdani, man. He just got elected. Free subways, lower rent for a chunk of the city, cheap daycare on every block. It’s actually happening.
JASIU (Slight smile) He’s got an extendable leash, Eli. That’s all a mayor has. He can tug on the leash, but he doesn’t own the dog.
ELI What’s the leash on rent?
JASIU He can use permits. Any big developer wants to build? The mayor ties their permit to a contract: so many units have to be below market for fifty years. He can also demand they set aside space on the ground floor for community non-profits, like a daycare center, at a rock-bottom rate.
ELI Ah, so he uses private building to create public space. Smart. So the leash on daycare? That’s what’s really killing young families.
JASIU It’s mostly the rent bill that kills them, man. So you hit it from two angles. First, you push the State to let the little home daycares get state vouchers, fast and easy. Second, you use that permit deal to guarantee the centers cheap, stable rent. Without cheap land, no voucher program will fix it.
ELI: So, let's take a common frustration that people dump on the Mayor's desk: high rent. Most people on the street think he can just decree a rent freeze, or that he’s the ultimate check on the Rent Guidelines Board.
JASIU: Exactly. And that's the perfect illustration of why we need to look past the figurehead. The reality of rent regulation in New York City is a prime example of institutionalized power that bypasses the municipal executive. The power to set the fundamental rent laws rests with the State Legislature in Albany.
ELI: And the actual enforcement?
JASIU: That falls to a state agency, the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR). They administer the rent control and rent stabilization programs. The Mayor can appoint the members of the local Rent Guidelines Board, which determines the rate of increase for stabilized leases each year, but he can't abolish the state laws that create the system or enforce them himself. It's a reminder that the checks we need are often embedded in the boring, distant state bureaucracy, not in the charismatic local politician
ELI Okay, so rent control helps daycare, which helps working families. It stacks. But what about groceries?
JASIU That’s the hardest dog. The city doesn’t control the national chains. But Mamdani can use the tax leash. He gives huge property tax breaks to stores that open in food deserts and caps their profit on staples. If they break the cap, the tax break disappears.
(Squatting to disentangle Trotsky’s leash from his own.) See? You gotta keep your eyes on the leash, not the dog’s tail.
ELI So the job isn’t being a hero. It’s being a really good dog walker
2. Wimpy Leashes (Local Temporary Policies)
ELI But that’s all string, Jasiu. A new mayor, a bunch of developer money, a bad court ruling — and snap. Those low rents? Gone. The next mayor could just reverse all these policies. Just like all that executive order bullshit in D.C.
JASIU You just hit the nail on the head. A mayor is a good walker. But he doesn’t make the leash. He just grabs the one that’s already there. All that local stuff is necessary work, but it’s always one election away from being undone. It’s a momentary policy, a fragile victory.
ELI So the policy isn’t the goal. The power that makes the policy is the goal.
JASIU Now you’re talking. The real fight isn’t for the leash. It’s for the chain and concrete post the leash is tied to.
3. The Chains that Restrain (Structural Power)
JASIU (They stop as a giant, off-leash mastiff trots past, making Trotsky, Eli’s small terrier, snarl and pull.)
ELI Jesus. Look at that thing. That’s the developer lobby, Jasiu. That’s the State House. How does Mamdani — Trotsky here — keep that leashed?
JASIU He doesn’t. He can’t, not alone. He needs a pack. He needs the chain we’ve been talking about. What makes it permanent?
ELI So what makes a leash permanent? What’s the steel chain that can’t just get cut by the next guy? It has to be institutions, right? Like an Independent Housing Board to manage rents, a Public Price Watchdog for the groceries, maybe Community Land Trusts to take land out of the market forever. They’re not in the charter, but they could be put there.
JASIU (Eyes widening in approval) Now you see the layers of concrete, Eli. Those are the blueprints for a permanent fix.
ELI How do they fit the layers?
JASIU Layer one: You change the rulebook. The biggest dog is the State House. You still have to get people up in Albany to give the city the power to write its own rules. You need a home rule law that says, “Yes, New York City can create a real Elections Commission to get the big money out of its local races.” You change the rules that govern the whole fight.
ELI That’s the legal foundation. I hear Montana is doing that for the state. Yea, red Montana.
JASIU Yea I heard about that. Some kind of constitutional initiative though. They have been fighting against corporate sponsorship a long time. Damn incompetent Supreme Court justices keep throwing a wrench into the effort. But this brings up the second layer.
You cut the money men out of the game. This is where your Community Land Trusts (CLTs) and Independent Housing Board go. A CLT makes land a resource for the community, not a commodity for speculation. That land, and the daycare on it, is now protected by a legal trust, not just a policy written by a mayor. Your Public Price Watchdog does the same thing for goods — it says, “In this market, the public interest is a permanent fixture.”
ELI Institutionalizing economic change. Making the social good the default setting.
JASIU That’s right. That’s building the structure. And Layer Three: You build a machine that’s louder than the money. You put Permanent Participatory Budgeting in the charter. You give the neighborhood council real power to decide where city money goes. You make the people’s voice an actual permanent line item in the budget, not just a suggestion box. They can vote out a mayor, but they can’t vote out a whole neighborhood that knows its power and has its hands directly on the city’s checkbook.
ELI So, social democracy is less about a good mayor, with good intentions and more about permanent, decentralized, public power structures.
JASIU For that matter, a bad mayor with bad intentions. (ELI Nods slowly). You make the power system incentivize good public policy and the politicians administrators, not figurehead saviors. And really punish those that break the civic rules. I call it civic realism. The charter kind. The constitution kind. The law kind. The police enforcement kind. The mayor can start the walk. But only institutionalized people power can keep the dog leashed forever.
Jasiu (in a LOR “there is still some good bad in the world” moment) So that’s the real lesson, means accepting that power will always exist. And it’s selfish. It’s just a fact of life, like gravity or taxes. The point isn’t to dream that the greedy developers or the entrenched state politicians will suddenly grow a heart. It’s to build a system of permanent checks — those concrete institutions you mentioned, like the Housing Board and the Land Trusts. The leash must be tied to every special interest that walks in the park. That includes the corporate giants and the old political machines, but also the state government that tries to block the people, and yes, even the new public institutions you build. The moment your side stops building that countervailing power and checking its own hand, the leash gets loose. The only way to win for good is to permanently bake the people’s power right into the city’s bones and into their hearts.
— John Matylonek writes on democratic reform, civic ethics, and the future of constitutional balance. The think tank, a southtown Corvallis pub, Beer30, is the test-bed for these ideas. Where — besides needing a drive home — the person next to you may be a professor at OSU, the mayor, school-teacher, opening an AI start-up, running a genetics lab in his basement or head the local food pantry. His essays appear on Medium, DailyKos, and future archives where he develops the framework of Constitutional Civic Realism (CCR).
For more information on Consitutional Civic Realism see
A Civic Realist Amendment or simply type in Constitutional Civic Realism in google
#Politics #Constitutional Law #Democracy In America #Civic Engagement
