There is a part of this job that doesn't come with training.

The conversation at the gate. The complainant who won't let go. The file that's been open for eight months. The line someone throws at you before you've even said hello.

We've been there. We figured some of it out. We wrote the book. And twice a week, we send what we know — free — to officers who are ready to close more files and dread fewer driveways.

Free. Practical. Written by someone still doing the work.

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Ty Jones — bylaw enforcement officer

PRE

What to say when someone's already angry before you open your mouth

The Desk Method

Close more files without leaving your desk

Hold the Line

Keep the complainant informed without letting them run the case

The Conversation Method

PRE

Position. Respect Their Reality. Ease.

A conversation framework for enforcement officers. Three steps that change the order of how you talk to someone about a violation — so the interaction starts with listening instead of telling.

Grounded in behavioural science. Built on porches.

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1
Position
Set the tone before you deliver the news.
2
Respect Their Reality
Find out what's going on before you tell them what needs to change.
3
Ease
Make compliance feel possible instead of punishing.
The Process

The Desk Method

A system for working enforcement cases from your desk.

Letters before knocks. Phone calls before visits. The homeowner reads your letter in their kitchen, thinks about it, and calls you back. By the time you talk, the hard part is already done.

Fewer visits. Better conversations. Same outcomes.

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1
Read the complaint
Decide your approach before you leave the desk.
2
Send the letter
Makes contact and gathers information in one move.
3
Control the follow-up
They call on their timeline. You respond with full context.
The Complainant

Hold the Line

A framework for the other side of enforcement — the complainant.

The person who called it in thinks you work for them. Hold the Line is how you keep them informed, set expectations early, and stay warm even when the answer isn't what they wanted.

Three moves and a posture that runs from first contact to last.

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1
Acknowledge
Make contact. Introduce yourself. They feel heard.
2
Investigate
On your terms. No play-by-play for the complainant.
3
Deliver
Tell them what you found. Clearly. Whether they like it or not.
From the Column

"The Officer Who's Never Been Yelled At"

I asked him once — we were in the truck driving back from a site — I asked him, "What's the worst you've ever gotten it from someone? Like the angriest anyone's ever been at you on a call?"

And he thought about it. He thought about it for a while. And then he said, "I don't think anyone's really yelled at me."

Now. I've been doing this work for a long time. And people have yelled at me. People have sworn at me. A woman once told me I was the reason her blood pressure was high and she'd be sending me the pharmacy bill.

So when someone tells me they've never been yelled at, I don't think, "Wow, he must be great at his job." I think, "What is he doing instead?"

Training for teams.

Half-day workshops — virtual or in-person — built around your actual cases. Not hypotheticals.

Your stuck files. Your difficult properties. Your neighbourhood disputes that won't die. We work them together.

If you lead a team and you've watched good officers get worn down by the part of the work nobody trained them for — this is where you start.

Book a Session

Your real cases

Officers bring the files that are stuck. We work them using all three frameworks.

Use it tomorrow

Your officers leave with something they can use the next morning. Not next quarter.

Virtual or in-person

Half-day format. Works for a team of four or a department of forty.

Voluntary Compliance — the book

Get Voluntary Compliance

Ty Jones

About Ty Jones

There is a version of enforcement work that nobody trains you for. Ty Jones spent fifteen years finding out what it was.

He's a bylaw enforcement coordinator and officer with the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen in British Columbia — handling roughly two hundred cases a year across property violations, noise complaints, and regulatory matters that rarely resolve the way the manual suggests they should. Before enforcement, he spent a decade in local government planning. He holds a business degree from Simon Fraser University.

The PRE Method, the Desk Method, and everything else on this site came out of that work. Not a classroom. Not a consulting contract. A truck, a clipboard, and a lot of driveways.

He's been married twenty years and has four teenage boys — which, he'll tell you, is its own kind of enforcement work.

Get in touch.

Got a case that won't close? A situation you've never seen before? Want to book a workshop? Or just want to talk about the work? Reach out.