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Table of contents | Previous chapter Playing with Fire A novel by Scott Lazenby
Chapter 20  e let Trixie sleep in for a while and I drove her to school, then stopped by our insurance agent’s office to go over the process for repairing the fire damage. I had taken a look at the side of the house — in the morning light, it didn’t look as bad. Just some blackened siding, a mound of ash and charred metal where the shed had been, and a wide circle of burnt grass.The staff in the office hadn’t heard about the fire yet, which was fine with me since I really didn’t want to talk about it. I made it through my appointments and paperwork in a dull stupor — lack of sleep, I supposed.  Later in the afternoon, I came into the office reception area, and interrupted Mrs. Dunwoody, who was in the process of giving Terri Knox a severe lecture.“The airborne vehicles are the reason you are pregnant,” she said, her voice shrill. “Their rays are everywhere and they impregnate young girls like you, and nobody does anything about it.” Mrs. Dunwoody was wearing a yellow raincoat with a hood, and yellow rubber boots, even though it was dry outside. She looked like a duckling. Terri, trying to ignore her, was typing something into her computer, occasionally looking up and saying, “Uh huh.” Mrs. Dunwoody paused and looked at me for a long moment. “What you need to do, mister,” she said to me, “is find out the name of Brian Gallagher’s wife.” Gallagher’s wife? I had met her once, and although I didn’t remember what her name was, it wasn’t unusual and I couldn’t see how it was relevant to her lecture on airborne vehicles. “Yes, ma’am,” I muttered, and ducked into my office. Max Oakley stopped by later. “I’m sorry you had to have a first-hand experience with our service,” he said. “Me too, but I’m glad they were there,” I said. “Do you know if Larry has made any progress interviewing the neighbors?” “Don’t know. Do you think there might be a connection with the threats?” “No, I guess I’m just getting spooked.” Max stood and looked out my window with his hands clasped behind his back. “There may be some complications with a contract with City/County,” he said. “Oh? How’s that?” “For one, our union contract calls for reductions in force to be done by strict seniority.” “Yeah, I know.” “Well, it makes no distinction between levels of training. Of course, the least senior will have generally lower levels of training, but as we go deeper in layoffs, we may be losing personnel with more extensive fire training, and retaining personnel with more extensive EMS training. This is opposite from what we would need to transition staff to City/County. We want to keep the personnel who know how to fight fires.” “But doesn’t it sort of average out? I mean, over time, don’t most of your staff get training in both areas?” “Yes, but we start with the fire training.” It didn’t seem like a big problem to me. Some of the staff with more advanced paramedic training could even volunteer to move to City/County to take advantage of a possible promotion. “That’s the way it goes,” I said. “Hey — our union negotiations are still open. Let’s just propose a change to the contract. Think they’ll go for it?” Max turned to look at me and chuckled. “Not very likely.” “Say, this is off the subject, but what is Brian Gallagher’s wife’s name?” “Shirley. Why?” “No particular reason, just curious.” Max raised his eyebrows, but didn’t comment. He sat down at my round table and stroked his moustache. “Ben, I hope you’re keeping an open mind about this City/County proposal.” “Yes, of course.” Now what? He thought for a moment, as if choosing his words carefully. “It’s too early to tell, but I may have an additional alternative for the council to consider.” Why didn’t he say, for me to consider? The council made the ultimate policy decisions, but any staff proposals theoretically went through me. “Oh? What’s that?” I asked. “Like I said, it’s too early to tell, and I have to do more research before I’m prepared to present it. But I wanted to ascertain that you would be receptive.” “I’m willing to listen to anything,” I said. • • • Max had just left when Marie called from the main reception counter downstairs.“Ben, there’s someone here to see you.” “All right. Who is it?” “She just said her name is Scarlet. I tried to keep her here, but she headed straight for the stairs.” I groaned. “Okay. Thanks Marie.” She appeared in my office door, breathing hard. I couldn’t keep from looking behind her to see if she was carrying something. She was, to my relief, empty-handed. “Hello, Scarlet. How can I help you today?” “You can start by firing your lousy public works department.” “Oh?” “Yeah. See, I’m at the end of the water line or something, and I keep getting this orange stuff in the water. My boyfriend, he says it’s ’cause the line needs to be flushed or something. I keep complaining about it, but they never do nothing.” She paused for a breath. “So finally I tell ’em I’ve had enough, that my damn bathtub has an orange ring around it, and that they better do something about it. So finally they give me this stuff to rub on it, they say that’ll just take care of the problem. Like hell. I put the stuff on like they said. You know what happened? Took the damn porcelain right off the tub. I went to get in, sat down in the tub, and it was like sittin’ on sandpaper. Gave me a rash all over my butt. Here, look.” I sat, paralyzed with a kind of morbid fascination as she proceeded to unzip her jeans. Her belly started to spill out of it and I recovered. “Hold it, Scarlet. Please don’t show me, I’ll take your word for it.” She gave me a cold look, breathed in deeply to give her jeans some slack, and slowly pulled the zipper back up. Outside my office, Terri was craning over her desk to get a better look. This would make a good story. “So. What’re you going to do about it?” she demanded. I thought quickly. “How about this? I’ll get our utility supervisory to take a look at the bathtub. If he doesn’t think it can be fixed, we’ll buy you a new one. How’s that sound?” “Sounds to me like you’re pretty stupid to be a city manager. How in hell do you suppose you’re going to get a new tub through the door? It’s a big tub — pretty old maybe, but definitely big.” I sighed. “We’ll figure it out. Maybe through the window, I don’t know. Let’s just leave that part up to the field staff — that’s what they’re good at. What do you say?” “Well...” She clenched her jaw. “Well, all right. But if it isn’t fixed in a week one way or the other, you’re going to hear from me again, and next time I won’t be as polite.” She marched out before I could say anything. • • • Somehow I found Scarlet’s visit stressful, so I wandered down to the employee lunch room to take a break and read the Metro section of The Oregonian. I saw Sabrina Chan’s byline, and remembered she had said something about checking out the names of firefighters’ spouses. She had been looking for maiden names. What had she used to get to them?I went back upstairs to the city clerk’s office. “Say, Twila, do you have a printout of registered voters?” Twila Bettle was in her late fifties, and had been city clerk forever. She wasn’t much for small talk, but she could put her fingers on almost any document in the city. “Yes, of course. I assume, by the way, that you mean Trillium voters. I don’t have any other ones.” “Yes, I think that will do.” “What order do you want, alpha, street, or doorbelling?” “Huh?” She sighed. “Alpha is by voter name, street is alphabetical by street name, and doorbelling is ordered the way a person would use to canvass the city.” “Wouldn’t street and doorbell be about the same?” “No, of course not.” You fool, her expression said. “Under street order, Ash Street is right next to Atlas Street, but they’re on opposite sides of town. You wouldn’t want to go door-to-door that way, would you?” “No, I guess you’re right. But anyway, I need the alpha order.” “Don’t have one sitting around, but I can print it out. It’ll be about 100 pages. Take some time.” “Oh.” I hadn’t wanted to reveal who I was looking for, but it seemed to be a waste to print the whole thing. “Okay,” I said. “Can you bring individual names up on the computer?” “Certainly.” She waited for me to say something. “Okay, who do you want to look up?” she said. “Uh, Brian Gallagher,” I said. She looked at me over her reading glasses, then began typing on her keyboard. She turned the monitor toward me, wordlessly. I saw the entrance giving first, middle and last names, residence, date of birth, and which of the last 15 elections he had voted in. To my surprise, he was a spotty voter — only cast a ballot on one out of every five elections. “This is all public information, isn’t it?” “Yes.” “What about Shirley Gallagher?” I asked. Again, she paused and gave me a schoolteacher look, then shrugged and brought up the information. Shirley Singleship Gallagher 15344 Lupine Drive Trillium DOB 4/15/48 Her voting record was actually better than her husband’s, for whatever that was worth. I thanked Twila — she said nothing, shrugged again, and returned to her work. I wasn’t sure where this was taking me. The name Singleship rang a bell — it was unusual enough that it might have been more than a coincidence, but I wasn’t able to place it. Mary called to tell me she was leaving work early — she was too tired to get much work done. I told her I felt the same way, but had a couple more hours of issues that had to be dealt with. The city council meeting was going to be on the following evening, and we still had some details to work out. I checked my e-mail and didn’t see anything from Kate. I wasn’t surprised, but just the same, I was disappointed. I needed contact with her. Something was nagging at my mind as I scanned the messages. On a whim, I opened my archived messages, and ordered them by sender. I scrolled down several pages, until I came to it. A year and a half ago, I had received a brief message from Mason Singleship informing me that the e-mail server would be down between midnight and 2 a.m. for an upgrade to the modem lines. Mason Singleship was, apparently, a technical specialist with WillVallNet, our Internet service provider. I sat back and let the information sink in. My brain still felt foggy, but even so, some of the pieces were falling together. There was a good chance that Mason was related to Shirley — brother and sister, probably. Although the e-mail was supposedly private, it was a fair assumption that the technicians on the host computer could get into it somehow. Way to go, Mrs. Dunwoody, I thought. What didn’t fit was her connection with all this — I had always assumed she was completely looney — but this whole deal was taking on an unreal quality anyway. I paced in front of my window for a few minutes, sorting things out, then looked up a number in my business cards file. “WillVallNet, to whom may I direct your call?” “Steve Jackson, please. This is Ben Cromarty with the City of Trillium.” “Hold on while I transfer you.” I sat through their on-hold music, which was actually an ad for some local car dealer, and then the phone rang a few times. “Hello, Ben, How are you doing?” “Fine, just fine.” “How can I help you?” I paused for a second. “Steve, we’ve been customers of yours since you got into the business. All our e-mail accounts are with you now.” “Yes, and we do appreciate your business.” His voice raised slightly, making it into a question. “So here’s the problem. We have reason to believe that one of your employees has been sharing the contents of some of our e-mail messages with people who shouldn’t be seeing them.” There was silence on the line. Jackson was thinking through the implications of this. If word got out that they had a leak in the mail server, it could end their business as an ISP. “What makes you think that?” he asked carefully. “I can’t go into the details, but to make a long story short, information has come back around to us that could only have come from someone who had access to our mail.” “How do you know it was on this end? It’s possible that someone could get into the downloaded messages on your end.” “I thought about that, but some of the messages were deleted on this end as soon as they were read. And we stumbled onto a connection with one of your staff just today.” “Who?” “I can’t say. We don’t have any hard proof, and due to the sensitivity of the information, I don’t want to raise a hue and cry over it.” “Yeah, I know you’ve had your fill of controversial issues the last few months.” “Here’s all I ask, Steve. Please pass the word to your staff as quickly as possible. Tell them what I just told you — that the City of Trillium has reason to believe someone is opening private e-mail, and that we have an idea of who it might be. I suspect you’ll want to add your own comments too, but that’s the gist of it. My guess is that the problem will stop there, but if not, we can get more specific about our suspicions. How’s that sound?” “Good, but are you sure you don’t want to pursue it now? This is pretty serious, and frankly, if I found evidence of this kind of thing going on, I’d fire whoever it is on the spot.” “No, it may be an isolated indiscretion. Let’s ride it out, okay?” “Fair enough.” I thought about calling Brian Gallagher and warning him that I knew about his brother-in-law or whoever it was, but decided against it. The call to WillVallNet would be enough, and I didn’t have any hard evidence that Gallagher was directly involved. While I worked on some correspondence, I kept my computer busy downloading the software for one of the free e-mail services. When it was done, I set up a new account for user name bencromarty. The password was, of course, “kate.” • • • We were in the middle of another staff meeting, pulling together the pieces for the council agenda. Bess Wilson came striding in, twenty minutes late as usual. I looked up to say something, but was caught short by her grim expression.“What’s up?” I said. “How much of this do I have to take?” Bess asked. “What?” “Just when things seem to be running smoothly, things go to hell in a handbasket.” She held a pen in both hands, like she was going to break it in half, and glared at the table. I waited. “So here’s what happened, as far as I can piece it together,” she said. “Nova’s contractor is working on the site, putting in the roads and that kind of stuff. One of the conditions we put on them is they keep the row of birch trees along the street, as a buffer for the Hemlock Creek neighborhood. It was a big deal for them. You know those folks — they created the Citizens for Good Planning group, what a load of crap. Anyway, they must have got their kids sucked into it too. Apparently, for the past week or so, this gang of teenage shitheads would stand across the road and hassle the contractors —” “How?” Betty Sue asked. “Oh, the usual stuff for snotnoses like that. Yelling at them, mooning them, whatever. So today they’re doing the same thing. The foreman drives up in his pickup truck, and these miscreants start yelling and giving him the finger, then they start lobbing rocks at him. He said one hit his window.” “Break it?” I asked. “No, I don’t know. But I guess they pushed him too far. He gets out of his truck, see, and reaches in the back and pulls out a chain saw, and then one by one, he starts to cut down every damn one of the birch trees along the road. It made a helluva noise, probably scared the shit out of the kids, and before you know it, the houses on that side of Hemlock Creek empty out and these insane residents are yelling and swearing at the contractor. He just ignores them and keeps on cutting. They call the cops, but by the time they get there, the trees are lying in a heap on the ground and their main job is to keep the kids and their parents from beating the crap out of the contractor. What a friggin’ fubar.” “Huh?” Betty Sue said. Bess gave her a level look. “It’s a military term, honey.” “Oh.” “How did you hear about it?” I asked. “Well, not all the parents were out there trying to mix it up with the foreman. A dozen of them were on their phones at the same time, trying to call me and my staff. I heard the same story from all of them. Well, at least when I tried to sort the hysteria out of it. They’re calling for a stop-work order on the Nova project, demanding that we throw the contractor in jail, and suing the city for good measure. Or so they say.” “Great.” I stared at Bess for a moment. This really was turning into the project from hell. “Well, what can we do?” I asked. Simon tried to be helpful. “I doubt there’s any criminal problem, since it was their own land to begin with,” he said. “Matter of fact, if there was any criminal act, it was the kids throwing rocks at the worker. We could cite ’em for assault.” “Sure, throw some more fuel on the fire,” I said. “But there’s a civil case against the contractor, since the buffer was a planning commission requirement, right Pete?” “True,” the attorney said. “But we can’t push it too hard, since we were out on a limb with that requirement to begin with. There’s nothing in the development code that requires it.” “Yeah, I know,” Bess said. “But Nova’s problem isn’t what we’re going to do, it’s the public relations mess they’re in now. I think they’ll expect us to hit them with a fine, and require that they re-plant some trees. And the contractor will probably tell the public that they disciplined the foreman.” “Hardly seems fair,” Jake Wildavsky said. “I probably would have done the same thing in his place.” “Oh? Do you know how to run a chain saw?” Simon asked. “Well, good point.” “Don’t worry about him,” Bess said. “The contractor will probably just shift him to another job. But we still have a problem. I’m just waiting for the Citizens for Mob Rule Planning to march on city hall.” “Hmm. We’ll just have to ride it out,” I said. “So ... where were we?” “Oh, yeah. Sorry for the interruption,” Bess said. “We were discussing background material,” Max said. “Right. What do you have in writing from the Willamette Fire folks?” Bess continued to seethe, and the staff meeting went on. • • • When the time for the council meeting finally arrived, I had an uneasy feeling that Betty Sue and I hadn’t done all we could to give the City/County proposal a fair hearing. Should we have done more reference checking in other cities? Should we have included a few more scenarios based on future increases in calls for service or inflation? Should we have worked harder to spring some sort of trap on the arguments that would inevitably come from the Firefighters Association?But in the end, I tried to tell myself that the council members were adults and free to sift and weigh the information themselves. They were, after all, ultimately responsible for this decision, and I would live with whatever decision they made. Fifteen minutes before the meeting, I looked out my window. The city hall visitor parking lot was already almost full. Great. It was going to be another one of those nights. I entered the council chambers from the side door and saw the expected fire fighters and their groupies. But there was also a row of middle-aged residents. Some of them held feather dusters in their hands. When I got closer, I discovered what they were really holding: boughs from dead birch trees. Mayor McTavish opened the meeting on time. She moved the fire issue to the front, out of consideration for the crowd that had shown up to speak on it. She started by asking for the staff report. I carefully went over the arguments, both pro and con, that we had included in our written material. Betty Sue occasionally added comments and clarification based on a script we had worked out before the meeting. For most of the council members, this was redundant information, but I felt compelled to present it, if nothing else for the benefit of the viewing audience on our cable channel. The crowd in the room looked bored or impatient. Matt Monroe had flown up from Las Vegas, and the mayor called on him to stand at the lectern and answer questions from the council on their proposal. Rob Titus began. “What I want to know is, why aren’t any other Oregon communities using your services?” Monroe responded formally, “Madam mayor, Councilor Titus, that’s a good question. A large part of the answer is that, until now, our company hasn’t expanded into the Pacific Northwest, and it is only in the last few —” “Why weren’t you interested in the Northwest?” Rob said. “It wasn’t a lack of interest, it was more a case that we didn’t want to grow too quickly and spread ourselves too thin. As I was going to say, over the past five years we have built up our staff and management resources to the point where we can establish a Northwest presence. The timing is just right, both for us, and for Trillium.” Maggie raised her hand, and McTavish nodded at her. “People have told me they’re concerned about the response time with your company,” Maggie said. “How are you going to handle that?” Mayor McTavish answered before Monroe could speak. “It’s all there, in the proposal. They said they would guarantee the same response time we have now, and adjust staffing levels based on the statistics.” “You’re right, mayor,” Monroe said, astutely keeping Maggie in eye contact as he spoke. “And we don’t control or compile the response time stats — those are done independently by your dispatch center. If we don’t meet your standards, you cancel the contract. It’s as simple as that. But I’m not concerned about it — we’ve studied your call patterns very carefully, and based on the physical layout of Trillium, we’re confident we can meet or exceed your present average response time.” There were a few other questions, mostly to clarify points in the proposal, but I could tell that the mayor was anxious to get on with the meeting. “Okay,” she said, “this isn’t a formal public hearing, like we have for land use issues, but we’re certainly going to take your comments. Tell us what you think about this proposal, either pro or con, but try not to repeat things that others say. Okay, who’s first?” Brian Gallagher sprang to his feet. To keep his status with the union, he would have to be the primary gladiator. He gave me a dark look on the way to the lectern. If he had been part of the blackmail scheme, he would know by now that I was calling their bluff. But I had no idea if it would work. Gallagher unfolded a prepared speech, gripped both sides of the lectern, and leaned into the microphone. “Members of the city council, my name is Brian Gallagher and I reside at 15344 Lupine Drive, Trillium. I am an eighteen-year veteran of the Trillium Fire Department and for the past five years I have been honored to serve as the president of the Firefighters Association Local 255. “On behalf of the loyal and hard-working staff of your fire department, we’re very disturbed that we even need to be here tonight to speak on this issue. It is such an outrage that it is almost inconceivable that the City of Trillium would even consider such an irresponsible action. “What you are considering is the tearing apart, piece by piece, of your fire department, and replacing it with a for-profit business that has absolutely no experience with our community, and no long-term commitment to our families and businesses. “We see this as a slap in the face to the men and women who have risked their lives for the protection of Trillium. “This is a slap in the face for the Firefighters Association, which has been negotiating in good faith for a fair extension of our contract, but which has been blocked” — he looked at me — “at every turn by management. “This is a slap in the face of the citizens of Trillium, who expect and deserve the best level of safety protection possible, not the cheapest public safety that can add to some private business’ bottom line. “And finally, this a slap in the face for our ambulance company, OAS, which has served us well for many years, and which supports dozens of community organizations and events throughout the year, including sponsorship of last year’s state champion Little League team, the Trillium Tigers. “The recent election conducted by the Trillium Business Leadership Committee resulted in a resounding vote of no confidence against the city manager. That he would seriously propose and recommend this kind of scheme is further evidence of how hopelessly out of touch your administration is with the needs and wishes of the people of our community. “We ask that you as the elected representatives of the people of Trillium do the right thing and make a strong show of faith and support for the men and women who daily risk their lives saving other peoples’ lives in our great city of Trillium. Thank you.” The room burst into applause. I watched the council members. Diane McTavish looked grim. She didn’t want the meeting to turn into a circus, but she was reluctant to gavel it to order. Maggie nodded sympathetically. Rob Titus and Hank Arnold folded their arms impassively. Seth Rosenberg’s eyes sparkled in quiet amusement. A small army of firefighters, friends, and family trooped up to the lectern to echo Gallagher’s comments. Not one of them addressed the actual merits of the decision, but I had to admit to myself that their trotting out of the “America, motherhood, and apple pie” argument was pretty effective. There were a few people — mostly business owners — who had the courage to speak in favor of the proposal. One of them, a longtime resident and owner of a jewelry business, had the wits to revise his speech to turn the “apple pie” argument around. “You have heard the employees portray this as a decision for or against the firefighters,” he said, “but this isn’t the case at all. City/County has committed to retaining all existing employees, so the only thing that is changing is the management. And the union spokesmen have criticized — unfairly, in my opinion — the current management, so it is hard to see how they would fail to prefer a management that specializes in the provision of emergency services. And they speak with pride of their well-deserved reputation of service to Trillium’s businesses, but in the same breath, they turn around and cast aspersions on businesses because they exist to make a profit. Isn’t that what free enterprise in America is all about? I don’t know about you, but those are the kind of values that my parents raised me with.” There was another string of opponents, this time recruited from neighborhood associations and other groups. Not one to miss an opportunity, Todd Pritchard got up to speak, and with a smug smile, began a rambling discourse on how the Trillium Business Leadership Committee supported their fire department and that they were opposed to any change. It seemed to me that he had sung a different tune a few months ago when the fire department had proposed increasing the fees for commercial fire inspections, but I really didn’t care. In the middle of his speech I leaned over to Betty Sue and whispered, “This is getting long, I gotta take a leak.” She stifled a laugh. When I got back to my seat, a stooped gray-haired lady shuffled to the lectern. I had seen her here before. Years ago she had refused to pay her water bill, so we eventually cut off her meter. For months, she dragged a five-gallon bucket down the sidewalk, bumming water off her neighbors. Eventually, her brother agreed to pay the bill, but then she even managed to get him mad, and he quit doing it. Last I knew, the water was off again. But that wasn’t why she was here tonight. She bellowed into the microphone with a surprisingly strong voice. “I want to go back to the question asked by Mr. Tight Ass —” “That’s ‘Titus,’ the mayor said, with a hint of a smile. Ron Titus clenched his teeth. “Whatever. The question is, how come we never seen this outfit before? How come we never heard of them before? And you’re asking us to put our lives in their hands,” she said, smacking the lectern. That got another round of applause. Government, Jerry Springer style. Finally, the crowd wore down both themselves and the council. There was nothing left but for the council members to deliberate. I leaned forward in my seat — I couldn’t afford to miss anything here. The mayor looked around. I knew she wanted to say something — the emotional appeals probably turned her stomach, although she’d done a good job maintaining a poker face. “Who wants to start?” she asked. “Seth?” He leaned into his microphone to make sure he had the floor, but took a few moments to collect his thoughts. “First,” he said, “we have heard many reminders of how effective our fire department has been, and that point is well taken. We have an excellent department — possibly the best in the state. Nobody has disputed that. The very fact that City/County has committed to the same high standard of service is a tribute to the quality that our department has aspired to. “Second, we have been urged to yield to the will of the people. But the message from the people has been very clear — we must make do with less money. Trillium voters, you remember, passed Measure 5-47 with a 3-to-1 vote. So this proposal is precisely a way to respond to the wishes of the people of Trillium. “Third, this proposal has been criticized because it might harm our current employees. Yes, it is true that our department would see a large reduction in force, but each and every one of our employees can be transitioned to the new service provider. This kind of transfer occurs in the private sector every day, with corporate mergers and takeovers, and there is no reason that public employees should be protected from it at the expense of the taxpayer. But I believe that this can be a smooth transition, one that has apparently been successful in many other communities. “So, on balance, I believe this is a good and fair proposal, and we would be negligent if we didn’t give it serious consideration. I believe we should direct the staff to negotiate a service contract for us to consider. Mayor McTavish nodded slowly, letting Seth’s words sink in for a while. Then she looked around for another potential ally. “Hank?” I saw the blurred images of his eyes blinking behind his thick glasses. “This is a difficult one for me.” No kidding, I thought. This whole issue probably looked like déja vu from the perspective of his former union leadership days — the plumbers’ union was constantly fighting efforts to outsource work to firms in the Southeast and Mexico. But he was on the other side now, and over the years he had probably become a little disillusioned with the union hard line. “I’m very concerned with the impact on our employees,” he continued. “I would want to be absolutely sure they were kept whole. But on the other hand, we can’t ignore the cost. We have a duty to make our city as efficient as possible. I guess what I want to say is it merits further consideration. I’m not ready to plunge into it, but I’m certainly not ready to dismiss it out of hand.” “Okay,” McTavish said. “Maggie? Rob?” Rob Titus remained uncharacteristically silent. Maggie looked around for a while, then acted like she was surprised it was her turn to speak. “Well, I just don’t know. This is an awful lot to absorb, and the people tonight have made some very good comments. I guess if I had to make a decision, I would say, let some other city try this first, then we can learn from their mistakes.” The mayor couldn’t contain herself any longer. “But dozens of cities have tried it.” “Oh? Well, none in Oregon, that’s what I meant. Let another Oregon city try it.” “All right. Rob? Any comments?” He continued to lean far back in his chair. “Yes!” he boomed. Even though he was a few feet from the microphone, his voice — and spit — had no trouble reaching it. “There is an obvious and simple solution to this. As I have said previously, I am becoming concerned about the reliability of the advice that we are receiving from our city manager.” He looked at Gallagher for approval. “The straw poll on the Nova housing project clearly shows the staff is out of touch with the people.” I hadn’t shared with the council members Sabrina Chan’s revelation about the poll — mostly out of respect for her request to protect her source, but partly because I didn’t think it was necessary. I never put much stock in unscientific polls, so the fact that the results had actually come out in my favor — as far as the housing issue was concerned, anyway — wasn’t anything to crow about. But I had to bite my tongue when Titus started waving the poll results around. “That wasn’t a poll or even a scientific sample,” Mayor McTavish said, to my surprise. I wondered if Sabrina had talked to her too. “Get to the point, Rob.” “The point is this. A decision like this is just too important to make on our own. I say, let the people decide. Let’s put it to a vote. It’s that simple.” He folded his arms and looked around the room. The audience stirred. McTavish stared levelly at Titus. “What happened to your speeches about the need to take a leadership position, to make the tough decisions? Is this the way to do that?” Councilor Titus simply nodded. “Yes, in this case, it is.” A voice came from the crowd. “Listen to him. Put it to the people!” Another wave of applause. McTavish looked at the audience. The temperature of the room was getting high, both physically and emotionally. At a hundred watts per body, I figured we had a fifteen-kilowatt heater going there. “All right,” she said. “What Rob has suggested is a valid alternative. But I have to tell you that I don’t think the results of that kind of election will be as obvious as some of the speakers tonight would have us believe. There are a lot of folks out there who do want the city to be run like a business.” That was received with some hooting and harsh laughter. McTavish tapped her gavel lightly and waited patiently for silence. “My own feeling is that this proposal is the wave of the future, and that sooner or later all cities are going to have to look at something like it. I have relatives in Nevada and Arizona, and they swear by City/County Fire Service. We’ve never been afraid to be on the cutting edge, and this shouldn’t be any different. Granted, we owe our firefighters and paramedics the best treatment in how a transition is done, and we should make that be a priority. But it can’t be the only thing we look at. I say, let’s draw up a contract and have a look at it. Ben — how long will that take?” “Well, you’ve got a draft in your packet, so all we need to do is make some changes based on tonight’s comments. We can have it on the next agenda.” More noise from the audience. The natives were restless. “Okay,” McTavish said. “Do I have a motion?” Councilor Rosenberg immediately leaned forward. “Yes, I move that we accept this proposal, and direct staff to return to us in two weeks with a contract.” “Second?” Silence. Finally councilor Arnold leaned forward. “Yes, I’ll second it to get it on the table.” “Discussion?” More silence. “Well, I’m going to vote yes, and this is why,” councilor Arnold said. “It isn’t a final decision until we approve a contract. I said we need to give this due consideration, and we can’t do that if we shut the door on it tonight.” McTavish looked around the table. “All right, I’ll ask the clerk for a roll call vote.” Twila leaned forward. “Councilor Titus.” “No.” “Councilor Arnold.” “Aye.” “Councilor Henderson.” “I don’t know. My mind isn’t cast in concrete. But I guess I vote no.” “Councilor Rosenberg.” “Yes.” “Mayor McTavish.” “Yes. The motion passes, three to two. I’m going to call a five-minute recess for a powder room break.” • • • When the council re-convened, they still had to contend with the Hemlock Creek neighborhood association. Bess traded places with Max in the seat to my left, and gave a surprisingly calm rendition of the events from the week before. None of it was news to the council members. We had shot out an e-mail message to them, and The Oregonian had run a ten-inch article to accompany their color picture of a knot of neighbors standing in the middle of the downed trees.“We are levying a fine of $20,000, or a thousand dollars for each tree that was removed,” the city attorney said. “We are also requiring that the contractor replace the trees immediately with trees of at least eight inches in diameter, and submit a bond for their maintenance for the next five years.” It wasn’t enough, apparently. A pale woman with thin blond hair and a down vest marched up to the lectern. “This is the last straw,” she said. “We’re sick and tired of this development that you people have crammed down our throats.” She paused for the applause. Nova owned the property, and they had been forced to submit to a lot of conditions that were initiated by the Hemlock Creek neighbors. I wondered who was doing the cramming. She continued, “We are demanding an immediate stop to the project, to assess the damage they have done.” Hank Arnold adjusted his glasses. “Assess the damage?” he said. “Looks pretty clear to me — a worker got frustrated and cut down some trees.” “Oh? We didn’t come down here to put up with your ... your cavalier attitude, Councilor Arnold.” Hank raised his eyebrows, but didn’t say anything. Diane McTavish looked at Pete Koenig. “Is there anything else we can do, legally?” she asked, knowing the answer. “No, I don’t think so, Mayor,” he said. “There aren’t any grounds for criminal charges, and the civil penalty we’re levying is the maximum that our code provides. We can’t put a stop-work order on the contract, because there’s no connection with that and the loss of the trees.” “We’ll have them re-plant with elms,” Bess added. “These will probably be better street trees than the birches anyway. They were always breaking apart in the ice storms.” “Yeah, a lot of good that will do,” the woman said. “It will be years before the new trees grow enough to be any buffer at all. Until then, we’re the ones who are going to have to stare into this ugly mixed-up-use development that you’ve allowed. It’s easy for you to sit up there and tell us how you’re solving our problem, but we’re the ones that live there.” McTavish sighed. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we’re doing what we can. There’s not much more I can tell you.” “Well, it’s not enough. You haven’t heard the last from us.” “Yes, I’m sure — ” the mayor caught herself. “I’m sure this is upsetting for you and your neighbors. You have our sympathy.” Next chapter: pre-emptive strike Copyright © 2001, Scott D. Lazenby. Reproduction in any form without the written permission of the author is prohibited. Illustration: Paul Salmon |
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