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Table of contents | Previous chapter Playing with Fire A novel by Scott Lazenby
Chapter Five  ate Anderson and her two boys, Luke and Joshua, met us at the gate at the Denver airport. Kate and Mary had been close friends since high school, and our two families had kept in contact through the intervening years. Luke was a year older than Trixie, Josh a year younger. They chattered behind us as we made our way to the baggage claim area.“How’s Gordon’s work going?” I asked. “Good — maybe too good,” Kate said. “He’s putting in pretty long hours. Today he’s with a client in Aurora — putting in a new network or something. He can do some of the work out of our home office, but a lot of his clients need hand-holding. Tell you the truth, I don’t know why people buy computers if they’re too stupid to use them.”  “Don’t knock it — Gordon would be out of work without them,” Mary said.“Yeah, but don’t worry — there’s an endless supply of stupid people around here. I run into them every day at the shop. I ask them if they want their copies on twenty pound paper, and they just give me a blank look. Or they bitch when you tell them that color copies cost more than black ones. Or they come in to have something typeset, and they don’t have a clue what they want it to look like. Sometimes when they do that, I make it come out as ugly as I can — and they still don’t say anything.” “Still enjoying your job, huh?” I said. “Yeah, as the boys say, it sucks.” Trixie had packed roller blades, her baseball glove and flute, four library books, five pairs of shoes, and enough clothes to last a month. The back of Kate’s Explorer sank as we lifted the bags in. Gordon made it home in time for a beer before dinner. He and Kate had met in college, and were married soon after. The crowning achievement of his life was hitting a hole-in-one, completely by accident, at the Glen Abbot golf course. “So what’s new?” Gordon asked. “Trixie made a double play a couple of days ago,” I said. “She caught a line drive at second and tagged the bag before the runner knew what was happening. I was pretty proud, but I think she was mostly surprised. She had put her glove up to guard her face and the ball just kind of stuck in it. But hey, the play looked good.” “The same sort of thing happened to Luke this soccer season,” Gordon said. He was playing forward, a teammate chipped the ball in, and it bounced off Luke’s head into the goal — ” “He didn’t know it had gone in,” Kate said. “He was spinning around looking for the ball and couldn’t figure out why his team was cheering. Our star athlete.” “Give them credit,” Mary said. “Trixie at least had the presence of mind to get the runner out, and it sounds like Luke was at the right place at the right time. I’m not sure I would have been able to pull it off.” Kate laughed. ”No, you would have had the sense to keep a muddy soccer ball out of your hair.” • • • The vacation went by in a blur. A day of trail riding at a dude ranch high in the Rockies. Rafting down the Poudre River and having water fights in the calm spots. Watching the kids show off at the neighborhood skate park. Card games and laughter. But it wasn’t a complete escape from work.In the middle of the week Ken Longstreet called. “Thought you might want to see the article in this morning’s paper. Do you have a fax machine there?” “Hold on ... Kate, do you have a fax machine by any chance?” “Sure — Gordon uses the fax modem on the computer.” She set it up while I got the rest of the news from Ken before he hung up. I had left Betty Sue in charge, and things were running smoothly. The fax came in a minute later. Kate leaned against me as the message appeared on the screen. I could feel the heat of her body. I breathed in her scent. What was it — lilac? Some kind of natural pheromone?
Kate looked at me. “It’s a brilliant move,” I said. “They probably guessed they were looking at a wage freeze anyway. But now they come out as heroes. And look — they’re making this sacrifice to save other city positions. The possibility of losing fire positions is inconceivable, not even worth mentioning. They’re setting the agenda here.” “What does it do to your reorganization idea?” Kate asked. “I’m not sure. But if they want to fight it, this will give them a stronger base of public support.” “How do you put up with this kind of crap? I would just tell them the facts of life, and let them take a hike if they didn’t like it. You know?” I laughed. “Well, here’s my secret. I was listening to a psychologist on a radio program. She said they used to think that the people who were the most balanced — who coped best with life — were the people who had a firm grip on reality. But then they discovered that people who were the most mentally stable actually lived in a fantasy world. They looked at life through rose-colored glasses. But it was more than that. They actually believed that people were better than they really were, and that good things happened even though the fantasies didn’t bear much relationship to reality. So that’s what I try to practice. I try to keep as far removed from reality as I can. You know what I mean?” Kate grinned and straddled a chair. She pulled her hair back, a dark mane that set off the sapphire of her eyes. “And I suppose it was probably easier a few decades ago,” I said. “Most of the city managers then were engineers. They built things — roads, bridges, water systems, buildings. The city councils were made up of the good old boys from the business community. They didn’t spend a lot of time on touchy-feely stuff like citizen surveys and focus groups — they knew what they wanted. And for the most part, I think, the residents were okay with that. The city got things done, and they could go on with their lives without thinking about it much.” “Ah, those were the days, huh?” “No kidding. Instead of the good old boys, now we have a moving collection of special-interest groups — unions, environmentalists, anti-tax zealots, handicapped advocates, concerned citizens for this and that, flat-taxers, home-schoolers, right-to-lifers, pro-choicers, smoke-free crusaders, women’s libbers, animal protectors, civil libertarians, trade associations, hyphenated-Americans, neighborhood activists, pacifists, rifle association lobbyists, gang wannabes, anti-growth nimbies — ” “Huh?” “Not in my backyard, NIMBY. You get the picture. It’s hard to do anything without offending one group or another, and so many of them enjoy skirmishing. So a city manager is sort of like a coach in a game where the teams and rules keep changing. But, like they say, it makes life interesting.” Kate stood and stretched with feline luxury. “Too bad everyone isn’t like me,” she said, “perfectly balanced and with the right views on everything.” I thought about her as our plane climbed over the mountains on the way back to Portland. • • • I spent a few hours in the office on Sunday afternoon. Betty Sue had weeded out some of the junk mail, and responded to the most urgent messages, but my in-basket stack was still six inches high. A survey from the League of Cities on our financial condition. Invitations to meetings and seminars. A copy of a letter from a developer requesting a credit against his fees. A copy of a memo from the payroll clerk to Jake Wildavsky nagging him to get his public works department timesheets in on time. A grant announcement with a four-week due date. The third draft, for my review, of an intergovernmental agreement setting up a green belt between Trillium and the Portland urban growth boundary. Personnel Action Forms to sign.A letter caught my eye. It was on plain paper and appeared to be done with an old dot-matrix printer. It was full of misspellings and grammatical errors, so I figured it had to be from a local resident.
At our management team meeting the next morning, I asked about the letter. I had never heard of a Trillium Business Leaders Committee. “Never heard of them before, either,” Bess Wilson said. “Must be some underground society. But I recognize most of the so-called directors. Mostly whiners and curmudgeons. I don’t know why they’ve got their undies in a bundle over the Nova deal. I’d say it would be good for their business.” “What about Pritchard?” I said. “Don’t worry about him,” Bess said. “He couldn’t find his ass with both hands in the dark. You know, the wheel’s turning but the hamster’s dead.” “But he got the tax measure passed. We can’t ignore him.” “Aw, he only got lucky with that because he had the anarchists out of Grant’s Pass coaching him every step of the way. Believe me, he just isn’t that smart.” “Yeah, I couldn’t help noticing that his letter would have been rejected from an eighth-grade English class. How can it help his case to send that piece of work to The Oregonian?” “Actually, that might not hurt him,” Jake Wildavsky said. “Have you noticed how the newspapers have been using literal quotes for the people they interview? You know: ‘We was just minding our own business and I don’t got no idea how the case of beer got in my coat.’ It makes them sound more real, more believable, I guess.” “Sure,” Betty Sue said, “most of America’s heroes are pretty light in the brains department. Football players. Test pilots. Action movie guys. Homer Simpson. Roseanne. Cops — “ “Hey!” the police chief said. “Just kidding, Simon.” “So, what do we do?” I asked. “Why don’t you call Pritchard and see if he wants to talk about it?” Ken Longstreet said. “Who knows what’s bothering them? It’s hard to figure out from the letter. Maybe it isn’t a big deal after all.” “Probably a good idea, but it may be futile. He refused to talk to me before his ballot measure stunt. Do you want to join me in this?” I asked Bess. “No, it’s okay, I’ll leave that pleasure to you.” • • • I heard a commotion as I headed back to my office. Terri Knox was holding a yellow legal pad at arm’s length.“Just write it down, Mrs. Dunwoody.” “I am sure the airborne vehicles are emanating some sort of ray. It is making young girls pregnant, and keeping others from getting pregnant. You don’t believe me, but I have the facts. And I say airborne vehicles because they aren’t just airplanes, no, the helicopters are doing it too. It must be stopped. It must be stopped now before any harm is done.” “Yes, I know ma’am. But it would help me if you could write it down so we have all the facts.” Mrs. Dunwoody snatched the yellow pad and shuffled over to a chair. She began to sit down, then snapped, “I need a pen.” Terri quickly obliged. When I saw that my path was clear, I walked between them. Terri smiled and shrugged. We had both run into Mrs. Dunwoody before. I pulled eight messages off my voice mail, returned six of them, and actually reached two human beings. My seventh call was to Todd Pritchard. “Say Todd, this is Ben Cromarty at the City of Trillium. I read your letter to the city council, and wondered if you wanted to talk about it.” “Yes, I’d be glad to.” His nasal voice had a tone of smug satisfaction. “Well? ...” “We have some real concerns about the whole thing involving Nova Ceramics,” Pritchard said. “Like what, specifically?” “The whole thing.” “Okay — ” “Like for one,” he said, “the idea to include low-income housing as part of the project. That seems to us like very bad planning.” “I don’t know if I would call it low-income. The rents will between $750 and $1,000 a month. Not all of the workers at Nova will be able to afford a $250,000 home in Trillium. It seems to make sense to let them live near their job. It’s not like they’ll be living next to a steel mill — Nova’s factories usually look like college campuses.” “But we don’t think families with children should be near trucks coming from an industrial park. And we understand that these plants tend to attract Orientals. Whatever. We just don’t think you should mix housing and industry.” “Well, you’re entitled to your opinion. But it’s not a new idea. Have you seen pictures of Trillium when it was a mill town? Homes were scattered all around the saw mills. People could actually walk from their home to their job, or to the grade school, bank, cafe, or grocery store. It may seem like a novel concept, but it isn’t.” “We just think it’s bad planning. And we’re concerned about the costs that the other property owners are going to have to pick up.” “What do you mean? Nova is using their money up front for all the water, sewer, and street extensions. When the other property owners are ready to develop, they won’t have to lift a finger — everything will be in place for them.” “Tell me this, then. Won’t they be asked to pay to hook up?” “Of course. They would pay their share based on how much they use. That seems only fair. But they wouldn’t have to pay anything until they developed their own property.” “So how is it calculated? Based on size of properties, or what?” Todd asked. “The engineers use different methods — frontage or trip generation for streets, square footage or meter size for water, it depends. I don’t know the details; Jake Wildavsky’s handling that. But it’s done in a public process — there will be plenty of opportunities for the property owners to give us feedback on that.” “So what if they don’t want to participate at all? Why should the city be allowed to force them to?” Huh? This conversation didn’t seem to be helping much. “So you’re saying that Nova should take on the full burden for everything in the area, even if those other guys will benefit from it?” “Well, Nova’s the one asking for it. Let them put their money where their mouth is.” “Todd, you wouldn’t accept that if you were in their shoes. Be realistic.” “They really have bought you off, haven’t they? How did they do it?” I held my tongue. The line was silent for a few seconds. “I mean, it’s obvious you guys are pushing this deal,” Pritchard said. “Like how you violated the bid process. That was — ” “Hold on. No one has violated the bid process. State law specifically allows exemptions, and this qualifies for the exemption.” “Our attorney doesn’t think so.” So that’s how it was going to be. “Okay, Todd. Let me know when you have something constructive to contribute to this issue. You know how to reach me.” Terri leaned around the door. She pointed toward her desk. “I have to leave, but she’s still here.” “That’s all right, Terri, I’ll take care of her. Have a good evening.” I got some more work done, and then went into the reception area. “Well, Mrs. Dunwoody, would you like to join me in a cup of tea?” She shrugged. I brewed up two cups in the conference room. When I offered it, she stared into the cup and frowned. She took a sip and said, “Darjeeling. Good.” She returned to her writing. I sat at Terri’s desk and sipped my tea. There were probably at least a dozen people still working, but the main doors were locked. The hum of traffic from the evening commute broke through the whoosh of air from the building’s ventilation system. The only other sound was the scratching of Mrs. Dunwoody’s pen. I watched her write. She had filled around ten pages of the yellow pad with a small, probably unreadable scratch. What were Todd Pritchard and his followers up to? If they were going to mount a legal challenge to the Nova project, why hadn’t they shown up at the meeting? And who would pay an attorney? The people listed as the “directors” of the Trillium Business Leadership Committee were, in my experience, too cheap to pay for a two-egg breakfast. And why couldn’t I stop thinking about Kate? The minutes passed. “Okay, my friend, it’s time for me to lock up here. I can take what you’ve written, and you can finish tomorrow if you want.” “Well, fine.” I turned off the lights and locked the office doors behind us. • • • I pulled up outside council member Hank Arnold’s house. He and I were to have the pleasure of sharing a dinner of cold sandwiches with the Metro Area Storm Water Task Force. The topic was important enough — figuring out how to treat all the grit and grime that got washed into the region’s streams and rivers — and we had to stay at the table to make sure Trillium’s interests were represented. But I felt that if I really counted the precious hours of life on earth, this wouldn’t be high on my list of ways to spend them.Hank’s thin frame weaved between a couple of fifteen-year-old Chevy sedans in various stages of reassembly. He folded himself into the passenger seat of my car and fumbled with the seatbelt. Hank was a 60-year-old journeyman plumber who mostly worked on new commercial buildings. He had risen through the ranks of the union, and served a term as president of the union local. Twenty years ago, Hank and his wife Gretchen, along with a few friends, had founded the Trillium Community Services Center. He still spent weekends there, distributing cheese to poor families, refurbishing furniture and other cast-offs for the store, and delivering free firewood. He had started a program that paired up migrant farm workers with long-time residents of the community, teaching them English and Spanish together. Of the five city council members, Hank was the first to volunteer for any task, whether it was cleaning out creek beds or representing the city at the Veteran’s Day ceremony. I was grateful to be driving. It must have been decades since Hank had taken the vision test for his license. He may not have been legally blind, but that was only because the legal system hadn’t caught up with him yet. “Picked up a new fuel pump from the junk yard today,” he announced. “At first I couldn’t find the one I needed, but I kept digging, and there it was. I was glad I found it. Stopped first at Bellah’s Chevy Dealership. The kid in the parts department wasn’t much help, but he finally found it in his computer and they wanted to charge me two hundred bucks. Heck, I didn’t pay much more than that for the whole car. So a half-hour in the junk yard saved me a hundred and fifty bucks. Not a bad wage, huh? By the way, that reminds me, Sparky Bellah caught me at the dealership and said something about the city getting swindled by the Nova Ceramics deal. I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about …” Sam “Sparky” Bellah owned the Chevrolet dealership and was listed as one of the directors of the Trillium Business Leadership Committee. Except for that connection, I couldn’t see why he would have a problem with it. The Nova execs would be good for a few Blazers and Suburbans, and Sparky could make a killing on a fleet deal for their motor pool. “Hey, look at that place,” Hank said. “How can someone let a yard get looking like that?” I tried not to show my reaction. A while back, Hank had had so much junk in his own unfenced back yard that one of our code enforcement officers was forced to issue a formal warning. He seemed to sense the irony. “At least I keep my appliances neatly stacked,” he said. I made it home around ten. Mary curled up with me on the couch and shared a glass of wine. The days were already getting shorter, and there was only a trace of light to the west. Trixie was in bed after a hard workout at a softball day camp. Mary worked half time in the high school office. It kept the rest of her time free to be with Trixie, and to do some volunteer work in the church office. Things were quiet in the middle of summer, but class registration was coming up in a week, and she had plenty to do. “The hard part,” she said, “is not knowing how many kids we’re going to have. We can make our best guess, but in the first few weeks we’ll have to scramble around and try to balance out the classrooms.” “Don’t you have a pretty good idea from the kids who were in each grade last year?” “That just gives us a starting point. People move so much, you lose and gain a lot each year. And the newcomers don’t always get the word about registration, and a lot of the rest just never bother to show up. You would think we could sort it all out on the first day of school, but even then there are kids missing because they’re still on vacation. And that’s when we start getting the complaints from parents because little Johnny doesn’t have the teacher he wanted or he doesn’t have enough time to walk from Spanish to biology.” “That’s what makes your job fun, hmm?” “That’s not half of it. Sharon’s so anal she needs everything set in stone months ahead, and gets on our case when we can’t give her the final class lists. Mike’s the opposite — so laid back about it, he just tells us that we’ll work it all out in the end, so he waits until the last minute — “ “Sort of like me?” “Yeah, just like you,” Mary said. “But at least there’s Gina Olmos to help us keep our sanity. She deals with it so well that she ends up doing most of the work. She works up tentative schedules but she’s cheerful about all the changes. I really admire her.” “Well, you’re a lot like her, plus you have a cuter butt.” “I’m glad you appreciate my finer points.” “I appreciate them every chance I get.” • • • I met with the A Shift in the training room of Station One. Max Oakley and Betty Sue Castle joined me at the front of the room. Brian Gallagher stood at the back with his arms folded. I enjoyed most meetings with the firefighters — handing out awards, welcoming new members to the ranks, participating in promotion ceremonies. I felt a strong rapport with at least some of them. But from the tension in the room, I knew this one would be different.Max stood. “You all know the kind of budget challenge we’re facing — I don’t need to go into that again. We’ve had some ups and downs, but the Fire Department has done moderately well over the past few years.” There was some stirring in the crowd. They had settled for smaller pay increases than some of them wanted, and the equipment budget had been frozen for a year. “We haven’t lost any positions,” Max said. “In fact, we were able to add two firefighters to cover for absences. Most other local government agencies haven’t been as lucky. But now with the tax rollback, we may not be able to dodge the bullet any longer. The cuts are going to be deep, and they will affect all departments, including fire. There does not appear to be a way to avoid it. Our challenge is how to make these cuts with the least impact on the public.” A firefighter in the third row interrupted. “What about us? The public knew there were going to be consequences when they passed the ballot measure. Screw ’em.” Max sat on the edge of a table. “Yes, I know it is difficult. But we all made a commitment that the public comes first when we entered the fire service. That’s just the way it is. So as I was saying, we have been exploring a way to become more efficient by taking a hard look at the way we handle medical calls compared to fire calls. Betty Sue, please share your analysis with my men.” This wasn’t part of the script. Max was trying to distance himself from the issue. Betty Sue gamely summarized the concept without adding too much technical detail. But she couldn’t gloss over the fact that most of the savings came from a cut in firefighter positions. “So what are you talking about, a RIF?” “Not necessarily,” I said, trying to shield Betty Sue from unfriendly fire. The union contract laid out the procedures for a reduction in force, but it still involved layoffs. “Normal attrition might work. But I want to discuss those issues with Brian Gallagher and your other representatives before making any decisions on it. I need to emphasize that no decisions have been made yet — we’re talking to you now so you know the kinds of things we’re looking at. And I want to set up a process where you have a say in whatever decisions end up being made.” Someone in the back muttered something that provoked a few snickers. A new recruit raised his hand. “What would this do for our careers? I don’t think Portland would hire us if we didn’t have experience in both medical and fire.” “I don’t know,” I said. “But it seems that people from the ambulance companies do pretty well with fire departments. Lack of firefighting experience doesn’t seem to hurt them.” In fact, several of our own firefighters had come from Oregon Ambulance Service. “Max, you talk about service to the public,” an older firefighter said, “but here you’re talking about lousy response times to fire calls. Is it good service if we let someone’s house burn down? Is it good service if someone gets killed from smoke inhalation because we didn’t get there in time? You need to get real.” “We would have to double our efforts in prevention,” Max said. “If every home and business had working smoke alarms, we wouldn’t have the kind of scenarios you’re describing.” “Those aren’t scenarios, they’re real life,” someone else shouted. “I say this sucks,” one of the firefighters in the back said. “Essential services should be the last to be touched. Why don’t you go after the frills and luxuries, like recreation and seniors and planning? Why don’t you cut overhead, like assistant city managers and other useless positions? Why don’t you stop management from taking trips out of state? It’s ridiculous to jeopardize the safety of the public when you could cut the fat out of the rest of the city.” “I’m sure your fellow city employees appreciate your concern,” I said before I could stop myself. I saw another hand raised and quickly acknowledged it. “How come this is the first we’ve heard of this?” “I’ve talked privately to council members, and to Brian. But except for them, you’re the first to know. You haven’t seen anything in the papers, have you?” “No, but it still looks like a done deal to me. We already offered to take a wage freeze to save other city positions. We’ve done our part. Look somewhere else to balance your budget.” We took a few more questions and comments, but it looked like the crowd was getting restless. Max ended the meeting with a pledge to keep them involved. I watched their faces as the firefighters filed out of the room. There was a mixture of disgust and apathy. Some had a look of smug amusement, which worried me. The officers — captains, lieutenants, and the battalion chief — hid their emotions. I would meet with the B and C shifts over the next two days, but the news of this meeting would spread fast. When I got back to the office, I called Sabrina Chan and got her voice mail. “Sabrina, this is Ben Cromarty. We’re working on some budget issues that you might be interested in. Give me a call.” I did some desk work and logged onto my e-mail account. Just the usual spam. I hit the Create Message button.
I sat for a minute, then hit the Send button. Next chapter: consulting the sage 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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