[This is April Fools humor, okay? Click here for more April Fools humor.]
Fourteen months of discussions resolved
In a stirring turn of events, Gracelessway Plan decisionmakers resolved fourteen months of stagnation in under five minutes at last Tuesday’s meeting. Commission Vice-Chair Stan Sharpknee was in the men’s room at the time of the enlightenment and didn’t learn what happened until he read the action minutes two weeks later. The minutes, which have been notably brief in recent weeks, said only “Plan resolved. We can go home.”
“It’s astounding,” Sharpknee remarked. “I don’t know why we couldn’t have thought of spending five minutes on this six months ago.”
By following the proposals of the best-selling treatise “How to Run a Planning Commission Meeting with No Muss, No Fuss, and No Trust,” Deputy Development Director Argue Kittenme took that author’s advice about always doing what’s logical — to extreme lengths.
“We’ve known for years, as an absolutely indisputable fact, that if we eliminate all parking then would-be residents simply will not have cars. You make it harder for people to drive, and they abandon their vehicles within minutes,” Argue Kittenme explained. “The Carvana company will pick up the car and give them a check. You can see this on TV.”
“This has been proven in hundreds or perhaps thousands of rural, coastal, 250-miles-to-good-healthcare, under-22,000-population communities all over America — particularly in those family-oriented communities with vast outdoor orientation and a big out-of-the-area student population. It’s all been very well documented.”
“Without a car, people quickly learn to imagine going to the beach and hiking in the mountains, all while staying at home. It’s the far more environmentally-responsible thing to do.”
Kittenme went on. “Groceries, children, and even social interactions can all be delivered to your home by apps — assuming you have a home, that is. The future isn’t here yet, but it certainly should be. Reality is overrated. Get used to it.”
Simple, simple, simple
The leap of logic came as a flash of inspiration to Planning Commissioner Eyefigueroa Dittout. “Simple, simple, simple,” he pronounced. He listed the progress of his thinking:
If you get rid of the parking, you get rid of the cars.
One follows the other.
So let’s be logical.
If we don’t build apartments, people won’t live there. That’s the logical conclusion.
If there’s no parking, ergo no cars. The cars will leave. People get rid of their cars.
Thus, if there’s no housing for people, ergo people will live somewhere else.
A person cannot be in two places at once.
And if they are somewhere other than the Gracelessway District, then they are somewhere else.
And if they are somewhere else, then they are not there.
“And, guess what?” he continued. “If there’s no housing, then there’s no people — and if there’s no people, then there’s no need for housing. This is logic.”
“We haven’t even started, and we’re done!”
“We haven’t even started, and we’re done!” Eyefigueroa Dittout announced with a big grin.
In what’s become the standard framework for debate, following a 45-second “elevator pitch” and 97 seconds of discussion, a vote was called for. A show of raised fingers indicated that all but one of the Commissioners wanted to go home.
In the closing minutes of the meeting, as Commissioners were assembling their laptops, backpacks, and briefcases, someone remembered to give Form-Based Code Consultant Nobeen Knobly a call to find out if he could transfer all the work he’s done so far to another Northern California coastal community that has an expanding polytechnic university. He said “I’ll do exactly what Arcata’s staff tells me to do. That was our deal,” and promptly Venmo’d the $118,000 refund back to the City.
Those funds are now at the City Council’s discretion, since it’s not entirely clear if the Council had authorized that expenditure in the first place. “What goes around, comes around,” Vice-Mayor Usemath announced when the refund became known.
And suddenly the Commission has nothing to do
The Commissioners were engaged in shared communication about intents to utilize their newly-discovered logical skills when the meeting was adjourned. They figured they could put off what they want to do next with the Gracelessway Plan until a future time.
The topic of what to do with all their freed-up time will be agendized and a discussion about what will be discussed will make for lively engagement at the Commission’s next 38 meetings. Many Commissioners expressed interest in getting training in another field entirely, possibly so seven Commissioners could transition to becoming attorneys for City of Arcata. This would to fit with their abilities to create vague viewpoints and non-interpretable conditions. “We’re logicians,” one Commissioner was heard to say as the meeting dissolved. “If we could figure out the Gracelessway Plan, we can figure out anything.”