Standing Accused
These are interesting times in the Estill-Schwerin household.
A few weeks ago I was jazzed when Dr. Reese Halter addressed the United Nations, and I was delighted to see a quote from Energy Blog on the back of his latest edition of Wild Weather.
That was before the United Nations announced that biofuels are a crime against humanity. Drat. One moment you are on the vanguard of the fight against climate change, and the next you are likened to a war criminal in the Hague.
I sent a simple query to the Biofuels Interest Group list: if biofuels are a crime against humanity, what does that make petroleum? To which I suggested that if I am imprisoned in the Hague please don’t slip me a file. Get my plasma cutter.
All of which is merely big picture stuff.
Here at home the accusations are much more bruising.
Awhile back I rented some rooms from our Mayor at a house in Pittsboro. I nicknamed it the “Biofuels House in Town,” to go along with Oilseed Community (where we have a dozen residents or so) along with “Yellow,” and “White,” where our interns live. I tried to get the whole house, but it had some existing tenants.
Chris Jude jumped in, so that he could walk to work, and it has been used by other passersby. Since we had leased a place in town, Tami and I figured we might as well vote in town, and we changed our voter registrations.
In the past I had asked our Town Planner if I could live at the Plant. That is, after all, where we spend the majority of our time. It has a well appointed kitchen, where I make my morning coffee, it is a delightful place to sleep, and it is where my library is housed. It’s where the kids keep their bikes, do their homework, and it is where we do our entertaining. But we are not allowed to live there.
It’s not zoned for that.
Fair enough.
An interesting sidebar is that our house is what Tami affectionately refers to as a “tear down.” After seventeen years of renovations, the experts tell us that it cannot be saved. In the neighborhood our place is known as “Neglectsville.”
So we figured we would move to town. We picked out a lot and builder in Chatham Forest (no doubt named for what once stood there), and asked Alicia to design a net-zero emissions home for us.
Combine that with a newfound desire to see these kids be able to get around during their impending teenage years (with less automobile usage), and the move to Pittsboro fit like a glove.
The Board of Elections said “no deal.” They said we couldn’t register to vote in Pittsboro.
Got it. Oh well.
One moment you are committing crimes against humanity, the next eating, sleeping, drinking, leasing and investing in Pittsboro does not a vote warrant.
All of which amounts to a mere shrug in our family, until a post goes up on the local anonymous forum which claims we have been accused of election fraud-at which point the feeding frenzy begins. Next thing you know Tami has been living in Pittsboro for the past two years with multiple men in one house, we’ve only been bankrupt once but our credit is coming back, and a whole bunch of other fascinating stuff about us that I guess I was previously too busy to have noticed.
When I step back from the bludgeoning we are currently taking it strikes me as obvious where this is coming from.
We are in the midst of a fierce election battle, in which Tami and I are clear about who we would like to win. We are supporters of the Pittsboro Together slate, and we like our current Mayor.
While Pittsboro Together is out talking about water, and sewer, and smart growth and cooperation with our progressive County Board, the other side has decided the big issue should be where Tami and Lyle are registered to vote.
It makes sense, I suppose. These are folks who launch their election bids for Pittsboro Town Council from a cafeteria in Siler City.
And I guess they need planks for their platforms. Since they don’t show up to debate the issues, the only thing we really know about them is that they are passionate about the many details of Tami and Lyle.
At this point they do not know that I wear Krispy Kreme boxer shorts, or that Tami has a penchant for Arabian men, and while I doubt they would be able to ferret out these facts on their own, they seem ready and able to invent new ones.
Another fact is that we live in a deeply polarized community. Our town has been so badly governed that we are at the behest of developers if we are ever to cobble together services. As an outspoken advocate of conservation, I occasionally poke a sharp stick into the eye of the status quo, which makes me a candidate for public flogging.
One of the reasons I like Mayor Voller is that he has taken an otherwise flaccid position (in North Carolina’s “Board-Manager” system the Mayor only votes on ties), and turned it into a pulpit for change.
I’ve only been doing business in Pittsboro for seventeen years, but in the past I would show up for re-zoning rulings, only to find an absent Mayor, a board member on vacation, and another one who is not feeling well, meaning the decision would have to wait a month.
Lost paperwork, handshake agreements which are broken by the new board, and lack of interest characterize our past regimes. In the past all power lay with the Public Works Director, because he was the only one who knew where to find the key to the gate.
I’m a fan of good governance. Which is not a secret.
And I’m a fan of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, which is why Tami got me a fake PhD on the occasion of my 44th birthday. It hangs in the hallway of Building One, at the end of Industrial Park drive on the east end of town-which is where I can generally be found.
If I’m not there-I’m probably on the porch of Building Two-in my recliner, where I like to foment conspiracies and also take naps…
Original post by Lyle