A Myth or a Legend

I left the  meeting at 11.15 P.M. Not a minute too soon..As I calmly washed my hands in the washroom. ,a sudden and unexpected thought raced through my mind.
Snowhite and The Seven Effing Dwarfs
Imagine if I'd given voice to that during a public  meeting.
How inexcusable!
But the fact is ,after a  four hour talk marathon  there is always the possibility  the roof will cave
Our job is  to  discuss and decide town business with utmost civility and restraint. We must agree to disagree while being mindful of the feelings of others.
Refrain from casting aspersions on the motives of colleagues.
Generally speaking, behave like paragons of virtue and pillars of society.
Last night was a surfeit.
Presentations to the young people who painted park picnic tables
were followed by six delegations.
Many heavy decisions needed  to be made.
 $1.4 million dollars  to increase the soccer field inventory was a decision that hung in the balance.
With the Mayor absent, the vote had previously tied.
The  soccer people were out in force to support their cause. 
The argument expounding the merits of artificial turf was repeated several times. 
We've done it twice already.
Council was admonished for lagging behind in the supply of fields..
Secure in the company of friends,Councillors on the side of the angels,took jabs  at the opposition.
Not the best way to win friends and influence enemies.
Councillor Abel in a flashback to a past he did not share, disparaged political decision making.
He waxed lyrical about the need to care for young people  and spoke of  hardships  when his children were young.
I countered with memories of a time before development charges.
Capital projects were financed by debt.
I had three boys playing hockey, two on rep teams at different times 
There was no arena and then there was one... It  meant rising at five on Saturdays and Sundays and driving all over to wherever there was  space to rent. 
Councillor Abel complained I distract him while he is speaking.
I  occasionally drum my nails on the table.. He says I only do it when he has the floor.. He could be right. I don't notice I'm doing it  much  less when.
I begged his pardon .
He was not  much mollified. 
Of course the dice was cast on the soccer field vote. .
The Mayor had already  met several times with soccer executives and   Director to discuss the  problem and assured the Club  the Director  was "diligently"working on the solution.
A commitment had been made by the Mayor  behind the scenes, with perhaps a few close associates in the know. 
Enough to ensure the vote.
The report however revealed difficulties.
Construction now means a quarter of a million dollars more than it would later. 
How much later is not known.
Soccer fields are  a high priority.in the Master Recreation Plan. 
A skateboard park has equally high  priority
New soccer facilities have been provided while the need for a skate board park languishes. 
Development charges have been collected.
But skateboarders are not the same young people, Councillor Abel is concerned about.
They don't have an adult executive to plead their case
They're a bunch of ragamuffin kids  trudging  around town in pairs, with a  board  under one arm or on a shoulder. looking for a place  to rock.The same kids  who might be carrying a kit bag a couple of years from now.
They find  places. They  damage  property. 
Yesterday, I heard about them careening down the incline of Kemano Road, at risk of speeding into the path of oncoming cars on Aurora Heights Drive.
But they are not on our radar. Oh Dear me, no.
                   Mirror, Mirror on the wall
                   Who is the fairest of them all