The Talnot Hills Memoirs
Most of you are welcome to the new city of Talbot Hills South. I said a “new” city because we just had become one. In the last census, our population reached 100,100. That is one-hundred thousand one hundred. Yay us!
About five minutes north of us across the river is our, ahem, rival city, Talbot Hills North. The big, fat, ugly city of 750,400. Oh, well, whoopie!
Fortunately, the only way to get there from here is through Highway 162. No other roads go up there. Not that anyone wants to go there. They are a bunch of big-city snobs and as far as I am concerned they are not welcome here, so if you are not from Talbot Hills North, welcome. Otherwise, go home!
My name is Jake and this is my manuscript about the time I spent in Talbot Hills South working at the City Hall.
I was the mayor’s assistant. I did, well, everything. I guess I need to introduce you to the rest of the staff first.
There were a total of five of us working in this part of City Hall. The mayor, of course. Mayor James MacDougal. He was the big shot and had his own office across the hall, but the rest of us share an office. Our office was small with just one window at the far end. My desk was closest to the door with each of the other desks near each wall facing the centre of the room. We used filing cabinets and tables to form makeshift cubicles.
The best way to describe the mayor is that he looked like Tobin Bell. You know the actor who played Jigsaw? He looks like him.
Sharing the office with me was Julie Haney. A black lady who for some reason wore a dress to work even on casual days. Julie was in charge of transportation and infrastructure. Then there was John Massey. A tall muscular guy. The kind who looked like one of those freakish guys you see at the gym who makes that over-exaggerated grunt sound every time he lifted something heavier than a paperclip. You know, like he was going to take a crap right there on the floor in front of the bench press? Yeah, one of those. He was in charge of police and emergency services and was a police officer himself. Finally, there was Jason Riley, the only normal one in the office other than myself. He always looked like he never combed his hair, but was otherwise normal. He was in charge of licenses and permits and also public spaces, like parks and stuff.
Our Board of Education pretty well ran itself.
That leaves me, Jake Islington, I was in charge of everything else. Including finances and accounting. I was the office manager and the only one above me was the mayor. I was the liaison between the mayor and the department heads. I could make decisions about department funding without approval from the mayor because, well, I was the one who knew how much money the city had (or didn’t have.
This fiscal we had a surplus but I was doing my best to keep it a secret from everyone because you know exactly what would happen if they were to find out we had a little extra in the coffer? They would all be bugging me for a budget increase. I would have to decline because I don’t do budget increases. Work with what you have and like it.
I forgot to mention that in addition to everything else I do, which is everything, I am also in charge of sanitation, sewage, water and electrical distribution. I took that on myself because the person who did that before retired and at that time there was no budget to hire someone. I could have assigned the job to someone else in the office but look at my choices, If I had my way, I would have booted all of them and would have just run the entire city myself. I am practically doing that anyway.
City Hall itself was not a large building due to not being a very large city. Two floors. The main floor was where most of the daily business was conducted, and the second floor was the administration area, where we were. Also on the main floor was the council chamber, but we never used it because we had not yet had a city council. It was just the mayor and myself and Curly, Larry, and Moe. We had been too small for a full council and we had not yet elected one. The mayor was basically the city council. He made all the decisions and we liked it or it was too damn bad.
Our city’s main sources for the economy were a distribution centre and some light manufacturing but they were no more. They moved to, you know, that bad place across the river. Right now we have no major employer so we are entering a recession. The only money we have is the surplus that my coworkers can never discover...yet.
