Sky's the Limit
Copyright© 2026 by aroslav
Chapter 4: Zoned Out
“POINT OF ORDER,” Pat said standing in the planning commission meeting.
“What’s your point?” Mayor John Stein asked wearily.
This was supposed to be a simple meeting. Show the commission the plan, bring it to a vote, and adjourn. By moving the meeting up 24 hours, David Drake had assured him that no opposition would ever show up. Instead, two dozen residents and business owners, had crowded into the meeting room as soon as the doors were opened.
“According to article three of the city charter, all zoning changes must be approved by a vote of the electorate at the next convenient election. The commission cannot simply vote to change the zoning,” Pat said confidently.
“This is a mere edit of the current zoning,” David spoke up. “It’s not technically a rezoning.”
“It changes the definition of the Waterfront,” Ben Stafford spoke up. He owned a surf shop a couple of blocks north of TBR. “That is much more than an edit. The La Alegria Waterfront is a local historic site. You can’t change it without a full vote.”
“Further, the commission rules state that all hearings must be public and announced no less than one week in advance. The city changed the time and date of the meeting and gave no public notification,” Bruce Sylvester said. He was an artist and ran an art print studio less than a block from TBR Books. We even had a couple of his prints for sale hanging in the store.
“Notification was posted,” the mayor retorted.
“Only ten minutes before the meeting, while most of us were already waiting outside the room,” I said. “That’s not a legal notification.”
After we overheard Brent’s bragging about how everything would change after the meeting this afternoon, Pat and I had gone to work calling all the residents and shop owners on the Waterfront. They were all shocked that the commission would try such an underhanded trick.
“What would you know?” Debbie spoke up. “You shouldn’t even be here.”
“Speak for yourself, Debbie,” I shot back. “You don’t own property, a business, or even have a current residence near the Waterfront.”
“Enough!” the mayor shouted into the microphone. “We’ll consider the issue at the next regularly scheduled planning commission meeting. This meeting is adjourned.”
“When is the next regularly scheduled meeting?” an older woman asked as people started to stand and leave.
“Look at the city website for all schedule information,” the mayor called over his shoulder as he left the room.
“I didn’t expect them to try to redefine the Waterfront,” Bruce said as we sat at a table paying less attention to our TTRPG game than to the current events. Bruce was six-three and weighed an easy 280. Yet his character was the dwarf Gimli Stonehand.
“What did they try to do?” Janice asked. She played ranger Lyra Meadowsweet in our game and was often the one who got the questers out of trouble.
“Tried to redefine the Waterfront as a pedestrian zone extending from the water to Garfield Street, a block away,” I said.
I pulled out my trusty map and drew a red line around the new definition. I had an entire pouch full of maps that I pulled out when needed. Usually, they were fantasy maps, but I kept a pretty good supply of local and regional maps, too. After all, I was the Game Master, known as The Wordsmythe. I needed to be able to respond to variances in the quest as the play proceeded.
“That’s insane!” Lyra said. “It would close Coast Road!”
“Exactly. And isolate the businesses here with nothing but foot traffic,” I said. “We get a lot of foot traffic, but much of it is from people driving up Coast Road to park and walk back. The redefinition would kill all the businesses on the Waterfront.”
“What’s the chance of them succeeding?” Denise asked.
“I don’t think they can succeed in planning meetings with much more than a recommendation to the voters,” Bruce said. “But they’ll position it as historic preservation of the Waterfront until everyone closes shop and sells out. Then Drake will move in with the real guts of his redevelopment plan.”
We chatted a bit more, finally giving up on the whole game and cleaning up the space.
Our gamers came from all walks of life. We didn’t limit our gaming to the bookstore. We’d all participated in LARPing as well as TTRPG. LARP is Live Action Role Play, usually done at one of the sites out of doors. TTRPG is Table Top Role Playing Games. That’s what we did in the store. We all mostly played the same characters in both.
It had brought about ten of us pretty close together. Of the ten, a typical Wednesday evening would find six or so gathered to play. But we did other things together as well, and that went back to when I was about six years old. I was a little small for my age, not that unusual for boys, but I did get pushed around a lot. Not really beaten up, but certainly physical enough to leave bruises.
Mom and Dad decided it would be good for building my character and ability to defend myself if I took some form of self defense class. They chose to have me join a local Taekwando class. It was okay. I went to my weekly classes and practiced the katas or forms. By the time my parents passed away, I’d progressed from a white belt to a green stripe belt. Not remarkable progress in six years.
When Mom and Dad were killed, Pat and Marge tried to keep as much of my life consistent as they could. That included going to my martial arts classes. They didn’t pay much more attention to them, only acknowledging my advancement when they saw a new color belt in the laundry.
The thing is, martial arts training and my sibom or master did almost as much to pull me through that tough time as cuddling and reading with the twins did. It let me channel my grief into physical exercise and I advanced far more quickly. I even kept it up in college and became an instructor when I reached my third degree black belt. Since returning home after college, I started teaching at the same studio I’d learned at. Early Saturday morning, I’d be at the dojang, teaching children and adult beginners. By noon, I was in the store.
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