Sky's the Limit
Copyright© 2026 by aroslav
Chapter 9: Patrol
I GOT THINGS HANDLED at the store and in the hands of Bernice, an older woman who loved books as much as the rest of our family. I believe her paychecks were routinely deposited in our cash register to pay for the books she’d put on hold during that pay period.
I spent a little time drafting a petition of my own. Then I headed for Bruce’s art shop.
“I think we need to take an active part in attacking this whole rezoning problem,” I explained. “We’ve simply been reacting to Drake’s proposal and losing ground steadily.”
“I’d have to agree with that,” Bruce said. “What do you have in mind?”
“When Drake came to town and bought Argosy Books, the first thing he did was get the planning commission to combine the Downtown Business District with the Waterfront Business District. There are more businesses downtown because of the office space. They don’t have significantly more retail space, but they regularly control the combined districts. I want to propose returning the district boundaries to what they were before Drake pushed through the combination.”
“Good idea, but do you think they’ll buy it?” Bruce asked.
“Unknown. I’d put our chances below fifty-fifty right now. But if we present a petition to the commission, it will force them to launch an investigation and hearing.”
“We can hardly call the two of us a petition,” Bruce said.
“I thought we could probably get at least a dozen signatures if we went out this afternoon before the meeting.”
And with that, we decided to launch an impromptu petition drive along the Waterfront. When Leon found out what we were doing, he took a copy of the petition and started along the next block. Fred Anders at the Krusty Krab restaurant grabbed a copy and headed to the next block. There were eight blocks along the original Waterfront and by the 4:00 meeting, we had fifty signatures on our emergency petition. And nearly all the people who signed joined us at the planning commission meeting—much to the surprise of the members.
The meeting room was only a conference room able to hold twenty people. There were six on the commission, plus the mayor and secretary. Twelve places for about seventy people at this “public” meeting.
“The meeting of the City Planning Commission will hereby be moved to the City Council Chamber, Room 301, upstairs. We will recess for fifteen minutes while everyone moves,” the chairman said after consulting with the mayor.
We were all orderly as we made the move and I saw Debbie frantically making a phone call in the stairwell.
“We’re going to get creamed!” she shouted into the phone. “We need to postpone our proposal until we can mobilize supporters. There have to be at least fifty opposition here from Coast Road.— Yes, sir. I’ll get the chairman to take it off the agenda. It’s that asshole Sky Morris. I’m sure he’s stirring up trouble.”
I continued up the stairs without having been noticed by Debbie. A minute later she pushed past me into the meeting room and rushed to the table where the committee members were getting seated. After a brief conversation with the chairman, she left the room.
“We wish to present a petition to the commission,” I said, standing when the chairman asked for new business. “We have had time to collect only fifty signatures today, but they are all of certified business owners and residents along the eight blocks of Coast Road, commonly referred to as the Waterfront.”
“Fifty signatures is a pretty low count,” the chairman said.
“We’ve only been collecting since noon today, sir. And most of the signers are here in the room as well,” I said.
“Very well. Without reading the exact text of the petition, brief us on its content.”
“Five years ago, the planning commission voted to eliminate the boundary between the Waterfront Business District and the Downtown Business District. This was presented as being a cost-cutting administrative move. The five years since then has shown that it is a lopsided voting bloc that strongly favors the downtown area and has caused the Waterfront to suffer, including higher taxes, fewer services, and a lopsided representation of needs. We therefore petition that the district boundaries be restored to the pre-combination limits so the businesses of the Waterfront can actually determine their own destiny without being lumped into the downtown area.”
“This is simply making two business districts out of what is one,” said one of the commission members. “Business is business. What benefits downtown benefits the Waterfront as well.”
“Then why does the Downtown Business District demand that it be separate from the Southside Business District with the Pacific Mall? There are far more retail businesses and corporate headquarters in that district than downtown. Surely, what is good for the Southside is good for Downtown,” I said.
“The needs of the Southside are far different than the needs of Downtown,” the member stated flatly.
“We, as business owners and residents of the Waterfront, believe there are equivalent differences in the needs of the Waterfront and Downtown,” I said, gesturing broadly at the people who had come in support of our petition.
We’d all been extremely orderly throughout the meeting, but at this statement, people stood and cheered loudly. The commissioners held a hurried whispered conversation, while being drowned out by the citizens.
“Order. Order,” the chairman said, banging his gavel. “Commission rules indicate that in order for a petition to be heard on the floor, the petitioners must present 200 certified signatures. Your petition has only fifty. Therefore, we cannot entertain further discussion until the petition meets this criterion. If you can get these signatures submitted one week before the next scheduled commission meeting, your petition will be placed on the agenda for that meeting and you will be allowed to publicly debate it.”
There were a few catcalls from the gathered supporters, but the chairman gaveled the meeting to order and another member moved to adjourn. That was it.
“Who’d have thought we’d be able to affect the meeting and commission on such short notice?” Leon asked when we stopped for a drink and dinner at Red’s after the meeting.
“We have a lot of work to do, I’m afraid,” I said. “We went as businesses and residents, but we need to get a resolution from the Waterfront Business Association and we need 150 more signatures!”
“Are there that many businesses and residents on the Waterfront?” Bruce asked.
“I doubt it, but that’s where we need to take a page from the competition’s playbook,” I said. “Do you think the signatures they’ve gathered to close the Coast Road are from people who live and work there? I’d be surprised if they’re even from the combined district. The commission is a city commission. Technically, we could gather signatures from anywhere in the city limits.”
“Do we even have that many people available to carry petitions?” Leon asked.
“When we started today, it was only Sky and me visiting people. Then you, then four others,” Bruce said. “We should have copies in all our shops, too. Every collector should carry a spare petition to give to someone else to collect signatures, too.”
“The thing is, we don’t need to spend a lot of money on this, outside of printing the petitions. What we need are volunteers,” I said.
“It surprised me that Debbie took off without making her presentation,” Bruce said. “She was on the agenda.”
“She was on the phone as we changed rooms,” I said. “She was the only one at the meeting from her side and there was no time to get reinforcements. She didn’t want to be shouted down.”
“Don’t you think she could have convinced some of those present to support her? Some of those guys lose the ability to think when a pretty woman speaks,” Leon suggested.
“It’s true when something new is suggested, but everyone there knew what the subject was. People don’t get swayed one way or another when new evidence is presented. Most people only accept evidence that agrees with what they already believe or want to believe,” I said.
“That’s a sad state, isn’t it?” Bruce asked.
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