The Planning Commission draws a crowd


As I write this the Planning Commission is probably conducting its Wal-Mart hearing. I'm not there for reasons I will explain.

This morning I experienced one of those milestones of aging: I fell. I twisted my foot as I walked out the door and landed on the sidewalk. When you're a kid and you fall, you cry. When you're my age, you look around to make sure no one saw. After satisfying myself on that score I got up to attend to the next item of business: makeing sure nothing is broken, which seemed to be the case, so I went to work.

By the end of the day my foot was hurting quite a bit, but not swollen. What to do? Should I go to the ER and have it checked out, or was that overdoing it? I called Pequot to see if my symptoms even warranted dropping by. The operator put me on hold to talk to a nurse, who told me that she could not give me advice over the phone. I pointed out that it hardly seemed necessary to put me on hold to tell me that, but she said (I'm not making this up) that she was the only one qualified to tell me that they didn't give advice over the phone.

Believe me, I am getting to Wal-Mart. In fact, I'm there now. I decided against going to the ER, on the assumption that if something was seriously wrong, it would make itself emphatically known in the course of time. So, I got in my car, motored the half mile up Fort Hill, and got to Town Hall exactly at 7:00. The Town Council was holding a meeting in the Council Chambers, which was practically empty. The Planning Commission was meeting in a much smaller room, which was overflowing with what was clearly an unholy alliance of environmentalists and union members. The Fire Marshal was there. I have a fair amount of experience with Fire Marshals, and they tend to be officious types, and this one fit the mold. No one without a seat was allowed in the room, and he wasn't very happy about letting people stand in the hall. Not only that, the Commission wasn't going to get to Wal-Mart until an hour after the meeting started.

I suggested to Mark Oefinger that the Council and the Commission swap meeting rooms, but that was a non-starter, since all the TV cameras are in the Council Chambers. So, I had a choice. I could stand on my throbbing foot for an hour and wait for the meeting, during which I had no intention of speaking anyway, or come home to last night's Daily Show and Colbert. So, here I am.

I don't think I'll be missed. I do think that the crowd will at least make the Commission think a little. Unfortunately, the union's issues are not the Commission's issues, as much as some of the members might sympathize. The environmentalists, on the other hand, have some decent arguments. I'm not positive, but I suspect that among the AWOL were the small business owners that a Super Wal-Mart is most likely to drive out of business. At the very least, the level of opposition is a great contrast to what happened when Wal-Mart first came to town-not a voice was raised against it.

UPDATE: Turns out I spoke to soon. After I left the meeting was indeed moved to a larger room . So may people wanted to speak that the meeting has been continued to next month.
Posted: Tuesday - January 09, 2007 at 08:50 PM          

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