The Fellowship of Guelphissauga: State of the Shire Speech, Protest Vote, Westminster Woods |Feb '23

The Fellowship of Guelphissauga continues with the Reading Week review of rules and resolutions. In Exhibition Park, the dwarfs spent the past six weekends working on their new years resolutions by bulking up at Dano's Dwarf Gym. With all the extra business Dano could upgrade his gym's name to Courage Martial Arts(1), removing the old name and its family/pirate confusion*. Whereas on the other side of the Shire, the Mayor gave his State of the Shire speech using his two favourite words; NIMBY and YIMBY. The Elder Elves and Carly of Klassen humbly honoured the Rule of the Ward, instead of NIMBY-ism, with a “No” protest vote on an administrative formality(2). Rodrigo of Goller missed out on everything while he was lost in the Westminster Woods. Can he return to the Council Chambers in time for the next vote on another Tower of Sauron proposal?
The Mayor was at first nervous about giving his annual State of the Shire speech. But not nervous financially, since he used Tourism Tax dollars to book the largest room at the Delta Hotel and setup the venue as elaborate as the Big Blue Orc's daughter's wedding(3). He was instead nervous about his speech on building skyscrapers, which maximizes profits for Property Developer Orcs, didn't match his dreams of having a European-Inspired SimCity. His plan was to break the news early, then make the crowd forget it by casting his two favourite word-spells. The Mayor's State of the Shire speech attracted a crowd of 850 of his closest Fat Cats and Orcish friends. They sat at long-tables like gangs of Vikings, drinking beer and ordering takeout from the Manor. Happily buzzed, they started making drinking games once the Mayor got to the second part of his speech. Everyone joined in with the drinking games, repeating the Mayor's word-spells and falling into his trap perfectly: “NIMBY!” Drink. “YIMBY!” Drink. “NIMBY!” Drink. So on and so on through the night until everyone passed out drunk. As the sun rose, the entertainment for the evening returned home to the Manor, grasping their hard-earned cash with their dirty hands for the full night's work.
The next day the Mayor returned to the Council of Elders chambers for the afternoon meeting. He didn't have time to cover his beer breath, so he tucked in his wrinkled shirt and hoped no one would notice. He figured he would be home soon enough since the meeting was an administrative formality from an earlier decision set in stone by the Lords of the Tribunal. But unlike the Mayor, Carly of Klassen and the Elder Elves showed up sober to the meeting. They instead spent the past evening getting new Elven haircuts from Deaner and reviewing the Rule of the Ward: Say “NIMBY” for buildings above 6 storeys, and say “YIMBY” to buildings with 6 storeys in height or less. Following the Rule of the Ward makes their jobs easy and gives them extra time to focus on more complex decisions such as their elaborate Elven hairdos.
The administrative formality was a vote to approve a decision set by the appeal board at the Lords of the Tribunal. It was forcing the Shire to build a smaller version of the original Tower of Sauron at 16 storeys, instead of the proposed 25. Either way it was still above the height for the Rule of the Ward. One of the wisest Elder Elves had the heart to speak up first, “I just don’t want to be a party to agreeing with that hearing,” she told Council. “Out of principle, I don’t want to support (the bylaw) and I don’t want to be on record as supporting them.” The Mayor was too hungover to listen and make the obvious connection between the Rule of the Ward and NIMBY-ism, so he pushed to call the vote. Carly of Klassen joined in with the Elder Elf's protest and voted “No” even though it was redundant. The protest vote was lost 10-2, but it made sure Carly kept her Elven class in check, strengthening her against any future class changing word-spells. Carly and the Elder Elf chose to do the right thing no matter what, instead of doing what they're told to do no matter if it's right.
Meanwhile, Rodrigo of Goller was lost in the Westminster Woods. Sitting in the middle of a roundabout talking on his phone, he blended in perfectly with the students playing Pokemon Go. They welcomed him into their circle to keep warm overnight with the Bonfire App. But Rodrigo knew the charade couldn't last another day with his battery quickly dying. His phone eventually lost all power after the administrative meeting. He calmly put it away in his Spiked Codpiece and starting talking to the students IRL about directions. That's when the UberNerd in the group noticed Rodrigo's abnormal behaviour and flipped down his headset visor into AR-IRL mode. Instantly, the UberNerd's blood-shot eye lit up with Rodrigo's LinkedIn profile. “Do I look stupid?” the UberNerd said to Rodrigo as he shared his screen with his pals. Like the Borg activating all at once, the other students joined in. “Do we look stupid?” they cackled at him, “Kek kek kek....” They extended their selfie sticks and pointed them at him. Rodrigo isn't fluent in all Orcish tongues but he recognized the style of laughter coming from Kekistan. He feared the UberNerd might belong to the Kekistanian Mafia. But luckily for Rodrigo, all the students' visors received the same panicked FaceTime call: “Dude, some #$@*# just stabbed me! I'm at the Food Basics plaza in Ward 2.”(4). Taking the call to support their injured Bro, the students ran off. Rodrigo watched them head west in the direction of the closest bus stop. Thinking that was the direction of his home in Ward 2, he decided to head west into the unknown with a dead cell phone. Did Rodrigo of Goller take the correct path out of Westminster Woods? Stay tuned to see...
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What do you think?
Is NIMBY-ism a pricing or quantity issue?
Does building 18 000 extra housing units help solve a pricing problem?
Who tells City Council how to vote; the people, the city staff, or tribunal boards?
Will naming your dog NIMBY be the next Guelph thing?
(1)https://couragemartialarts.ca/
(2)https://www.guelphtoday.com/.../administrative-formality...
(3)https://www.thestar.com/.../ontario-developers-who...
(4)https://www.guelphtoday.com/.../one-charged-in-tuesday...
*Kazoku means family in Japanese and Kaizoku mean pirate. But it's spelled Kyzoku in FF1.