Dear City o’ SClarita City Council — Pals! I write today to beseech you to cease and desist in your search for a new planning commissioner. Why? You have in your clutches the perfect candidate in Yours Truly. Me. I humbly offer my immense talents, experience, vision, leadership and communication skills compacted fetchingly in one, suntanned, trim body capped off with a winning, yes sir or madam can-do smile.
Because of the recent and preposterously embarrassing monkey circus public relations disaster by three of you five council members regarding the previous city planner, the fetching Ms. Denise Lite, I feel I am the perfect warm and twitching body in a chair needed to fill the position.
Again. Why?
As city o’ SClarita’s next planning commissioner, I have absolutely no plans, other than to fawn, “Why yes of course, o wise, serene and all-powerful sir or madam!!!”
Think of all the time the city will save in useless arguing and having to listen to other people’s annoying ideas and opinions. We’ll save paper and computer storage space. What an amazing, streamlined and efficient process you — Mayor Pro Tem Laurene Weste, Mayor Bill Miranda and Councilwoman Patsy Ayala — invented. Come up with an idea, then, tuck your head down and start blindly windmill swinging until it’s implemented!
Very Vlad Putinesque to evaporate any personnel, like Ms. Lite, who dare make eye contact with you!!
But, in the spirit of governance you’ve championed, enough about you. Let’s talk about me. Again, my strong suit? I have no plans, ergo, I won’t be stepping on anyone’s bunioned and discolored toes.
Here’s how I see doing my job better than Ms. Lite. I wake in the morning and make a half-hearted prayer attempt. Then, a YouTube video or cellphone meme distracts me midway through my beseechment for divine guidance and, what do you know, I’ve fallen back asleep and it’s 2 in the afternoon!
Just enough time for brunch at the Hyatt, a nap by the pool and then head to the City Hall to say hi to the girls in steno, clap my hands together enthusiastically, then ask staff: “Hey! Anybody got any plans?”
With the new Can’t Do spirit you’ve created at City Hall, the answer, of course, is a resounding, “Hell no!!”
What city employee in their right mind wants to inadvertently offer an idea that would get them shivved like Caesar en route to say howdy to his toga pals in the Senate? Have you and Laurene thought of ordering a giant rubber stamp and ink pad the size of a pool table? The stamp would read, a la the TV hit, “Yellowstone” — “TAKE THEM TO THE TRAIN STATION, RIP!” While I don’t have the necessary Amazon prayer rug, I can get my mitts on a yoga matt upon which to grovel. Upon demand, I can raise my voice six octaves to beg, “Please don’t hurt me!”
I’ve also mastered crackerjack city communication skills, like, “I dunno.” Or, “What do YOU think, sire?” (That line to be delivered sans eye contact.)
I can stick my tongue out and pant enthusiastically, accompanied by making little cute doggie whiny noises, followed by rolling on my back to await non-sexual Human Resources-approved tummy rubs.
Besides. Planning for government? Overrated. Like Old-Time Religion, I’m in favor of Old-Time Government. You know. Like what was accomplished in the recent secret sleight-of-hand trick of bulldozing the Santa Clarita Valley’s last and most significant historical building, the Courthouse on Market in Downtown Newhall. I’m not at all suggesting anything underhanded occurred, but, if you guys need me to take five or six extra-large satchels filled with what I can only guess is Monopoly money campaign donations to the Caymans, I shan’t ask nary a question and only request that in keeping my lips sealed, you allow me to deduct the mileage on my employee expense account. It’s not like you guys are looking to build an outdoor lithium battery furnace next to a windowless maternity ward in Canyon Country or anything.
Mayor Pro Tem Weste? Patsy Ayala? Mayor Bill “Read ’Em Their” Miranda? Go ahead. In light of former commissioner Lite’s record and metaphorical march to the public guillotine, ask me what I’m planning. Go ahead. Ask me what I’m planning.
My answer? “Nuthin.’”
How easy is that? Someone wants to tear down the last historical building in the whole valley and put up a much-needed Mexican restaurant that serves room-temperature margaritas and an eyebrow growth boutique in its place? Developer hands you guys the plans. You hand them to me. I glance at them. I wink. Grin (supinely). Yell: “Looks GREAT to me!”
There’ll probably be some old-fashioned bleeding hearts who’ll complain. They’ll point out that no one deserves to be treated in such a shabby fashion like Denise. They’ll gripe that this is the very reason why it took a century of Herculean labor to build this city so we could finally have our own, honest government, that we’re Santa Clarita. We simply don’t do slimy.
Question. Like column writing, is this a work-from-home position? Not that I mind seeing you three in person, but is there some kabuki theater/tribal make-work ritual where I need to actually come into the office to not look at plans? I mean, this IS the 21st century. Can’t we kiss butt via texting now?
Critics have accused you three of confusing former planning commissioner Denise Lite with the Bud Lite beer guy in the Audrey Hepburn dress. Me? I salute you for standing up for the integrity of low-calorie beer. Besides. Ms. Lite brought too much controversy to her position. Who needs mobs outside City Hall chanting: “Denise Lite: Less Filling!! Denise Lite: Tastes Great!!”
In this trying local political climate, can’t we have a city o’ SClarita planning commissioner who’s both?
With more than 11,000 columns and 100-plus awards (119!), Santa Clarita’s John Boston is the most prolific humorist/satirist in world history. Look for his long-awaited sequel to “Naked Came the Sasquatch” — “Naked Came the Novelist” coming out this fall.
