After dispensing “The First Big Fish Award” — when someone recommended landing the Malaspina — it occurred to me: “I wonder if it’s possible to get more ideas for helping the economy into the newspaper? Perhaps now that the longstanding taboo has been broken, it will turn out that other people have ideas, too?”
Because these days, many of us in Haines are realizing that you can’t actually eat corruption — despite its admittedly high entertainment value. And more of us seem to be interested in calories — and less interested in the vanity projects of bureaucrats, or the ideological shenanigans of the hopelessly bamboozled — than ever before.
So I suggest a friendly competition. Let’s assume our assembly will have $48,000 to spend again next year, but that they must use it in a manner that will help our economy this time, rather than rewarding state politicians for their corruption by hiring a “lobbyist”.
Over the coming months, I will write in with three ideas of my own for how to spend the money. And I bet you $50 million over the next 20 years that my ideas are better than anything you’ve ever heard from our politicians or borough employees.
Oops — did that sound like hubris? My apologies. I was just watching Errol Flynn’s “Robin Hood” — that scene where he strolls into the castle, rips a drumstick off of the giant turkey, and kicks his feet up on the table of the rich? One of my all-time favorites.
Chris Palmisano