There is a poor and crazy small town right outside the city, where I lived right after my divorce. It is run by a corrupt police department and some dirty politicians. When I lived there, I used to see cops sell drugs, right out of their police cars.
Thirty years later, it is still the same. I was talking to the former mayor yesterday. The latest? A local business owner is, quite literally, digging out the side of a hill with a backhoe to add a parking lot. No permit, no zoning — just the blessing of the local police chief.
As the backhoe driver digs, the houses on the street at the top of the hill shake, so the former mayor (who lives there) has been taking videos. When he sees her doing it, he stops and calls the cops, who show up at the place where the illegal activity is taking place — and warn the person who’s documenting it, not the guy who’s digging into the side of the hill without permits.
This is their way.
This digging is also in the watershed of the local creek, which makes it even more of a problem. Without the hill to absorb water, and with the addition of more impervious surface, the town (which floods regularly) will be even more at risk. Oh well.
It’s a lot like the Wild West, and it’s hard to describe places like this to people who have more orderly lives. The Republican party and the local Mafia dug their nails into the place long ago and sucked the place dry. Crack dealers, hookers, overdoses are common — as are gunfights, and of course, police brutality. (Locals refer to a police beatdown as “winning the lottery.”)
When I was a kid, it was a thriving little town; my mother used to bring us to the main street to do Christmas shopping. Even when I lived there, I used to think that with the right leadership, the town might be turned around. After all, it had the creek, some beautiful old housing stock, interesting historical sites, and a shopping strip that would be charming if restored.
Instead, the vultures got it.
