mendax.org

While most city councils struggle with how to fund degrading streets, prevent crime, fund emergency services, and other necessary and important issues, the residents of Mill Valley in the affluent Marin County of California are in an outrage about chess. That’s right. You read that correctly. Chess.

An older citizen of the city offered to pay for a giant chess board to be built in the town square. Two years ago, he approached the parks department with the idea, and they approved of it. The 11′ x11′ board would be imbedded in the tiles of the square. The pieces would be 18″ to 24″ and stored in a locked trunk off the board. He got the idea from seeing similar boards in small European towns. Sounds nice enough, I guess. Let the old and young congregate around a board, sip lattes, and think about how wonderful their town is.

The first thing I thought, however, was that this would be a bad idea. I imagine high school and college age people making midnight runs to steal a giant chess piece. Hell, I’d probably do that. It’s almost too irresistable. Locked trunk or not, that chess board would be empty within a week.

But that’s not what the residents complained about. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, residents haven’t protested something in such force since the city tried to relocate a dog park. What were their major concerns? One well-thought-out response was that it would be “no fun.” Wow. Good argument. Another reason was that it would draw children into traffic. o_0 A chessboard… draws children… into traffic….. 0_o Yeahhhh…. So next argument? It would disrupt pedestrian traffic flow through the plaza. WHAT!?! YOU MEAN PEOPLE WOULD HAVE TO WALK AN EXTRA 20 FEET?!?! THAT’S SO UNREASONABLE!!!!

What’s more ridiculous than that? The fact that it took TWO YEARS for the benefactor of the project to design the board. Last time I checked, chessboards are pretty standard. WTF took TWO YEARS?

So, while Oakland stares at the body of the 45th homicide victim this year, Mill Valley gripes about a giant chessboard. Perhaps if the over-manicured, underweight, Prada-obsessed housewives and Ralph Laurened, overtanned, BMW-driving-because-I’m-trying-to-compensate-for-my-shortcomings men of Mill Valley spent less time worrying about trivial town matters and more time trying to help others who really need it, our crime-ridden areas might stand a chance of turning around.

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