Weekend Coffee Share #CommunityMatters

September 18, 2016 — e book, government cluelessness, working title

painting

fall flora in Tucson

fall flora in Tucson

Although I see some of you around the inter webs I have not taken the time to sit down and share coffee and life events with the group for a long time. I  follow with interest your writing projects and day to day issues because although we are scattered around the globe, we have much in common.  If you read and write as a primary source of pleasure and value, this coffee share is for you.  The diversity of nationality and interests makes this the perfect place to just chat about this and that.

Fall is finally arriving at a snail’s pace in Baja Arizona.  I have been writing about a serious crime problem we have had with the city government in Tucson for years.  I think after almost a decade we will finally get a little rule of law in the neighborhood where I live. It has been a ridiculous struggle to communicate with all departments of this highly convoluted system.  You never know how crazy it all is until you try to make it perform for the benefit of the community.  I started writing blog posts about our predicament in 2013, never thinking I was creating an e book about government dysfunction. I thought that as soon as I presented the facts the problem would be solved by our paid public servants.  This turned out to be a serious joke.  Not only did all the departments refuse to perform in their respective jurisdictions, they refused to respond when citizens petitioned and pleaded for law enforcement services.  I was dragged into the vortex of government dysfunction, to my horror.  There was no bottom to this high speed waste of public funds and energy.

I wrote a post every few months and sent them all to the officials I hoped to make aware of our dire straights.  This practice continues until today because every department  has refused to address the crime problems we have reported to them.  Without an hero I could never end the book or get any help to end obvious crime in my neighborhood.  I searched high and wide for a hero for ages, finally finding one at the police department. This is very fitting since we have been plagued with crime and willful blindness to it courtesy of the inaction and or refusal to respond by the police department.  We actually had a fake neighborhood watch to promote crime and willful blindness, funded by taxpayers.  The damage done was, and continues to be, significant to property value as well as quality of life.  It tuns out that once you set a precedent of non compliance and willful blindness it is very hard to change the direction.  It continues to drag the community down until it is reformed.

There were two working titles before I settled on the current, and very apt one. The first few years the book was named after the neighborhood watch cop who supported charity scamming in the fire lane of our condo village.  I called the work in progress “Dirty Becky”.  Then Tucson elected a mayor who is a lawyer.  Neighbors got all excited and petitioned this lawyer mayor to stop the 24 hour donation drop off inviting the general public to drive through our condo village to “donate” or volunteer to handle food for a charity scam.  He never responded to us, even after we petitioned two years in a row. He told some cops to just stonewall us, and all the crime continued full speed ahead.  Naturally with all this official help the scam stayed in business and completely trashed our hood as well as our respect for law enforcement.  The working title changed to “The Emperor’s New Neighborhood Watch” to indicate that the lawyer mayor still had no idea the neighborhood watch was working hard to promote crime in the hood.

I have, after all these years, and all this inability to find a government agency that functions for our benefit, created a third and final title for my e book.  It is “Clulusion, The Sinister Fusion of Cluelessness and Colusion in Government.”  I do think the title perfectly evokes the spirit of the book I never wanted to write.  Now all I need is a denouement.  The hero will need to move mountains because changing the government is a gigantic task.  When I am able to put this one in the can I think I can write an e book on purpose.  Have you ever written an e book, gentle reader?

If you care to join the weekend coffee share party, share your link here.