Where are the adults?

To a Member of City Council:

I'm a lifelong resident of The City. I was born here, I was educated here; I was married here and bought my first home here. My parents are lifelong residents, as well.

As the dominoes of the global financial meltdown tumble around my neighborhood, I need to ask someone -- shout the question aloud -- "What in the name of gawd has happened to The City?"

Another question that throbs in my mind all day long is, "Where are the adults?" Who is making the decisions that continually lead The City down blind alleys year after year? Have we simply had a string of terrible mayors? Is City Council as corrupt and dissolute and inept as its detractors claim? Are the citizens so apathetic, so fat, stupid and slap-happy that they don't ask more of their leaders? Have the best and brightest of The City simply left behind those who embrace mediocrity?

I am a writer and IT professional who has worked in Canada, Ireland and the United States. I'm educated, motivated and would like nothing better than to put my brains and talents to work for a local company. Aside from a miserable six-month stint at an ass-backward, hellhole of an office five years ago, I've never worked in The City during my adult life. I've submitted enough resumes to local businesses over the years -- to our newspaper, the art gallery, St. Clair College, the University, the few companies that need IT personnel, etc., etc. -- that I could probably cover the entirety of E.C. Row Expressway (itself an infamously and incompetently handled project) with the volume of pages.

So, I've worked in the United States -- most recently at WorkPlaceUSA in Boilston. Even that, now, has dried up and I am once again unemployed. For the first time, however, I am unemployed and wide awake to the fact that The City holds absolutely no promise for me. I have beaten my head against its unyielding concrete for most of my life, and I'm through with it.

Since no one in a position of power or responsibility in The City has ever seized the moment during boom times to plan for downturns, The City now teeters on the brink of an economic abyss. You know you're in trouble when the future of the city's largest industry is in the ham-hands of Flem Lewenza and the CAW. I understand that unions may have had a purpose at one time, decades ago, but as happens with most institutions, their purpose has been lost in a cloud of self-interest, greed, incompetence, ambition and arrogance. Seeing pictures in the local newspaper of CAW members burning copies of the email sent to them by the CEO of Chrysler Canada was painfully symbolic. I'm a front-line, low-level worker and I can sympathize with my peers in other industries who have to give concessions while their executives pull down exorbitant salaries, benefits and perks. I get it. But what in the hell led us here? The road we're on was so gawddamned avoidable, I'm aghast and almost laughing with shock that we are where we find ourselves.

My question and conundrum is much larger and far-reaching than Chrysler, the CAW and Flem Lewenza. There seems to be a constitutional resistance to success in The City; a cringing away from the challenges of hard, necessary decisions. Basing our economy on strip bars, bingo halls, the casino and the downtown bars that turn into a weekly melee with teenaged American drinkers is criminally short-sighted. It's insulting. No Cityite I know feels anything but embarrassment and disgust about The City's major economic pillars.

Gosh, I'll never forget when the casino first came here and our art gallery was kicked out of its building so it could house the "temporary" casino. I was in university at that time and people coming to campus from out of town laughed uproariously at that cartoonish turn of events. Like the burning of copies of the Chrysler Canada CEO's email, the temporary casino supplanting the art gallery was so gory and vivid in its symbolism.

Where are the adults?

Who in hell allowed that Dougherty character to leave that gaping hole in the ground next to the Compri Hotel for two decades? That's what I'm talking about.

And here I am, an educated, skilled, willing son of The City who has come to the point where I feel absolutely poisoned with my disappointment and anger with this bloody place. I can hear a balcony heckler shouting, "Well, why don't you run for office, smart guy, if you think you can run things better?" I'm not saying I could run things better, but I sure as hell thought the people for whom I've voted over the years -- and I vote every opportunity I get -- would run things substantially better than they have.

I spent this week in Toronto, sleeping on a friend's floor after days of looking for work. On a professional, economic, practical level, The City for me is a wasteland. I bet you I couldn't get a job as a bingo caller right now, and I have a wonderful speaking voice! In 2006, I wrote an adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray for the stage. A prominent local artist and director produced the play. The day before Dorian Gray was to hit the stage at the Capital Theatre in March 2007, the theatre closed down. The day before. To hell with my disappointment, my heart went out to those wonderful actors who'd put months of hard work into the play. It was ultimately staged at MacKenzie Hall, but only after there was an enormous amount of confusion and doubt about where to find an alternate venue.

The City's in terrible shape, and the sad thing is, I don't think it would know what to do with a panacea even if one existed. The City has been turned so horribly inside-out by incompetent greedy swine that I don't think it could ever be hammered back into shape.

I guess what's motivating me to write this disjointed, pointless message to you is that during this economic disaster, I've finally seen the face of The City -- and it's the face of a stranger.

Where are the adults? They fled long ago. It's Children of the Corn here. We're led and bullied by insolent adolescents, regardless of their true chronological ages. We're led by Sandra Pupatello who commits the same sins she rails against in her ideological enemies. There's no right or wrong, only "our side" and "their side." Commit whatever sins you like, so long as you're on our side. And no matter what coherent, innovative, salvation-bringing idea they have, screw it, because it's coming over from their side.

Another question crosses my mind with increasing frequency: "Who gives a shit?" I used to. I always imagined our civic leaders did. There was evidence that friends and neighbors did. But more recently, the answer to that question has become as troubling and unsettling as the answer to "Where are the adults?"

Saying that The City's barn doors have hung open too long and its future escaped is not a fatalistic assessment. I believe a fatalistic assessment of The City is one that denies that truth. I'm as hopeful as the next guy, but more than that I'm a realist. Hope without realism is a hippie's dreamland.

I feel like a resident of Pompeii in the wake of Vesuvius' fury, except we haven't had the benefit of a dramatic demise.

Where are the adults? Wherever they are, I would like to join them.