18:39. Monday, November 20th, 2023. Town Hall Conference Room.
Alexis walked into the meeting room to start setting everything up. Her boss, Lea, would join her soon closer to the meeting time. She opened up her laptop and signed into their video conferencing software.
It is annoying that I only have to do this for one person, at least the record function makes note taking easier.
Much of the work of running municipal government was volunteer, and most of that volunteer work was done by retirees. The Telekinetic Affairs Commission was no exception. Jeremy was their resident near-octogenarian (he was in his mid-seventies) who lived at the local retirement home, the McBee Community, but sadly didn’t have a ride to the town hall.
There were buses from the McBee Community to the Town Hall but Jeremy ran a weekly film club at the McBee Community that he had to be at before the meeting and couldn’t make it on the bus on time.
Hence the need for video conferencing software for one guy.
This did mean that on the rare occasions that his film club didn’t meet Jeremy would stop by in person. Alexis always thought those times were nice, because she was fond of the old sci-fi nerd.
Once she finished setting up the video conference software her real boss walked in.
Politics was sometimes strange in that you had more than one person who you needed to answer to. In Alexis’s case she had her boss, Lea who was her direct superior. But she also had the three members of the Telekinetic Affairs Commission themselves who she also had to listen to.
But then there was Selector Goodman.
Selector Tyler Goodman was their liaison to the Harmon Board of Selectmen. The Board was their town’s equivalent to a town council, with the First Selectman as their mayor. Selector Goodman was a cis man but as his way of ‘modernizing’ the outdated New England term preferred the term Selector.
He was the youngest on the board in his late twenties with brown hair. He wore a suit with a blue tie. His hair was a little longer than it was probably supposed to be and Alexis had no idea if he kept it that length deliberately or he just never found the time to cut it.
“How’s my favorite busy bee?” He asked as he walked in, causing her to jump. This was his nickname for her, named for that fact that she would always keep herself busy around him. He tended to see her anxious traits as signs of industriousness and a hard work ethic rather than the clear mental illness she viewed it as.
“Oh you know, just getting everything set up.” She responded. Why does he always show up so early? The meeting still isn’t gonna start for another twenty minutes!
“I can see that! How have things been?” He asked. When was the last time I saw him? Last week we spoke on the phone but other than that I guess since last month.
“You know, good. Went out to a restaurant on Saturday, that was nice I guess. How about you?”
“Pretty good, just happy to be here for another two years!” Oh right, I guess his re-election only just happened really.
“Yeah, how many terms has it been? Three right?”
“Yup! After I get sworn in again this will be my fourth.” Oops I thought after January this will be his third but thankfully he didn’t catch me miscalculating.
There was a lull in the conversation, but thankfully this is when Lia, Terry, and Margaret came in.
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19:02. Same Place and Time.
A good municipal meeting had a rhythm, all productive meetings marched to the beat of parliamentary procedure. A meeting starts by being called to order by the chair who facilitates. For the Telekinetic Affairs Commission this was Margaret.
When Margaret was first nominated to be a commissioner by Selector Goodman four years ago her teenage son had recently awakened to his psychic talent and this was her way of showing her support. Frankly Alexis found it a better reason than most had for getting involved in town government and she quickly found herself as the chair of the three person commission.
As chair it was her job to set the meeting agenda by working with Lia and to facilitate the meetings by following parliamentary procedure. The first step of which is calling a meeting to order.
“I call this meeting to order. Let’s begin by doing roll call: Jeremy?”
“Here.” Jeremy said through the laptop speakers.
“Terry?”
“Uh-huh.” Said Terry. He looks as bored as always.
Terry is the only member of the Telekinetic Affairs Commission who was actually psychic. He was also the most recent appointment as well.
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“Okay and let the minutes reflect that we also have two guests with us, Alexis and Lia who are staff members. Now for the pledge of allegiance.”
There is always something vaguely dystopian about this. She thought as they began. The fact that people in local government actually do the pledge of allegiance at the top of meetings came as a shock to Alexis when she first discovered it after being hired. It was apparently commonplace in many towns in New England but that fact never sat well with her.
She elected to only mouth the words this time. She noticed Terry doing the same.
The next part of the meeting was the approval of the agenda and the minutes for the previous meeting. Both are just weird formalities required by proper parliamentary procedure. After it was time for the chair’s report. The chair usually gave a report at the top of the meeting as a way of welcoming people, talk about the health of the deliberative body. Lia gave a report to the meeting about her and my activities for the month since she was the senior staff person. Then it was time for public comments.
They usually had no one show up for public comments unless there was something important on the agenda, which there wasn’t today.
After that Selector Goodman gave his report on what the Board of Selectmen were up to.
“As many of you have heard, there was an incident at the highschool. A student was putting up flyers on the lockers of psychic students. These flyers were swiftly taken down and the student was immediately caught but it is getting out on social media.”
Full on psychic hatred was kind of rare unless the person was a very specific type of person, such as the victim of violence from a psychic. A surprising amount of bigots didn’t tend to need a reason to hate who they hate however, even if what it even means to be a psychic wasn’t set in stone yet.
However these flyers were not hate-mongering about how psychics are the unholy result of the merger between demon and man they were more about fear-mongering. A simple request that the students transfer out of the school so as not to put the other students in danger. Alexis tried not to contemplate the reasonableness of the request or the perpetrator's motivations however. Though that didn’t stop others from drawing their own conclusions.
“I think they just were jealous.” Said Jeremy. “What kid doesn’t wish they had super powers? I know I sure did.”
“That isn’t important Jeremy.” Said Margaret. She turned to Selector Goodman. “Will the school board get involved at all?”
“There really isn’t anything to get involved with, the student was caught, the school punished him appropriately, and when word started to spread about the situation the superintendent released a statement. If you want to get more info I can always forward you their number Margaret, though obviously speaking about the specifics of disciplinary records of students is frowned upon.
Once that was over they moved onto the main portion of the meeting, what is known as “business”. Business was separated into old business and new business and this was the section of the meeting dedicated to actually getting the work of the deliberative body done and deciding on what needed to be decided on.
The Telekinetic Affairs Commission had a few different responsibilities which they handled during the business part of the meeting.
First, they were responsible for investigating “Discriminatory practices” as defined by state statute. Specifically relating to telekinetic ability. This includes housing, credit, and employment “except in the case of a bona fide occupational qualification or need”. It also includes public accommodations so businesses can’t refuse to serve psychics or non-psychics.
Second, they were responsible for regulation of “telekinetic establishments”. These were defined in the ordinance as “Any vehicle or place where a telekinetic talent is being employed for use in its operations.”
It didn’t just apply to businesses, it included universities, research companies, non-profits, even other municipal agencies. However, the federal government was excluded since state and local laws didn’t apply to them.
Essentially, if you wanted to let a psychic use their powers as part of their job, you were included in this ordinance. This didn’t apply if you just hired a psychic but just had them do regular work without their talent and it also had a carve out for personal use of a telekinetic talent.
Using pyrokinesis to light your cigarette was fine, but if your boss wanted to start saving money on welding torches they were gonna need to follow some strict rules to prove they weren’t gonna burn the place down.
This is where the Telekinetic Establishment License came in. To get one, a telekinetic establishment needed to fill out the application. To get an application approved, the psychic they wished to employ needed to have their Telekinetic Operator Certification.
Certifications were handled by the Department of Telekinetic Services, which was a state agency. Certifications served as evidence that a psychic could use their talent without endangering themselves or others in high stress environments.
After a psychic attained their certification, their talent would be registered and they would be free to work for any licensed telekinetic establishment.
Finally, the Telekinetic Affairs third responsibility was maybe its most boring, and least consequential. That was to collaborate with other municipal commissions, agencies, and departments to “provide community events promoting telekinetic education, awareness, and civic engagement”.
Sometimes this could be fun. Usually for Alexis it wasn’t.
“The first item under new business the Harmon Chief of Police has reached out to us to conduct a sensitivity training.” Margaret said.
Even if some saw her as a squish on some aspects of the psychic issue, Alexis, at her heart, was sincerely a progressive. She didn't just put that on her LoveHer profile because it made it easier to date other women, even if it definitely did.
Like any good progressive, Alexis supported police reform. That is what she would claim anyway. However, in actuality, she was much more supportive of full-on police abolitionism. But problematically Alexis couldn't really defend her position. That wouldn't be an issue normally, lots of people held radical beliefs they couldn't defend, but working at municipal government sometimes made that reality… complicated.
Even if Alexis had a more moderate stance on police however, dealing with the Harmon Chief of Police would be difficult for anyone. He was controlling and hyper critical of any and everyone around him which didn’t earn him many fans.
Glad Lia usually runs the sensitivity trainings so I don’t have to deal with that shit storm.
“Did he say what time was his preference?” Asked Lia.
“Yeah, two weeks on December 2nd. Lia you have this handled, right?”
“No good, that is when I start my vacation, Alexis will have to run it in my place.”
Shit.