This is a made up story, a fairy tale, as it were, and any resemblance to any person living or dead featured in the story is a coincidence.
Es war einmal (as the Brothers Grimm began their tales), or once upon a time, as we would say in English, there was a little town full of people who had agendas and goals to push their personal hobbyhorses.
That they used a public agency to do so never bothered them. Like all those on a mission, they were fully able to justify anything.
Because they believed their causes to be right - not ordained by God Almighty maybe, but fully flowered in their own minds and therefore right and holy - they could go to any length without any self-embarrassment or shame to achieve their ends.
Concealment, helping each other by any means available, doing magic tricks with words - these were all devices used by this crowd. They were going to get their way and devil take the hindmost.
Government, they figured, was a wonderful way to implement what they wanted. After all, it was the elected folks who passed the rules and once you got laws passed then the vast public - most of whom did not notice, or even worse, did not care - had to abide by those laws, ordinances, rules, procedures and diktats.
But in order to get the proper laws passed a number of people - called a majority - was necessary. Thus, anyone who stood in the way of the aims of the Enlightened Ones who had their goals had to be removed in favor of those who would join in the majority.
And how do you get rid of those whom you consider obstacles? One good way is to tell stories about them. These stories don't have to be true, they just have to be interesting and undermine the person who is the subject of the story.
It is a neat way of doing business, because rarely can the gossip or stories be traced back to their source.
The "Queen Bee," as she became known, was behind much of these maneuverings and strategems and the fact that the rulers on high had passed a law that said folks serving together on a committee, board, council or whatever could not talk to one another about government business except in public was a great source of amusement.
Oh, the Queen Bee and her retinue (especially the Serving One, whose livelihood depended on doing what the majority wanted) had a great laugh over this silly rule.
Not talk? How could they accomplish their goals without talking among one another? Are you silly? Besides we won't get caught - we're all in on it. Ethics, integrity and honesty have nothing to do with it.
One time there was one particular obstacle in the way of the Big Plan. One elected official, a churchgoing person, staitlaced, who went by the rules, stood in the way. Can't have that person around, will upset our majority. So that person has to get the heave-ho. Stories circulated. Certainly not true, but the Queen Bee and her circle enjoyed it and smacked their lips with relish because it was all going to work out for them.
The Good Person had to go. So the Queen Bee and her acolytes found a sucker who they figured would love to be part of the government and the Sucker was fed an interesting line and the Good Person lost out and the Sucker didn't know he had been had until a couple of years went by and he was sand bagged because he was in the way.
Then the fairy tale took a turn that is too gruesome to relate to the tender eyes and ears of those who read a family newspaper like the Clearwater Gazette.
But if you ask around, and ask the right people some of them might be able to tell you more about this fairy tale.
