Mt. Pleasant Town Council Meeting: An Awakening Experience

October 1997

Mt. Pleasant Town Council Meeting: An Awakening Experience
By Bob Coskrey

My first Mt. Pleasant Town Council meeting was more edifying than entertaining. And that is the way it is supposed to be, I guess. Having seen City of North Charleston Council meetings on television, however, I had, perhaps, set the amusement bar a bit too high. There were no shootings, fisticuffs, threats, or arrests. Everyone—council and public—was well dressed, well groomed, and civil. No polyester suits, tank tops, Hawaiian war helmet coifs, or vile invective. No toothless 300 pound marquises of manufactured housing railed against lawn flamingo limits, nor did Mayer Cheryl Woods-Flowers charge anyone with murdering her Vietnamese pot-bellied pig. Of course, this mayor down’ own such an animal, but even if she did, the community of Mt. Pleasant is so, uh, pleasant, that the little porker could stroll through Melvin Bessinger’s Barbecue Restaurant with impunity.

There appeared to be about 50 citizens in attendance and about 20 of those came from a Boy Scout troop and its adult leaders. Some of the audience left when the Mayor announced that there would no longer be a time period set aside for public comments, because this format often did not leave the council with sufficient time to complete its agenda.

Had this period of spontaneous interaction between constituents and council been allowed to continue, I feel the environment probably would have been somewhat livelier, perhaps even action-packed, though never on so colorful a level as North Charleston’s.

Suddenly, I found myself standing and speaking in a strong but decorous tone (I am a Mt. Pleasant resident after all):

“Madam Mayor and honorable members of the council, I would like to announce that I will soon be applying for a permit to open an adult book and video store in the Village of Mt. Pleasant.” (The mayor and her council members all started at me, mouths agape, several people around me got up quietly and moved, and the officer at the doorway dropped his hand down toward his holster.) “Now I know your reactions may possibly be negative, but please, hear me out first.”

Mayor Woods-Flowers (after a brief aside with the town attorney): “Please continue, Mr…?”

Me: “Coskrey, Bob Coskrey. I’m a writer.”

Mayor: “A writer. Well that explains a lot.” (All council members make sideways glances and chuckle to themselves.)

Me: (Continuing) “For too long, your honor, when it comes to pornography—adult, of course—upscale people have been getting the short end of the stick, so to speak. Adult bookstores are always zoned for rundown areas, since it is wrongly assumed that the upper classes are appalled and offended by such vile stuff. This is stereotypical thinking at its worst. The gentry have their baser needs just like the Great Unwashed.

So it’s my intention to give these misunderstood, frustrated, and sexually deprived citizens their opportunity to smash the myth of upscale uptightism and (voice rising) join us in our freestyle race through the lake of lechery.”

Mayor Woods-Flowers (with a stony stare): “You, sir, are a prime example, though given an exaggerated one, of why we canceled the public comment forum. As for your proposal to put a sex shop in our town’s most historic and beautiful area, you must be totally demented.

Your permit request is denied. However, there is one way you can help our community and I am going to give you this opportunity to do it.
The Village, although it has natural beauty, wholesome citizens and every other amenity a community could need or want, lacks one thing that every village should have, and ‘m very happy that you have reminded me of it. Our village doesn’t and an Idiot, Mr. Coskrey.

Therefore, I am sentencing you to 30 days of community service which you will fulfill by dressing up in an appropriately idiotic costume and wandering through the village. You will be allowed only to say, “Hello, my name is Bob Coskrey. I’m the Village Idiot.

Good luck. Officer, arrest him!”

As the officer and several giggling boy scouts dragged my screaming out of my seat, I woke up the janitor tapping me on the shoulder:

“Mister, the meeting ended 30 minutes ago. I have to lock up.”

They really need to reinstate those public comment forums. However, in the meantime, I have slept though all the annexations, rezoning and impact assessment revisions, and now have nothing to report. I am an idiot—think I’ll go take a walk in the village.