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IM: "Hello and good morning citizens of Base Sygma. This is Ian Mackensie live on KMBS 98.5 FM for the second hour of "Ian in the morning".
As announced pretty much non stop on the air in the last 24 hours, I do have Eric Taylor and Duncan Clark in the studio this morning. Also present with us is Lily Langley, no relations with the late General she assured me, the lawyer who negotiated the purchase of the town for the DeriMark folks.
This morning, Mr Taylor is on the air to explain a little bit further about how he is what how he fits into the town's future and perhaps, if we're lucky, answer some of your own questions.
ET: "Sure Mr Mackensie, but please call me Eric"
IM: "No problem Eric, as long as you call me Ian.."
ET: "Great, so, I am a world renown project manager. My job is simply to ensure that a project is seen to its completion. In addition to performing my own job, I also attend numerous conferences where I present my theories on project management. I have right here for you a copy of my latest book, Making the Last Step, which is a reference on how hard it is to actually fully complete a complex project. "
IM: "Ok, and I presume that you are a naturist ?"
ET: "Yes, I used to live in a naturist center with my wife Samantha and our 11 year old daughter Kim."
IM: "So, what is your role in Eden's Creek ?"
ET: "Base Sygma was one of the most complex projects ever taken by man but even if it produced incredible results, it is far from being completed. The last few steps are still missing for a reason or another and now, it was decided to convert the base from a military occupation to a civilian facility."
IM: "But isn't that your bosses fault ? The military didn't decide to turn the town into a nudist camp, Eric Kelso and Derrick Summers did."
ET: "Ha, but this is where you are wrong and one of the main reasons for the antagonism I got to hear on your talk show yesterday. People are bundling together two very different things and I think that Eric and Derrick did an awful job at straightening things up. I have a few hours Ian, do you think I could make a clear explanation of what is happening and why I am needed ?"
IM: "sure, go ahead"
ET: "A few years before the death of the General, the US Army decided to withdrew it's financial support for Base Sygma operations. Only the reputation of the General managed to postpone the closing of the base. With his death, the plans were to simply close the base and dismantle it. It has no strategic value for the US Government and even the Arizona state government doesn't want to touch it. What your listeners simply do not understand is the magnitude at which the base is losing money every day. "
IM: "But it has revenues, like the municipal taxes we pay"
ET: "Sure, and your taxes are well spent t offer services other towns get like road maintenance, school operations, sewer treatments, the July 4th fireworks, etc. But what the other towns do not have is the huge electrical costs for keeping the environmental controls working or the salaries of the many technicians working on those controls. They do not need to pump large amounts of sea water from California just to power the evaporators located in various places in the city. Electricity is a lot cheaper than it use to be, but it's still needs to be paid by someone or all of the efforts put in the valley over the last few years will erode away just by us slowly loosing the little gains in humidity we have achieved."
IM: "But the lake, it's level has been stable for the past 3 years"
ET: "Yes, thanks to the massive influx of sea water from California. Do you know that the pipe was amortized by the general over a period of 100 years ? That means that your grand kids will still be paying for it. We don't even know if the pipe will last that long without requiring massive repairs"
IM: "That's depressing"
ET: "Yes and that's why the military wanted to close it down and forget about it. Without the naturists so many of you seem to hate, you would all have to move. You do know what nobody in this town really owns their house ?"
IM: "No, I didn't know that."
ET: "Lily, Can you explain ?"
LL: "Sure, according to the charter of the town, the managers of the charter can decide at any moment to expropriate any of the houses owned by a third party for its own usage at a price it judges appropriate. Cities all have a similar power, but they need to justify it or at least pay a reasonable amount. There is no such provision in the charter. If the Eden's Creek conglomerate had wanted everyone out, they could have done so and they could have even decided that your houses were now worthless and simply pay you a token dollar for each of them. The debate about what to do with the existing citizens could have lasted long in the group, but it didn't. The decision was made early on that co-existence was the best way to build a community."
ET: "Plus, realistically, we cannot fill the town fast enough to fill all of its functions. We might get our first naturist doctor only in a year, we might have enough naturist teachers to fill both schools only in 2 years. And what about the businesses ? "
IM: "So, you let us stay only because you need us."
ET : "It's more than that. In the 1920s, naturism was very popular in the USA. Back then, it was something people did, just like skating in the 1960s. But later, it became something underground. Sure, from time to time naturism was mentioned on the news, but it was mostly hidden from the world. As time passed, naturist and textiles as we often call people who wear clothes, became more and more isolated from one another. All my friends are naturists. The only time I wore clothes was to go shopping, which isn't really a social activity or for work. By creating an isolated naturist town, both these needs meet textiles will disappear. We would become completely cut off from the rest of the population. If you check the people who are turning to naturism today, now that its almost as popular as in the 1920s, many are doing do because of that isolation. Because they are trying to find close-knit communities that are simply no longer available anywhere other than in very religious villages where the church is the community. By having a mixed town, we hope to avoid the radicalization that many naturist centers and religious towns are now exhibiting."
IM: "Wow, I had never seen it like that"
LL: "I had the advantage of being raised as a naturist, but of living most of the year in a house outside of a center. This gave me textile friends when I was growing up. Today, many naturist kids living in naturist centers do go in textile schools, but only hang out with other naturist friends. Some of them only wear school uniforms when they grow up and become trapped to remain naturists when they grow up simply because they don't know better. We hope to eventually avoid this isolation. We hope that your kids will be friends with our kids even if they don't share the same lifestyle"
IM : "Go ahead Duncan"
DC: "We used to cohabit with the military every day. We were friends with them, we tolerated their uniform everywhere and their weird rules which prevented us from having a real say on what was going on in town. What I realized yesterday before I called the station, was that the naturists will not be completely different from us. They'll dress differently than we do and form a group we do not truly fit with, but this time, they'll let us take an active role in the city development."
IM : "That's a good point, but the military did dress like us from time to time, like when going shopping"
DC : "I am sorry, but most of the military folks wore their uniform in their mind. They looked down as us with pity since we were just poor civilians. That's why we all love your father Ian, he's one of the rare officers to understand that we're humans like them. All of the naturists we've met so far seem open and down to earth, not mounted on high horses like the General's men were."
IM: "Before we start taking questions from the public, I'll take a break to thank our sponsors."