By A. Finn Moss|On the Town in the Town of Bass Lake

Mayor Forrest Bunkard took to the Bass Lake Town Hall podium Monday night to deliver his second State of the Town address.

With the council flanking him, awake for once, Bunkard hoped to highlight his first year in office and offer hope for the coming 12 months.

So far so good. Only trouble was fewer than 15 residents bothered showing up to hear the mayor’s address.

Bunkard, known for his tortured pop-culture references and links, boiled out of the gate with a comment about how Margaret Thatcher’s attempt to recast the late 1970’s British economy in neoliberal lights was “sort of like Van Halen asking Neil Diamond to replace David Lee Roth rather than Sammy ‘Red Rocker’ Hagar.”

Cracklin’ Rosie indeed.

Except for a muted chuckle from councilperson Enos Felger (D-Dave’s house), the conflation fell on deaf ears.

Bunkard then launched into a laundry list of his accomplishments since his improbable election in late 2016.

He sort of covered the same ground in last year’s SOTTs disquisition in which he promised to end cancer and kick-start Poetry in the Park.

Judge for yourselves how those goals were met. Or not.

Traditionally it has been the policy of the Beacon to reprint the full transcript of the sitting mayor’s annual speech, but this year it seemed like a waste of lead.

Nothing Bunkard said was interesting. For instance, he applauded the drop in crime due to new “investigation methods.” That’s all well and good except the Bass Lake Authority Police have refused to release crime statistics mainly because they don’t keep track of crime statistics.

BLAP chief Gwen “Tug” McNabb applauded that line for a full 75 seconds. Once McNabb calmed down, Bunkard went on to claim that sidewalk work on Trout Lane was finished and was matched only by Hadrian’s Wall in its glory.

“My list of 2017 accomplishments is rivaled only by the Beatles in 1965 when they had six, count ’em, six number one hits in 12 months. I remember 1965 like it was ‘Yesterday,'” he said.

Except you weren’t born yet, Mr. Mayor. A deep search of the Bass Lake Public/Private Library’s genealogy records revealed Bunkard’s birthdate to be February 27, 1967.

Run, Forrest, run.

But wait. The sidewalks and streets are still snow-covered.

Walk, Forrest, walk.

The rest of the speech is not worth reporting.