Our copy of In a Nutshell, "Community Newsletter of the City of Walnut Creek", arrived this week. It's the usual heady of mix of community news - the tree inventory has cataloged 11,703 trees so far - and incisive political reportage - there's a public meeting about the West Downtown Specific Plan on Thursday. However, nestled between the centre pages is a very glossy report: WC: A Community Connected: The 2012-2014 Budget Story.
Among the many scary-but-colourful figures and graphs (surely put together by a Berkeley MBA) are a couple of interesting revelations. The first is that revenue and expenditure for the Creek are exactly the same at $135.5 million each! That's some impressive book balancing, although I'd be interested to see our local politicians' expense accounts.
More worryingly is the news that the overall quality of life in Walnut Creek is only 96%. Which means that, with a population of 64,173, there are 2567 unhappy people out there. Move away and stop dragging us down! Or maybe that each resident spends 14.6 days a year being miserable. Let's hope it's not over Christmas.
Either way, it's tricky to determine what might nudge out that 4% of imperfection. We have a Cheesecake Factory, a Peet's, an Apple store, a Yogurtland...who'd have thought the lack of an In'n'Out would drag us down that much? Time to withhold my taxes and write to the mayor.
Well, I'm happy...
