The Salt Line, Vol. 42: The Meeting Will Come to Order — Free Kittens, a Room for Being Quiet, and a 4–0 Game Played in Both Directions

The Perdido Key Committee on Coastal Affairs and Loose Ends convened Saturday at the usual picnic table, the gavel being a flip-flop and quorum being reached the exact moment two of us agreed it was too hot to do this indoors. Minutes below, lightly edited for people who have lives and sunscreen to reapply. Volume 42.

🏛️ Motion to Ban a Thing From the One Place It Could Actually Go

The floor recognized the Escambia County Commission, which voted unanimously to ban data centers across the unincorporated county. What elevates this from paperwork to poetry is the detail buried in the reporting: right now there is exactly one place in the whole county where a data center could feasibly be built — Century, up at the far north tip, about as far from the Gulf as you can get and still be in Escambia.

So the county studied the map, located the single spot that worked, and closed it. This is zoning as archery: draw the target, find the bullseye, ban the bullseye. Somewhere a server rack is standing in a parking lot with its little lights blinking, unsure where it’s allowed to live. The member from Perdido Key abstained, on the grounds that he did not know what a data center was, did not wish to learn during beach season, and had a sandbar to get to.

⚾ Old Business: The Same Final Score, Filed Twice, With Opposite Feelings

The Pensacola Blue Wahoos came before the committee having played two consecutive games decided by the identical score of 4–0. On Friday they were on the wrong end of it, shut out by the Columbus Clingstones. Then, roughly twenty-four hours later, they returned the favor and shut out the Clingstones themselves, 4–0.

The universe, it appears, printed one final score, ran out of ink, and simply used it a second time. Between us: a team that can lose 4–0 and win 4–0 inside a single weekend has quietly achieved enlightenment. They contain multitudes. The committee declined to look up the standings on the grounds that the point here was the symmetry, not the math. The Columbus Clingstones, for their part, remain a professional baseball team named the Clingstones, and no ruling from this bench can improve on that.

🐾 New Business: Free Kittens, Terms and Conditions Apply

The Escambia County animal shelter, partnering with the Bissell Pet Foundation, is offering free cat and dog adoptions through today — every adult cat and dog, no adoption fee.

There is, the fine print notes, a $15 licensing fee for county residents, which may be the most honest sentence local government has produced all month: the animal is free, the paperwork is fifteen dollars. That is, frankly, the correct ratio for how life works. If you’ve been on the fence about a dog, be advised the fence is now free and the gate costs less than a boogie board. The committee moved to adjourn early to go look at the kittens; the motion was tabled by the one member who is allergic and bitter about it.

📚 The City of Foley Has Built a Room Specifically for Being Quiet

The city of Foley will open its public library in a new, expanded location next month, and among the features officials highlighted are a sensory room and separate activity areas for children and teens.

Let the record reflect that we, as a species, have constructed a dedicated Room for Calming Down, installed it in Foley, and it is glorious. An entire room. For your nervous system. The teens get a zone, the little kids get a zone, and somewhere in the middle sits a sensory room where an overstimulated four-year-old — and, let’s be honest, several adults presently in earshot of that four-year-old — can go decompress. This is not a library feature. This is infrastructure. This is civilization. Ten out of ten, no notes, the committee intends to be first in line for the quiet room the next changeover Saturday.

🚧 The Cones Return, as Was Foretold

Gulf Shores has announced a slate of upgrades to its Waterway Village district, including street reconstruction on a stretch of East 2nd Street.

You and I both know what “street reconstruction” translates to in July on this coast. It means cones. It means your good shortcut is closed. It means a gentleman in a reflective vest is about to become the single most powerful person in your entire afternoon, and there is nothing you or I or this committee can do about it. I’ve made my peace. The cones were here before us and they will be here after us. East 2nd Street will emerge from all this smooth and lovely and immediately congested, because that’s the deal every one of us signed the day we decided to love a beach town. The committee wished the cones a safe and productive summer.

With no further business, and the heat having formally won, the committee adjourned to the sandbar, where the member from Perdido Key had been waiting since roughly item two. That’s your week, Gulf Coast: we banned a building from the one town that would’ve taken it, played the exact same shutout in both directions, and finally built a room dedicated to keeping it together. If you need me I’ll be in Foley’s new quiet room — or the water. Almost certainly the water.

— Chris