Councilboy Nickle Gives Two Cents, Response Not Worth a Dime - By Matty Jacobson

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St. George Small Business Abortion Clinic Member Benjamin Nickle recently published a “rebuttal” to an editorial The Spectrum printed about the City Council’s decision to deny a rezoning of an area that would have allowed for dance halls.

Please see my earlier articles here and here to get the gist of the whole debacle. I would love to link to The Spectrum’s editorial because, believe it or not, they agreed with me. However, The Spectrum does ask for subscriptions to access their archives, so if you do want to look up its editorial on why they thought the SBAC was wrong in denying the zone change, you can subscribe at TheSpectrum.com.


I do have a copy of Ben's Nickle-worth-of-free-and-unwanted advice. His words will be colored brown because, well, you draw your own conclusions there. Please, keep in mind as you read through my article that I am not representing any person or entity other than myself. So don't go crying to Dixie State College or KTIM to have me let go of my positions there for my point of view. This is more of a statement for any elected or appointed person who may come across this article and start getting various amounts of panties into multiple forms of twists. Please see The Constitution for clarification. Thanks! 

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Yes. Read this totally legible piece of legislation. Wait a minute, is that the Declaration of Independence? Damn you, forefathers! Your two most famous works are so easily mistaken for each other!

But I would like to break down some of Nickle’s more poignant arguments. So here’s his opening paragraph:

“I would like to offer a brief rebuttal to the Spectrum Editorial Board regarding their criticism of the St. George City Council's decision to deny a zone change permitting dance halls in the Southgate Development.”

Well, I don’t know where little Benny Boy went to school, but rebuttals are reserved for debates. And, when you think about it, the debate is over. In fact, Nickle won his little argument (or rather, he and two other SBAC members shoved their argument down everyone’s throats).

An editorial is not a debate. It’s merely an opportunity for regular run-of-the-mill Americans to speak freely about their observations in day-to-day life. But, I guess it’s not exactly illegal for a person in government to offer some sort of reply. Maybe I’m just splitting hairs here, but I’m a stickler for terminology. Rebuttal = debate. Response = uh, y’know, response.

But perhaps I’m being too quick to brand our Nickle-plated councilmember as a bona fide authoritard because of my own personal feelings when it comes to hindering the public. I guess I should just hear him out. At least he’s not being condescending to the very people who vote him into office, right?

“Forget the technicalities of zoning. Let's use some common sense. Are there any places in town where dance halls shouldn't go? I think even the editorial board would agree that one place they shouldn't be permitted is in residential neighborhoods. Late night traffic, parking lot noise, etc. After all, it's ‘residential.’ It's where people live; it's where they sleep.

So why is it so shocking that this council decided against changing the rules in the Southgate Development to permit dance halls next to two ‘residential’ treatment centers? It is, likewise, where this vulnerable population in treatment live; it's where they sleep.”

Oh, OK. Well, I guess that’s a valid point if it didn’t sound like it was coming from the tarnished anus of a braying donkey. Nothing gets the public on your side quicker than telling them to use some “common sense” and then asking rhetorically why it’s so shocking that the council voted against changing the rules.

But this argument also reinforces The Spectrum’s original editorial message. It called out the Small Business Abortion Clinic for attempting to read the minds of the masses; unless someone on the council is a witch and has a giant crystal ball she looks into before sending out her flying monkeys (I’m not discounting Gail Bunker, by the way), then nobody knows if people going inside a dance hall would be an issue for anyone in residential treatment.

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On the upside, at least she's reducing her carbon footprint by riding her broom to council meetings.

Oh, and by the way, I’ve got a group of people across the street from where I live who just love their island music. And they love it all the time. By all the time, I mean they love it in the middle of the night as loud as they can possibly love it. Guess what St. George City does for me? Oh yeah, absolutely nothing.

But, hold on a tick. Benjamin Nickle is just speaking out of “common sense,” right? He wouldn’t happen to have any sort of ties with residential treatment centers, right?

Wait a minute! According to his profile on the St. George City website (which I think was compiled and written by a junior high schooler), he is "the Assistant to the Director of one of the states [sic] largest not for profit Youth Crisis Centers." Well, far be it from me to accuse Five Pennies of a conflict of interest concerning a business he's involved with, but, hey, Benjamin Nickle, this is totally a conflict of interest toward a business you're involved with.

St. George City Council

My name is Benjamin Nickle, and I approve this act of blatant favoritism.

By the way, whoever put together the St. George website really needs to take a lesson on what constitutes a proper noun and what doesn't. Oh yeah, and there's a little thing called "possession." If something belongs to the state, then it's the state's. Omitting an apostrophe just makes it plural. But I digress.

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How come I'm not invited to the states largest not for profit youth crisis center?!

So let’s get back to Nickle. Yes. Nickleback. That pun almost didn’t make it into this review. So, you’re welcome. Please equate the worst band ever to this manboy from here on out.

“I heard the arguments about alcohol being snuck…” OK, we’ve got to stop. So I know the word “snuck” is in several versions of the dictionary. But, really? Even if it is indeed a word, it still sounds so uneducated—especially for an elected offecal who’s trying to justify his decision. I mean, why doesn’t he just start the sentence with “OMG u guys stop cmplaning! FML!”  “…in and fights in the parking lot, but that could happen anywhere. The real problem is that a neighboring dance hall will prove very distracting to the at-risk residents in treatment who already live there. And that means it will negatively impact those already existing businesses that are committed to their care.”

Again, these are very good points! What Nickleodeon is failing to do here is make these points without sounding like a total hole that is represented by every letter of the alphabet except B through Z. Oh yeah, and the whole conflict of interest thing is a problem, too.

Yes, I’ve omitted a few paragraphs here because I can barely stand to hear myself bleating like a sheep with a hot lead pipe stuck up its wool hole, and at this point in Ben-there-done-that’s “rebuttal,” it sounds like the tirade of a whole freaking herd of the things. Just know he pretty much repeats himself. Like, four times.

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"Hay! Ewe! We get it!"

So, let's continue.


“I do not doubt the growing desire in this community for additional forms of entertainment. I speak to my colleagues about it every week. But emotional ‘wants’ can never supersede the real ‘needs’ in a community, no matter how fun they might be.

Raise your hand if your head just exploded like mine.

First of all, what’s with all the quotations marks? “Wants?” “Needs?” Who are you quoting, Benjam-in-denial? I would also love to hear the conversation the Small Business Abortion Clinic has “every week” on additional forms of entertainment.

“So the twerps want to dance, eh?” “We’ll make them dance! Like the puppets they are!” (Insert cackling and general toasting of Champaign glasses filled with puppy blood.)

Webster's Online Dictionary

"How much money will we lose in revenue because we don't cater to anyone other than old people, little children, and people with behavioral issues?" "...One million dollars! Bwahahahahahahaha!" 

But what I’d really like to point out in that last paragraph is the pure disconnect Councilboy Nickle has from his constituents. I’m glad he doesn’t doubt there’s a growing desire for entertainment. But actually, there’s a need for entertainment. I don’t know if he keeps track of how many people under the age of 30 are booked into Purgatory Correctional Facility each week because of heroine/meth/spice/marijuana possession, but I do. Let me tally those figures up really quick. Please enjoy this photo of my calculator and me while I crunch those numbers.

OK. According to these statistics, it’s a lot. Now I’m no scientist, but the amount of drug use in St. George seems pretty recreational. I could be drawing parallels here that don’t exist, but you know what? That’s what B-Nick and the rest of the Abortionists did when they decided a dance hall would bring Satan worshippers to the doorsteps of residential treatment centers. Could all the drug use perhaps be because of a lack of things to do in St. George?

Damn. I should totally be on the council. I’ve got their tactics down to a tee.

But that last sentence in the paragraph I’ve just been ranting about for longer than any sane person would care to rant about is the most concerning to me: “…emotional ‘wants’ can never supersede the real ‘needs’ in a community, no matter how fun they might be.”

Yup. You heard it (or, rather, read it) right from the whorese’s mouth. Our community’s needs are totally more important than our wants. You know, carousels and splash pads. Those are things we absolutely need.

Wait, what’s that you say? We didn’t need those things? We only wanted them because they were FUN? You mean, we spent more than a million dollars improving that area with those things because they were fun? We didn’t invest the money in, say, a 24-hour bus service, or a library with actual places to sit and read? Holy moly! The double standard here is so overwhelming I feel like I want cry. Is it the first Sunday of the month, yet? Because I really need to shed some tears in a testimonial manner.

But wait, there’s one final paragraph. Please, finish your drink and swallow your cereal before reading it, because I will not be held responsible for your spitting the contents of your mouth upon your expensive computer.

“I would love to see more entertainment venues in our city for adults including a successful dance hall, or even a nightclub as a permanent fixture here. But I am committed to seeing that its done right, and that includes the right location.”

Please raise your hand if you laughed uncontrollably at Benjy Five Cent’s bald-faced lie. Benjamin Nickle writing this final paragraph is like me showing up at your front door and telling you that I’m against equal marriage for all because I think only straight people should be married in order to rid our world of all these gay babies (because, you know, that's how gay babies are made, right?).

It’s a good thing this “rebuttal” came in the form of a letter because there is no way Benjamin Nickle-&-dime could have said this with a straight face. I picture him laughing his ass off as he typed this on his circa 1998 Microsoft PC.

This Curious Case of Benjamin Nickle proves a point that’s so redundant it’s almost as if there’s some script out there that all politicians must read from: It’s not you, the lowly insignificant voter, who counts. It’s the money and the power players that count. Where Nickle-for-a-pickle differs from most other politicians is that other politicians at least shut up before they start revealing what connards they are (that’s French, by the way, look it up).

And, oui, I have eloquently peppered this review with anus references on purpose. I’m trying to get a point across, and if you haven’t quite caught on yet, I’ll just spell it out for you.

Benjamin Nickle, by talking down to you and me as if we were second graders who don’t know a pumpkin from our private parts, and by assuming we all don't care that he's tied to residential treatment facilities, is proving without a doubt that he is a gillipolas, задник, 混蛋, debile, lul, arschloch, μαλάκα, מטומטם, stronzo, ろくでなし, 머저리, culus, drittsekk, babaca, and every other form of the word you can plug in to Google Translate.

Perhaps this should be the St. George motto, since it pretty much depicts our council perfectly.