Concerning: The Stockyards

[Pharlen]

Governor Pharlen Von Tombs smiled enchantingly upon the Allied Suppliers and Ranchers. All of them regarded her as if trying to decide just how illegal governoricide really was.

"Then it's settled. The old stockyards will be divided into sectors. Each sector will receive a reinforced cement flooring with drainage, steel piping to replace the wooden fencing and chutes, and proper lighting one at a time, so that there will not be a terrible backlog while the work is done," she announced, "While that is being done, our first batch of inspectors should be finishing their training..."

"We have our own inspectors, Madam Governor," Mrs. Honeyclaw reminded Pharlen, stiff and bristling. The big woman seemed to be slowly morphing into a bigger bear.

"You may have mentioned that," Pharlen responded with a warm smile, "About ten times. The answer is still 'now there will be state mandated inspectors who will inspect everyone's meat'."

"There is nothing wrong with the Stockyards, I do not understand why we are wasting time, money, and resources on it," Milan Ger snapped. Though rather small for a hill giant, he still held a great deal of presence.

"Let me put this in a way you can understand, since the entire 'health and cleanliness' thing seems to be hitting a brick wall," Pharlen offered, pleasant, though her pale eyes narrowed, "More people working means more people can afford to buy your products. People working to make sure the stockyards and slaughter houses are clean and humane means more value for your products."

"And it also means a lot of the smaller sellers and ranchers will take their poor quality meats underground to undersell us on the black market," Bertha Chuk snapped, glaring at Pharlen.

"Or they go off on their own, like the Matadero meat place," Milan put in, "How're you going to make sure they're up to code?!"

"That's what the inspectors will be for," Pharlen reminded them placidly, "And frankly, you all could do with studying the Matadero business model, but, once the code is in place, it will be enforced no matter where your business happens to be. And Milan. If I were you, I would speak lightly when mentioning Matadero."

That rather effectively ended the meeting, with most of the other business people drawing back and glancing around uncomfortably, as if wondering if Matadero's owner had been included in the planning session, and glad when they couldn't spot the man.