Concerned Residents’ Union

The meeting hall of the Concerned Residents’ Union, Eastgate’s voluntary citizens’ association and unofficial second district council, is an unassuming brick building with elegant but sparing masonry touches. Landowners and long-established families of Eastgate plan their social calendars, discuss neighborhood schools, and vote on proposed exceptions to Eastgate’s business regulations here. Although the Concerned Residents’ Union exercises no official governmental power, Eastgate is a close-knit community, and most of its major stakeholders are members. Therefore, when the Union comes to an agreement, the matter is effectively settled, and legal recognition of its policy becomes a formality. At times, this can shade close to organized crime. The Concerned Residents’ Union has seen many backroom negotiations about which candidate to support for nomarch, which officers to elevate in the Post Guard, and what favors the lucky individuals will be expected to do for local landowners in exchange for their support. Local leaders are more likely to cut through regulatory red tape to approve business proposals that they’ve grown to favor—sometimes via their owners’ generous “donations” to favored community groups or causes—while requests from those who compete with union members’ concerns are discarded. A quiet word from one member to another can begin, or sometimes end, a criminal investigation. By and large, however, the Concerned Residents’ Union is less interested in lining its members’ pockets than in preserving Eastgate’s pleasant, neighborly character—not that this comes as much consolation to those it shuts out. Of late, the growing presence of two pagan cults—the Children of Spring and the Circle of Stones—has taken up a great deal of their time and attention, particularly since the beloved son of Union President Gelda Dellby, Rance, joined the Children of Spring and became one of its most influential recruiters. Her heart hardened by her son’s betrayal of his family, Dellby dominates the agenda with improbable plans to close Evergreen Park or trim the Grand Holt, to a chorus of cheers and boos from her fellow councilors and the crowds that attend their open public meetings. None of Dellby’s more egregious proposals have thus far been approved by the council, but as more members begin to lose sons and daughters to paganism, her quorum is getting stronger and stronger.

Type

Manor house / Meeting hall

Parent Location

Eastgate

Owner

Gelda Dellby

Owning Organization

Concerned Residents’ Union