To those Chilkat Valley News readers who are depressed, dismayed and demoralized upon hearing the news of yet another surprise borough manager firing, I have cryptic and transcendental information that should restore inner peace to your socially-distanced souls.

Due to scrupulous and hard-nosed investigative digging-literally digging under the foundations of smoky rooms and through piles of borough files-the CVN has discovered the "Books of Lost Code" that decipher what might appear to an outside observer to be a decades-old, broken-down, defunct and dysfunctional Haines government.

The Lost Books are written on yellow legal pads, newspaper print, birch tree bark, local coffee shop napkins, floppy disks and screenshots of the Haines Rant and Rave Facebook page. Many of them were discovered propping up the rickety, vacant desk previously occupied by the borough clerk, who is now not only the borough clerk but also the borough planner, emergency operations command public information officer, the alternative-voting-in-midst-of-pandemic researcher, interim borough manager and cracked hub around which the wheel of government now spins.

Although there are hundreds of pages and files, we have been able to distill the first of many into separate Lost Books. Examples include "The Book of Turner Junior," "The Book of You Are Not Representing the Better Part of This Community," "The Book of Schnabel," "The Book of CLOSE THE LIBRARY BECAUSE IF NOT WE'LL ALL DIE," "The Book of Harder," and "The Book of Your Interpretation of Code Is Inconvenient to My Worldview."

According to our preliminary research, each Lost Book was issued as a directive from citizens, staff and elected leaders to a long list of administrators and managers over the years. Some managers even wrote their own Books of Lost Code. I know what you're thinking: "Wait one damn minute, Kyle. None of those codes apply! They weren't approved by the assembly!"

The sacred Books don't need assembly approval. Besides, there is precedent for following these tattered ramblings and self-righteous opinions stated as facts. And as every armchair Haines lawyer knows, "precedent" is a legal-sounding word real lawyers use a lot.

An unusually specific example: "The Book of CLOSE THE LIBRARY BECAUSE IF NOT WE'LL ALL DIE" allows assembly members to surprise fire the borough manager if he or she fails to close the library after "individual members outside of a meeting demand such a closure in the form of irate, uninformed emails." That just happened! See? Precedent. Ask any lawyer and he'll support my opinion stated as fact. And if the lawyer disagrees with me, well, she's probably some agenda-driven, online law school degree-earning hack.

Take departed Borough Manager Debra Schnabel's actions out of the picture and she'd still end up fired. It was written according to "The Book of You Are Not Representing the Better Part of This Community" and "The Book of Your Interpretation of Code Is Inconvenient to My Worldview:" Haines was due for a good manager sacking. Both Lost Books contain language that requires a borough manager "to be surprise fired every few years." How comforting it is to comply with the Lost Codes. That said, Jerry Lapp should be recalled for saying people deserve second chances. How would such a compassionate and humble attitude jibe with the Lost Codes of Haines? Let us consult the "The Book of Turner Junior" for recall process instructions. I'm sure it fairly applies to both us and them.

The Books also foretell that the public must "direct enough blind outrage and vitriol at our elected leaders to cause at least one assembly member to resign each year." Four assembly members have resigned since I moved to town three years ago. We are blessed.

My favorite Lost Book is easily "The Book of Harder," which states simply: "You guys need to take a chill pill." Everybody just needs to follow that advice. Our government is functioning smoothly and efficiently according to the chimera of reactive whims, partisan agendas and petty grievances that is the mishmash of our collective Haines Borough Codes.

Still, I think Haines could trim the fat off all those Codes. Who needs all those sections and provisions and fussy details? I plan to write an ordinance that will solve all our problems. My draft ordinance will replace all the Haines Borough Codes with "The Book of Harder-Clayton," which states: "You guys need to take a chill pill stuffed into a mouthful of humble pie washed down with a hearty gulp of truce juice."