Two Seats or No Deal

A seasonal food-service worker raises her hand. "I arrived after most of the things in those investigations happened. Why should I lose my job for a board seat I might never vote for?"

Nobody turns her words my job into a collective abstraction.

Another seasonal worker says Ellison's advisory meeting is more access than workers had last year. A costuming delegate answers that advisory minutes controlled by the board are permission to speak, not power to prevent harm. The room divides without becoming cruel.

I stand only when June recognizes me.

"Wondervale can survive without my board seat," I say. "It cannot claim survival if workers fund the rescue through silence or disposable rights. But I will not tell someone facing rent that a future vote is morally superior to her next paycheck. My question is practical. What minimum power would change decisions enough to justify the financial risk?"

Decorative access cannot justify the financial risk.

June asks delegates to name decisions, not symbols.

Benefits comes first. Workers want a vote before reserves change, carriers change, or employee notices are waived. Successor labor terms come second. Data rights come from the community members, who refuse any buyer's authority to transfer participant information. Safety closures remain under Dev's independent protocol rather than board popularity.

Tessa writes each decision on the board.

"Three permanent seats may be too broad for frightened people to defend tonight," she says. "Then stop asking them to decide permanent governance in a cash emergency."

She proposes two employee-selected voting seats for eighteen months. One comes from year-round units and one from seasonal or contract units. The seats renew only if independent review shows that they improved attendance, disclosure, benefits protection, and response time without creating unresolved conflicts. Renewal requires a workforce vote, not board approval.

"Performance according to whom?" a creator asks.

"The board cannot score it," Tessa says.

Her draft assigns the review to a three-part panel selected by the employee trust, city oversight office, and an independent governance institute. Board members may submit evidence but cannot score themselves. The review publishes methods and aggregate findings while sealing individual grievances.

The proposal makes the seats temporary without making them revocable by the people they are meant to challenge.

Mira asks for the microphone.

"I support the time limit," she says. "The Access Council learned the same lesson when it prohibited founder control. Governance should prove it can survive the people who designed it."

One lab participant asks whether dropping the community seat means the council has traded community rights for employee power.

Mira answers without defending herself. "The license and city grant already place participant data outside Wondervale ownership. A community seat may still be worth demanding, but the agreements already protect rights we moved beyond Vale's control."

Lena confirms from the screen that the lab board will negotiate a separate observer and consent structure. It will not claim an employee seat or let Wondervale recapture raw data in exchange for financing.

Tessa's revision gives the coalition a smaller demand tied to measurable decisions.

Fear survives the revision. A twenty-two-year-old performer says she has three weeks left on her contract and cannot wait eighteen months to learn whether governance worked. From the custodial section, a worker with seventeen years at the park says that short contracts are exactly why one seat must belong to workers who cycle in and out. A parent in clinic support asks whether Ellison can retaliate by withdrawing the cash before the vote ends.

Rina answers with the offer's expiration time: noon tomorrow. Ellison may withdraw before acceptance because the document is nonbinding. It may also extend. No one can promise the money remains available while we deliberate.

June calls a thirty-minute small-group recess instead of rushing toward a heroic vote.

Seasonal workers meet without supervisors, executives, or permanent-unit delegates. The employee trust supplies counsel and interpreters. Community participants hold their own room. Creators compare the seat proposal with Tessa's dual-approval reforms. I return to the hallway with my title and no room I am entitled to enter.

Mira joins me there after the council group finishes.

"You asked the question fairly," she says.

"Fair questions still close parks."

"So do unfair answers."

Her hand finds mine for one quiet moment beside the vending machine. The contact does not settle the coalition's decision. It reminds me that our future has become ordinary enough to include disagreement, waiting, and a dinner neither of us knows whether we will reach.

"If they take the cash without seats?" she asks.

"I sign what they authorize, if the remaining protections hold."

"And if they refuse?"

"I spend the eleven days finding another bridge."

She studies me for any hidden promise that I can manufacture money through will. I let the uncertainty remain visible.

When the groups return, June asks the seasonal room to report first.

Their spokesperson says most want the cash. Then she reads the condition they agreed on: they will support refusal only if one of the two seats is selected by seasonal and contract workers through a protected annual ballot, with paid time to participate and no minimum tenure beyond active employment.

"We do not want permanent workers speaking for us because they are easier to keep," she says. "If the seat disappears when the worker's contract ends, the replacement must come from us too."

Tessa adds continuity through an alternate elected on the same ballot. June asks whether the room accepts that amendment. The seasonal delegates do.

The year-round units require the two seats to hold full voting authority on all matters. They accept recusal when a seat holder has an individual grievance or personal contract before the board. The city representative requires open conflict disclosures. The community lab accepts the two-seat plan while requiring a separate binding consent right over its data.

By eleven, the coalition has terms precise enough to accept or reject.

The minimum is two voting board seats for eighteen months, one selected by year-round employees and one by seasonal and contract workers. Renewal depends on an independent review and workforce ballot. Benefits-reserve changes and successor labor terms require at least one employee-seat vote during the pilot. Community data stays outside Wondervale and requires lab consent under existing agreements.

At 11:04, the employee trust creates the resolution. Counsel reads it aloud twice. Each constituency votes through its own verified process, and the trust's independent election vendor produces a signed aggregate at 11:41. The trust holds sealed delegate and participant records; the city receives the public tally and certification.

The record's vulnerability is urgency. Voters had hours, not weeks, and the financial threat shaped every choice. The resolution acknowledges that constraint and requires ratification within sixty days if Ellison accepts.

The coalition adopts the two-seat minimum.

Some workers applaud. Others stare at the cash projection, already counting what the vote may cost them. June records both reactions in the meeting summary because consensus should not erase fear.

I authorize the transaction committee to resubmit the counteroffer with the narrower governance package. Mira closes her council file. Tessa sends the performance-review language to counsel. We have chosen the smallest voting power the coalition believes can change an outcome.

The field-office door opens before the committee transmits it.

Malcolm enters without staff, board materials, or the privileges he surrendered. He waits until June recognizes him.

"You are asking Ellison Ridge for two employee seats," he says. "I cannot give away a creditor's seat."

He places his recusal notice on the table beside the coalition resolution.

"I can give you one of the family's."