Words

Two new words have entered the vocabulary of the otherwise monosyllabic parish.
Expopriate and mitigate.

They refer to forcing to people to sell land as expropriating their land to the government as expropriation. ( Interestingly, a council member asked at his neighborhood meeting about expropriation. Four to one, people said it was ok to expopropriate houses for the greater good.)

The other word is mitigate. It comes from a federal program, the hazard mitigation grant program, which is a way of buying people out if they want to leave their homes and they live in dangerous areas. So, people will say things like we are going to mitigate this land, when they mean buy it and put it into greenspace.