NANAIMO — In a startlingly honest admission, Nanaimo’s public works department concedes they’re “just fucking with” residents of south Nanaimo now.

Both major traffic arteries into the south end, Bruce Avenue and Park Avenue, have been closed — seemingly, because of construction. But an anonymous public works official totally not named David Mistelli told The Beacon today that the real construction work actually wrapped up weeks ago.

“Yeah, the job only took my guys like an hour or so,” he admitted. “We’re just fucking with people now.”

Among the tactics Mistelli the anonymous official said they’ve employed thusfar:

Sprinkling dirt over a six-block stretch to make it look “more constructioney”

Randomly stopping cars so the works vehicles could practice parallel parking

Putting up detour signs, then running over to the detour route and setting up fake construction there too

The official said they initially only planned to block off Park Avenue, “but people started jumping onto Bruce to get down south, so we just blocked that one off too. Then we did South Haliburton. And then Lambert. It’s been fucking hilarious!”

However, the fake work has not gone unnoticed by residents. After publication of this article, local sheep herder Carrie Brisson reported crews doing work over and over again:

Not coincidentally, local automotive shops report a large increase in vehicle suspension repair since the phony road works began. “We all got together and sent the Public Works department a fruit basket. It was the least we could do for all the business, eh?” said Morty Sampson, owner of Mort’s Auto and Funeral Home on Bowen Road.

Mayor Leonard Krog apparently got in on the fun as well, deploying his internationally recognized coracobrachialis shoulder muscles by personally lifting entire logs off the street, then onto the street, then back off the street.

Officials say the fake construction should wrap up in Spring 2025.

Vote Nathan Poe.

UPDATE: The weekend after this article was published, the City seemed to go a little bat-shit crazy with “Hey it’ll be over soon” social media posts: