Around Town

And now, dear friends, it’s time to do what I love best. Make fun of the local newspaper, and by extension, my own home town. So lets take a look at what is making headlines in what may be the worst paper in Carver County, shall we?
Well, the cover story is about a woman who runs the “Victoria Care Center”. I can’t really make fun of this article, because I would be an evil person for making light of a place that takes care of old folks, but I do have one thing to point out. The house in question in this article is along the trail I walk my dog. Over the past 10 years, it has got about 6 new additions and really looks like the worlds worst Transformer. Turns out there WAS more than meets the eye.
So, moving on to letters to the editor. I’m honestly appalled. The editor will take no letters and use them as news, as she should. She’s relegated a death of a young man in a car accident to a letter to the editor! Really classy. I might start using your real name! Speaking of, her fake name right now is Celine Dion, just so I have someone to direct my annoyance at.
So then the next letters are one from her daughter and then one asking a direct question, to which she doesn’t actually give an answer too. And wasn’t really important for anyone to read because the event in question happened a month ago. Perhaps a print version of the Times is in the works, seeing as I kinda have more journalistic integrity, and this is a blog and I just typed the word “kinda”.
OK then. That’s enough berating Ms. Dion for right now. Let’s poke through the news from the City Hall, the only real news available in the paper. An old building downtown was recently purchased and the antique store downtown is getting moved out, while the name of the building will now be the Notermann Building after undergoing a remodeling of the exterior. Now, I ask you, nay I beg you to tell me how on earth we aim to remain a kitschy, backwards, outdated town if we don’t have a single antique store. This is an important, weighty matter that I don’t think should be discounted. Oh, and in the picture of the computer image of what the building will look like, they have a pick-up parked out front. Yep, that’s Victoria for you.
All right, moving on. Something about expenditures. Just typing that made me bored. However, the next brief was about Volksfest. “Volksfest?” I said aloud, startling the dog. “I hope there are Beetle’s and Passat’s and… Oh,” I continued talking to nobody in particular (I’m insane). Turns out it’s just some festival downtown Victoria. If there is anything this town needs, it’s another liquor outlet. Oh well, better than looking at a Touareg for an afternoon.
So, the next article, it’s a long thing on redeveloping downtown as proposed by Celine Dion all-star, former mayor, Mary Meuwisson (pronounced not at all how it looks). Meuwisson barked up this tree for 8 years as mayor, but now she’s really got a plan cooking. She already owns property downtown and seems to want to but the rest of it. The best part is how she drops some owners of property into casual conversation. Craig Lynn owner of Schmitty’s is on board with the plan. And Rich Gannon wants to own property downtown. And I want to build this building here. Wait… Rich Gannon? THAT Rich Gannon? In fact, yes, she was talking about THAT Rich Gannon. He owns a building on Quamoclit Street. Quamoclit. Just let that sink in. One minute, he’s bringing the Raiders to the Super Bowl, the next, he’s got a building on an incredibly dirty sounding road. And Celine usually reverts to calling people in the article by their first name. Rich Gannon kept getting called Rich Gannon. He’s a big deal. I almost got his autograph once downtown, but as he was giving my hat back, Dexter Jackson intercepted it.
I was struggling to think of a good Dexter Jackson joke, and that’s the best I could come up with. I’m disappointed too.
Speaking of disappointing, the news from City Hall continued. Carver Park (a highlight of my childhood) and Victoria swapped 14 acres with each other. It would have been nice to see a graphic or something, because I have no idea where or what they are talking about. They being Celine Dion.
In the next brief, there is another outstanding highlight of what goes on at City Hall. To quote Mayor Jerry Bohn on the topic of a dog park, “We haven’t [been told] what the Park is going to do.” I’ll tell you what a dog park is going to do. It’s going to serve as a toilet. Dogs will poop there. Now let’s move on.
There were consecutive articles on feasibility studies for paving gravel roads. One of them was this weird alley near my house that I’ve walked by a couple times in the past couple days. I realized that in my twenty years of living in Victoria, I’ve NEVER been on that road. My personal goal over the coming weeks is to take that alley and see where it goes. Wish me luck.
And that wraps up out look at the local new headlines. Perhaps someday I’ll have a scoop or an interview or something. Doubtful. – Ryan