Municipal Spending

I realized I made a terrible mistake, putting pictures on my posts fairly quickly after I started doing so. I set my homepage to the Victoria Times, and every time I needed to check my email or pop online, I would see the Randy Jostritch. Terrifying. Thankfully, the local paper came today, and I have something to blog about. The horror is over.

I promised myself I would leave the paper alone, what with the Chan Villager providing real news. Well, we stopped getting the Villager, and I know how my bread is buttered, so it's back to lambasting the one and only "Celine Dion".

And so it begins.

Well, aside from the letters to the editor, as usual providing the only real news (there was a fire in town!) and allowing someone to correct the editor (they won't raise taxes, not they WILL raise taxes), my favorite part of the paper's opening stanza was her quoting Kirk Cameron in her 'quotes' section. Twice. I don't think anyone has ever quoted Kirk Cameron. Not even Alan Thicke.

The paper this month featured extensive coverage of the Victoria Fieldhouse debate. Should we sell it to a local high school? Should we keep it? The drama. In any case, one of the members at the meeting compared the issue with what was going on in Greensburg, Kansas. Yes. The town was wiped out by a tornado, but at least they don't have a spacious if underused community center on their hands. Could you imagine the horror?

We found out as well that Kim Roden was the victim of another conspiracy. See, she says that while she spoke out against the keeping of the Fieldhouse, she didn't get any support, and she suspects its because people didn't want to oppose people they knew. Right on, Ms. Roden. If you don't like it, why don't you just move to Chaska or something? That was your advice, right?

Let me then tell a story to introoduce the next bit of news. A few months ago, I was startled to hear some barking outside my window. It turns out, a large dog had spotted my dog and was yammering at her. The dog continued to bark and make all sorts of noise as it trotted through the neighborhood. I finally got its attention, and it just sat there, barking at me in the driveway, so I called 911, hoping someone with the Sherriff's office would know what to do with the dog, which really didn't seem like it wanted to hang out with me. I corralled the dog in my garage before the Deputy showed up, and we tried to figure out what to do with it. It turns out that Victoria doesn't have any deals with any animal control units or anything. As it turns out, the Deputy was there for about an hour, trying to figure something out. so, when people recommend an increased contract with the Sherriff's office, I think that maybe the funds could be better used.

Speaking of spending, thats what much of hte rest of the city hall section was about. Municipal spending. Let me tell you something, there aren't many things to say on that subject, and all the pictures tended to involve graphs. So, instead of boring you with Victoria's spending, here's an irrelevant bar graph.