Another
holiday today (Thursday, Jan. 1) and again I must adjust for trying to
get my sustenance for the day. Drove downtown not knowing what to
expect. Sure enough, Willie's closed. Sometimes the Caribou kiosk there
is a lifesaver when other places are closed. It varies. I wasn't ruling
out Willie's or even a restaurant or two being open because New Year's
Day is not the hallowed holiday that Christmas Day is.
The
slowdown got a touch worse this past holiday season because of Dean
Monson's funeral. That was a hallowed affair. Sure hope Dean is among
fellow Republicans in heaven. I'm not sure how many Republicans go to
heaven relative to Democrats. RIP Dean Monson.
So
it's New Year's Day and there's one last "refuge" for food I might
check out. That has got to be Casey's on the "other side of the tracks"
going into west Morris. Doesn't west Morris sometimes seem like a
community apart? Park Avenue and Pacific Avenue begin at the same point
and "fan out." As residential development continued, the two streets
had to be connected.
Park
Avenue once had a very affluent reputation. I doubt that Pacific Avenue
was ever so blessed. Frankly, Pacific has a blighted quality to it. The
City of Morris made such a fuss about the old Morris Floral building on
Atlantic Avenue. But take a look at the Lembcke Garage property to the
north of the Lee Center. Other places along Pacific would appear to be a
problem too.
The City of Morris cannot apply the highest standards on everyone. Heaven help us if they did.
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| Morris Public Library |
We
might remember the year 2025 in this community as the year of the big
Morris Public Library dust-up or controversy. Small towns should be
careful about the kind of controversies that they allow to develop. Was
this one really necessary?
I
couldn't believe my eyes when I first learned from media that there
were "allegations of misconduct" about a person who, even if you weren't
aligned with her liberal politics, seemed very nice and responsible.
"Can it really be?" I asked myself.
Sometimes
in small town life we feel pressure to go along with people in the
highest positions of authority. And the city manager would appear to fit
the mold for that. The city manager was someone who I'd never met. I
was quite familiar with her predecessor Blaine Hill. Wait a minute, I
guess we cannot describe him as the predecessor anymore. He's back in
the saddle, last I checked.
My
biggest issue with Hill has been over the manner in which the water
treatment plant was launched. He and the city council decided that
people with "old" water softeners would have to do something about that,
and fast, evidently. The council "unanimously passed a law." So just
imagine the "Dragnet" theme music in your head for a moment.
Would
law enforcement people show up at my front door? The headline in the
newspaper mentioned "old" softeners but don't we need more specific
guidance? "Old " does not seem properly precise. I have an "old" riding
lawn mower. As long as it starts up in the spring and I can cut grass, I
don't care if it's "old."
My
plumber has informed me that the water softener "law" passed by the
city council had no teeth. No one was going to get "busted." Since then I
have refused to vote for anyone who was associated with that law's
passage, mayor included. It should have seemed suspicious that the
council did not provide a grace period, or to allow certain existing
equipment to be "grandfathered in."
Here's
my bottom line on the subject: until old lead pipes get removed
everywhere by act of the government (even the Federal government), we
should hold off on "water treatment plants."
The confusion over our water since the plant started has been upsetting for a lot of people.
And
oh, the library. Good grief, how much taxpayer money was spent on
"investigating" the alleged mess there? The librarian ended up surviving, so she must not have done anything egregious. Anything she did wrong
really looks like small potatoes.
In
the short term my attitude on the library seemed prudent: go along
with the city manager. She out-ranked the librarian, didn't she? Well
now I'm not so sure about that. And I have to laugh because in a small
town, as many people would have to admit, the people in official
positions of power often are not the real decision-makers. There are
"shadowy" influences in the background making sure things are done in a
certain way.
Case in point: the school
I
remember when we had a new superintendent who decided that someone
other than Mark Torgerson should be our boys basketball coach. I knew
that for a fact because the supt. told me all about it. He is deceased
now. He was a very good person but he was not given autonomy. You had to
understand about a certain element of the teachers and the various
friends they had. Enough hubris to make you lose your cookies.
Dennis
Rettke's choice for coach got vetoed and then legend has it that the
coach inquired about the girls coaching job. This was in the days when
some might have considered the girls job to be less prestigious than the
boys. Oh I've been around a while.
According
to the teachers' contract, the new coach, as a full-time teacher, was
entitled to the girls job if he wanted it. He would be replacing a coach who did not have that status, yet.
But
would you believe, the same element of teachers did the arm-twisting
again? Ironic, because these were the type of people whom you'd normally
assume would follow the letter of their contract. Quite union-attuned,
oriented, to an extent that could make me lose my cookies.
The
new coach got held down again! I began suspecting that all of this was
quite irregular. But if I expressed my views, I would have my job
endangered. And it did get endangered. I was fortunate to survive the
rough waters, sort of. I had a career of 27 years.
The
new coach eventually got the girls job after the board was forced to
take a vote which was mixed. The lobbyists for the incumbent coach got
ahold of Neil Schmidgall, the way it appeared. But the vote went against
the incumbent coach. I was rather surprised that she even wanted to
keep the job.
So
the new coach moved in and had a decent start before suspicious things
started happening. He had finally succumbed to expedience because of
pressures from the element of teachers/friends that I have been alluding
to.
All
this for sports! Supposedly those teachers liked to lecture us on how
sports does not have supreme importance and that those who prioritize
being competitive are Neanderthal, to be teased/condemned. But boy they
sure fell on their sword when it came to coaching appointments. You can
surmise by now that my attitude toward them is denigrating.
I
will regret forever that we never got a chance to see what the new
coach could do if he had gotten a head basketball appointment right
away. I checked recently and found that this individual ended up with a
quite excellent education career at another community. He appeared to be
quite respected and beloved. So I'm happy about that.
Landing on her feet
I'm
happy for librarian Anne Barber even though she got dragged through a hellish
mess in which she had to hire a lawyer. She risked having her reputation
tarnished forever. I mean, she came close. She waged a successful
battle whereas her antagonist city manager seems to have vanished. Now
Blaine is back.
Would
Blaine have handled any library problems more sensibly and quietly?
Rhetorical question. Peaceful life has appeared to be restored in
Morris. You just never know what is going to happen.
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| Chris Baxter today |
"There's a million stories in the naked city."
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
