:: The City’s Runaway Neighborhood Threatens Again

:: A Letter From the Scientific Front- Mind Games

:: The Escape of Alfonzo Salazar, Hoarder

:: The City’s Letters to Santa

:: Amandour Prison’s Final Inmate

:: Traffic Scofflaws Forced To Run Marathon

:: Snapshots: Traffic Fatalities, 1946

:: The Blotter: Potato Guns Are Surprisingly Illegal

:: Times That the Sword of General Gainsborough has Gone Missing

:: The City’s Whale-Oil Pipeline

:: Smorgasbord: The First Forkful

:: Nice Work If You Can Get It: The Love Cats That Dare Not Speak Its Name

:: Code 54 - Possible Body on the Tracks

Of course, this is by no means exhaustive. Please use the search, browse by date or pull up a category and explore this thing we’ve all created.

Also, be sure to mark down any continuity mistakes and send them in, as they will be ignored.

Thank you to everyone for reading and I hope year three goes half as well as this one did.
- RJ White, Editor

As passed by the City Council in the spring, all muffins baked within City limits are required to contain at least 18% non-dough-based content, such as fruits, nuts, chocolate or any of the dozens of exceptions granted by the Food Quality Subcommittee’s “Pastry Content Exception Document.” The measure was passed in response to growing complaints that local bakers’ efforts to undercut each others’ prices had lead to widespread filling reductions. Incidents of blueberry muffins with single-digit numbers of blueberries were widely reported.

“In addition to stepped-up law enforcement, we are relying on community enforcement of this regulation,” said Mayor Wilders. “Suspicious pastries can be brought to the Food Quality Department at the Department of Health in room 419B of the City Hall Annex. There, spectroscopic analysis can be completed in a few short minutes to determine the filling-to-dough ratio.” Violators of the 18% limit are subject to fines ranging from $5 to $50, depending on severity of the offense.

The Mayor noted that the spectroscopic analysis process does destroy the muffin, but in the event that it is found to violate the City ordinance, citizens are issued a voucher for a new muffin. “The subsequent muffin would presumably conform to regulations and be better anyway,” said a spokesperson from the Mayor’s office.

Opponents continue to argue that overzealous Council members rushed the regulation. “One bad catered brunch meeting, and the entire bakery community suffers,” says Edward Swarthmore, head of a local bakers’ assiociation.  “What happened was, the Council held an impromptu morning meeting to deal with the City’s growing hazardous spore problem. Robby’s [Rotund Robby's, on 19th Avenue] provides a spread of assorted muffins and pastries. And while they’re talking about the spores, and getting increasingly agitated with that problem, and probably with each other, well, I guess they felt like the muffins were the last straw.”

Reports from various Council members are conflicting about the precise quality of the muffins at the meeting, but one Member claimed to have eaten a chocolate chip muffin with “one single [expletive] chip.” The Council scheduled an unprecedented lunchtime session afterward, where the muffin law was written, briefly discussed, and passed in less than twenty minutes. “It was a hasty, angry process,” concludes Swarthmore.

However, aside from complaints from local baked goods merchant associations (who no longer seem to hold their historically strong sway on the City Council), the regulation has received near-universal praise as a marvel of City government good sense and efficiency.  “This should be a model.  Why have years of meetings to decide to add a stop sign to a dangerous intersection when common sense legislation can be done over lunch?” asks Velda Geathers, who has been pushing for such a sign at the corner of Olaf and Cloud Streets since 1971.
- Josh Wilson

June 1911- Legendary boxer Jack Johnson trains briefly at a facility set up in a corner of a former Methodist retreat camp, about ten miles east of the city.

96 years later, musician and former surfer Jack Johnson would play a concert at the QuadstatesEC Ampitheatre, part of an entertainment complex (including a small skiing hill and a golf course) located on the same property.
- RJ White

[Original]

It’s nominated for two- the “Blogitzer” (for writing) and the Humor category. If you have a couple of minutes, and you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read here these last (almost) two years, please feel free to vote.

There are also helpful linked images to your left.
- RJ White

Aside from being in beautiful downtown Detroit (which I haven’t seen in a few years), the program looks to be chock-full of awesome speakers and sessions about urbanism, planning and whatnot.

There’s one program on the final day that looks particularly interesting-

Community Storytelling

“Authenticity” is often cited as a key attribute for places. And this authenticity comes from being able to tap into the true narrative, the true stories of places. This session focuses on two distinct approaches to finding that narrative, one based in theater, the other based in technology – both with amazing results.

“True” stories about cities? Who needs those?

If you’re going to be around, want to meet up, email thecitydesk-at-gmail.com.
-RJ White

:: Mayor Wilders currently has a three point lead in the polls over Councilwoman Cosgrove.

:: Of more than five hundred city residents asked in an informal poll, only three percent indicated that they would be willing to vote for a transvestite presidential candidate.

:: Number of local businesses with “Hope” in their name: 7 (Including “Hope’s Erotic Bakery,” “Never Give Up (Hope)” resale and thrift store benfiting St.Katherine’s Childrens Hospital, and “Hope Floats” movie-themed ice cream parlor)

:: Number of local businesses with “Change” in their name: 43 (mostly car service stations ending with “-Change,” but also including “Loose Change” used clothing store and “Change-a-lot” diaper laundry service)

:: Number of local businesses with “Straight Talk” in their name: 0 (Although Community Radio 790 AM has a 15-minute niche news broadcast three times daily, entitled “Straight Talk: Bulletins from the Oppressed Heterosexual Minority”)

:: The City has joined with several others across the country in passing an ordinance to cease using bottled water at all official city meetings and events, in favor of tap water.

:: Selected words used to describe the City’s tap water in an independent study issued late last year: “Crisp,” “OKAY,” “Adequately free from bacterial infection”

:: Most desirable “mouth-feel” for modern candy, according to a fact-sheet provided by local confectionary manufacturer “Nature’s Harvest,” in descending order: Crispy, crunchy, smooth, creamy. The “least desirable” from the same list include: Wet, grimy, bristly, sad

:: Asked which video game characters they believe would make a good president, most of the 800 city residents polled responded either “Mario” or “Master Chief.”

:: On this day in 1971: 30,000 textbooks intended for seventh- and eighth-grade American History classes were recalled owing to one editor’s attempt to lighten the grim mood of a chapter on the Battle of Gettysburg by titling it “Civil War? More like an Uncivil War, If You Ask Me.”

:: A spokesperson strenuously (nervously?) assured the City’s media outlets that local Washington Mutual branches will be open for business today.
- Jon Morris, RJ White

NPL was founded in Bangalore, India in 1971, but in recent years has found itself competing for office and warehouse space against a tidal wave of software and telecommunications companies, filling every unoccupied piece of commercial real estate in the Indian state of Karnataka with technical support phone banks.  Unable to expand in their home region to meet the needs of a growing number of contracts and a thriving clientele, Nihar dispatched representatives to scout six municipalities around the world, including Dibrugarh (India), Shanghai (China), Hamburg (Germany), Manchester (England), and Zevenaar (Netherlands), before settling on our city as their new base of operations, due partly to the current weakness of the American dollar.

Assuming immigration technicalities can be resolved, eleven executives from Bangalore will take up residence on the fortieth floor of the Chandler Building this coming December, while four Indian manufacturing supervisors will oversee operations on the south side. NPL anticipates adding only one executive position here in the city, but expects to hire as many as fifty local employees in the Industrial District. This is good news indeed for a region that has found very little to cheer about in the current economic climate.

Rumors of NPL’s impending move have also been quite a boon for Professor Aditi Sinha at Watson University, who was initially stunned to find enrollment in his adult-education night class entitled Dravidian Languages and Elementary Sanskrit unaccountably jump from an average of ten students to its current enrollment of 56 (divided into two sections). Sinha reports that slightly more than 200 people had originally applied to be included in the class, but that he was able to reduce matriculation to a more manageable number by informing potential students that the national language of India is, in fact, English.
- David Andrews

Battaglia, formerly of New Jersey, was moved to our city for safety after testifying against a captain of the notorious Fortinero crime family. Agent Green and his colleagues placed Battaglia into an apartment on Klein Street, and provided him a new identity.

Unfortunately for Battaglia, the identity given to him was that of another marked man.

Police responded to a 911 call last Thursday and arrived at Battaglia’s domicile to find a gruesome tableau. Battaglia’s corpse lay spread-eagle upon a billiard table, with gold coins on his eyes, a deceased canary on his chest, his pinkies removed and shoved into his mouth and his feet spray-painted purple. In The Evening Press, accounts of the number of gunshot wounds Battaglia sustained ranged from “approximately twenty-four” to “too numerous to count.”

A rookie cop who was a first responder at the scene spoke with The City Desk on condition of anonymity, explaining, “I heard from some older guys on the force that the coins, the bird, the pinkies and the purple feet are all signature moves of the Cusumano mob. This guy was whacked vendetta-style. Just like something out of the Sopranos. It was awesome.”

Said Agent Green at the press conference, “Anthony Battaglia was given the identity of Edwin Terrazzi. Now, Edward Terrazi is another individual we are protecting. Terrazi is wanted by the Cusumano mafia not only for testifying against (boss Luigi) Cusumano, but also for allegedly sleeping with Cusumano’s wife and publicly slapping Cusumano’s nine-year-old daughter in the face. This, ahem, may explain the severity of the violence Mr. Battaglia suffered. So, it appears to be an awful case of mistaken… ah… identity.”

Agent Green continued, “It was a small clerical error by our department, coupled with an apparent foul up on the case of the assailants. The individuals responsible on our end have been suspended with pay indefinitely pending further investigation.”

Green ended the press conference by revealing that the FBI is also currently seeking the whereabouts of Edward Terrazi, because “We’re about 55 percent sure there may be a problem with the identity we gave Mr. Terrazi.”
- Ray Ingraham

10:30 pm
Corner of Merriman and 112th Streets: Two men, both wearing NFL jerseys, are arrested outside Stoats’ Sports Bar. Apparently, an animated debate whether to go RB-RB-QB or RB-QB-WR in the first three rounds of a fantasy football draft took an ugly turn, and the men began trading “sloppy, drunken blows.”

2:15 am
7000 block of Blick Avenue: Three men apprehended in the back of pizzeria with several bottles of accelerants, ignition devices, envelope containing $5000 in cash. Investigation pending.

6:00-6:30 am
Various locations, Downtown: Six vendors report that their newsstands were moved to different locations around the Downtown/Central Corridor area overnight, with substantial damage to each. Several witnesses reported a “tow-truck-like” vehicle dragging the structures through the streets.

11:20 am
1200 block of East Plumer Avenue: Officers respond to reports of a man exposing himself in the cereal aisle at the Safeway.

1:38 pm
800 block of Jarvis Street: Two men and a woman report their cars were apparently damaged by a hit and run driver in the parking lot of St. Norbert’s Church. Police are looking for a red 1974 Dodge Dart with the license plate LXI 483 in connection with the incident.

2:41 pm
Intersection of Hudson and Bergen Streets: Fire department reports theft of hydrant after routine hydrant check.

3:06 pm
200 Courthouse Square: City Commerce Director Robert Sheets reports the theft of a briefcase containing city documents after he had left it in a booth at Mo’s Luncheonette.

3:32 pm
300 block of Coffey Street, Emergency Services Unit officers rescue a male child who had his head suck in a fence.

4:18 pm
2300 block of Lorimer Street: Several complainants of tires being slashed on parked vehicles.

4:26 pm
East Patterson River at Granville Street: Aviation and Harbor units respond to reports of a dog in the river. The dog was rescued by Aviation Unit officer Alex Drake and is recovering at the ASPCA.

6:13 pm
500 block of Audubon Avenue: A man reports the theft of a stop sign. The Department of Transportation was contacted and replaced the sign.

7:43 pm
3000 block of Western Avenue: Officers respond to silent alarm at Bruno Hardware. A large cat was found suck in an air conditioning vent on the roof and rescued by ASPCA and Emergency Services Unit officers.

9:25 pm
15000 block of Lindenmeyr Boulevard: A guest at the Courtyard by Marriot at Rockstead International Airport reports the theft of a laptop computer, a pair of shoes, approximately $60 in cash and the keys to a rented 2007 Ford Focus. The 2007 Ford Focus was also stolen from the hotel’s parking lot.
- Ray Ingraham, Hoyt Schermerhorn, RJ White

The past few days have seen frantic races to the finish, figurative and literal, as city attorneys stalled a lawsuit to halt the Tickets to Health initiative long enough to hold the first and only Triple Offenders Marathon. The lawyers got what they wanted, successfully delaying Judge Horace Table’s ruling until Monday morning — mere hours after the marathon’s finish.

Table ruled the Tickets to Health program was “in violation of the City Charter, in violation of the Constitution and in violation of any standard of human decency.”

A year and a half ago, local gymnasium magnate Carolanne Tapscott approached Mayor Wilders with an idea intended to decrease widespread anger at the city’s aggressive parking enforcement and increase physical activity among residents. After a series of private discussions and one poorly attended public hearing, the city unveiled Tickets to Health to a confused, sedentary population.

The program worked like this: a resident’s first parking ticket would result in a mandatory 25-minute walk around the Gen. Omar Bradley Memorial Track at Baxter Park, a second would require participation in a stair climb up the 30-story Tyler Tower and the penalty for a third would be training and competition in what was to be the annual Triple Offenders Marathon.

The marathon, held Sunday morning, will go down as one of the city’s least popular instances of mandatory mass activity. The runners, many of whom appeared unfit to run around the block, let alone 26.2 miles, were escorted to the starting line by city police officers. Competitors carried computer chips to record their times — and tracking devices to ensure they didn’t end the race early. The route wasn’t populated by the usual throngs of cheering supporters and volunteers with bottled water, but by city employees who called out directions like “Please keep running” and “Don’t forget to breathe.”

One of the greater ironies of Tickets to Health and the lawsuit that ended it is that the program was probably short-lived anyway. Judging from the state of the runners, none of them would ever again commit a parking violation and subject themselves to such an ordeal.

Runner Marion Prentiss, an account executive for a local insurance company, hadn’t performed any rigorous exercise since gym class during her junior year of high school — 17 years ago. At mile 14, Prentiss staggered over to a city employee and panted, “Please, this is killing me. I swear to God I’ll never park too close to a fire hydrant ever again.”

The employee handed Prentiss a complaint form before waving her on.

It was just such a scenario that Judge Table wanted to prevent — and one that Tapscott wanted to make a regular part of city life.

In his carefully worded ruling, Table said under certain circumstances the city has the right to compel people to participate in exercise against their will — but not because of parking violations. “Should the city see fit to form a militia, draft residents into a dangerously understaffed police department [as has happened before] or form a civilian works-progress apparatus in the event of natural disaster or economic depression, then mandatory mass physical performance would be protected and encouraged by the City Charter. But a parking infraction or multiple parking infractions do not rise to the Charter-defined standard of ‘city security, economic well-being, or quality of life.’ ”

But Carolanne Tapscott, who famously started her gymnasium empire out of a converted back-alley ballet studio, remains unbowed. Early in her discussions with the Mayor’s office about Tickets to Health, someone floated the idea of making the program optional rather than mandatory. Tapscott fiercely opposed the idea, and it never got any traction. She still believes making the initiative mandatory was necessary.

“Doing anything else would send the wrong message,” she told The City Desk. “This ruling tells the people of this city it’s OK to commit multiple parking infractions and it’s OK to have a high BMI. In my book, neither is OK.”

Tapscott said the city wouldn’t appeal the ruling, but hinted her fight wasn’t over. “Maybe our mistake was in picking too petty of a crime,” she said. “Maybe people wouldn’t be so sympathetic if we targeted more serious criminals, like pedophiles or dead-beat dads.”
- Craig Gaines