Category Archives: donor

donor, Tuesday

Busy Tuesday

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I just got done doing a quick crossword puzzle to unwind after a long day and I figured you would enjoy the lead off word of the day: vapid – meaning uninspired. Think there might be a resemblance between the word and I?

First, for those of you who could not guess the answer to yesterday’s question of the day. Bob Dylan composed “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” for the movie film Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid in 1973. As I responded to one commenter, the acoustic version from the movie bears only a passing resemblance to the Guns N’ Roses cover I used.

Today was a busy day. It started with a coffee meeting downtown to pull a surprise on the benefactor who has donated parks, the water park, and the cancer center to this town. In general, he and his wife have not allowed us to name anything after them or even acknowledge their gifts. I had to jump through hoops just to get them to let us put up a 2″ x 5″ plaque on the the fence around the water park acknowledging them. A group of us finally came up with a way to acknowledge them that we hoped they would find acceptable and amusing.

Last week we made up a fake street sign, put it up over the real street sign at the corner of a donated park and across the street from the donated water park. Then we took a photo and arranged to have coffee with the benefactor this morning. I’m sure he thought we going to hit him up for a gift. {*grin*} Instead we talked and visited and then sprang this picture on him.

Since the picture is small and poor quality (I had to scan a printed page), here is what the sign we are pointing to said:
Walsh Parkway

in honor of Frank and Gloria Walsh who have literally given millions to this community.

Frank was both touched and amused at our presentation. He and Gloria agreed we could rename West Elm Street to Walsh Parkway. So in a few weeks, the sign(s) will be real. It’s the small ways of saying thank you to the unassuming nice people like Frank and Gloria that has made this job rewarding.

This afternoon I was the speaker at the Humanities Club to talk about the water issue on the ballot for just about the last time. (The mail ballots are being sent out by Friday and this is a mail only election this year.) Thursday at the Board of Realtors meeting will be the last speaking engagement on the topic.

I followed that with the city council meeting tonight. The city budget was presented and the public hearing scheduled two weeks hence. One of the last things I will do as mayor is guide next year’s budget to adoption. Only two more “regular” council meetings left and I’m out of office.

Well, time to get my notes together for the radio show in the morning. 6am comes early.

donor, mom, museum, relatives

Thursday for the Odd

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Today was an odd day out here on the plains. The wind was blowing and the temperature rose early and then began to drop in anticipation of possible snow on Saturday. The wind was especially noticeable at the museum as it drove the old windmills and wind powered farm equipment to clatter like demons. Made one heck of a lot of noise. I was at the museum for a meeting with a donor.The city owns and operates a very highly rated western museum, concentrating on the history of the area and the Overland Trail which passes along the edge of town. That makes us a bit unusual for a city of our size as not many cities own and operate a museum, and ours has a collection of the original buildings of many types and farm equipment and a one room school plus a lot of lore, artifacts, and history from the area. All spread out on a several acre campus by the river.

The meeting at 2pm was at the request of the donor who wanted the mayor to accept his gift of the final issue of the Rocky Mountain News to go with the archive first issue of the Rocky Mountain News from 150 years ago. The museum also has one of the early news printing presses, so this adds a bit to the collection, putting a capstone on it in a sense. If you are really unlucky, you will see a picture of me with the donor, me sitting on an old printers stool (about 1 foot tall) with my knees about my ears in front of the early printing press, looking like we are examining the paper hot off the press. I say that because the reporter/photographer from one of the local papers was there covering the event. The donor spent many years with the Rocky, and I think this  also allowed him to cap off his association with the Rocky.

After finishing up at the museum, I went home and changed and headed over to Mom’s house. Mom is undergoing surgery next week that will confine her to a wheel chair for at least the next 6 weeks, so it was time to remove some doors and get the handicap accessories in place. Mom has been spending most of the week getting things arranged so that she can do everything she needs from a wheelchair. Along the way she has been creating a list of things for me to do when I came over today. It is interesting all the things you take for granted when you are up and about versus sitting in a wheelchair. So a bit later I had the list for today done and the doors stored away. Of course, I also had to get my plant watering lesson for the day since I will be watering Mom’s virtual forest of indoor plants. I think Mom’s afraid I will kill them – probably a reasonable worry!

Once we got that done, we headed to a local diner to eat. A number of our relatives seemingly had the same idea. Some background: Mom’s younger sister G died some years ago due to cancer. G’s kids are somewhat younger than me (I was the oldest grandkid) and I used to babysit them from time to time as we were growing up and G was still here. Mom is the honorary grandmother to G’s kids’ kids. (Parse that Emily Post.) G’s three kids all have names that begin with M and one of them follows this blog and all three live here. The one who reads the blog requested to be known herein as M, so I’ll call her brothers M1 and M2 just to avoid any claims of originality. M and her two kids and M1 and his wife and two kids all showed up at various times while we were eating. I am known as Uncle Dan to M and M1’s kids. Mom and I got to see and talk to them as they waited for their food to come out. They’d come over and sit and talk with us and then return to their tables to eat.

It was nice to see the kids. M’s oldest and M1’s oldest are both 7th graders and seem to be shooting up like the proverbial weeds. There are all the signs of emergent teenager making an appearance. M1 described it as the 12 going on 16 age. I have read to some of the kids’ school classes at various times for Reading Across America and other programs. You haven’t seen excited until you get to their classroom and they get to introduce the mayor as their “Uncle” Dan. As everyone got ready to leave, Mom and I got hugs from the kids. It’s been a while since L and I had a pre-teen threatening to turn into an teenager at any moment, so it’s always good to be reminded of what they are like. Especially when one can then go home and not worry about it. (Just kidding!)

Time to get ready for tomorrow. Someday I’ll have to write about babysitting M, M1, and M2. M threatened to kill me if I wrote about it tonight, so I’ll have to wait until later. {*grin*} Of course she also claimed it exposed how old I am too. I thought the white hair already did that.

council, donor

Yet Another Tuesday

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Today was much closer to an acceptable day for me. The forecast winds did not appear even though the warmth did. (Never trust the weather people!) So Molly and I got a chance to get out in the sun and walk in the park. Hooray!

Tonight’s city council meeting ran long, mainly because we had so many things to go through in our special session and also a rather lengthy executive session for court and real estate matters. One of the fun things coming up and discussed is the 125th anniversary of the founding of the city. The question is whether to celebrate the 125th, and if so, how and when. The actual founding was December 13, 1884. So do you put it off until December, piggy back it on the 4th of July celebration and Heritage Festival, or choose another date? One of the council members pointed out that the 100th anniversary celebration was held in October to correspond with the harvest festivals. Any great ideas?

There was a funny moment after the meeting as our newest council member asked if we had ever heard of B. The veterans were all just about rolling on the floor because B is infamously notorious, both to the city council and city staff. B is so hard to deal with and so irrational at times that speaking to B is considered a rite of passage. Every council member has had the pleasure of speaking to B at least several times and it is an experience they never forget. So when the new council member asked with the bewildered look of confusion if we had ever heard of someone named B, we were ready to hear the story. Once she told her contact story and had heard a few of our B stories, you could see the light come on as she realized that she was not alone.

I suspect every the every entity that deals with the public, whether it be government, retail, service sector, or any other has their version of B. Most retail and service industries have the luxury of firing the customer – just flat out admitting that it costs more in aggravation, time, and morale to deal with that customer than it is worth to the business. Unfortunately, governments don’t quite have the same freedom. So although B has been fired from some municipal services, there are others we are obligated by charter to provide. So each new generation gets to deal with the Bs of the world.

The newest council member wanted to know why we couldn’t have prepared a list of “beware of these numbers/people” for new council members to save her from the hours long barrage of her first contact with B. The answer I gave is straight forward: each council member must deal with all the people they represent, including B, in an unbiased and fair manner. And after all, there is always the hope that someday one of them will hit on the magical key to dealing with the constituent like B in a calm and rational manner. And in a paraphrase, just because you’re outrageous doesn’t mean you don’t have a valid point. So we’ll be forced to keep sacrificing virginal council members on the altar of first contact with the Bs of the world as long as we have representative government.

Time to get to bed so I can mosey down to the radio station in the morning. Our town’s benefactor (from here) has been at it again and made another $250,000 donation to help keep recreation fees down and additional park facilities. The director of Parks, Libraries, and Recreation will join me to acknowledge the gift. Like I said before, having great civic donors like he and his wife makes my job a lot easier. So thank you Frank and Gloria!