City of Morris should get a lump of coal

(MPR News image)

Part of being a well-adjusted adult is knowing you'll have an occasional unplanned expense, maybe major. You buy a lot of insurance and still you can get a punch to the solar plexus. My purchase of a new water softener has left me with a bitter taste. The cost certainly doesn't break me. But the process was terrible.
I picked up news about the city's new water treatment plant some time ago. It sounded like a good thing. We'd see the plant itself on the east end of town. I was expecting at some time to get some form of official communication on how we were supposed to proceed. Nothing like that happened. Remember that to the extent anything appears in the newspaper, 1) the paper is not a part of government, and 2) many people do not buy it or do not see it.
The subject of the treatment plant and its ramifications for Morris (especially the latter) have been begging for more attention from the local news media. Now, I don't examine every page of each week's paper - I observe the paper at the library - so I can't make a flat-out statement that the paper has done little or nothing.
I would in effect suggest that this subject is begging for attention. In fact, it is begging for the kind of attention we expect from the "skeptical news media," a point of view where we don't automatically defer to government people and their spokespeople.
We have new owners of the Morris paper who in fact like to make statements seeming almost sanctimonious about their role in covering government. And yet, about a month ago, when the newspaper finally came out with pronouncements connected to the water treatment plant, it was embarrassing because the paper merely parroted what the city wanted to tell us. I have been skeptical whether Katie Erdman is really the kind of hard-nosed editor who has to risk getting her hands dirty on something like this.
Look, I might not have minded purchasing a new water softener if the process of transition had seemed more above-board. If I had it to do over again, I would have waited to receive direct instructions from the city, under threat of legal penalty. It looks as though that time is coming. I was merely trying to behave as a responsible citizen, to see what I might do in connection to the city's water transition.
I could have just kept buying my usual supply of salt. Frankly it was not a burdensome expense. The City of Morris is so phony now in how it argues about the advantage of using less salt. I realize there is one indisputable advantage: less chloride emission. And that is laudable. The "hassle" of buying salt was no issue for me as I still have decent physical strength for handling the sacks.
I go on Medicare with the first of the year. That means I ought to consider Medicare supplement insurance. But I'd be starting this on the heels of the pretty substantial expense of a new water softener. Once again - and I'm a broken record here - the expense would be easier to live with, had the city simply communicated better, or frankly communicated at all.
I feel humiliated. I feel I may have been "rolled" by a party here. At present I am not inclined to point fingers at the water quality company. I'll give the name because I am not being critical of them: Eco Water. They seemed credible, knowledgeable and caring. My thoughts about the City of Morris have become much less than charitable.
It's so easy for city spokespeople to simply say "hey, disconnect (your softener)." Let's emphasize that the city has a strong narrow incentive to say this: they are "under the gun" from higher government powers to get the chloride pollution thing solved. There appears to be financial incentive. They'd love it, if as many people as possible simply "disconnect," the faster the better. Period. Be wary of government designs.
 
Dissecting the language
I have heard two stories about our "new" City of Morris water: one, that it is softened to five grains of hardness, and two, that it is softened to five to seven grains of hardness. A city spokesman tells me the city now offers everyone "soft" water. I would suggest this is not accurate. Water softened to five grains is considered "moderately hard." It is in a category where some degree of extra softening is considered prudent. "Prudence" can of course be subjective.
Keep in mind though the desperation - that is not an extreme characterization - of the city to convince higher authorities that the chloride thing is being addressed. Fine and dandy, but the common citizenry has its interests too: taking care of one's property. Getting proper advice on this is paramount.
Above all else, the city should have demonstrated in the spirit of setting an example, that all of their top officials - council and staff - would immediately disconnect their softeners. And, be happy doing so and happy to proclaim it. Instead, city spokespeople strangely think it's a positive to tell everyone that "two" city council people have disconnected. The City manager has in fact gotten a new softener. This is not an idle expense.
I'm wringing my hands about this even though I'm one of those people who can make the purchase without going into hock. I simply find this whole process to have been rotten. And all the paper has appeared to do, to date, is to be a mouthpiece for the city. "The city council wants you to know. . ." Et cetera. It reminds me of the characters "Trout and Bugbaum" from the National Lampoon satire "Dacron Republican-Democrat," fun-poking at a typical mid-size city newspaper. The guys were a take-off on Woodward and Bernstein but they were hopeless, total suckers. They posed for their column head photo with champagne glasses. But all they did was get played by their sources.
The Anfinsons of the Morris paper don't wish to be like that, do they? Ah, "Trout and Bugbaum." (The "Republican-Democrat" always had a photo of a smashed-up car above the fold on page 1.)
 
Live and learn, eh?
Well Brian, welcome to the world of being suspicious about city hall. I'm now tempted to think of ways to "recoup" the $1500 by cutting some other things. Maybe I'll take six months off from going to church and skip making one of my usual $ contributions there. Each year I have an original Christmas song recorded in Nashville TN. Maybe I'll skip that next year. I can skip adding any more to the Williams family's University of Minnesota Foundation fund.
Yes, one can always come up with ways to economize. I attend an ELCA church, a synod that appears in steady decline. How unfortunate. And the main reason appears to be political. The ELCA embraces too many "progressive" views. It is a church where people who vote Democratic can feel comfortable. The non-Democrats might point fingers and claim we aren't Christian at all. Perhaps one must be a Trump supporter in 2020 in order to claim being a Christian.
We are on the verge of seeing a significant swath of Christianity begin to assert that Trump has divine qualities. Maybe Stormy Daniels will be considered the equivalent of Mary Magdalene. You're offended by that? Well I'm offended by you. If so many people can be fooled so easily, maybe Jesus Christ himself was a pretender, really just a demagogue of his time. Maybe a "wallpaper hanger," as the great WWII General Patton advised post-war (about the likes of Hitler).
I don't want to think in such terms re. Jesus.
I don't see how two ELCA churches can continue to exist in our community of Morris. Something will have to "give" soon, it seems.
From a letter from First Lutheran Church I received Saturday: "Because of shortfalls, in 2018 we spent two ELCA Mission Investment account funds that we were saving for a rainy day. We don't have more savings we can use to help us make ends meet. We are currently about $32,000 behind. We have not been able to pay out our benevolence to the Synod and ELCA."
Has the Walt Hokanson money all been spent? Can we be sure there's no more embezzlement out here in the ELCA? Do we need to keep supporting missionaries and Habitat for Humanity?
Continuing from the letter: "Our council is actively working to address these issues. We held a stewardship event in November called 'Consecration Sunday' and we are encouraged by the results. However, we won't see the actual results until 2020."
Indeed, it appears that the pro-Trump gay-bashing churches are winning. Forgive them Lord, for they know not what they do. Memo to the fools and knaves: don't you understand that the social issues are just cover for what the GOPers really strive to accomplish, which is to consolidate ever more wealth in the hands of the richest sliver of the population? In the meantime they get you to eat from their hand. Those people don't lose any sleep over abortion, I assure you.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com