Letter to the Editor from Donald Weyer:
Come one, come all, step right up! We have a gen-u-wine, er genuine three-ring circus setting up its big top in the confines bounded by Bank, State, Main Streets, and Washington Avenue! The center tent pole smacks dab in the Alva Place parking lot, the future home of the newly constructed Batavia Police Department Headquarters. I extend my three cheers and hip-hip-hoorays!
Me, not to be similarly bound by any gag order such as imposed by City Manager Tabelski on City Council members. Shame on you, Rachael; I intend to address every volubly dazzling and dancing performer in this carnival, which commenced April 21 at the above site and continues with its performances to date. So let me play "the adult in the room", figuratively in the circus tent, and aim to tame the lions and tigers fuelling the city's current uproar (those animals are charged to "roar", not grown people, but what can I say!)
- Ms. Kubiniec (owner of private business offices on the south side of Washington): you're rambling on about snowbanks and unplowed snowy and icy sidewalks, and your dearth of rent-profits, while the Spring birds are singing and the flowers are sprouting and the sun is shining in this prelude to the merry merry month of May. Please check your anachronisms and income shortage and stay on point!
- Geno Jankowski (respected president of Batavia City Council): Your statement of hurtful comments about you is melodramatically sentimental, disingenuous, and a bit ironic, to say the least. Man up, you're a retired police officer, an illustrious one at that, so put on your big-boy pants, a stiff upper lip, a straightened spine, and thick skin, all learned, instilled, and developed among the men in blue, as well in your position on Council, and demonstrate some real leadership and forget about your feelings being hurt. Take the bull by the horns, whistle while you do it, and wrest it to earth! Not in the mode of Alexander Haig's autocratic "I'm in control here, at the White House", but more in that of FDR's fireside chats and his democratic and confident, yet communal, "we have nothing to fear except fear itself", with the emphasis on "we".
- Dr. Mazurkiewicz (chiropractor with a private business office in Washington): You stated that your office was promised "one row of parking spaces along the north side of the construction site" for the new police station. O.K., that row is within, not without, the fences for the construction site. I suggest you issue hard hats to all your patients or give up that one row of parking. Safety rules are safety rules, period! I see no alternatives. Concerning your loss of profits, just think: once the new facility is completed, your net income, the bottom line, may multiply a hundredfold, considering the safe location your office occupies, police presence, and all. Stop whining! Anyway, I need your expertise to fix my ailing back and legs, nerve damage or other. Cease worrying about this issue of the police facility and apply your manipulation magic to my old bones. To keep me from whining!
- Dr. Canzoneri (foot doctor with private business office in State): Your inflammatory words that there will be "cost-overruns and disruption" with the new police headquarters: the construction is a done deal. Where were your protests when the project was proposed? And don't anticipate cost-overruns and disruption. Just wait and see! (As to your loss of profits, see my words directed to Mazurkiewicz above).
- Anyway, I need your expertise also, to fix my numb and painful toes and feet. They tingle, and feel swollen and hot, but are normal size and temperature to the touch. I believe you would find more success treating my feet, stopping my "dogs from barking", than the city bureaucracy treats you and your professional practice! What do you think?
- Ms. Tabelski (honorable Batavia City Manager): I previously mentioned your gag order. It sounds like you're trying to ensure that the city administration and representatives get and keep your story and theirs straight together. (Maybe it's time for your office to consider a public relations spokesman. They're good at spin and "spinning") if nothing else! Let all the administrators and representatives speak. They might have some important ideas for addressing the current "kerfuffle!" (That word compliments of the always-incisive staff of The Batavian detailing the circus on display). Additionally, you state that the city doesn't have an employee to drive the bus to conduct the clients of the private businesses in Washington via shuttle bus to their appointed destinations. The city employees and representatives who have been gagged could use the time freed up by not speaking to drive the bus. Alternatively, it's not the time to "call out the National Guard" to solve your self-imposed problems of this donnybrook! Sufficient planning and communication were possible prophylactics, but it's apparently too late for those preventive actions. It's in your lap, now, and I don't envy you or your position.
I would write, or say, or sing at this point in my account of this curious and convoluted and current-day circus that it's time to "send in the clowns, isn't it bliss?......don't you love farce?......quick, send in the clowns" (all credit to Judy Collins). But I won't. Why? No, because "don't bother, they're here" (again, Collins).
