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“City Notes” Poetry

Fort Bragg City Manager Linda Ruffing’s prepackaged ready to believe biweekly spin sheet just arrived in my email box.

Linda writes her “City Notes” to let folks know what is going on in Fort Bragg City Government. It comes out every two weeks. Of course the Advocate prints it without comment. Linda provides this epitome of transparency with the same sort of abstracted happy-face that is her trademark in discourse before the City Council. The style itself has become an institution in our city and rightly deserves to be recognized and applauded.

Happiness, tranquility and competent management are radiant in these abbreviations of complex policy. It must not be easy. Ms. Ruffing has evolved her own special style in these regular bi weekly missives, in which she strives to get the most information to the most people in bite sizes that accommodate virtually any attention span.

Putting a great deal of information into tiny bits is a wonderful challenge. I contemplated how these nuggets of truthfulness and thoughtfulness might be made even more nugget like. Although they cannot compare with the original prose, here are Linda’s May 25 City Notes rendered in Haiku. I have excluded the ‘Mark Your Calendars’ section (good reading in its own right) to concentrate on her substantive message.

 

The dry shed is doomed

permits pending. It comes down

the mill site withers.

 

Pot grows like money

the city would like a cut

quiet meetings drone

 

Painting city hall gray

Guest House roofing in the spring

money flowing softly

 

Coastal trail now is linked

a sad saga decades long

stand by for Segways

 

the Glass Beach stairway

embarrassment for too long

might yet be started

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