Whipped Cream Difficulties

Obit watch: Nora Ephron.

Oh, gee: “business leaders” are threatening to move their firms out of the notoriously corrupt city of Vernon, claiming the cost of business has become too high. Vernon has raised taxes and electricity rates, due to “the recession and a series of ill-fated investments that have cost the city millions”.

Among other bright ideas:

• The city spent $431 million on a hedge for a long-term supply of natural gas. Under the terms of the hedge, the city locked in supply at $7.50 per unit. Last year, natural gas sold for $4 per unit; currently, it is at “just over” $2.50 per unit.
• The city has issued over $1 billion in bonds “to pursue new projects and refinance existing debts”. Vernon has lost more than $130 million in net assets in the past six years, and county auditors say the city has consistently run $20 to $25 million in debt.
• “During the same period, Vernon increased its spending on employee compensation. Between 2006 and 2010, four officials took home annual pay of more than $750,000, including Eric T. Fresch, who made as much as $1.6 million in 2008.” Those same four officials were responsible for the natural gas deal.
• And, in a nice rich irony, many of the “business leaders” who are unhappy now were responsible for torpedoing last year’s legislative effort to disincorporate Vernon.

In other news, Stockton, California plans to file for municipal bankruptcy.

Edited to add: “It’s in our DNA to take the bitterness of lemons and make sweet lemonade,” [Rev. Dwight Williams of the New Bethel Baptist Church] said.

Hmmm.

1. The ability to make lemonade is genetically inherited, rather than learned? This might explain why my lemonade isn’t very good. (Then again, it could be that I make mine with bottled lemon juice. Yeah, I know, but I mostly make lemonade so I can mix it with iced tea and make Arnold Palmers; why use fresh lemon juice for that?)
2. Lemonade isn’t sweet until you add something like sugar to it. What does Rev. Williams propose to add to the lemonade of bankruptcy?

More details on the Jovita’s heroin bust from the Statesman.

One of the great barbecue related stories of the past quarter century was the Kreuz Market feud. In brief, when the family patriarch died, he left the Kreuz Market building to his daughter; he’d previously sold the business itself to two of his sons. This led to a family fight, and ultimately Kreuz Market moved into a new building on the highway, while the old building became Smitty’s.

What’s news? Well, the owner of Kreuz and the pitmaster at Smitty’s, along with another family member, are opening a new barbecue place: Schmidt Family Barbecue in Bee Cave. I am morally certain we will be going out there for an SDC, as soon as they’ve had time to shake out.