Two Bits Media of Kansas City


RIVERSIDE, MISSOURI
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City by River

A Purrrrfect Plan for Riverside! .......[c]2005 by Richard L Zorek......11.26.05..... According to reports, Riverside, Missouri is a city on the rise. The report comes from Riverside's own PR group, the Chamber of Commerce. Local Chamber of Commerce's don't usually "untoot" their own horn, so aside from possible bias (i.e, the need to toot), the report is that they are planning on new projects and renovations totaling more than $800 million. New roads, new bridges and new buildings are emerging, and with them, they say, are new opportunities.

Riverside did a lot of rebuilding after the flood of 1993. The COC says the success of the project can be seen in monuments like new streets, new curbs, new sidewalks, new street lighting, a new city hall and a new public safety campus. So, if you are driving through Riverside, make sure you stop and look at the curbs. They are not just curbs...they are monuments. One, I am told, resembles Mount Rushmore, if you close yours eyes and try imagine kind of hard. OK, so that won't actually make it look like Mount Rushmore....but we could look at the curb in Riverside and then imagine we are looking at a curb in Excelsior Springs imagining it is Mount Rushmore. Imagination is so cool, isn't it?

When complete, the COC says development is expected to create four jobs for every current resident of Riverside. So, I guess if you don't want to work four jobs....this is the Chambers warning: get out of town now. You should have got a vote on it maybe. Or, at least, an application. What kind of jobs are these? Will they all be 8 hours long? Will breaks be long enough to catch a nap? If I get a roommate from out of town, can I give them one of my jobs?

There is only so much ground to go around, though, which may be because of another issue: People living in Riverside say their feral cat population is out of control. The city has been overrun by cats. Apparently running not only all over the ground, but all over curbs, streets, sidewalks and hanging out around the street lamps. Mount Rushmore never had a cat problem. This creates a problem for the imagination.

But Riversidians are going to do something about it. They plan to put $24,000 to work controlling the population of feral cats. This may be how all those jobs are going to come about. They will trap the cats, neuter or spay them and then release the animals with notched ears. Can you imagine the kitty traps? All over the city? On curbs, sidewalks and streets? This was not the first idea, though. The first idea was to buy $24,000 worth of dogs. Another idea was to buy $22,000 worth of mice and place them all in Parkville. Then put up a $2,000 gate to keep them from coming back in. However, with the new plan there comes the notched ear. Notch? That doesn't even sound fun. All those poor little kitties with notches in their ears. Unless they give them an earring in their nose also, I just don't think they should go that route. I think just an ID mark of some kind would be sufficient. Once spayed or neutered, they really aren't what they were before: a male or female. So, the ad could probably say "Made in Missouri" or "Made in Riverside." But since they plan on releasing them, they might try a little tourist advertising like "Welcome to Riverside!" or "I should have went to Parkville!" Riverside officials believe there are 600 renegade cats in the town of about 3000. That's an awful lot of kitty traps. Lets just hope the cats don't start becoming gangs and moving south. We don't want any Kansas City gangland catnip wars.