Not only is the unholy alliance of council members Ruth Herbel, Zach Collett, and Chris Costello to be celebrated for their willingness to invest in trying to find the best and brightest candidates for Marion city administrator — candidates who might actually clean up the place.

Current city crews are to be congratulated for a literal act of cleanliness in allowing multiple return visits by a familiar fixture that somehow seemed to make fewer and fewer appearances in recent years — Marion’s aging street sweeper. With less frequent visits by the Rube Goldberg contraption, a certain unnamed editor had more luck growing things in ever-more-clogged curbs and gutters than he had in yards adjacent to them.

During the Jurassic Age, in his misspent youth, the same editor used to revel in running after the elderly behemoth or one of its predecessors — much as he did with insect foggers spraying DDT (which may explain more about the editor than he would care to admit). Those days, streets weren’t parking lots with narrow driving lanes. Perhaps nowadays, an advance alert or odd/even parking to clear one side of the street for sweeping would ease the gentle giant’s task of keeping our town from turning into its old monicker of Mudville.

— ERIC MEYER