Memo to Santa: Here is our list

The News Virginian / News Virginian
Published: December 25, 2007

Having gotten no word back from Santa, we are beginning to question - albeit a tad late - whether he received our letter. We sent it first-class from the post office 10 days in advance of the Christmas mailing deadline, but, as we all know, documents sent that way sometimes vanish before reaching their destination. No matter: letters to Santa, as naughty kids can attest, are nonbinding anyway.

Still, just to demonstrate that we were possessed of the Christmas spirit long before the big day rolled around, we will publish here our holiday list. Perhaps a supermajority of elves will see fit to deliver the goods on our behalf in spite of the late notice.

Tops on our list are our good friends on the City Council. It is always difficult finding gifts for people who already have been given so much. This group received from the previous council a long-neglected stormwater system and desolate downtown along with crumbling sidewalks and broken-down tennis courts.

The council, we should remember, got more than lumps of coal from its predecessors - the bustling west end was something like getting an iPhone. Only the iPhone, like any other gadget, figures to be obsolete by the time the ink on this page dries.

At any rate, we figure the council is still missing something, and we think we know just what it is: spiral-bound copies of the city and state codes. Let's face it, no matter how many times you have read them before, the codes are always entertaining, particularly those portions that make references to bond votes and getting "a sense of the people."

We suggest city officials give those sections a good look if they again feel inclined to go the referendum route. We further suggest that merely attempting to wade through the bond and referendum argot should be sufficient to dissuade the council from considering again a referendum vote, or even daring to use the r-word. This, in other words, would be a gift to all of us.

For Augusta County supervisors, we wanted a gift that could prove useful for years to come, especially when major manufacturers come snooping around Weyers Cave in search of a large site for a car plant. We know that to make deals happen, secrecy is essential. That is why the Official Disguise Kit offered by Growing Tree Toys seemed perfect for our supervisors.

The kits come complete with fake noses, bald wigs and mustaches. When the gang from Toyota wants to huddle in a local coffee shop to whisper top-secret details about the megasite, supervisors can don the pirate eye patches, goofy teeth and disguise glasses so no one knows who is talking to those guys with the Toyota pins on their lapels.

Finally, speaking of pirates, we cannot forget our favorite current Virginia governor, Timothy M. Kaine. We wanted to buy him a pair of chic designer sunglasses, but then we remembered somebody gave him that rose-colored pair last year. That explains the everything's-coming-up-roses revenue projections that helped produce this year's $641 million budget shortfall.

So this year, we asked Santa to get the gov a global positioning system. He can use that to search for the buried treasure he will need to make up for the equally rosy revenue projections his number-crunchers used for his most recent budget proposal. If the elves do get busy handing out our gifts, we hope they do not forget the shovel we ordered for Gov. Tim. He will need that either to dig up the treasure or start digging us out of a fat deficit.

For the rest of us, we asked Santa to provide some needle and thread. We'll need that to stitch up our pockets in case Gov. Tim loses his GPS. After all, we all know where the state will go searching if he can't find the buried treasure.