corruption | Adventures in Cheeseland

Cheeseland is buzzing about the scandal that is threatening to take down Mayor Pauly Porcine’s government. Mayor Pauly is not personally accused of any wrongdoing, but the City Manager, Clayborn Coyote, appears to be running a large-scale pay-to-play operation with city contractors.

We’re following the story on WCHZ 7 Action News.

Shirelle Sharpei: Good evening everyone. Welcome to Action 7 News at 11 pm. I’m Shirelle Sharpei.

Tyrone Tiger: And I’m Tyrone Tiger. Shirelle, we’ve got some big news on the Mayor Pauly story.

Shirelle: Indeed, we do, Tyrone. And first on the scene, as always, is Angel Katt. Angel, we hear there’s an update in the Mayor Pauly situation.

Angel: As you know, I’ve been working with an anonymous source inside the Administration to break this story. That animal told me that there was going to be an ad-hoc, closed-door City Council meeting tonight. It was closed to the public, but I’ve been speaking to several parties as they left the meeting. I have the footage for you.

The video starts with Angel standing with a microphone as several coyotes rush past her without stopping. She tries to get an answer, but they quickly move past her.

Gayle Gorilla, the City Council President, follows the coyotes out of City Hall.

Angel: Madame President, could I get a statement about what happened in there? The coyotes didn’t look happy.

Gayle: I imagine not. It appears that several contracts were awarded to friends of the City Manager without going through the required bidding process.

Angel: Can you tell me which projects were in question?

Gayle: I can’t get into specifics, but the impacted departments are Parks & Rec, Maintenance, and Communications.

Angel: Thank you, Madame President.

Angel returns to the live feed. An angry group of residents came out of City Hall.

Angel: Would any of you like to tell us what you thought of the meeting?

Brandy Bear: This is why I didn’t vote for that pig. I knew he’d be doing pork-barrel politics.

Angel: Did someone say Mayor Pauly was involved?

Brandy: It’s his administration. He should have known what was going on. I think we should get rid of them all.

Tyrone (from the studio): Angel, can you get an understanding of why folks seem to be so angry?

Angel: I think it might be related to the issues at the renovated swimming pool.

Ophelia Otter: That’s exactly why I’m so mad. My kids love to go to that pool. It’s the only one with real river water. I thought they were just doing routine maintenance.

Angel: What happened?

Ophelia: The first time we went back, my son Jeremy jumped right in. Then he jumped right back out, screaming that his eyes hurt. And he smelled weird.

Bonnie Beaver: Same thing with my kids. Someone had dumped chlorine in the pool.

Angel: Why would anyone put chlorine in a pool?

Ophelia: That idiot coyote hired someone who mainly works with humans. Apparently humans are so dirty, they have to bleach themselves when they get in a pool.

Angel: Eww! Are the kids okay?

Bonnie: Fortunately, we could go home and use the pond in the backyard.

Timothy: We got an electric bill from the City. It said we owed $200 for our electricity. All we use it for is our heating lamp. It used to be $15.

Shelley Sheep: We received a letter saying that our son was at risk of being expelled from school for truancy. Our son graduated last year.

Angel: What’s going on?

Timothy: They hired a firm to update the city’s communications systems. The company just moved all the data over in a massive dump, so now everything is confused and mixed up.

Shelley: I heard that they need to go back to the old data and start over. Hopefully, nothing was lost.