Dennison Mayor’s Crappy Job Will Soon Come to an End
If you think you have a crappy job then you need to take a look at the one of the duties of Dennison's mayor, Jeff Flaten. On the plus side, he works for the Minnesota Department of Corrections and is the mayor of the friendly little town of Dennison, which are both very rewarding jobs in their own right. So where does the "crappy" part come in? Well, once every day he has to wrestle open a manhole cover (not the one pictured), climb down a ladder into the sewer and check to make sure that two antiquated lift pumps are still doing their job. The smell alone would put me off, so I give Flaten a lot of credit for performing a task that most larger city mayors would probably find beneath them. I suspect that he cares a lot about his city.
Luckily for Flaten, this daily ritual is about to come to an end. According to a recent article at TwinCities.com, through the determination and persistence of his one-man lobbying campaign, the town of Dennison will be receiving a sizable chunk of a recently passed a $988 million bonding bill, which is going to help pay for several public construction projects in Minnesota. About $726,000 of that will be allotted to replace the aging sewer system lift pumps in Dennison.
It wasn't that easy though. It took two and a half years of emails, letters and phone calls to Gov. Mark Dayton's office, as well as several trips to Saint Paul to do some personal lobbying at the Capitol. Flaten's tenacity finally paid off and Dennison will finally get the updated lift pumps they've desperately needed and Flaten will be able to stay above ground in the fresh air.