As Mayor, I’m Saving This City By Getting a CSI Set Here
By: Keaton Patti
Tags: America, Satire, Humor, Csi, Television

Good afternoon, everyone. I wish I called this press conference in order to relay good news. I wish I could say something like, “Tonganoxie has been selected as Kansas’ most livable city.” Or even, “Not all of Tonganoxie’s birds have opted to commit suicide rather than to continue living here.” Sadly, I can’t say those words, since once again Tonganoxie ranks as Kansas’ least livable city due to rampant poverty, pollution, homelessness, corruption, dangerous smells, bird deaths, and the fact our water somehow makes you more thirsty when you drink it.

However, I didn’t come here today to the one building in our city that isn’t on fire to bemoan our lot in life. I came here with a solution for everything.

I am going to save this city by convincing Hollywood to set a CSI show here.

Now before anyone claims my time would be more wisely spent figuring out how to fix all of our numerous potholes or how to tell the Army to stop testing their grenades in our parks, realize that CSI: Tonganoxie would remedy all of that. (Plus, the potholes are already filled in with bird carcasses. Proof of the wonderful circle of life.)

Having a CSI show set in your city means major publicity. It means a massive economic boost. It means jobs. It means tourism. It means maybe map makers will finally add Tonganoxie to their maps, instead of labeling us as “Unnamed Trash Heap.”

Before CSI: Miami, nobody had even heard of Miami. Now it’s the biggest city on the planet, the capital of the United States, and the birds there are immortal. Tonganoxie can be the next Miami. Or the next Las Vegas, where the first CSI was set. Or the next New York, where CSI:NY was set. Or the next internet, where CSI: Cyber was set. Doesn’t that sound good? It sounds so good to me that I’m officially changing the city’s motto to “Tonganoxie: The Next Miami,” so please destroy anything with the old motto, “Tonganoxie: Like Topeka If It Did Meth.”

Now, I’m sure some of you still have your doubts, so allow me to lay out, problem by problem, how CSI: Tonganoxie will save this hellscape we call a city:

Homelessness — All of the homeless will become paid extras, giving them enough money to purchase a home. Say what you will about Tonganoxie, a 3 bedroom home is only ninety bucks. One hundred if you want it to have walls.

Crime — I’ll tell the show that they can save money by solving Tonganoxie’s actual crimes instead of hiring writers to come up with fake ones. This would also mean the city would have a police force for the first time since 1988 when those feral raccoons scared the sheriff away. Two birds killed with one stone. Just what we need, more dead birds.

All of Our Dead Birds — TV shows are all about realism, so once they realize we have no birds, they’ll buy us new ones so the scenes appear more genuine. I believe all major TV shows have massive bird budgets. I have no facts to back this up, but I believe it.

The Whispers of the City’s Deceased That Fill Our Streets, Driving Us Towards Insanity — Nothing a “Quiet on set!” can’t surely fix.

The Mayor Being Too Damn Handsome — Sadly, the show won’t be able to help here, especially since I plan on demanding to be a star of CSI: Tonganoxie and taking full advantage of the show’s hair and makeup department. I’ll be Special Agent Rick Sandstorm, the rugged ex-Marine who stops criminals by throwing one of his many heavy Nobel Prizes at them.

Does everyone now understand that CSI is the only recourse Tonganoxie has to get off of Wikipedia’s “Cities Bugs Refuse To Live In” page and into the limelight? Wonderful, then I’ll make a post on CSI’s Facebook fanpage requesting they immediately start production on CSI: Tonganoxie and to make sure the bird budget is as high as our city’s mortality rate.

And yes, if this plan fails, I promise I will attempt to solve the city’s woes in a more conventional manner: by getting a Law & Order show set here.