Swan City Chronicle

Swan City Chronicle The Swan City Chronicle is your number one source for fake news and satire for the City of Lakeland

10/08/2024

City of Lakeland to provide free ratchet straps to homeless in face of Hurricane Milton.

October 8, 2024

Lakeland, FL - The City of Lakeland announced today that they would be providing ratchet straps from several locations in the city for the city's homeless to help protect themselves during Hurricane Milton. A City of Lakeland spokesman announced the program during a press conference at City Hall. "We are expecting historic winds to come through our area, and with not enough shelter space for the city's homeless population, we decided to start this program to help protect this vulnerable population. this will allow the homeless to strap themselves to a stout tree or other fixed object to ride out the storm."

The details of the program were explained as follows: "We will have several vans roaming throughout the city offering ratchet straps to the homeless. The ratchet strap will come with a guide informing the homeless on what types of trees work best to strap yourself to so you have the best chance of not being blown away."

Skeptical reporters questioned why the city didn't just open more shelter space. The response was, "Look, we just spent a ton of money on buying custom tuxedos and gowns for a dozen of the Lake Morton swans so we could have a Bridgerton-themed calendar photo shoot, and that money came out of our emergency response budget. Being strapped to a tree is probably better than nothing."

The city said to look for white vans with "Ratchet Straps" on a green posterboard taped to the side of them to get your Ratchet Strap.

03/21/2024

Community Action Group demands Lakeland rename the Dixieland neighborhood.

March 21st, 2024

Lakeland, FL - A community action group known as Make Lakeland like California (MLC) have forwarded demands today that the City of Lakeland rename the Dixieland Neighborhood.

"Dixieland was named for the Dixie states ... The Dixie states seceded from the Union because they wanted to continue the inhumane institution of slavery." MLC wrote in their letter.

Most commonly, it's associated with the old South and Confederate states. Dixie was considered the land south of the Mason-Dixon line, where slavery was legal, writes Tammy Ingram, a history professor at College of Charleston in South Carolina.

But once the term was used in a minstrel song, its correlation with racist ideologies became crystal clear, according to Ingram. "Most historians would agree that Dixie is a word people understand as obviously a reference not just to a place, but a certain kind of ideology," said Ingram.

The MLC group has turned in a petition signed by thousands of US citizens from around the country demanding the City of Lakeland change the name of this neighborhood. The group suggested the neighborhood be renamed Mulvaneyville after Dylan Mulvaney, a trans icon and leader in the social justice movement for the rights of the LBGTQ+ community.

"With this effort," MLC writes, "The City of Lakeland can make all of us Californians and New Yorkers feel welcome as we flood the area. The road diet was a good start to help slow down traffic and make us feel like we are back in our congested urban cities, but we need more."

Lakeland's mayor was unavailable for comment.

Address

100 W. Main Street
Lakeland, FL
33801

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Swan City Chronicle posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category