Get Agenda, Insert Typos, Phone It In

Ignore the bad head and go straight to the Staff Writer's first two sentences: Tonight the Arcadia City Council will give a first reading to an ordinance regulating temporary sales of motor vehicle. The ordinance is to specifies regulations applicable to temporary sales of motor vehicles because of the impact on surrounding land uses.

It's not the typos that dismay (but see below, anyway). It's not the prepared agenda decked out with a "staff writer" byline that appalls. It's not the legalese copied straight from the government e-mail that makes us sigh, or even the writer-induced syntactical chaos. It's not even the issue -- which has generated what passes for controversy in these parts -- presented without attribution, without a comment from anyone affected, and without evidence of research or background.

What makes me sad is people who don't learn from their mistakes. Two weeks ago, John Lawhorne wrote about a proposed ordinance and erroneously called it an ordinance. The newspaper ran a nice correction, pointing out a proposed or draft ordinance isn't an ordinance until the powers that be vote, count the votes and find a majority in favor.

Here we go again. It's too much trouble to type the word "proposed." Who cares? Not DeSoto Sun editors and staff stenographers.