The Wabash County Crier

The Wabash County Crier All the news that’s fit to exaggerate. A satirical chronicle of Wabash County life, from the council chambers to the coffee shop. (Est.2025)

Founded on the principle that a raised eyebrow is a public service.

The Wabash County Crier – Plan Desk Dispatch“In Which Grass Seed, Liquor Licenses, and the Fate of Our Laws Are All Subj...
12/13/2025

The Wabash County Crier – Plan Desk Dispatch

“In Which Grass Seed, Liquor Licenses, and the Fate of Our Laws Are All Subject to the Same Glacial, Necessary Pace”

By: Tucker Prescott, Staff Writer & Unlicensed Bureaucratic Cartographer

WABASH COUNTY – In a marathon session that proved local government moves with the deliberate speed of a man watching paint dry—and with roughly the same explosive payoff—the Wabash County Plan Commission this week tackled the building blocks of civilization itself. On the agenda: unsafe premises, the very soul of our ordinances, and the existential question of where one may legally park a barbecue trailer.

The meeting opened with a poignant acknowledgement of nature’s tyranny. The unsafe premise order at 25 North Kirk Street was postponed until spring, as the required corrective action (sowing grass seed) is, apparently, a fair-weather friend. The county code, it seems, yields to the almanac.

The central drama, however, was not about property, but prose. The commission wrestled with a $15,000 proposal from Banning Engineering to perform a full “user-friendly” makeover of the county’s zoning ordinances—a document currently so dense it could be used as a foundation for a new manufactured home.

Staff, having already performed what one member called “a good old-fashioned edit” on half the tome, questioned the immediate need. The engineer’s vision—a two-phase plan involving charts, diagrams, and the soothing balm of plain language—was met with the kind of fiscal skepticism usually reserved for requests for gold-plated street signs.

“So, we’re talking about making it… readable?” one commissioner seemed to ponder aloud, as if the concept was both revolutionary and slightly suspect.

In the end, frugality and Midwestern self-reliance won the day. The commission voted to have their own staff continue chiseling away at the legal granite for another three months, punting the expensive proposal down the road. It was a victory for the county wallet and a testament to the belief that any problem, no matter how byzantine, can be solved if you just keep editing it in-house for long enough.

In a flash of bureaucratic genius, staff then announced plans to merge two draft ordinances—one for Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) and one for Data Centers—reasoning that since data centers use big batteries as backups, the laws might as well bunk together. This consolidation, it was noted, would “save months of work.” The room did not erupt in cheers, but the silent, collective thrill was palpable.

The people’s business then commenced. Three special exceptions were granted passage to the Board of Zoning Appeals, each a tiny portrait of the American Dream:

1. A new manufactured home on Lake View Drive, blessed provided it commits to a permanent foundation, a skirt, and the non-negotiable sanctity of a gabled roof.
2. A package liquor store inside a Roann gas station, a request that required clarifying that no, a local “enabling ordinance” was not necessary for the sale of bottled hope.
3. A to-go barbecue trailer off State Road 13, its fate hinging on a traffic plan that wisely funnels pulled-pork seekers onto Washington Street, lest our main artery become clogged with the scent of hickory and impatience.

The meeting concluded with a mandatory update to the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance—a decree from the state DNR that was adopted with the resigned swiftness of a man signing a permission slip for a field trip he never agreed to sponsor.

In the final staff report, it was revealed permit income is significantly up this year, while 41 official complaints remain active. The people, it seems, are building more, and complaining about it at a steady, reliable clip.

Thus, the machinery turns. Laws are merged, grass waits for spring, and the right to sell ribs and rye from the same roadside is carefully, painstakingly preserved. Progress, in Wabash County, is not a sprint. It is a meticulously annotated, specially-excepted, and conditionally-approved crawl.

The Wabash County Crier: Documenting the dry bedrocks upon which our community’s passions occasionally flood.

**The Wabash County Crier**Social Scientists Identify New Subspecies of Civic Complainant; “Cheryl” Ousts “Karen” as Wab...
12/12/2025

**The Wabash County Crier**
Social Scientists Identify New Subspecies of Civic Complainant; “Cheryl” Ousts “Karen” as Wabash’s Apex Nag

By: Tucker Prescott, Staff Writer & Behavioral Onomastician

WABASH, IN – Move over, “Karen.” There’s a new sheriff in Complaint Town, and her nameplate reads “Cheryl.” Following the controversial, council-approved removal of the diseased but “perfectly charming” silver maple from the courthouse lawn, local sociologists have confirmed a seismic shift in the taxonomy of public discontent.

“The ‘Karen’ is a broad-spectrum, retail-oriented predator,” explained Dr. Alistair Finch, a professor of social dynamics at a community college two counties over, who we contacted because he was the only one who answered our email. “She operates in the wild, targeting service workers over coupon policies and mask mandates. The ‘Cheryl’ is a more specialized, institutional grazer. Her habitat is the council chamber. Her diet consists of laminated meeting agendas and the patience of public servants. She doesn’t want a manager; she wants minutes.”

The shift became undeniable last Tuesday during the public comment period of the Wabash Beautification Committee’s “Stump Removal & Future Planning” session. Where observers expected the classic “I’d like to speak to the mayor” cadence of a Karen, they were met instead with the specific, precedent-citing drone of a Cheryl.

“I’ve reviewed Ordinance 87-42B regarding municipal flora,” began Cheryl Crestway, reading from a three-ring binder. “It states removal requires a two-thirds majority of the full council during a regular session. Last Tuesday was a special session. Therefore, procedurally, that maple still legally exists. I have prepared a notarized petition to that effect.”

“That’s a Cheryl,” whispered a paralegal in the back row. “A Karen would just cry. A Cheryl brings footnotes.”

The characteristics of the emergent “Cheryl” are distinct:

· Weaponized Bureaucracy: Where a Karen demands a corporate policy, a Cheryl cites a municipal code amendment from 1992.

· Targeted Fury: Not aimed at a teenaged barista, but at a specific, low-level official like the Assistant Director of Parks & Rec, whose home phone number she seems to know.

· The Signature Move: The “Pre-Submitted Follow-Up Email,” sent before the meeting has even adjourned, containing links to obscure .org websites and the rhetorical question, “Per my public comment…”

“It’s a natural evolution,” said Dr. Finch. “As national discourse coarsens, the hyper-local busybody must specialize to survive. The Karen is a blunt instrument. The Cheryl is a precision tool, calibrated to derail a sewer-rate discussion for forty-five minutes.”

Not everyone is convinced of the distinction, particularly those who consider obstruction a personal brand. Councilman Dave Teflonner—who once filibustered the playground mulch budget for 45 minutes—dismissed the classification as “semantic wokeism and a distraction from tangible waste.”

“This is just a well researched tantrum,” he stated, visibly annoyed that a plan had been developed without his input. “It formalizes nagging. I deal in quantifiable inefficiency. This ‘Cheryl’ creature dilutes the currency of actual criticism.”

He leaned in, as if confiding a strategic masterstroke. “Frankly, if we’re naming a new type of complainer, it should be a ‘Dave.’ We’re the originals. The purists. We were here before the women with binders.”

He then paused, realizing he had not yet registered formal opposition. “And I’m officially against the ‘Cheryl’ designation. The whole concept. Do I have a second?”

For now, the “Cheryl” appears to be Wabash’s dominant subspecies. The evidence is everywhere: in the meticulously highlighted meeting packets left on the commissioner’s windshield, in the ten-point font complaints about the new, “confusingly modern” bin for dog waste at the park, and in the cold, relentless certainty that the system has wronged her, if only she can find the correct subsection to prove it.

The silver maple is gone, reduced to mulch. But from its stump, a new legend grows. So the next time you see a woman in a farm seed company branded sweater, marching toward the Courthouse with a binder thicker than the phone book and the stern, settled demeanor of a judge who has already ruled against you in her mind, know this: you’re not looking at a Karen.

You’re in the presence of a Cheryl. God help us all.

The Wabash County Crier – Capitol Corner“A Polite, Unyielding ‘No’: Indiana Senate Delivers a Hoosier Lesson in Civics: ...
12/12/2025

The Wabash County Crier – Capitol Corner

“A Polite, Unyielding ‘No’: Indiana Senate Delivers a Hoosier Lesson in Civics: ‘We’ll Share Our Tenderloin, But Not at Gunpoint’”

By: Tucker Prescott, Staff Writer & Certified Practitioner of Casserole Diplomacy

INDIANAPOLIS – The great unwritten rule of Indiana—that you can have our casserole dish, our last good wrench, or the shirt off our back, but you will not, under any circumstances, bully us into it—was formally codified into state law Thursday afternoon. In a vote that reverberated from the marble halls of the Statehouse to the vinyl booths of The Fried Egg, the Indiana Senate told Washington’s high-pressure redistricting campaign to take a long walk down a short pier. The final tally: 31-19.

The message, delivered with Midwestern calm and glacial finality, was simple: “We’ll share our tenderloin, but not at gunpoint.”

House Bill 1032, a piece of legislative surgery designed to remove the state’s two remaining Democratic congressional districts like problematic wisdom teeth, didn’t just fail. It was shown the door with a firm handshake and a casserole for the road. Twenty-one Republicans joined every Democrat in the chamber, forming a bipartisan dam against a flood of external pressure that had been building for months.

This was not a debate about map-making. It was a stress test of Hoosier character. And the character held.

The pressure campaign had been less political persuasion and more a coordinated shakedown. President Trump promised MAGA primaries for the disobedient. Governor Mike Braun vowed to “challenge” dissenters. Lt. Governor Micah Beckwith, overseeing the chamber with the serene detachment of a coroner, had spent months lecturing on the need for “backbone.” The subtext was a text, printed in all caps and underlined: Comply, or be retired.

Then came the actual threats. The anonymous, seething phone calls. The “swatting” hoaxes that sent armed police to family homes. The bomb scares that transformed kitchens into crime scenes. Someone had mistaken Indiana for a dark cable drama, forgetting that here, the only thing we like staged is our Christmas nativity.

Faced with this choice—between the wrath of distant power brokers and the trust of the neighbors they buy lawn fertilizer from—a majority of senators chose their neighbors. They chose the people who wave from their porches over the voices screaming from their televisions.

“My duty is to District 38,” said Senator Greg Goode, whose voters would apparently prefer to be swallowed by a sinkhole than be politically married to suburban Indianapolis. It was a refrain of localized loyalty, a polite but unbreakable refusal to be strong-armed. In a culture where a handshake is a contract, the threats weren’t just offensive; they were voiding the warranty.

Back in Wabash, the analysis was swift and grounded. “You don’t point a gun at a man and then ask for a bite of his sandwich,” mused Duane Schuler at Modoc’s, expertly dissecting the situation between sips of coffee. “Even a dog knows that’s poor manners.” Reverend William Shaw saw a higher principle at work. “The Good Book says to turn the other cheek,” he noted. “It says nothing about handing over your whole district map after someone slaps you.”

So, Indiana now stands alone in the political ledger: the first red state to tell the reddest forces in America that some lines cannot be crossed, even if you draw them yourself. The lesson for Washington is as clear as a freshly detailed pickup truck: You can pressure. You can promise. You can threaten.

But if you want something from us, you ask. Politely. And for heaven’s sake, take your boots off at the door.

This is Tucker Prescott, signing off from a state that still believes in common courtesy, common sense, and the uncommon courage it takes to tell a bully his pie is getting cold.

(The Wabash County Crier: Chronicling the news, and the noise, from the home front. Est. 2025. Manners are non-negotiable.)

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