MASON CITY – Mason City councilwoman Janet Solberg risked her life to inhale into the two holes above her mouth the smell of hog shi – er, poop, – and failed miserably.
Solberg – a nomadic insurance agent now working up in Osage – recently described in detail her harrowing journey to Wright county, Iowa, situated less than an hour from Mason City. She sought out the hog-confinement-rich county (home to upwards of 90 hog confinement operations) apparently just to sample a stench – the nauseating, sometimes-vomit-inducing stench of pig feces – that many feel would have greeted the people of Mason City if the Prestage hog slaughterhouse had been built.
Acting on a tip and calling it “research”, Solberg said she “spent many hours” driving to Wright county because “somebody” told her “it just smells down there.”
In a valiant effort to inhale the erotic fumes of hog dung, apparently in an attempt to fire the neurons in that grey matter inside her cranium to spark some form of enlightenment, Solberg drove – for seven hours. That’s 7 hours of criss-crossing a county full of hog confinements, in search of a smell common to Iowa to form some kind of conclusion.
And it was a harrowing journey, she says; quite possibly a life-threatening trek, too.
“I took that trip,” Solberg proudly announced on May 3 to a packed council chambers. “It was very windy. I had a terrible time trying to keep my vehicle on the road. But I was bound and determined to get to Wright county and drive around Wright county because it was so bad.”
Solberg may have been quite the sight. Whistling through the 40-miles-per-hour winds of the Wright county countryside, perhaps with her head slung out the driver’s window like a Golden Retriever, gripping and pulling her steering wheel with all her might, nostrils flared, inviting and beckoning poo fragrances to waft inside. As nary a whiff of fecal-tainted air bristled past the thick, black hairs inside her nose cavities, it may not be too much to imagine she cackled in exasperation to herself “Where is the stink?! The racists lied again!”
Alas, Solberg was foiled in the quest “somebody” sent her on.
“I – did – not – smell – a – thing,” she said with great emphasis. “For seven hours in 40 mile an hour winds. Nothing.”
It might just be that as they heard Solberg enunciate those words, “somebody” snickered to themselves.
Solberg also briefly admitted she drove to Washington county, Iowa, to try to get a whiff. Washington county is south of Iowa City and up to 3 hours away from Mason City. She came up empty there, too, she said.
The people of her Ward will decide. Your opinions are interesting but don’t count.
Pigs don’t know pigs stink.
MATT….Keep up the good work…most of your critics are unable to put i before e, etc., etc. Keep up the good work…yours it what Mason City has needed for a long time!.
thank you Al
She is a total embarrassment ! So far up the mayor’s behind she can smell that shit !
She should try that little excursion on a hot, humid, summer day when there’s no wind…preferably when there’s a little bit of fog or haze. The smell hangs close to the ground and with no breeze, it stays. I’m on an acreage in northeast Hamilton County. Fifty feet from my house to the south, directly on the other side of our driveway, is where the “stuff” from the CAFO south of us gets dumped, every spring and fall. This year, of course, it happened on THE day that the wind switched to the south. Couldn’t go outside for a week without my eyes burning, and sure as heck couldn’t do yard work or hang clothes on line. Oh, but I forgot…they “knife it in”, so there’s no odor…..
Why don’t you move?
I am no expert but one would think it might be kind of hard to sell your house and move when the stench is so bad it burns your eyes when you go outside. Just a thought
In reply to “why don’t you move?” — First of all, WE were here first, before the CAFOs were built all around us. What about MY rights here? If you’re going to give me a reasonable offer on this place I might consider moving. Are you willing to do that?
Why would I want to live where it stinks? It was just a question.
are you going to give the money from the sale to the plains indians? They were technically “here first”.
Shut up. Peter
not peter. just pointing out how childish “I was here first” is depending on which way you argue that point.
Why does her hair look like a chickens ass? Ma’am what big goofy hair ya got there…. Is it me or does she have a shitty – gross look on her face Everytime she makes a remark..
She thinks she’s better than everyone else. ..
Mrs piggy herself
she was so strongly apposed to the diesel fuel plant and did everything there was to prevent it cause it was in her neighborhood so why was she so strongly for the pig shit plant??? the smell would certainly be in her neighborhood with a south wind. its bad enough we have to listen to the noise from the alcohol plant all day and all night and smell the soybean plant. oh well the hog sit plant might have covered them both up
Can’t smell your own S%@!
Great story and so cleverly written. Solberg….7 hours driving…
(Eye roll)
Wow, she is the worst! Such an embarrassment to our city.
IT’S IN HER WARD..spellcheck
When freedom fuels was closed from a fire for, 1 & 1/2 years, someone remarked at a council meeting they had reopened, she said, “I didn’t know they closed”..it’s it’s not her ward..
What a piece of shit this news source is. Drop the word “news” out of your headline and just leave the word “entertainment”. This publication reminds me of the National Enquirer. Totally amateur and poorly written. And soon to have a slander lawsuit filed against them. Maybe someday Matt your can write and report for the National Lampoon. So now we know where all the kooks and racist people hang out.
Buzz’s comment–I love it!
She’s a disgrace. If she works in Osage, smells of processing plants should be well known to her. I was homeless and woke to the smell of chicken blood daily. You do smell this crap.
I AM ASHAMED OF THIS WOMAN…looking so hard for something she KNOWS is there!
All she had to do was drive out to Primrose ave., to the Mennonite confinements, and stand downwind…there’s a stench of death and shit mixed together there that’s absolutely inhumane!
This particular farmer has 4 farms now, 3 of which have hogs on them…one of which cannot be UNCONTAMINATED with a virus that KILLS hogs…thus the death smells on Primrose there.
If she’d just drive past that one…she’d remember that smell over by mason city and places west!
Of course she didn’t smell anything, all the pits have been pumped. The manure injected or worked in to the ground. Wait a couple months when they start to fill up and ferment THATS when it stinks. Fresh manure doesn’t smell bad its when its stored and makes gases it is very bad for everything.
I take issue with and then sometimes agree with the other 5 council members. For the most part they do a fairly decent job, not great, but decent.
But Janet Solberg has got to be the most ignorant & clueless person ever elected to the MC council.
What the hell is wrong with you 4th ward people?
Why in the hell do even think of voting for that Solberg buffoon?
She is nothing more than a walking, talking clusterf%^k.
Lots of us have been guilty of indifference to local politics. If anything good has come out of this Prestage ordeal, it would be the raised awareness about the personal qualities of Solberg, and our moral obligation to set things right come reelection.
My people tell me the smell of something rotten and crappy, cleared up as soon as she left Wright County. Coincidence? I think not.
OINK OINK!
Well said, many people are thinking the same thing about her.
What the hell does driving around the country have to do with smell from a packing house. Packing plants are not housing tens of thousands of gallons of manure in them, that’s plain ass idiotic. If you want to know go to the city’s that have plants or walk through a sale barn. I’ve been in every plant in ten states and it does not smell near as strong as a cereal plant. The city council members and those citizens worried must all have the mentality that because the smell is so pungent that the pork chop must taste like shit. I pity the logic she possess and she’s making decisions for your community, that’s f**ked up.
Not news. Tabloid trash. You can do better than this Matt.
It’s news if I write it and you read it. Glad you enjoyed the story.
What school did you go to? I would like to help people steer clear of it. Do you think it’s too late for you to ask for a refund?
First-ever comment on NIT from this one, folks. Welcome! I graduated from the University of Iowa.
I didn’t know they graded on a curve! Hope you didn’t think you needed a college degree to post rumors, opinion, and mugshots on a wordpress site.
Well Big Kev was graded on a curve and he does just fine. He gets the babes and the money!
She’s too old for that hair style.
Solberg will not respond to her people in the fourth ward, I live in the foutth ward, and have tried to call her and her voice box is always fill
Smart cookie she probably was down wind of them. I think if I was her I would just quit talking.
She’s a liar! And why would you spent 7 hours in wright county. I worked in the county for 2 years and the stench is bad most days. A lot of times these confinements set their dead hogs outside for many days. She is just a flat our liar and needs to resign from her place as a council women.
I drive on I 35 daily to Ames and most every day going and coming by those places it totally about makes you want to throw up!! Of course it does depend on wind direction also….