Editor's Note: Series details food-borne nightmare

Mari’s Climb, a three-part series running Thursday through Saturday about a lo­cal wom­an who was par­­alyzed after contracting a food-borne illness, is notable in several re­gards.

Most im­portantly, it couldn’t have been done without the willingness of Mari Tardiff and her husband, Peter, to totally open up about the ordeal that has turned their lives upside down for the past 17 months. They granted Triplicate reporter Nick Grube incredible access into their minds, their hearts and their home.

As a result, Nick’s articles will go beyond recounting what transpired — even though that account is riveting and will be told in detail for the first time. You’ll also know what the Tardiff family was thinking and feeling before and after Mari got sick. This affords a deep understanding of the challenges they have wrestled with ever since the fateful day when Mari opened her refrigerator and found catastrophe.

Interwoven with the Tardiffs’ story will be a broader look at the issues raised by Mari’s illness.

At bigger newspapers, rep­orters would be able to focus all their efforts on a project such as this. That’s not possible at a paper our size; Nick has continued to cover city and county government and myriad other stories while working on this series. Occasionally colleagues have pinch-hit for him, but the fact remains that he has accomplished something noteworthy because of his dedication and his willingness to sweat.

He’s known for months that the Tardiffs deserve nothing less than that.

One of the ongoing stories Nick has continued monitoring involves various efforts to turn back the clock at City Hall. Consider all the nostalgia wrapped up in some of the possible ballot initiatives on the horizon:

• Looking to rekindle a public health debate that mostly played out decades ago, local resident Katherine Kelly wants fluoride taken out of the city water supply.

• Councilwoman Donna Westfall wants to give city voters a chance to reconsider their decision of last November, when they elected Westfall, Charles Slert and Kathryn Murray. Westfall’s recall petitions call for throwing two of those three out of office, and she’s not targeting herself.

• In yet another throwback, Westfall is pushing for a ballot initiative that would ask voters to reset sewer rates back to their 2007 level — before they went up to pay for the sewer plant expansion.

The legal issues surrounding that last proposal, which officials say could result in the city defaulting on loans and possibly declaring bankruptcy, are going to keep Bob Black busy. The city attorney estimates the cost of researching options and possibly litigating the matter at $20,000 to $30,000. That’d be on top of the $6,000 to $8,000 he’ll get for analyzing Westfall’s proposed ballot initiatives and converting them into petitions she can take to the populace.

The attorney is paid $189 an hour for his service to the city. As Nick conducted a recent telephone interview about the sewer rate proposal, he asked Black if the meter was running.

Told that it was, Nick did the fiscally conservative thing and hung up as quickly as possible.