Georgetown Mayor MaryEllen Kersch and Miss Piggy: Separated at birth?

Last week in “Postmarks,” Georgetown Mayor MaryEllen Kersch excoriated our reporters for the story “Something Stinks,” which discusses Georgetown’s leaking Dove Springs Wastewater Treatment Plant. Kersch claimed that she had not been contacted by the Chronicle for the story — a curious allegation, since she had not only been interviewed, but is quoted both directly and indirectly in the body of the article. Perhaps the mayor or her aides need a quick course in remedial reading.

More puzzling was Kersch’s reiterated charge that the Chronicle photographer who took her picture — an unremarkable, straight-on head shot — was intent on “making [Kersch] look terribly bad.” A few days after her letter appeared, Kersch sent us a posed studio portrait which, she said, “does not portray me quite the Miss Piggy you have represented me to be.”

We were just going to respond, “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s …” Instead, we have reprinted Kersch’s canned photograph herewith, and ask our readers to judge for themselves: Were the Mayor and Miss Piggy separated at birth?

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Contributing writer and former news editor Michael King has reported on city and state politics for the Chronicle since 2000. He was educated at Indiana University and Yale, and from 1977 to 1985 taught at UT-Austin. He has been the editor of the Houston Press and The Texas Observer, and has reported and written widely on education, politics, and cultural subjects.