Gator-mania, week three

Councilwoman Janice Hahn is getting all territorial about the reclusive reptile that is putting Machado Lake and Harbor City on the pop culture map. A Florida theme park has come to town, promising to catch and take home the alligator that The Guardian dubbed Harbor Park Harry. Hahn, however, says the city might want to intervene and keep the creature here. Uh, how about catching it first? The Breeze reported today, meanwhile, on the growing celebrity status of Jay Young, the yahoo from Colorado who rode into Dodge promising to clean up our town's gator (or caiman) problem. He left empty handed, but that hasn't stopped the national media from embracing him.

"Agents are calling me," Young confirmed Monday in a telephone interview from Colorado.

Will he bite?

"I'm thinking about it," he said. "We're planning some meetings."

Predicts Ron Berkowitz, the city Rec and Parks official who hired Young: "We'll never see him again." (And yes, I know it hasn't literally been three weeks since we all first heard of the Monster of Machado Lake. Just feels like it...)