Really, the City of Forney caught Bieber Fever, that's all. They put up a street sign at the intersection of Main and Elm Streets, representing the temporary name change of Main to Justin Bieber Way -- as decreed by 11-year-old "Mayor for the Day" Caroline Gonzalez -- and then, they fell for the Canadian pop sensation. They liked what he gave them. They liked the fact that, by putting his name up in their city, they were all over the news.
Then they got greedy. The name change was only supposed to be temporary; the street was only to be called Justin Bieber Way on Tuesday. The sign was to be taken down on Wednesday morning.
It wasn't.
"We had so much of a response -- people were taking pictures of the street sign all day long yesterday -- that we decided to keep it up through the weekend," says city manager Brian Brooks of the $20 sign bearing Bieber's name.
Someone else had other desires. Overnight last night, in the wee hours, the sign was stolen.
What's crazy is that, during a meeting with city directors yesterday morning, Brooks says that the possibility of the sign getting stolen was brought up. It was determined, however, that a normal patrol by the street sign would prevent such an incident.
It did not.
And, so, for the time being, there is no sign at the intersection of Main Street/Justin Bieber Way and Elm Street in Forney.
That will change come 3 p.m. today, though, when the city replaces the Bieber sign with -- you guessed it -- another Bieber sign, this one donated by the people behind Dallas Lite and Barricade.
The new sign, Brooks says, will hopefully remain up through the weekend. This time around, though, the city won't be taking any chances.
"What we've thought about doing," Brooks says, "is taking the sign down at night. No Justin Bieber fan should be up past 9 p.m. anyway."
Or so he hopes. He can't really be sure, he admits. After 12 years in local government, Brooks says that this whole Justin Bieber Way deal in Forney is easily the oddest experience he's gone through.
"Oh yeah," he says with something of bemused sigh. "This has got to be the strangest thing I've ever dealt with in my career."
