Last month the City of Eureka announced that it would be applying for a reality show — namely, “Home Town Takeover,” a six-episode special event scheduled to air on HGTV next year. 

Towns, villages and small cities across the country are competing to be chosen for “a whole-town overhaul” courtesy of a renovation team led by Ben and Erin Napier, hosts of the popular home renovation show “Home Town.” (Crescent City applied, too. Watch their video here.)

Today, Eureka published the video that will be part of its application on Facebook. Check it out above.

We at LoCO think it’s pretty damn good, this video! Hooray Eureka! Let’s win this thing!

Buuuuut … well, let’s just hope HGTV doesn’t employ a team of rigorous fact-checkers ready to disqualify any city that fudges the facts. Here’s why:

The narrator of the video claims, “Eureka is the largest city on the nine-hour drive between San Francisco and Portland.”  

Google maps.

Mmm, no. For one thing, if you’re driving from San Francisco to Portland and hoping to take the fastest route, then you’ll obviously want to take the I-5. But even if you do you won’t make it in nine hours without serious risk of some speeding tickets. 

Of course, everyone knows the I-5 is a mind-numbingly boring gauntlet of triple-trailer semis and speeding assholes trying to make it from San Francisco to Portland in under nine hours, so the better choice is to take a coastal route for at least part of the trip.

Trouble is, any route that takes you through Eureka will also take you even longer than the dreaded I-5. And unless you take some absurd detours it will also take you through cities significantly larger than Eureka. (Hello there, Santa Rosa.)

In short, there’s simply no way that “Eureka is the largest city on the nine-hour drive between San Francisco and Portland.” Sorry.

One more quibble: The narrator goes on to say, “[F]un fact: [Eureka] also claims the superlative for the westernmost city in the 48 contiguous United States.”

That may be fun, but it’s not a fact. While Eureka once officially nicknamed itself “The Queen City of the Ultimate West,” its longitude is 124.09 degrees west. Port Orford, Ore., is beyond that (124.51 degrees west), as are Brookings (124.29) and Coos Bay (124.22).

According to the absolutely-never-incorrect Wikipedia, the best Eureka can claim is “westernmost city of more than 25,000 residents in the 48 contiguous states.” Which doesn’t have a very impressive ring to it. 

But, hey, these are minor quibbles! All in all we say this video makes a strong case for the Humboldt County seat, and we’d love to see the HGTV crew come spruce up some of our crumbling Victorian beauties. Choose Eureka!