On Betterment......

I woke up Sunday morning with “People for a Better Lindsay” on a banner in my mind.  At first I thought it was an organizing instinct getting the better of me.  Then I realized it was a verbal challenge:  define “better.”

For me, Lindsay would be better if the planners left it alone.  I think there are many who feel like I do, that many “improvements” made over the past 10 years have actually degraded something that was precious.  There are many, however, who welcome the changes and feel their lives improved by them.  I do not mean to disparage that, or to sit blind to the fact that some changes were needed for economic reasons.  There’s some tragedy in that these developments have made us economically weaker.

Reviewing documents from the hospital district files, I discovered a moment where the planners took over that public board.  It was in a memorandum of understanding crafted in 2001 between the newly-formed redevelopment agency and the hospital district after the hospital closed, when the district’s purpose had become hazy and thus its future.  “We’ll pool our resources and both become stronger in seeking solutions for the wellness of the Greater Lindsay community,” is the surface message of the document.  Who would have known then that the end of the park began there?  I doubt that the hospital’s board members did.

And what about the essential goal of all these improvements, which was to make Lindsay attractive to middle-class people who would then want to move here?  Even if it had worked, would it have made Lindsay better?  Perhaps it would have for the real estate developers who were in bed with the planners (as they usually are.)  But what about for those who live here?  How would increasing pressure on land values have improved the condition of farmworkers, whose life vulnerabilities have been used to score so much of the state and federal money for the improvements?

As I scan people’s groceries at RN Market, I look at the middle class people who live here now, glad to be getting to know them better.  Many are people whose parents were farmworkers who got a toe-hold on the American dream here because citrus towns offer winter work.  

The stability of near-year-round seasonal work, combined with the sweat and blood of those parents providing for their families, produced the wonderful population of my neighbors, who coach the youth of this town in their football and soccer leagues, girls basketball, Lindsay’s Skimmers.  Who run businesses that feed us and keep our appliances and plumbing running, our air conditioners serviced and our cars smogged, who sell us insurance and take our money at the bank.  Those who grew up here and stayed are living testimony to the value of immigrants and the importance of supporting their efforts to progress.

For me, a better Lindsay would be focused on growing our middle class, not importing them.