Published in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette, July 17, 2013
It wasn't pretty, and it wasn't smart, but at the July 9th council meeting, the City of Lindsay tried to sneak through its plan to plaster a Dollar General store on the corner of Hermosa and Elmwood, at the edge of the downtown, on the curve of the Roundabout. With no prior notice, the item appeared on the agenda posted July 5th, the Friday of a four-day holiday weekend while most people were celebrating our liberties and blowing off fireworks. Clearly they hoped no one was watching. Luckily someone gave me a heads-up.
This plan will demolish the old Shell station that became Ed's Auto, a much-loved business that served people of this community for forty years. When Ed (once known as "Fast Eddie") Schapansky retired, he turned his business over to his top mechanic, Miguel Chavez, who renamed it M & J Auto Repair. For six years Miguel has built his clientele around the City's "renewal" of that intersection which impaired access to his business. His business thrives anyway because he is a good mechanic and a fine person.
Miguel had no idea this was happening until he came through my line at the market Sunday afternoon with his beautiful son, both clearly refreshed from the holiday. I hated delivering the urgent bad news, but clearly Grace had guided him there at that moment, so I didn't hesitate. At my urging Miguel brought his entire family to the council meeting to testify to the impacts of this plan. Miguel spoke about the importance of that location to his business, the sole source of income for his entire family. "This is a family business," their son added "I help my dad, my mom does the books ..." Mrs. Chavez asked in clear Spanish why another of the many possible locations had not been chosen.
Another family business owner, Al Hussain of Quality Mart at the Valero station across the street, spoke on behalf of all the mini-mart owners in town. "There are 15 of us," he said. "If Dollar General sells beer and liquor, they will put us all out of business. Are not 15 businesses worth more than the 12 jobs this project will create?" The Dollar General in Porterville sells beer and liquor.
Other people spoke as well. Those who stand to gain financially (Leonor Serna, Job Denni) understandably spoke on behalf of the plan and the invisible vision behind it. But the questions I raised on behalf of the community the last time, when they wanted to demolish the Citrus Exchange building, still stand and have not been answered. They are the questions people raise whenever the topic comes up.
Do we need a Dollar General store? Some will say yes, some say no. The point is that the question has not been examined by the City staff, who tell the Council we don't have the right to ask it. But we do. Under CEQA, a community has the right to do an economic impact analysis. CEQA is a tool for protecting community environments from predatory development, but our city staff regularly circumvents that law to protect its own interests in developing projects without community input. On the first DG plan they filed a negative declaration to satisfy the CEQA regulations; this time they declared it exempt from CEQA to avoid having to publish a public notice in the newspapers. That's the dirty card trick that allows us to challenge the legality of the Council's approval.
Is that the right location? Community members are much more in agreement that it is not. Their reasons range from traffic congestion and dangers created by the Roundabout to potential impacts on downtown businesses which will leave more empty buildings there, as well as the lost opportunity to fill a currently empty building like the old Lindsay Foods site (so perfect, plenty of parking!) or the now-empty Sprouse-Reitz space in the SaveMart plaza. These are questions raised by some of the citizens in the standing-room-only crowd at the council meeting, some coming to the microphone for the first time. Unfortunately there has never been an answer.
Because of these comments the Council actually had to deliberate publicly on their reasons for voting. Councilman Mecum, voting no, said he couldn't sleep well knowing this plan would hurt existing businesses. Councilwoman Kimball, voting yes, said she couldn't sleep well knowing we'd be telling property owners who they could or couldn't sell to. Councilwoman Sanchez, voting no, said she didn't think it was a good project for the community. Councilman Salinas, voting yes, gave the property rights argument some new twists. Mayor Padilla voted yes for property rights over the community's interests: 3-2, motion passes.
It sounds like a defeat for my point of view, but it was not. In my mind the discussion was a beginning, not an ending. Perhaps this time their sneaky timing backfired, like a bad bottle rocket that blew up in their face. Perhaps this time, after revisiting our patriot dreams only days before, the remembered importance of our liberties moved us to the microphone, moved us to ask questions. And maybe that experience will lead to more questioning and the creation of a more open government in the not-so-distant future.
Wave the flag for real, good People. This is our town.
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Trudy Wischemann is a rural advocate who writes. You can send her your ideas for the City's reform % P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.
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