Fall Back. We've re-set our clocks and our lives to the sun's shorter light. It's the eleventh month of the year. Now we get to watch the natural world prepare itself for the short slumber of California's winter.
Looking back to this year's beginning, time has flown but not from having fun. In January, I was begging the new mayor of Lindsay and reconstituted City Council to restore the language on public participation in council meetings that the city manager had removed from the agenda materials the year before without any action by the Council. It seemed a no-brainer to me, but obviously I don't know everything.
In the second month came the resolutions to approve two competing national chain stores, Family Dollar and Dollar General, which are actually more like mini-WalMarts than true dollar stores. Both proposals were for new buildings at the edges of our two commercial centers (downtown and Olivewood Plaza) and would have subtracted trade from existing local businesses as well as adding some. But the City never did that math and promoted both as boons to the community, not evaluating the costs in terms of jobs, goods and services, traffic impacts, or the loss of community landmarks, much less simple economics. It was as if Scot Townsend had never left office: same old song and dance.
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| The Central California Citrus Exchange Building, part of the giant Sunkist Growers Cooperative that brought enormous economic well-being to the community of Lindsay and other towns in the citrus belt of the San Joaquin Valley. Designed and built by Southern California architect W.W. Ache in 1933, the building qualifies for the national historic registry on all three criteria. The building was in use by the CCC Exchange through 2005. It has been well maintained and little altered from its original design. |
Readers of this column know the wrestling match that followed: our challenge over the historic value of the Central California Citrus Exchange building that would have been demolished by the Dollar General project; Dollar General's supposed withdrawal and the Council's failure to approve it, followed two months later by its sudden reappearance and slam-dunk approval after the Fourth of July weekend. This time, instead of demolishing an historic, architecturally beautiful landmark, the project demolished a business, without warning to its owner or compensation for his loss, without recognition of the community integrity it represents or the community value of having it in that location. Without respect.
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| The former "Ed's Auto," now M&J Auto Repair at the corner of Elmwood and Hermosa in Lindsay. This site has been an auto repair shop for nearly 40 years serving all segments of the community. Its location downtown is convenient for those working in businesses there as well as for people living in the nearby neighborhoods. |
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| Miguel Chavez, owner of M&J Auto Repair, a great mechanic and an even greater family man whose wife and son help him in this business. |
In the name of that blatant disrespect for the community's businesses as well as the laws governing cities, at the end of the ninth month we filed suit against the City for approving Dollar General II without adequate attention to economic impacts and traffic congestion. We included the 24-year failure to implement the historic resources section of the General Plan, and the fact that public participation in council meetings has been inordinately limited to the three minute public comment period. The media reported that the threat of litigation caused Dollar General to withdraw its proposal, which may be correct. But it didn't cause the City to reconsider its approval of DGII, or rethink their approach to public participation much less how to preserve our town's historic buildings. Instead, they have chosen to go to court.
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| Miguel's window in the ninth month of 2013. |
And Miguel Chavez is moving his auto repair business to the old site of Martin's Tire, across from the former Lindsay Foods site which would have been perfect for Dollar General (or Family Dollar, for that matter, whose plans are currently stalled by the City's "conversation" with CalTrans over the relocation of Highway 65.) "The city doesn't want me here," Miguel said when I told him about Dollar General's withdrawal. "They told me the zoning doesn't permit me to work on cars outside," under the awning of the former Shell Station where Ed Schapansky worked on cars for 30 years before Miguel took over the business. "And they told me if I bought the place, I'd be liable for the contaminated soil beneath the blacktop. So I'm going to move as soon as that place is ready," he said, no matter the costs.
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| The future home of M&J Auto Repair. There is no comparison to the current site in terms of location, quality of facility or visual appeal. |
We can pray the new site works for him better than the old, that he can make up these moving costs without killing himself doing it. We can do more than pray: we can go support his business. And we can start to lean on the City for the changes required to not let this happen again.
But there's one more thing. Twelve months from now we can elect two new council members, perhaps changing the balance of deciding votes. Time flies regardless, so let's make it work for us.
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Trudy Wischemann is an untimely poet and prophet-seeker who writes in Lindsay. You can write to her at P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.
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