I
have a short-handled hammer sitting on my desk, with the receipt from Lindsay’s
Napa Auto Parts underneath it. It’s
holding down more than the receipt: it’s
holding the memory of all the community life I have experienced in that place
of business which, unfortunately, is about to disappear.
I bought it last week when I went to
ask Jose Godoy if the rumor the store is closing was really true. Jose has been ordering auto parts for me for
12 years, and I could tell from his face, even before he finished helping the
customers in front of me, that it was.
“So what can I help you with,
Trudy?” he asked for the hundredth and maybe last time. I had come wishing I could help him, though I
felt helpless enough to cry. For all the
times they have befriended me, he and Joe Lopez (aka “Little Joe”), and their
former boss, Bob Kisling, I am clearly in their debt. “August 31st is our last day,” he
said.
That part of town has become pretty
lifeless in a retail sense, ever since the thrift store, Keys Upholstery and
the body shop moved that once inhabited the brick buildings across the
street. Then the discount goods store to
the south folded up its tent, and the Stamper Motors building burned, leaving a
garish scene of charred devastation for months and months. It’s not hard to see how business on that
block could take a hit. I sadly paid for
my hammer, which will remind me of them every time I see it, and went home.
The next night I found myself at the
Lindsay City Council meeting doing battle with the plan to develop a Dollar
General store on the southeast corner of the roundabout. When they first proposed building it on
Hermosa, it was a block east, on the southwest corner of Hermosa and Mirage. They intended to demolish the former Central
California Citrus Exchange Building, and they’d hired a residential building
appraiser to write a report saying the building was in such horrible condition
it couldn’t be saved, hoping to ward off any protest over the loss of this
historic architectural resource. By the
grace of God we were able to make the folly of that plan clear, and eventually
the building was purchased and restored in four short months. Let us just say that the City staff was
engaged in serious misrepresentation of the building’s true condition in the
effort to get Dollar General located on that street.
The plan then shifted then to the
west side of that block, proposing to demolish the former Flying A station that
had been Ed’s Auto for 3 decades until he sold the business to Miguel Chavez,
who operated it as M & J’s Auto Repair.
We opposed that plan in defense of Miguel’s business and also for the
inadequate planning assessment, including the obvious traffic problems of cars
backed up into the already hard-to-navigate roundabout and 70-foot delivery
trucks blocking traffic on Hermosa. Just
as we prepared to go to court on the matter, Dollar General pulled out. But last week, just two+ years later, after
driving Miguel to move, then dismantling the historic Flying A station and
demolishing the old Pepper’s Market building, they brought the same plan back.
Everyone I tell about this plan says
“That’s not the right place for it.” Instinctively people know what it will do
to traffic, but I think they also are responding to the decentering of
downtown. This plan is an effort to make
Hermosa the new main street, which has the distinct potential to cause the
former downtown brick buildings to be abandoned by businesses trying to survive,
hoping to catch the new wave before they drown.
It’s a perfect example of 1960’s strip mall development that emptied
downtowns across the country, a planning mistake we’ve been trying to overcome
for at least 3, if not 5 decades.
Tuesday night at the council meeting
I proposed modifications to the new/old site plan that would make the parking
lot entrance a little further from the roundabout, and other changes that could
make the roundabout intersection more public-friendly. But I also reminded them of another site that
supposedly was considered when Dollar General first proposed building in our
town.
It’s that now-empty parcel of land
across from Napa’s building, the old Stamper Motors site. The
fire that demolished that building occurred Thanksgiving weekend 2014, about 6
months after Dollar General pulled out of Lindsay, avoiding our lawsuit. Although it took many months for the site to
be cleared of rubble, it has been waiting patiently for redevelopment. And after Tuesday’s council meeting, in the
middle of a good night’s sleep, I realized that’s where the placement of a
Dollar General store would do the most good for reviving the downtown.
I took this fresh-born idea to Jose
a day later and asked “Do you think having that store across the street would
help your business here?” You should
have seen his face. Hope filled the
room. It not only would bring new
customers to an old part of town that could use them, it would also eliminate
the roundabout traffic jams and delivery truck issues we identified Tuesday
night because the site is near the oldest, easiest truck route in town.
So add your prayer to God’s good
grace if you feel the same. It will take
something like an act of Congress to get this project to relocate – but that’s
what I thought when we were trying to keep them from demolishing the Citrus Exchange
Building. That gleaming little building
reminds me to not lose hope. Maybe we
can keep Napa Auto Parts after all.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trudy
Wischemann is a community researcher and rural advocate who writes. Thanks to new councilman Brian Watson for his
interest in building standards and revamping truck routes in town. Send your community redesign ideas to P.O.
Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a
comment below.
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