“You’ve got to exert your ownership over the place you live in,
or you won’t have that place.”
Bruce Springsteen, saying what the song “This Land is Your Land” means
in the PBS documentary on Woody Guthrie, "I Ain't Got No Home."
“Do you have to fight about everything?” a friend asked in an unfriendly voice. We were talking about Lindsay’s proposed roundabout at Hermosa and Westwood, adjacent to Jefferson School and half a block from the entrances to the Olive Tree Plaza. “I wish I didn’t,” is what I wish I had answered her.
I’ve got a thing against fighting. Most of us do. I got mine from my small-town mother, who abhors fighting in general and understands the underside of the silent class wars that go on in small towns. Better to go along and be friendly or at least not noticed, because standing out can make you an outsider fast.
But a small handful of Lindsay
residents, most of them lifetime members, got up the gumption to gather
signatures on a petition against this project.
They gathered over 800 names in four days, 300 more people than voted in
the last election. They overcame their
fears about fighting city hall, motivated by concerns about the negative
impacts of this project. I think more of
us need to join them.
At the next City Council meeting,
Jan. 23rd (which begins at 6 p.m.), the staff will address some of
the questions raised at the public hearing on Jan. 9th as well as
some raised at the public information meeting Jan. 4th. The Council then will decide whether to
approve the environmental document prepared by the city planning department, a
requirement of CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act.) This is the only point where citizen input
has to be considered. After that, the
Council is free to approve the plan regardless what the public thinks or feels
about it.
There are genuine defects in the
environmental document. With the aid of
experts in the fields of traffic engineering and design, the San Joaquin Valley
Environmental Defense Center will address technical flaws in the report. What is really absent, however, is public
participation and a public vision of the town’s future.
There’s a song by the Milk Carton
Kids called “The Ash and Clay” which pertains to our situation. I first heard it at the end of a movie about
a rural community that nearly fell prey to a corporation seeking to drill
natural gas wells through their aquifer, potentially contaminating their only
source of water. Many in the community
wanted the leases as a way to survive financially in an area whose economic
base was waning. A few fighters
struggled against both the corporation and the general community’s fears of
repercussions, and I thought the film represented well the struggle of public
resources and community well-being. Some
lines from the song, however, capture this moment perfectly:
“I know we want what’s best for us – I know it has to come at a price;
I also know the trouble that you find when you stop being nice.
You look around you one day; what you once knew didn’t stay….
Come on home before the girls are grown, come on home to fight.”
Come be part of the solution Tuesday
night, Lindsay City Council chambers, 6 p.m.
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Trudy
Wischemann is a small-town researcher who always has a song in her head. You can send her your thoughts about our
roundabouts c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247
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