“How many names will it take to stop this thing?” a woman asked me after last week’s Lindsay City Council meeting.
She was referring to the proposed
roundabout at Hermosa and Westwood and the signature-gathering effort she’d
participated in a few weeks before, heroic by this (or any other) community’s
standards. I don’t remember my answer, although
I’m sure it wasn’t encouraging, clouded by my experiences here over the last 7+
years.
Yet, before they’d gathered those
800+ names, there was no hope of stopping this thing. Before individuals started asking questions
about the safety of school children crossing there, the potential increase in
traffic congestion, the high cost and possibly better (and cheaper) solutions,
there was no hope. Not one drop.
When she asked that important
question, we were standing in the dark in front of city hall, the meeting still
going on. The agenda item to approve the
roundabout’s environmental document (called “Initial Study/ Mitigated Negative
Declaration,”) had been put off for the second time, this time without
explanation. Perhaps it was because two
of the five council members, including Mayor Kimball, were absent. Perhaps they expected challenges from outside
experts called to testify by the San Joaquin Valley Environmental Defense
Center, a non-profit in which I participate.
Perhaps they expected a large turnout of community people and wanted to
discourage the effort. Or perhaps they
actually knew the document wasn’t ready and wanted to give staff more time to
improve it. Who knows?
What I know is that those 800+ names
gathered in the first four days of 2018, when most people were just recovering
from the holidays, are what kept the Council from approving the roundabout on
Jan. 9th, and again on Jan. 23rd. Those community members’ questions, requiring
answers in the document, have delayed the normal rubber stamp approval of yet
another one of Lindsay’s Follies. And the persistence of community voices
wanting to be part of the solution is the only thing that’s going keep yet
another community design disaster from happening.
Last week’s Sun-Gazette carried a fiery editorial about Lindsay’s bad
attitude toward repaying TCAG for misused Measure R funds. It made a very important point that should be
remembered now, as the City once again contemplates spending public funds they
consider “free” (meaning they come from some coffers other than the city’s tax
base.) That point is that these “free”
funds are still taxpayer dollars. We all
have contributed, one way or another.
They’re our monies, and in our behalf, conditions have been placed on
their use to ensure they go toward real public improvements, not boondoggles.
The City of Lindsay has not
demonstrated an awareness of that fact, much less respect for it. When one resident questioned the high price
tag of this roundabout, the city’s response was, essentially, “it’s not our
money, don’t worry about that.” We do
worry. We’re offended by extravagant,
wasteful projects in our town (which unfortunately we have in abundance) while
we jounce uncomfortably down our un-mended streets. And it is
our money.
So, friends, look at what we’ve done
so far with our actions, large and small.
There is hope of solving some of the traffic issues at that intersection
if we don’t let up. We must require the
City of Lindsay to respond to the concerns and voices of its residents, now and
in the future. That’s where Hope lives.
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Trudy
Wischemann is a community researcher who writes. You can send her your active hopes c/o P.O.
Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a
comment below.
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