The Missing Trees

Published June 13, 2018 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette


     “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” was running through my head as I sat down to write this column.  I think it was being broadcast telepathically from the Lindsay Olive Bowl, our historic sports complex that hosted adult baseball teams in the past as well as youths’, and high school football games as well.  The olive-shaped scoreboard, donated by Lindsay High School Students and Lindsay Ripe Olive Company, still has places to record the downs and quarters as well as the runs and innings.  Going there, even when it is empty of people, provides an experience of continuity, being part of Lindsay’s past better days as well as the better ones we hope will come.

           

     But if you’ve been following the plans for Lindsay with even a half-open eye, you’ll know they’re not coming soon.  We have at least two strikes against us, if not three:  the half-baked plans put forward by staff and the lack of critical questioning and oversight of those plans by the council.  The third strike is we, the people, who do not believe we can influence this process and just stay out of it.

           

     I think the reason the Olive Bowl was singing to me is the memory of the missing trees at the Lindsay Public Golf Course, which was closed in February to prepare for its renovation into soccer fields.  The grant money that had been secured to renovate the Olive Bowl was moved from that purpose to the purpose of demolishing the golf course in order to build five new soccer fields (at the proposal of staff, the approval of Council, and the excitement of the youth soccer teams who stood to benefit from these new fields.)  The coaches of the baseball teams got the word a little late, and so were not able to muster their youthful players to be at the council meeting where this approval occurred.

           

     The reason given for this money-shifting was that the Olive Bowl’s renovation plans had been stymied by the death of the engineer in charge, and with the non-extendable deadline of June 30 for the expenditure of these funds, the money would be rescued from potential loss by diverting them to this more easily completed project.

           

     Since February I have been watching the golf course with an anxious eye, hoping for a reprieve.  Even as the grass grew long this spring, golfers were going out and hitting balls in the rough, so to speak.  The leaves on the trees returned, and the landscape moved from being a well-trimmed park to a sortof nature preserve, still lovely, green-treed open space.

           

     Then the grass turned yellow, and sometime in late May while I was travelling, they cut the trees.  They didn’t cut them down, mind you:  they just beheaded them, cut off all their limbs, and left 10’ tall stumps standing bare-naked in the sun.  It looks brutal to me.

           

     And now there are less than three weeks to go before that money has to be spent to make soccer fields for all those excited youth.  When the kids thought of having soccer fields there, did they imagine the trees remaining to provide shade for the parents on the sidelines?  Did the coaches realize the city intended to turn a simple paradise into yet another shadeless desert in summer?  Did any of us?

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Trudy Wischemann is a pained tree-hugger who lives in Lindsay.  You can send her your thoughts c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.

           

Unhidden Figures

Published Mar. 21, 2018 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette


     A miracle occurred at last Tuesday’s Lindsay City Council meeting:  people came.   The largest percentage of them came because there were issues on the agenda which they wanted to address:  two resolutions asking for official support from our town, one on DACA, the other on moving Eagle Mountain Casino from the Tule River Reservation to some land the tribe owns near the Porterville airport.

           

     A third group, however, came to address an issue from the Council’s previous agenda Feb. 27^th:  the transfer of grant monies from the project of upgrading the town’s baseball facility, the Olive Bowl, to the new project of demolishing the city’s public golf course and building new soccer fields there.  Eight teenaged girls stood behind their little league coach as he demonstrated their need for community support.

           

     The overall effect, in my mind, was to disprove a theory long held by many in this town:  that no one cares.  Often here in Lindsay, as in small towns everywhere, people are reluctant to express their opinions, especially if their opinions appear to be at odds with the powers that be.  They can be reluctant to seem different, which is more difficult in small towns than in urban centers.  But when things matter, when things really matter, people will – and do – step up to the plate.

           

     Councilwoman Laura Cortes brought the DACA resolution to the Council’s agenda.  It says, in part, that “the City Council of the City of Lindsay stands in strong support” of the thousands of people affected by the pending loss of the DACA program.  It also urges “the swift passage of (S. 1615) and (H.R. 3440) Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act - of 2017. . .a bill that will allow thousands of young students that have lived in the United States for years, and call it home, to realize their education dream and give them a path to legalizing their immigration status.”

           

     As our newest council member, Cortes’ action was bold.  It was rewarded by passage 4:0, with Councilman Watson abstaining.  But the real value was seeing the youth of this town step forward to the microphone and tell the Council what it wanted:  relief for themselves and their neighbors from the terrible prospects imposed by the current U.S. ICE deportation efforts.  I was in awe of them and their leaders.  Our teenagers were every bit as eloquent in speaking up for the realities of their lives as those students from Parkland have been about theirs.  Their issue is no less threatening.

           

     Friday I stopped by the library and found a book at the front desk that was offered to me for free, part of a program to generate interest in reading.  It was Tim Z. Hernandez’ book All They Will Call You, published last year, about his project getting names on the graves of the unnamed deportees killed in a plane crash in 1948.  The crash – and the namelessness of the deportees – was memorialized in a song by Woody Guthrie titled “Plane Wreck Over Los Gatos Canyon” but known by many simply as “Deportee.”  The last two lines of the chorus say “You won’t have your names when you ride the big airplane.  All they will call you will be Deportee.”

           

     As I took the book home, I realized that one of the beauties of this current movement to staunch deportations is that we are working, as a people, to protect against this namelessness, this loss of identity.  With students like ours, we are likely to succeed at least at that.

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Trudy Wischemann is a writer who always has a song in her head.  You can send her your concerns about Lindsay or other small towns c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.

Unite & Conquer

Published March 7, 2018 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette
 
     It’s been a sad week in Lake Woebehere, my adopted home town.  Last Tuesday, Feb. 27^th, the City Council voted 3:2 to demolish the historic public resource known as the Lindsay City Golf Course and build 5 soccer fields on the property instead.  We’ll be seeing bulldozers there very shortly.

           

     At the Council meeting there were 20 or 30-some little soccer players shepherded there by a few mothers and their coach, Mr. Faustino Perez.  The three women who spoke on behalf of the soccer players are employees of the City, and they spoke confidently of the need for greater access to playing fields for this burgeoning youth activity.  Mr. Perez followed their comments with a description of the hardships these youth were experiencing for lack of places to play.

           

     Four adults representing Lindsay’s youth baseball teams were also there, because the money for “repurposing” of the golf course is coming from a grant recently acquired to upgrade the Olive Bowl (our historic baseball facility) and Kaku Park, an adjoining triangle of ground with facilities for children in an area where there is very little for children to do.  These coaches were not as prepared to defend against the “repurposing” of the money granted to support their efforts; their day jobs don’t give them direct access to the powers that be.

           

     There were some silent majority types sitting in the audience, too, adults from the boomer generation for whom the destruction of the golf course feels like destruction of their personal history, not to mention golfing future.  “I feel like crying,” one woman said to me after the meeting, though she did not address the council when it came time to speak.  When the bulldozers arrive, I imagine a lot of us will feel like crying.

           

     With the little soccer players standing there behind the podium, it was hard to question the rightness of Bill Zigler’s decision to propose this change, promoting one sport (soccer) to the detriment of two (baseball and golf.)  Councilman Velasquez did, however, providing multiple reasons why destruction of the golf course should be reconsidered, and lodged one of the two No votes.  Mayor Kimball also expressed regret about the loss of this public resource and concern about the hastiness of the decision, casting the second No.  Councilman Salinas argued that at least it will remain open space rather than being developed with housing, while Councilman Watkins expressed hope for the resurrection of active use of this public land (he golfs in Exeter.)  Councilwoman Cortes was adamant about the importance of supporting soccer in this community.

           

     I agree with all of them, but I question whether this decision is fiscally responsible.  The City owns a facility with two indoor soccer fields, which were built entirely with public funds that were garnered on behalf of serving the underserved.  Building new soccer fields which will compete with our indoor facility, while continuing to neglect the baseball park (long overdue for maintenance) and demolishing one of the last remaining public golf courses in Tulare County, seems like just another bad decision in a long stream of bad planning.

           

     But to challenge this decision, it will take the residents coming together to support all the recreational needs of the community.  It will require us to take back our voice as the represented public, and tell them what we really need:  a city government responsive to its citizens, not the bulldozers.

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Trudy Wischemann is a bulldozer-averse rural advocate who writes.  You can send her your uniting thoughts c/o P. O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.

The Hope of Action

Published  in edited form Jan. 30, 2018 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette
 
     “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. 9^th, and again on Jan. 23^rd.  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.

Come On Home

Published in edited form Jan. 17, 2018 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette


“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. 23^rd (which begins at 6 p.m.), the staff will address some of the questions raised at the public hearing on Jan. 9^th as well as some raised at the public information meeting Jan. 4^th.  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

People Care

Published Jan. 10, 2018 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette


     There was a meeting at Lindsay’s Wellness Center last Thursday about the proposed roundabout at Hermosa and Westwood.  It was sponsored by the City of Lindsay and attended by 30-50 townspeople.  Though not a city council meeting, the two newest council members attended: Laura Cortes and Brian Watson, supporting staff members Bill Zigler, Mike Camarena and Neyva Amescua.

           

     A small handful of women, however, brought evidence that more people here really care about the future of our town:  815 names had been gathered on a petition against the roundabout over a span of four days.  That is spectacular evidence of both the commitment of the signature gatherers and the concerns of the public at large.

           

     I find it hard to imagine a roundabout there, much less that it will improve traffic congestion at the times when students are coming or going.  The roundabout will reduce the number of on-street parking places which are highly sought at certain hours and normally overtaxed.  It will reduce the four lanes of Hermosa to two, funneling a high-energy stream of traffic coming into our town right at the point where the entrances/exits of the shopping center add some excitement already.  And if it’s anything like the roundabout we already have (God forbid), attempts to avoid that intersection will further confound drivers trying to get into or out of town.

           

     The meeting, however, demonstrated another real circulation problem chronic in Lindsay, which I will lay directly at the feet of the city manager.  Information flows only one direction here, from his desk down.  Despite his attempts to look civic-minded, information coming up from “below,” from the residents of this community, is unwelcome and rebuffed the moment it appears to be in conflict with what he “knows.”

           

     He went to a great deal of effort Thursday night to establish that what he “knows” (i.e., that a roundabout is the best solution to the traffic congestion at that intersection) is supported by outside experts, in particular two community development geniuses who came in 2006 and gave their on-the-spot advice that a roundabout is what we need.  Reading their 2-page resumes in English, which councilwoman Cortes translated into Spanish, consumed 15 minutes of the meeting.

           

     Yet when questioned by one of the residents who came, a man who asked simply for a cost comparison between the roundabout and a four-way traffic signal, our expert city manager shut down.  Although that information was easily at hand, he replied “I’m not going to answer that question now.  This meeting is for information only.  We’re writing down your questions and we’ll answer them individually after the meeting.”

           

     The difference in costs of alternative solutions sounds to me like pretty simple information to offer at such a meeting.  Yet he stonewalled, and I believe it’s because he really does not want to, or cannot handle the ideas of other people.  At one point folks became so aggravated by this response, one of the women who had gathered signatures asked “Is this thing set in stone?  Are you wasting our time here?”  Then she added “How many names will it take to stop this thing?”  Her question went unanswered.

           

     People in Lindsay really do care about our town.  That caring is a resource that should be nurtured and incorporated into the development of our future.  There are planning methodologies that recognize this powerful component of community design, and I think we should bring some of those experts to town.

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Trudy Wischemann is a rural advocate with an all-but-thesis Masters degree in environmental planning from Berkeley.  You can send her your thoughts on roundabouts c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below

Seeing No One

Published Nov. 30, 2016 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette


    “Seeing no one,” said our new mayor, Pam Kimball, last Tuesday night, “we’ll skip the rebuttal and move to the vote,” which came out 5:0, predictably approving the item. 

     It was a public hearing on a tax-exempt bond issue that was barely discussed and which I did not understand.  No one spoke in favor of, or against the idea, which caused Pam to lower her gavel.  In fact, no one came to the meeting even to ask a question about it.  It was just like old times.

           

     There are other familiarities. It was the last meeting of Rosaena Sanchez, who chose not to serve another term.  Despite being the elected Councilmember to receive the highest number of popular votes in at least two decades (745 to Pam’s 549, which made her third-place in 2012,) Ms. Sanchez had to acknowledge herself, thanking the citizens for what she’d learned serving on the dais.  Her sentiments were barely acknowledged by the other council members, who appeared not sad to see her go.           

     With Rosaena’s departure, starting Dec. 13^th  the Lindsay City Council will be majority appointees:  people chosen by the Council itself to fill vacancies made by those who left.  In fact, the only two elected Council members, Pam Kimball and Danny Salinas (who received only 385 votes in 2014), served multiple terms as appointees before actually facing an election.  We are back to having a hand-picked Council, insiders all.

           

     Another similarity with the past:  changing rules for public participation.  When Ed Murray was mayor, you never knew whether you’d be able to speak, even during the public comment period, or whether he’d decide that what you had to say was not pertinent to the Council’s business and cut you off with the pound of his gavel.  Asking a question during the meeting was almost impossible.  But when Ramona Padilla became mayor, I began the long process of establishing rules for public participation so that people could know what they could say when, and begin to take their rightful place in these public meetings.             

     With Ramona’s departure and Pam’s elevation to mayor, I knew we would have trouble keeping those rules in place.  Having served as mayor-pro-tem under Ed’s mayorship several times, Pam has no problem filling his shoes.  In both November meetings she quickly dispatched what little public participation could have occurred by me and my attorney regarding the third attempt to build a Dollar General store on Art and Leonor Serna’s lots near the Roundabout.           

    

     At the November 8^th meeting, Mayor Kimball tabled the agenda item rather than discuss it, without even exploring what our concerns might have been.  In the two weeks between that meeting and last Tuesday’s, we received more of the supporting documents from the Dollar General project, which only increased our concerns. We submitted these greater concerns in writing before the Nov. 22^nd meeting and prepared to discuss them with Council and Staff.

           

     Pam chose, however, to limit our participation in person to either the public comment period or during the agenda item.  She then asked Assistant City Planner Brian Spaunhurst to make the staff’s presentation of the project, and she and the other council members smilingly followed along as he painstakingly read each document from the Nov. 8^th meeting, which took at least half an hour.  Staff presentations normally take 5 minutes at most.  When it came our turn to speak, she limited each presentation to five minutes and asked that we present only new information.  These changes in the rules were clearly devised to inhibit discussion of the issues, not to flush them out.

           

     We were there to discuss the apparent problems with traffic safety and congestion thanks to the Roundabout, which appear not to have been adequately considered in the project evaluation.  Yet not one council member took the opportunity to investigate our concerns either during the meeting or afterward.  They instantly and easily rubberstamped the Dollar General project, which elated the Sernas and their realtor.  No one was embarrassed.

           

      “Nobody comes to the Lindsay City Council meetings,” editor Reggie Ellis once shouted at me when I complained about our town.  Those of us who can comprehend the business of city councils should be embarrassed about that fact, especially after the economic antics of the Townsend administration were discovered by a handful of concerned citizens who stuck their necks out and started going to those meetings.  

           

     But the real culprits are the so-called elected officials of this town, who have the responsibility of seeing that the administration operates for the benefit of its residents, not for the benefit of special interests, including individual property owners.  Seeing no one, they think they know what this community needs.  But if they do not operate the public meetings in such a way that public participation is respected and encouraged, no one is exactly who they’re going to see.  It’s on their heads.

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Trudy Wischemann is a neophyte public participant who writes.  You can send her your traffic concerns c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247.  Thanks to one of my favorite RN Market customers for reading this column and asking what I think about our new mayor.

 

Napa No More?

Published in shorter form August 31, 2016 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette

     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 31^st 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.

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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.

True Community

Published August 24, 2016 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette

     “What is your vision for Lindsay?” asked the new editor of this paper, Paul Myers, last week when I met with him and former editor Reggie Ellis, now publisher.  It was a fair question, and one that made me think, especially as I prepared to make objections to the new (same old) Dollar General site plan review that was presented to the City Council for approval at the August 23rd meeting. 

       My first words in reply were, in fact, objections to the vision of Lindsay’s past and present administrations and the forces of urbanization.  Call me crazy, but I wish we could retain something of what it means to be rural:  a local economy generated by and serving those who live here, with authentic social and political structures that encourage and teach the newcomers to this country how to be members of this place while embracing and serving those who entered long ago.  I wish we could re-envision the value of the lives of those who make their livings growing and harvesting the fruits of this land, and celebrate those things in our cultural events.   I wish we could respect the limitations of this semi-desert land we inhabit and not just mine its groundwater and the government programs offered in the spirit of equality. 

       Despite the odds, what I wish we could become is true community, with an emphasis on the “true.”  Falsehood is one of the things we have been fighting since the triple-stacked loans were discovered around 2009, those loans intended to get 50 or more low-income buyers into homes of their own that went instead to 13 city employees.  What stunned us most were the lies the city staff had told themselves justifying the stacking, staff who still hold paid positions there now.  I can’t even remember the term they used for this “creative” packaging, the self-deception was that appalling.  

       Lest you think something’s changed, let me dump a few dates on you.  On July 12, Councilman Mecum resigned.  On July 18, the application for the Dollar General site plan review was signed by property owners Serna and Llewallyn, complete with unsigned engineered drawings and maps and a categorical exemption from the CEQA process which addresses none of the concerns we raised in our lawsuit two years ago.  This past Friday, when I walked into the city clerk’s office to find out the status of the new Dollar General plan, Brian Spaunhurst, the planning assistant working under Bill Zigler, was preparing the document for this week’s council agenda.  Two years ago, after the developer pulled out of that project, we had requested that we be informed if that project was resumed, a request which obviously had been ignored. 

       Let me say that I’m not opposed to having Dollar General in town, except for the fact that the profits will be siphoned off to DG headquarters, there will be few employees with non-existent benefits, and their building designs are straight out of the 1960’s, complete with no windows.  I’m also a little concerned that it will drive its main competitor out of town, which in my mind would be Rite Aid, and that would leave us with no pharmacy. 

       I am opposed to having Dollar General at this site.  Located on the southeast corner of the roundabout, the blank backside of the building will be turned toward Hermosa, a major thoroughfare.  Located there, the increased traffic is a potential threat to foot traffic and other drivers, including the Dollar General delivery trucks, which will be making left-hand turns across Hermosa where cars are just exiting the roundabout.  I am also opposed to the way the CEQA process, which in a true community would allow us to consider these factors publicly, is being violated.  But Bill Zigler wants it there.  He’s worked hard to make this happen, and that’s what he’s going to get come hell or high water. 

       “In true community,” wrote Parker J. Palmer, that Quaker sage on community and education, “we will not choose our companions, for our choices are so often limited by self-serving motives….Community will teach us that our grip on truth is fragile and incomplete, that we need many ears to hear the fullness of God’s word for our lives.”   

       In true community, it matters what other people think, especially those who live there.  Someone hired to manage the interests of that community should work to reconcile the conflicting interests of its members, not override them – especially someone who does not live there and thus does not personally bear the consequences of his actions.  So call me crazy, but I’ll keep working for true community, thank you, despite the odds.

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Trudy Wischemann is a rural community researcher who writes.    You can send your stories of community bravery and betrayal to her c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.  Thanks to Nancy and David Vega for their friendship and feedback.

Square Minus-One

Published August 17, 2016 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette

     It was a busy week in Lake Woebehere, my adopted home town.  The Lindsay City Council filled the vacancy made by Steven Mecum’s resignation with Brian Watson, assuring Councilmembers Kimball and Salinas that whatever they and the city staff want, they will have.  

     The Council also ratified the mistake they made when they appointed Bill Zigler to fill the city manager vacancy when Rich Wilkinson flew the coop with severance pay Pam Kimball arranged back when they used him to fill the vacancy Scot Townsend made when he flew the coop.  Bill Zigler, who once filled the position of Lindsay’s city planner, having no training or experience in planning, is now our permanent city manager with no training or experience except that which he’s received as interim, not to mention lacking the personal integrity required to make government transparency possible.

     So I guess you could say we’re back to square one, although I don’t know what date I’d put on that square.  The dreamy, smoke-and- mirror days of Scot Townsend’s regime are gone, with the hope of Lindsay’s revival stuck in the mud of reality his plans left us.  Much of the scheme remains, however, and will need to be watched if we’re not to be plunged further backward. 

     The next four months before the election will be interesting, if for no other reason than to watch Brian Watson recuse himself.  Mr. Watson lives in the house Jim Hunter bought from Signa Ellerding, the once-beautiful property on Parkside just north of the park and community center that Hunter subdivided to build three new houses which miraculously became homes to some of the city’s new employees the Townsend administration flew in from Utah to man the new McDermont facility.  Jim Hunter also obtained the land across from that house and had planned to build a large,upscale subdivision to fill the space between the redeveloped park, the Wellness Center and the new elementary school.  That subdivision, had it been completed by Mr. Hunter, at least would have provided the curbs and sidewalks to the elementary school the city eventually had to provide at taxpayer expense after 3 years of kids walking in mud.  

     Before he was appointed to Mecum’s seat, Brian Watson suggested to the Council that he had a solution to a problem of which the Council might not be aware:  the fact that few teachers in the Lindsay Unified School District actually live in our town.   Actually, they’d heard it before.  When Jim Hunter lived in town, it was proposed that the reason for this non-resident teaching cadre was the lack of decent housing for them to purchase, and that providing more decent housing would return us to our former glory days when most teachers lived in town.  I don’t know if anyone has asked the teachers why they prefer to live elsewhere; in my view, the Q:A was entirely self-serving.  But that was the plan.

     Mr. Hunter was also involved in building the townhouses just south of the new Wellness Center on former hospital district land which had to be converted to Section 8 housing which the city had to turn over to the county because Lindsay was incapable of operating it within the law.  In fact, they barely finished building it.  I mention this simply because it’s hard to remember everything that went on during that whirlwind time.

      In the meantime, nothing has been done to preserve the historic quality or economic viability of Lindsay’s downtown and much has been done to erode it.  The plan to put a Dollar General store on the southeast corner of the roundabout has returned, same developer, same beneficiaries, same lack of traffic or economic analysis to determine whether this site or business is appropriate.  That might sound like a boon to you, but that location is unlikely to stimulate customers to venture two blocks south to the main street where a handful of businesses have been gallantly trying to keep us anchored to that stretch.   

     And in the meantime, what once was Kisling’s Auto Parts and is now Napa, the last locally-owned auto parts store downtown, is going out of business.  When I went to commiserate, the young man at the counter said “It’s sad, really sad.  But Lindsay is just drying up.”  Four years ago, had the City considered my request to change the location of the proposed Dollar General store to a more central location, such as the Stamper Motors site that is now infinitely available having had the ancient brick building demolished by a Thanksgiving weekend fire in 2014, perhaps the increased business traffic could have saved Napa.  But that’s water under the bridge.  By the way, have you heard that Hanford plans to build a McDermont-like facility?  That should be fun, competing for events with a city that size.

     So that’s the news from Lake Woebehere, where the residents need to get stronger and more vigilant in monitoring city hall if we want any of our authentic community to remain.  Meet me in the council chambers at 6 p.m. on the 2^nd and 4^th Tuesdays of the month.  Maybe we can work our way back up to Square One if we try.

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Trudy Wischemann is a rural advocate who writes.  Deep thanks to Colleen Childers all these years for her support and her love of Pepper’s Market, now MIA.  Send your thoughts c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.

           

Sacred Elephant

Published Sept. 30, 2015 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette


     There was no physical violence at the Lindsay City Council meeting last week, but a subtle kind of civil war did break out.  I think it was healthy, and long overdue.

     Two issues were discussed:  broken sidewalks and increasing the sales tax, seemingly unrelated.  But a third raised its ugly head, this community’s elephant in the room:  McDermont Field House and its little sister, the Wellness Center.

     There is no question but that these two facilities have added to the community’s quality of life in some ways.  However, they have seriously detracted from our financial well-being, and that’s the part no one wants to talk about, at least not the city’s staff.  And no one probably would talk about it, except that the chronic budget deficit they’ve created constantly “forces” us to take action against the working poor.

     Let’s start with the sidewalks.  About twenty people came to Tuesday night’s meeting who had received threatening letters from the city about fixing their sidewalks.  They live on Sweet Brier Ave., the street that leads to McDermont from Tulare Road.  It’s an old neighborhood with old sidewalks on a narrow street lined with modest houses and small yards.  Until McDermont was constructed, it was also quiet, with little traffic.  Now it is busy, parking is congested on ordinary days, non-existent on days with big events.  Residents complain of having to clean up their yards of vomit and urine as well as fast food trash after those events, not to mention suffering the noise from them.  And now they have less than 60 days to fix the sidewalks that have needed repair for decades.

     Several Sweet Brier residents spoke of relatives living on other streets who have had their sidewalks fixed by the city free of charge, the result of some of this town’s transportation fund improvements.  “That doesn’t matter,” city staff said in effect, “we’re forced by state law to impose this on you now because we are being forced by the actions of an undesirable individual to make them ADA compliant.”  The staff’s shameless attempts to place responsibility for their action (sending the letters) on the squeaky man in the wheelchair, rather than take responsibility for their inaction (i.e., neglecting the city’s infrastructure while they built this castle in the air,) was disgusting.  

     Moving on to the proposed sales tax increase, they said, in effect “ It won’t affect you much, because people in other cities like Tulare and Porterville, even Dinuba, already pay higher sales tax, and you do, too, when you shop there, so no biggy.  We’ll have to spend about $30 K to do it right,” (those sidewalks on Sweet Brier are estimated to cost about $50K total,) “and of course it’s totally up to the voters to approve it (which, by the way, they refused to do in 2008, but that was probably because we didn’t pitch it right.)”  After a brief pause to catch their breaths, Mr. Zigler politely concluded “We’re looking to Council for direction.” 

     The Council gave them direction: they said No Way.  In a vote requiring 4 yesses, they got only two (Salinas and Kimball,) while Sanchez and Mecum turned thumbs down.  The dollar amount the staff had estimated the increased sales tax would produce was between $188K (for .25%) and $378K (for .50%.)  Based on figures from 2013, (the most recent available,) these numbers may overestimate the dollars to be generated, given the decline in Lindsay’s business climate over the last 2 years.

     Had the staff proposed the tax increase for a specific purpose, however (as many of those cities with higher sales tax have done,) say, fixing the sidewalks in the poorest neighborhoods, it might have been a different story.  But considering that we still subsidized McDermont $225K annually from the General Fund – a quarter of a million dollars yearly – you can see why the Great White Elephant was called out for review.

     And that’s when the fighting broke out in the audience between the beneficiaries and the victims.  Most of the people who now must come up with hundreds of non-existent dollars to fix sidewalks cannot afford to participate in McDermont’s benefits or those of the Wellness Center.  The opportunity costs of building these two behemoths have caused our financial crisis and now have come due.  The city staff is wanting to slough the burden to those least able to bear it, whether that be for fixing sidewalks or the higher costs of gasoline, medicine, toilet paper and toothpaste – what few taxable items we are still able to purchase within these city limits.

     When we find a city manager who can see through the eyes of the poorest residents and construct solutions to help us all rise together, then we’ll have a city worth supporting.  Until then, our job is to keep naming the elephants in the room, sacred or otherwise.

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Trudy Wischemann is a rural advocate who writes and sings.  You can send her your elephant sightings c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.