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.