Last night I spent the evening at a meeting at the most local level of politics. It seems that zoning laws are being changed in my area which will bring in even more traffic and longer hours of gridlock. One development has snuck through, but now people are paying attention and I was in a standing room only and out the doors angry situation and people had a great deal to say.
In 1973, a huge project was proposed, Marincello, which would have meant a huge development at Tennessee Valley, a marina at Tam Valley and a freeway over to the beach. That was stopped, and now, it seems my little area is determined to stop more development. What is amazing about it is to listen to some of the language and excuses. The idea of it is to create a community where people work, live, and shop in the same place, but the plan removes our local shopping for more housing and the developers are given cream with their cake. By the end of the evening, it seemed pretty clear that my volatile neighbors are now organizing to stop this, but what is upsetting to see how far it went without any notice and that is in the days of email and instant communication.
I am also surprised to hear that seniors are considered to be people who are 62 and it is thought that they don't drive. I don't know any seniors around here who fit the qualification of sitting in their rocking chair. Builders also want to build in an area that floods absolutely every winter so badly that you cannot even get through the junction at an extreme high tide. Every December cars are ruined that park at Manzanita parking lot without paying attention to the tides. Cars don't run well when their engine is saturated with salt water. It is difficult to understand except when you consider one plan that I saw that was supposedly environmentally approved and was created by an expensive consultant in Montana who didn't even know the area. Go figure!
Anyway, we are now organized and I hope you are paying attention where you live too. We have to pay attention at the most local levels of politics. As to loopholes, I don't think W.C. Fields found any, and I don't think we should let our politicians find any either. We elect them and they are accountable to us. Let's keep reminding them of that. We actually seem to have a good guy representing us right now. The woman before who is let a ridiculous project go through. I think the reins are firmly in hand in our area now and I see it is a tight-rope walk of rules and regulations. If I want to read the reports for my area, I will need to slog through 1900 pages of reports written in a language not easy to understand. Oh, my!!
Here is to neighbors gathering together to preserve quality of life for themselves and the environment. Those who live in a place know it best. We don't need consultants from outside to tell us what to do, and we don't need to waste so much paper on so many reports.
One man brought four photographs. One was of Tam Junction flooded. One was of Tam Junction gridlocked on the weekend, and another of it gridlocked during the week. Another was of one poor pedestrian attempting to cross the street. Those four photographs could take the place of a great deal of reports.
I'm actually in a good mood around this because I see that we "won." Hooray!!