HomeMy WebLinkAbout1/26/2023 Item Public Comment, Schmidt
From:Richard Schmidt <
To:E-mail Council Website
Subject:Agenda Correspondence: Top priorities
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Dear Council,
Just a few thoughts about topmost city priorities for next year.
1. Re-up flood management so you catch up with where you were 30 years ago. I went over this in recent letters, but to
recapitulate chief points:
• Reinstitute the annual total creek walk-through inspection in late summer followed by cleanup of stuff that will wash away
and block culverts/bridges, and removal of invading in-stream vegetation that will obstruct flow if left in place.
• Stop allowing staff to use the “we have to get a permit from (fill in the blank)” excuse. The vast majority of problems for
which a “permit” ends up being needed wouldn’t rise to the permit-needed level if dealt with annually as requested above.
Fixing small problems regularly heads off the need for big-job permits.
• Consider whether streets that “flooded” in recent rains did so because of inadequate in-street storm drains, and fix as
needed. This is ongoing as drainage conditions change over time.
2. Do some meaningful upgrade of neighborhood service so there actually are ways neighborhoods can get services from
the city. The current system is broken, results in little to no help in solving actual neighborhood problems, and overall is
nothing but pretend window dressing. The new Ask SLO is turning out to be a joke, both because it gets no results and
because the cyber system functions poorly (Would you believe you can’t log in with an iMac and Firefox? When I pointed
this out I was told I should use some other browser. Really, that’s a response?). At present there’s no way for residents to
get anything done about problems like cars parked across sidewalks, garbage cans blocking sidewalks 24/7, or vegetation
that substantially blocks use of sidewalks. In the latter department, I have for years asked for enforcement for sidewalk-
obstructing vegetation, and my requests are ignored and the problems just get worse. Today there’s one such spot within
view of the city manager’s house where trees hang down to about 3 feet above the sidewalk, and years of repeated
requests for enforcement have been ignored. Your city simply doesn’t care, and churns out propaganda from its
“communications specialists” rather than deal with realities.
The city needs to provide REAL neighborhood services.
3. The city needs to be kinder to its elderly and disabled residents.
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• For example, the knowing cruelty of the Anholm bikeway business is something a good city would be ashamed of and
would fix instead of blunderbussing ahead with construction of the adopted dirty-politics version and issuing obnoxious
propaganda about how wonderful it is for everyone.
• Another example: What are sidewalks for? Walking, and its wheeled adjuncts for those so disabled. Or at least so I’d
always thought. In our neighborhood there are those of us on two feet, two feet plus one or two poles, canes, crutches,
walkers and a few wheelchairs. It would be nice to have our sidewalks available to use. But we must “share” them with
garbage cans, illegally parked vehicles, intruding vegetation, slippery mud, sand and gravel that wash across them and
stay because nobody cleans it up, the result of all that being we can barely use our sidewalks and even the disabled must
detour into the street to get around obstructions. Now the so-called Active Transportation Committee, which is supposed
to look out for pedestrian well-being but doesn’t seem to care a fig, is considering recommending bicycles be ridden on
sidewalks. What the heck is happening here? What are sidewalks for?
I’d suggest a program to 1, educate residents to get garbage cans off the sidewalk and into the gutter (and to enforce the
law on the 24/7s); 2, mind the serious vegetation intrusions; 3, enforce the ban on vehicles blocking sidewalks; and 4,
require cleanup of mud, sand and gravel that drifts onto sidewalks from stupidly-designed and ill-maintained rental
premise “landscaping” (And that would also include things like the perennially mud-filled/caked city ADA ramps at places
like Ramona/Rafael and Ramona/Tassajara).
• It is disgraceful that 32 years after passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act the city is still hundreds of
intersections short of providing basic disability ramps. It would be nice if instead of publicly congratulating itself for a job
well-done the city would instead make completing this very fundamental aid to the old, frail, disabled, young adults
encumbered with children and strollers, etc. a TOP PRIORITY. Every time I hear the city’s propaganda about how many
new ramps will be provided as part of the Anholm bike fiasco I want to scream, “but what about all the Anholm corners
that will still be without ramps?!” This has gone on for far too long, and if “welcoming” is anything more than a
meaningless slogan, it’s time to fix it.
4. In the climate action arena, the city must understand its own impacts if any of your “climate action” is to be effective. I
have previously pointed out the city seems clueless about embodied carbon’s impacts (or even its existence), does no
carbon accounting for its own actions, that the repaving of a quarter of the city’s streets last year was done without any
carbon analysis. This is shameful. The city must walk the talk, do as it preaches. It’s obvious paving all those streets had
carbon impacts, but without accounting for them and doing comparative impact analysis of alternatives, how does the city
know whether it’s being responsible or irresponsible? When I see the flame-throwing device used to melt street markings
into place, I scratch my head and ask: “Can this be better for the climate than paint?”
Anyway.
Richard Schmidt
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