Wednesday, December 16, 2009

I'm Confused


I know I’ve mentioned it before but with what I’m going to say today, this bears repeating. Reading is broke. Seriously tapped out as in laying off essential personnel like police and firefighters. As in begging the state to put the city on a special program for busted locations. As in needing a specialized financial management firm to help get us out of this mess that’s been created over the past several years. It’s really that bad if not worse.

Okay, I’m sure you get the picture. There are some events this week that I simply don’t understand. One I heard on the radio and the other I’ve witnessed in my neighborhood. The first – In one particular section of the city it is now illegal to park on a space on your property that is unpaved. Nope, gravel’s no longer good enough. The area is a low income, semi-secluded area. Only one street in and one street out and nothing but housing in the whole sector. Yeah, I know it may not be aesthetically pleasing but there’s not enough street parking for the number of people who live there. No one other than those who live there and visiting friends ever see it so who cares? I get that it’s a money making scheme to fine these folks up to $100 each time they’re caught parked in there yards but one, they can’t afford to pay the tickets and two, the city has started cutting back the police force. Do we really want our remaining officers stuck writing tickets that are likely never to be paid rather than patrolling the rest of the city?

The second questionable activity I noticed is the continuation of having handicapped curbs on each corner. Perhaps they’re necessary but I don’t see it in these economic times. Every block has at least one alley that makes it possible for someone in a wheelchair to access the street. Personally I’d rather keep a few firefighters on duty than spare someone the inconvenience of going half a block out of their way. Also, I’d like to see the study that justifies the expense of digging up and redoing every corner of every intersection within the city.

Just doesn’t make sense to me to waste this much money on such things right now.

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