2002-09-26_PWETC_AgendaPacket - Laserfiche WebLink

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!i!i'1 ".... ~ Submitted by Mayor Kysylyczyn j'~. 3-D Come. Let Us Reason Together Liz Bass and Creg Applegate ow would your ,community's residents like to sit down with the mayor and police chief and offer solutions to parking or traffic problems? Residents who live in Sonora, California, can do this. Parking and traffic matters used to be dealt with at regularly scheduled council meetings, until the coun- cil realized that citizens needed more than it could offer in that setting. When people came forward to address coun- cilmembers on these topics, not only would their voices be- coming increasingly shaky but their tempers would .flare, too. Presentations tended to be lengthy and off the point. It became clear that the real subject that people wanted to talk about was the depressing state of modern life, with particu- lar reference to its fast pace and widespread incivility, not parking and traffic. If there are such things as "deep" subjects in government work, then parking and traffic issues must rank at the top of the list. They always turn out to be only the tip of an iceberg, a metaphor of sorts for how people get along with each other in urbanized settings. In the small city of Sonora, we have our share of residents who tell us they can never find a parking place when they need one. On the other hand, we also have pedestrians who have nearly been hit in marked crosswalks. There are renters with no parking spaces to call their own. There are adolescent speeders in oversized pickups, as well as the slow-and-steady population. In mixed, use neighbor- hoods, business owners want more street parking for their 20 NOVEMBER Z001 (oE- ;""",,,,,,...,,,'~',,,,_"'~;)'''''"~'''''''''",,,''3'''''1C,,,^,',''''"''0."'_"""'"",.>;1I'!'~:Y,..~~ ;~~7 . """""'~'HI:1!f'.E~L"