Isn't it amazing how our government works. We elect people to represent us and make educated decisions for us each day in how will live our lives. John Kessel, one of the great writers of our time, said in his short story--A Clean Escape, "with decisions of so many, in the hands of so few; we can not escape accountability." With such power--don't you feel we owe it to our officials to give them educated information. Well that is just what the folks of Raymond Avenue tried to do tonight. A group of concerned citizens all went down to the city building to shared their views about the construction project that is about to begin. It was a heated debate but we were way to late to be making an argument about saving trees or changing the cities mind. I wish I had lived here a year before. I could have gone to the original meeting. (I wonder how many went?) The city has a good argument, and the improvements will be nice.
The biggest argument was that the value of the homes would go down. The citizens had research that compared, Nordin and Evelyn when their trees were removed. They explained that the values would drop. Vicki Mattson, city council women, came prepared (after a call from me) with values saying that they would not. She said she had never heard of trees bringing down values of homes and that we shouldn't have moved here just for the trees. Vicki explained she talked to people in the housing industry and her figures showed they wouldn't come down.
The whole tree debate on our street is getting pretty old...and fast. I understand everyone's concerns. I do! But why didn't we start talking about this six months ago or even a year ago. Now all of the sudden it is a big deal when we are two weeks away.
Well I am not going to belabor this, but the meeting was interesting and most of our info was passed on. I mean, we have never come to a city council meeting and then one day we show up and expect to be heard. Who where we kidding?
In the end, I invited all of the city council to attend our next meeting on the Raymond Avenue Issue and I hope they do attend. We will see.
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