Taking a closer look at why this issue has become such a
flashpoint for Gilroyans
Early Thursday morning, walking west on Fourth, I spied a large bird alighting at the top of a tall fir. Coming closer, I could see that several birds of a feather were perched in the tree. Still nearer, until I could see their scaly red necks and heads between their hunched shoulders.
“Look!” I cried to my walking buddy, interrupting her most uncivilly. “Buzzards! Turkey vultures! A whole flock of turkey vultures in the middle of the city!”
I was fortunate as I walked along Fourth, mouth agape and eyes fastened on the buzzards, that the sidewalk was sound. ‘Tis not always thus, especially near Fourth and Miller, where the Dutch elms lift and buckle and crack the sidewalks unmercifully. So do liquid ambers, notorious among trees.
The recent outcry over sidewalks surprised and encouraged me. I felt as a Bostonian circa 1773 might, watching his friends and neighbors dump tea into the harbor. Sidewalks? (Tea?) I hate bureaucratic control freaks (taxation) as much as anybody, but are sidewalks (is tea) the issue to spark a revolution?
Apparently.
Gilroy is an official tree city, huzzah. I like trees. (So do turkey vultures.) And I think that for the city to encourage residents to plant and maintain trees is a fine and noble policy.
The policy gets intrusive when the city mandates what trees will be planted where, and downright destructive when it plants liquid ambers in parking strips.
Granted: 30 years ago, we did not know that liquid ambers destroyed sidewalks. We know now. Granted: it was a mistake. The entity making the mistake should rectify it. That is simple justice.
In the early ’90s, the city admitted that some city-mandated trees were destroying sidewalks, and earmarked a sum for sidewalk replacement. Then-Councilman Suellen Rowlinson suggested that any resident who would agree to shoulder 50 percent of the expenses could get his sidewalk fixed first: move to the head of the line, as it were. So many people were so anxious to get their sidewalks fixed for half-price that, year after year, the whole earmarked sum would be used up by 50 percent payments, and the 50-50 program became cast in concrete.
Things muddled along for years, with some property owners grumbling that he city should pay for it all, and recently, even citing a state law, section 5610 of the Streets and Highways code, which says that property owners must maintain their sidewalks in safe, working condition, but are not responsible “for portions of the sidewalk damaged by any person other than the owner” who has “a right granted to him by law or by the city authorities.”
Then on Aug. 6, council passed an ordinance transferring liability for sidewalk related injuries to property owners. I guess some people enjoy poking at hornets’ nests. The populace arose with a voice of fury and accosted their councilmen in the coffee shops and on the beachheads, and council and staff hastily explained that they had not meant that at all, at all. “People just don’t understand proportionate responsibility,” Mayor Al Pinheiro said.
Maybe not, or maybe people understand all too well what City Attorney Linda Callon meant when she encouraged city council to approve the ordinance: “This bill has teeth in it to transfer liability from the city to the residents.”
So now the city council is working on a pair of ordinances that will clarify who pays for what, and all council and mayoral candidates are touting various plans to fix the sidewalks. Most incumbents favor the 50-50 program, with Mayor Al specifying $900,000 a year until all sidewalks are fixed.
Tim Day thinks owners should be responsible. Cat Tucker thinks the city should pay 100 percent out of the sidewalk fund. Perry Woodward wants to spend $2 million a year, with the city paying 100 percent. Craig Gartman and Bob Dillon favor a bond, and have ideas that look very good, though I personally have trouble believing in bonds that don’t raise taxes, or the tooth fairy.
I want the city to take out the liquid ambers and replace the mandated tree list with a suggested tree list. The city should pay 100 percent since it caused the problem, but if homeowners want to pay all or a portion to save tax dollars, that will be lovely.
Cynthia Anne Walker is a homeschooling mother of three and former engineer. She is a published independent author. Her column is published in The Dispatch
every week.
