Dear Red Phone,
“I want to complain about some road work on Luchessa by Monterey. I’m active with the Garlic Festival and with all the cars and traffic this week, it would be a dangerous place for a person to pull over in a car or on a bike because the road drops off at the area by the propane plant and on Luchessa where it goes to Thomas. Just wanted to call on that again.”
Dear traffic tracker,
Road coordination around the Garlic Festival is key and should be thoroughly vetted months in advance. As you know since you’re a reader, out city has a new traffic engineer, Henry Servin, and perhaps he’s just getting up to speed trying to coordinate all the road work that’s happening the last full weekend in July. Sometimes, though, it’s unavoidable.
*****
Dear Red Phone,
“Congratulations Gilroy Garlic Festival, you’ve done it again. You don’t seem to get it. You have a lot of disabled people attending your festival. You force us to stand in long lines under white tents and wait for a 16-person van to come pick all of us up. There is random standing, nobody knows who’s waiting to get on the next bus, the next van. So congratulations, you decided to use one of the coach buses this year. But do you think it came and picked us up? Oh no, that wasn’t used for us. There were more than 50 of us waiting and many of us can’t even stand. You need to take a look at this. Everyone had bags, we came to eat, drink and purchase and buy admission, and you’re not taking care of us. It’s about time you stepped up to the plate and did what’s right. Thank you.”
Dear frustrated festival-goer,
Compassion is a wonderful attribute and the door to it swings both ways. Red Phone knows the Garlic Festival has always tried to accommodate those with disabilities. And, no, it’s not the easiest of tasks getting around park grounds nor is it the easiest to execute a plan to help those who need it. Red Phone suggests a constructively critical letter to the editor with specific details that could make the experience better for all.
*****
Dear Red Phone,
I live walking distance from the Garlic Festival and I just read the story about the “Banner Buzzards” and I laughed hysterically. I had a huge party here Saturday and all my friends spent the night and we rode our bikes to the festival – we loved valet parking. And those banner buzzards made us insane. It was like having a fly in the middle of the living room that you couldn’t get rid of. Absolutely beyond annoying to locals. I’m absolutely 100 percent on board with the person who was brave enough to call. It didn’t even occur to me to call to complain. I was just pissed off incessantly on Saturday. I’m glad someone else voiced their concern.
Dear “Party at My Place,”
That bike valet stuff is wonderful. Red Phone remembers riding to the Garlic Festival years ago only to come out and find the bike seat stolen. Rough ride home, but that’s another conversation … Pretty sure the festival doesn’t make any money on the buzzard planes, but maybe the Board would send some sort of official request to make those three days a “No Buzzard Planes” day.
