Recently a woman sent a Letter to the Editor calling for the
sale of Lafferty Park to pay for street repairs. Let’s take her on a trip with
the Ghost of Thanksgiving future…
“Whoa, snow!” Audrey and her grandpa were driving west on
Mountain View Avenue. The clouds had cleared to reveal the street’s namesake. A
fresh white blanket lay along the crest of Sonoma Mountain. “Can we go up to
the snow, today, Grampah? There’s no school.”
“I wish we could,” her grandfather replied. “But it’s all
private property up there.” Audrey asked, “What about the park? Julius told me
there was a park.” Grampah replied, “It was sold years ago to a private owner.”
Audrey wouldn’t give up. “Isn’t there a road? We could drive
up and stop on the side of the road!” “Sorry, sweetie,” said Grampah. “The road
is closed. It was sold, too. There’s a gate a the bottom with a guard.” Audrey
found this hard to believe. “Why, why would they sell a road?!” Grampah
replied, “They figured, why keep the road if it didn’t go anyplace useful.”
Audrey asked, “But still, why would they *sell* it?”
Grampah sighed. “The government bankruptcy started just a
few years before you were born. Petaluma needed to fix potholes in the City
streets. People didn’t want to pay more taxes, so the government started
“privatizing”, selling things it owned to big businesses and wealthy
people.” “But why sell a park?” Audrey
asked. “It’s like selling a library, or a museum!”
“You are a very wise girl”, Grampah said. “You should have
been running the City! Part of the problem was that only a few people had ever
been allowed to see the park. They didn’t see the value of what they were
selling. The Sell-Off has been getting worse ever since. Global corporations
and billionaires own things that used to be owned by the people, like parks and
streets and water systems, like the government...” Grampah sighed again.
“They sold a mountaintop park so they could fix potholes.”
said Audrey, still incredulous. “Did they fix *this* street?” “Yes,” said
Grampah, “about 20 years ago.” Audrey harrumphed, “Well, you’d never know it
now. So, let’s see: we have crummy streets, and no park. Like I always say,
grownups are dumb!”
Yuck! Mr. Thanksgiving Ghost, please show us another,
not-so-dumb future.
“Whoa, snow!” Audrey and her grandpa were driving west on
Mountain View when the clouds cleared from the Mountain. “Can we, can we, can
we, Grampah?” “Okay,” said her grandfather. After fetching their snow gear, and
a short drive, they pulled up to the entrance of Lafferty State Park.
“Julius told me this used to belong to Petaluma, and that
they tried for a dozen years to open it up,” said Audrey. Grampah replied,
”Yes, back before you were born, the Petaluma and California governments were
very short of money. Petaluma needed money to fix potholes in its streets. We
came close to selling this place to a private owner. But the people wouldn’t
allow it, and the City made a deal with the State, so now it’s part of this
park that goes all the way over the mountain.”
“But you said the State was short of money, too,” said
Audrey. “How could *they* buy it?” “The State had *some* money,” said Grampah.
“They just had to shop for bargains, like Gramah does. Petaluma sold it to the
State for half price. And hundreds of volunteers gave money and helped build
the parking lot, the trails, and this bridge. That allowed the State open the
park.
Audrey walked onto the small bridge, stopping in the middle.
She looked southwest across the marsh, a swath of green against the snowy
field. The snow-capped peak of Tamalpais stood above the mists rising from the
Petaluma River. Staring into the
distance, she asked, “What happened to Petaluma’s potholes?” Grampah smiled.
“If we had sold this land to the highest bidder, we might have fixed all the
streets six months sooner, maybe a year. But they all got fixed. And we still
have the park.”