#99, September 4, 2002
I had the nagging suspicion I had seen this
before: candidates hammering on a single issue; bitterly sarcastic letters to
the editor; a carefully timed campaign to whip up fear among the voting public.
I remembered, yes, it was two years ago. Traffic congestion. A City Council
majority who’d rather fund another study than move ahead with the Rainier
project. They frittered while we gridlocked. Throw the bums out!
Turn the clock ahead two years, replace
congestion with potholes, and you have Petaluma Election 2002. Let me tell you
why I think the street repair problem is being exaggerated, why this potholy
war is part of a campaign to make the City Council less environmentally
friendly by removing Matt Maguire and Janice Cader-Thompson.
I have no reason to question the results of
the Metropolitan Transportation Commission survey, which a few months ago rated
Petaluma streets worst among Bay Area cities. I agree that our infrastructure –
including roads, as well as storm drains and sewers, and side walks – needs
more attention then it’s been getting over the past decade.
But where was the pothole crisis two years
ago? For a baseline, I first searched this year’s newspaper online archives,
looking for anything with “pothole” and “Petaluma.” Forty two items came up,
with over thirty specifically addressing the pothole controversy. Then I
searched for all of the year 2000. Eight items total turned up. One was about
how paving problems affected streetlights. Three were about Measure C, where
pothole repair was second billing to mass transit. Two addressed the potholed
soccer field at Luchessi Park. One, concerning a play at Cinnabar, spoke of
“angst and potholes in marriage.” One reported on a gymnast hampered by “little
potholes of injuries.''
Did the streets take a sudden nosedive in the
past two years? Or are we being led by the nose, victimized by some passionate
propagandists? Why haven’t these folks organized in support of a funding
campaign, as we did years ago when our school buildings needed repair?
Here’s more evidence. A revised report from the MTC puts
Petaluma a little higher up the list, ahead of not only Cloverdale but
unincorporated Sonoma County. Thus, we should have expected to see the “Street
Fighters”, as Councilmember Moynihan calls them on his website, going after
County Supervisor Mike Kerns with their yellow spray paint, bumper stickers and
banner-toting aircraft. County roads were worse than Petaluma’s, yet there was
but one item containing “Kerns” and “pothole” in the paper in all of 2000-2001
(and that one was about Measure C.)
And what happened to the traffic congestion disease, for
which Rainier was the cure? Don’t expect to hear Mr. Moynihan or Council
candidate Mike Harris using the R word like they used to. That’s because Rainier,
with a price tag equal to a quarter of the $140 million road fix backlog, would
have been the black hole of pothole repair funds. Thankfully the Council,
with leadership from Maguire and Cader-Thompson, was more fiscally prudent.
Synchronizing the timing of the stoplights, which cost next to nothing, has had
a significant impact in reducing congestion along Washington. The $6 million
improvements to the Washington-McDowell intersection, now under way, will
reduce the average delay there by nearly two-thirds.
It comes down to priorities. Six members of the Council have now agreed to a goal of
at bringing our streets up to an index of 70, basically grade C. That’s
not good enough for Moynihan, who wants a B grade. I’d be for that, too, if the
B were free. But if getting the B meant that we couldn’t add a downtown patrol
officer, or rehabilitate those potholed soccer fields, or build the riverwalk
or a cultural art center, forget it (actually, just getting the C would require a new tax
or cutting City staff by several dozen heads.) I’ll settle for a C in paving if
I can get As and Bs in community safety and recreation.
Matt and Janice are two hard-working,
creative, and responsive Council Members at risk of being swept from office by
this orchestrated pothole hysteria. Don’t let it happen.