... or at least off their duffs
I've come to learn over the years of covering City Hall beats for various newspapers that council members don't get out much. They rely (too) heavily on people contacting them with gripes. If the individual behind the gripe is a campaign contributor, they are listened to. If not, the council member feigns pity.
It doesn't require more than a walk through Las Animas Park in Gilroy to understand that royalty is severely out of touch with the commoners. My favorite in-your-face-to-the-fiefdom example is the sprinkler system at the park. Like clockwork at jogging time, at dog walking time, at kids-on-the-way-to-school time, the massive sprinkler heads clang on and the trails are turned to creeks. I do think some of the water makes it to the grass.
If council members believe soaking fox terriers, short-clad runners and young tikes by creating Class III rapids out of the main trails at 7 a.m. is a good idea, then my theory is shot. They do get out; it's just that they are dumber than sun-baked granite.
Then of course there are the quality public servants they hire. In the case of Las Animas, it's actually not the parks crew. The parks crew are actually good workers, perhaps a little misguided about setting the sprinkler timers from 7 a.m. to, say, 3 a.m., but good workers. But the contractors the city hires to do all the stuff that city workers no longer have time to do since we all became stampeding buffalo about cutting taxes, are another story.
"Small men and big leaf blowers" should be the motto of Gilroy's parks contractors. The first time I encountered one of these folks was when I caught one blowing all the dirt from a hill into and onto the townhomes I live in.
"Hey, can you stop doing that? You're blowing all that dirt into the back of those homes."
"What?"
"I said ... can you turn that off?!"
(roll of the eyes then an exaggerated flip of a switch)
"Thank you. I said can you stop blowing all this dirt into the back of our homes?"
"It's what I'm told to do."
"You're told to soil our patios?"
"Don't know about that, but we are told to blow the leaves off the trails."
"But they are dirt paths; leaves are supposed to fall on dirt paths. You know, the charm of a park and all?"
"Just doing what I'm told."
"Then can you turn around and blow the leaves off the dirt in the other direction?"
"Then the dirt goes on the tennis courts."
"Which is worse than my patio?"
"Don't know about that, but I have to blow off the tennis courts too, so why would I just blow dirt on them?"
It was futile.
I wrote an email to the council. Couldn't be less interested.
Later that summer I was walking Killer and Pipi when I spied another contractor using a leaf blower. It was already over 100 degrees and not yet noon. For the rest of the peons in the county, it was a Spare the Air Day. Apparently that did not apply to really filthy pollution spewing two-stroke engines mounted on the workers' backs.
Yes, of course I sent an email to the regional air board, and when it blew me off (no pun intended) I sent an email to the California Air Resources Board. It blew me off, just from farther away.
But mon ami it got worse. One morning my wife, who is on two medications for asthma, and myself were walking in the park with Killer and Pipi and a contractor with a leaf blower was cleaning the dirt off, um, the dirt. I waved at him in the universal arm gesture of shutting down. He just looked at me. I yelled at him to shut down, just until we pass, that my wife has asthma. He yelled at us to walk around. We did, waving goodbye with another universally known gesture.
I guess once some men get their gas-fired blowers revved up, there's no stopping them.
And that never ends well.
About the Gilroy Post: http://gilroypost.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-blog-about-south-county.html
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