This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

The Politics of Dancing - Part I

Overriding Art Madrid and Ruth Sterling's nonsensical arguments, Dr. A, Dave Allan and Ernie Ewin give Sacramento Drive residents a traffic calming victory.

City Council Meeting, April 10th – Sacramento Drive. 

For at least two years, I have been watching Sacramento Drive homeowners beg City Council to “do something” about the speed and density of cars that have altered this street from a neighborhood road to an 1,800-cars-a-day thoroughfare. 

One man expressed his fears for his elderly mother one day getting hit by a car while checking the mail. A worried grandmother spoke of not letting her grandson play in the front yard out of the same fear. I recall a resident telling Council a couple of years ago, he’d pay for speed bumps. 

Find out what's happening in La Mesa-Mount Helixwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

A majority of the Sacramento Drive residents want to have a sign installed (for a test period of six months) on the corner of Sacramento and High Street prohibiting right hand turns during peak traffic hours.

Since the core purpose of government is public safety, I expected a 5-0 yes vote. Instead, it was 3-2 vote with Mayor Art Madrid and Councilwoman Ruth Sterling opposed. 

Find out what's happening in La Mesa-Mount Helixwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Art’s dissent boiled down to this: “If I let you have a sign, then all these other streets with schools are going to want signs too.”

That’s an argument?! That’s like a doctor refusing to give his patient an aspirin for his headache because all the other headache-suffering patients are going to want aspirins too!

If other La Mesans don’t want to endure the danger of living on a high-density, speeding-traffic street and they fight for solutions and get the backing of the traffic commission, then by golly, let them have no-right-turn signs too!

Art also chided the Sacramento homeowners for having suffered only two years while “The people on Harbinson Drive have been trying to fix their traffic problem for 10 years.”

Ruth opposed the sign stating she represents all of La Mesa not just Sacramento Drive (?!) and punctuated her sentiment with, “It’s just not right.” “It’s just not right.”

Council Members Dave Allan, Dr. A and Ernie Ewin sided with the people of Sacramento Drive and the motion carried 3-2.

From an audience member perspective, it looked like Art has something against the people of Sacramento Drive and Ruth wants to be Art's new BFF.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?