The Willow Glen Resident

Letters

Traffic on Minnesota can be improved

I think the recent discussion concerning truck traffic on Minnesota has been very fruitful. But I think we can go a little further and improve the situation on some of the adjoining streets at the same time.

There is no need for Minnesota to have four lanes from Iris Court to Hicks/Camino Ramon. In fact it is sometimes hazardous when people try to turn left onto Cherry, Newport or Lupton when cars are following behind. Also people in general go faster down Minnesota just because of the four lanes by passing slower cars that are going the speed limit. I think it would be great to get rid of the other two lanes in three phases. The first phase would just create a center turn lane similar to that between Hicks/ Camino Ramon and Weaver while getting rid of one lane in each direction. The second phase would actually add a temporary divider. The divider would only allow turns from Minnesota onto Cherry and Newport.

The divider would not allow traffic to cross Minnesota at Cherry and Newport. An added stop sign at around Richards Avenue on Hicks would help slow that traffic down in case the changes added traffic to Hicks instead of Lincoln or Meridian. If this worked, a permanent divider could be constructed.

Minnesota would become a safer avenue while Cherry and Newport would get back some of their neighborhood quality.

P. Coleman
Cherry Valley Drive

Who's in charge?

The president in a press conference three weeks ago announced that he did not know exactly what was in the famous budget bill that he has already signed. And sure enough, as we look at that piece of legislation, we find that there are all sorts of surprises in the package. We also learn that most of the senators and congressmen don't know what is in it either, which is frightening. How many other bills have been voted into law without our elected representatives really knowing what is in the fine print? Our elected representatives seem to be measuring their progress by the number of bills passed, though they don't what is in them. That raises the question: Who does know? The obvious answer is the staff personnel.

This presents an interesting problem: Are we really being controlled by non-elected staff personnel? Perhaps our priorities are wrong. I suggest that we consider generating less legislation but of better quality. Maybe we should consider limiting the number of bills and completely eliminating amendments altogether.

Keith C. De Fillips
Miriam Court

Corrections

In the Sept. 17 story about Live Oak Adult Day Services, the address of the Clark House should have been stated as 1147 Minnesota Ave.

In the cutline of the photo in the arts section of the Sept. 3 issue of The Resident, KDFC should have been cited as the radio station that gave away free tickets to Faye Dunaway's play Master Class.

[ Back to Contents Page | Willow Glen Resident Home Page | Archives ]