Open letter to county from wake- weary resident
Courtesy photo A seawall is being built in front of the homes of Avis Stafford and a neighbor.
Dear Commissioners:
This morning they started building our seawall and our neighbor’s seawall. I never wanted a seawall and I’m not happy about this. Since we first met with all of you we have lost another 2 feet of property. The total in four years is 8 feet. This will cost us thousands of dollars, all because of wake surf boats ruining the Spokane River.
I’d like to ask all of you a question …
I am assuming you all live in a home someplace in the area and probably on a regular street. Consider this scenario:
A big semi drove by your house and the rumbling sound was so loud it broke one of your windows, causing safety issues and forcing you to get your window fixed. Would you be upset?
As time went on, the big semis started coming more and more often, and every day you had not one but two or three windows broken. Would you be happy repairing broken windows every day?
The glass breaking in the house could hurt a family member — maybe a grandchild of 18 months playing by the window. Now the word is out and everyone is buying big semis because they are fun and they like driving down your street because it is narrow and that makes the rumble sound even louder.
How long would you live with this before you would go to the mayor or whomever is in charge of the streets in your town to beg them to please re-route the semi trucks to a place where they would not break any windows? By the way, everyone on your street has broken windows so you decided to write to them to see what they thought and they all agreed SOMETHING MUST BE DONE.
One of the government officials told you they “would not kick the can down the street” and make a decision to help you. It’s been over a year now and you are still waiting. Everyone is getting windows broken and they are all worried about the safety issues these actions cause.
So, the person in charge decided to educate the semi drivers and get more police. Education will not stop the semi drivers from driving down your street and breaking the windows and all the police can do is watch them. It is clear that education and the police will not solve the problem as long as the semis are allowed to drive down your narrow street. The semi drivers need to be re-routed to solve the problem.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
On behalf of all the people on the river with thousands and thousands of dollars worth of broken windows — PLEASE HELP US. I beg of you.
Re-route the wake surf boats to the lake.