Whether you vote by mail or at a polling place, like I do, your vote does matter, especially in small cities like Winters. We have had close elections where one vote can be the difference of serving on the city council or going home to watch other people make decisions for you. My memory isn’t the best but I think we even had a tie, once. Can’t remember if they drew straws to determine the winner, or flipped a coin.
If you’ve had the chance to meet the three candidates for our city council you might come to the same conclusion that I have, they all have what’s best for Winters on their agendas. There are two open seats, which means someone is going to be disappointed after the March 3 election.
This is the first election that I haven’t had control over the paper’s endorsements and I’m not sure what Taylor is planning on doing, but my vote goes to Bill Biasi. We agree on most issues and I trust Bill’s judgment on local issues. You can vote for up to two candidates.
There are more housing developments being proposed and the council will be making decisions that will affect us for years to come. What kind of housing do we need, small lots with small houses, large lots with large houses, or small lots with large houses?
Developers will propose what will make them the most money, not what Winters needs. It is up to the city staff and the council to make sure we get what we need and not just add to the bank accounts of passing developers. We have a financial plan for new houses where the school district and city get paid for allowing new homes to be built, the only question is the quality and quantity of the homes.
The land north of Lorenzo’s Market is next up on the council’s agenda. There shouldn’t be a rush to approve these without finding solutions to traffic, parks and flooding issues. We have had flooding in the past with the neighboring subdivision and adding a couple hundred homes won’t make the problem go away.
There is a reason we have a General Plan that outlines where homes can be built and where flood mitigation needs to be taken into consideration. I saw a preliminary subdivision map and wasn’t impressed. Cookie cutter subdivision came to mind. There was nothing special about the street layout, too many small lots and nothing about fixing the flooding in the area. I didn’t see where the traffic flows would be handled, but I didn’t spend too much time looking a the map because I didn’t know if this was even the map that would be proposed to the planning commission. Hopefully the plans will include parks, bike lanes and a variety of housing, size and style.
I would like to see input from other area developers about what they are planning to do about flooding or what kind of subdivisions are planned for the surrounding area. There are a lot of questions that should be answered before any decisions are made on this subdivision. We need to remember that we aren’t in a hurry and if the developers can’t answer traffic and flooding questions, we should tell them to come back when they have real solutions.
Making decisions about our future is a lot of work and worry and I wonder why anyone would want to take on that job. We are lucky that people raise their hands to volunteer.
Have a good week.
]]>
