||| FROM JOHN ERLY |||
How does he Contractor that is doing Prune Alley get away with leaving the road in the condition it is in?
I have been in other areas and talked to folks that have seen this type of work before. In almost every case the Contractor has been required to maintain the road in a safe, usable condition.
4-to-8-inch holes in the road are unsafe and destroy your vehicle.
We pay the county to maintain our road; WHERE ARE THEY??
No kidding. Even if you creep along at 1 mile an hour you run the risk of damaging your car. Ugh!!
Classic FH-Orcas rivalry at play with this construction chaos
Car damage for sure. Undercar torn up and hanging pieces from the potholes after going may 3 mph
Reminds me of the roads in Russia.
this is the worst shape of any roads i have ever seen. i drove down it once. never again. nearly destroyed my car at 3 mph. True, there are idiot drivers spinning gravel – that hurts all of us.
But… Just wondering what Pub Works’s plan is when the rains stop and everything suddenly turns to dust – no doubt bad for our lungs; we won’t be able to put the windows down on our cars, should we need to drive into town. The entire thing is a dust bowl now.
The rate of tree removal and removal of shade and habitat – how is that even legal during migratory bird nesting season? Tree removal will add to the worsening summer heat and dust and winter wind tunnel Eastsound already is. If you care about the rare cypress trees around the south side of the Long House, make your voices loud and insistent. They say those trees on Fern St. need to come out for raised sidewalks for wheelchair access for the Long House residents: I question that so called logic.
Maybe Pub. Works needs to consult an actual engineer or concrete person who builds ADA compliant ramps and sidewalks. They would know how to make wheelchair access work WITHOUT sacrificing living trees. Seniors in that building are going to lose their shade and their beautiful oasis. Crappy will soil will be used; I am watching that beautiful red rhododendron in full bloom choke in the dust and fill dirt which is LIME. Rhodies need acidic soil. Please speak up about this! council says nothing can be done. I beg to differ!
The landowners and managers at Long House did not come to bat for the residents there, or those trees. What a shame – this needs fixing immediately. And yes – as John Erly and others point out – FIX and MAINTAIn the roads please! We are the ones paying for auto damage every time we have to use a torn up intersection.
The whole thing is utter nonsense and makes my head and stomach hurt just to think about. I avoid town as much as possible and that is why. Misuse of monies in my mind. All of a sudden wheelchair access is needed?? We are seeing the ruination of our little town.
The lack of responsiveness from the County is my concern. One cannot get straight answers about details of this work. This is a public project where information from the county is hard to come by, details are concealed if the details may be unpopular and concerns are ignored, or one is criticized for having such concerns or questions. “Too late for that!”
Who put the green tape on certain trees? County? Individual? No one seems to know.
Old people are treated like criminals when they try to get around town. They are told they are being chased, photographed, accosted and yelled at for their own safety; then at night, the streets are open, with some holes and ditches only partially covered, with piles of gravel, building materials and debris all over the place that can’t be seen in the dark; but hey, enjoy the open streets!
It’s a no-brainer that the residents of the Longhouse wouldn’t want destroyed the beautiful trees and bushes that shield their only outdoor seating area. Information was purposefully kept from them. It’s a disgrace! They were told changes would give them wheel chair access, implying the county was doing this. Now I have heard wheelchair access will be work that The Longhouse will have to do and pay for, so after enduring months of destruction and noise, they still won’t have the access. When does a public entity misleading the public commit a crime? Has one been committed here? Everything they do is justified by telling people with no engineering or architectural education that they should have looked at the technical drawings; it’s all there. No. Part of the county’s job, I am sure, must be to communicate with the public in the language the public can easily understand. And they know this. That is clear because they post very clear photos, with circles and arrows, when they want the public to understand something.
I for one really appreciate the effort that these people are taking to open the road up every day. It is not easy to get their work done while only doing daytime shut downs, and having to fill everything back in to allow traffic on weekends. It’s a difficult situation and I think they’re doing to best that could be done. And when it’s done, Prune Alley will certainly not be ruined, it will be beautiful, accessible and pedestrian friendly. They had many meetings, have been planning this for years, published drawings and plans for what they were going to do, had open houses to answer questions, etc.. The time to raise the concerns was then, not half way through the project. At this point, let’s just give them the benefit of the doubt, endure a little inconvenience, take a deep breath and wait to see the finished product. We may like it?
I cannot imagine that we will ‘like’ the finished project. I have lived in town for much of my 41 years here, but I wouldn’t ‘like’ it if I had only lived her for a year or two. I can assure you, we don’t ‘like’ seeing the changes that are pushing out working people, deforesting this once beautiful place, and building luxury homes and condos while working people leave in a mass exodus because there is no affordable housing. We don’t ‘like’ knowing Orcas (primarilyEastsound UGA) has exponentially more vacation rentals than the other islands. Why is this, since over 50% of us are mandated to live in the UGA and instead, we have seasonal luxury housing?
People who value this sort of overblown development over Nature and what made this once rural town have any charm, have the right to their opinions, but don’t expect us to be silenced or shamed. Public Works may have planned this “for years.” Never mind that working people didn’t have the knowledge of, or time and luxury to, attend these meetings – which are a joke anyway, because by the time they open things up to us for comment or input, they already got the grant and the project is a “done deal.” . Covid shut this project down for two years – was there more outreach to us? More education about exactly what this really was or would look like besides maps and architect drawings? That would have, should have, been the time to be sure to dialogue further with the Public and give us more time and real voice. Excuse my cynicism about the same ol’ same ol’.
What we need here is a Citizen Watchdog Group that DOES inform the public what’s going on and makes sure that people really understand what that means. We’ve needed it for decades. and I am willing to help start it – have had an outline ready since 2005 for anyone interested.
Many people had no idea this was happening; that the street ‘improvements’ would be of this scope or scale; even those of us who attended some of the early meetings. Many people other than engineers and architects cannot translate MAPS of this extent and need help knowing what they mean and entail.
The people at the longhouse were blindsided with no one to come to bat for them. Notices are given to landowners but not to renters – this is a senior housing project and they did not know. The ‘planning’ of Public Works road projects is grant-driven. Once they take the monies, the people have no real choice. How many times and in how many ways must this be said? Then one has to get into understanding what RFQs and RFPs are – how they work and how they hamstring us. We need to be an educated citizenry or we have no voice. I was lucky enough to have Greg Sawyer explain these things to me.
Ask some of us who’ve been following along for decades. Sure, we get lip service on Public Works road projects. Promises are made, then they renege on them, knowing it can’t be done in the first place – but we don’t know.. Legally, they have to let us speak at their ‘open houses”‘ where they tell, not ask, what they are going to do. They don’t have to do a single thing we ask or consider the concerns. of citizens stuck with the degradation of our ecosystems due primarily to deforestation and putting concrete and buildings over a wetland watershed on which we depend for much of our drinking water.
Trees are a crucial part of clean water; their filtration is essential. The rate at which trees are destroyed – many of them heritage trees or historical – is shameful. Public Works is the number one culprit of this destruction, due to runaway growth, and – for lack of a more polite word – the pimping-out of this place as if it is some kind of commodity for the well monied. Go ahead and hate me for telling the truth. The truth hurts is more than it does the ones whose feathers are ruffled. For decades, we have asked for other year round economies besides solely tourism, development, and real estate. Those things were shot down by lawsuits from those who profit the most – and then will move on when this place is “ruined” for further profits for them.
This is what happens when public utilities take the big monies. We get no real voice or choice. Don’t think taxpayers won’t be paying for this. Then we get people telling us “just be positive – we may LIKE it.” Ugggghhhh. That just rubs salt in what needs a tourniquet.
Sadie, I can’t imagine that sidewalks on Prune Alley are going to “push the working people off the island”, or that the lack of affordable housing could reasonably be traced to new water mains under Prune Alley. And it’s probably a stretch to call storm drains, sidewalks, water pipes and internet fiber “overblown development”. You are correct that it is incredibly difficult for working class people to live here, and many of the reasons are because of rules and policies enacted by our local government, and supported by the majority of voters. But if you think that this project is one of them, then I think you’ve taken your “eye off the ball”.
I’m not sure how the county could have been any more open or clear about the scope of this project. I wasn’t even trying to pay attention to it, and I still absorbed a ton of information about it due to all of the many articles and publications about it.
The residents of the Longhouse will benefit from having sidewalks to get to the grocery store and pharmacy, with ramps for those in wheelchairs and using walkers. This will be a big improvement over muddy, narrow gravel walkways, often with cars blocking the sidewalk. I have on many occasions stopped and helped residents of the Longhouse carry groceries through this inconvenient situation. They will also benefit from the fiber optic infrastructure improvements, to stay in touch with loved ones and for entertainment. The new water lines will provide cleaner, more dependable water supplies for them. Street lights could help light the way on our long winter nights. New storm drains will help prevent the flooding of businesses in town, which many people don’t know has been a serious problem in the past.
Also, no need for me to ask “those of you who have been following along for decades”, as I have been here all that time, working full time and living here. I’m in town every day. I was here when the same work was done on the North Beach Road portion of downtown. The sidewalks were a welcome addition, and I believe that many islanders “like” the sidewalks on North Beach Road now, even though it was inconvenient when they were going in. Many of the improvements being done in this project are needed and are of great value to the folks who live and work in town.
As for a year round economy not dependent on tourism, that has long been the “holy grail” here in San Juan County, hasn’t it? To think that it’s being kept down by big money and lawsuits is silly though, it’s just the basic practicality and economics of it that prevent it. The cost of living is too high here, and the access to the islands is too inconvenient for most manufacturing or production type economies. The sidewalks in town do not bring more tourists. But they do allow the tourists, and the residents, to move around more safely.
So, while it sounds like you’ve already decided that you won’t ever ever like it, I stand by my opinion that when it’s done, the majority of us will “like” the result.
I know that some people have a hard time with change, but change is inevitable. So rather than trying to stop it, to no avail, try to steer it in the best direction possible.
Mr. Wright;
I’ll ignore the sarcasm and complete spin-doctoring and dismissal of everything I said, and invite you meet me for coffee and look at Longhouse and other sites around town on the road improvement project, and come up with how you think we can steer change in the best way possible. That would entail an actual two-way dialogue.