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| Fast Talk |
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| Written by Ron Swift / Fast Talk | |
| Friday, 20 June 2008 | |
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How Patterson grew Turn the clock back about 25 years and you’d get a taste of Patterson’s first major housing spurt.  Ron Swift / Fast Talk In 1984, the new Colony Park subdivision had quality homes selling for between $68,000 and $90,000. Local farmer Harold Arambel was a partner in the project, which had no trouble finding buyers seeking quality construction at a reasonable price. Many came from out of town, specifically the Bay Area. Their reasons for moving to Patterson were detailed in news stories in the Irrigator. Price, of course, was a major attraction. But besides that, buyers spoke of the rural atmosphere, friendly downtown merchants, the lack of traffic congestion and a low incidence of major crime. The late James Burke, a retired federal government employee who, in the early 1990s, was elected to the City Council at a time when Patterson’s rate of growth picked up dramatically, had this observation: “I even love to drive over to Modesto and (along the way) see the birds, the trees and the farmland. The tension is released just driving in the countryside.” Others commented about the beauty of the barren hills to the west of Patterson, the friendships they developed with their neighbors, acceptance at their church of choice and the small-town activities in which they could immediately participate. Younger families who moved here in the ’80s usually found their children’s teachers friendly and helpful. The young people found plenty of recreation available, even though the movie theaters, bowling alleys and malls were a half-hour drive away. Once the builders discovered new Patterson residents were willing to drive to jobs in the Bay Area, they converged on City Hall, and construction accelerated. In the next several years, housing tracts took shape on the city’s east side, both north and south of East Las Palmas Avenue. They were immediately followed by subdivisions south of Sperry Avenue. After these tracts were approved, Patterson’s City Council put on the brakes. Developers were stalled in 1986 when the council imposed a building moratorium while it updated the city’s general plan. The halt on the approval of new subdivisions stretched out over six years. It wasn’t until the Heartland Ranch tract began in the mid-1990s that Patterson’s housing boom resumed. While many of the new homeowners liked their new community, they understandably disliked their daily commute over the Altamont to work. One told a story of motorists getting out of their vehicles and playing poker while waiting for the freeway traffic to move. The vast majority of Patterson’s present-day population has moved here within the past 25 years. Those people include a wide range of families, from retirees to first homeowners with young children. They certainly have their own reasons for selecting Patterson as their city of choice, and it would be most interesting to hear their likes-and-dislikes comments about life in our small but rapidly growing city. NOT FUNNY A soon-to-be-released movie, apparently intended to be a comedy about war, has been advertised on TV in recent days. I don’t plan to see it. There’s nothing funny about war. FOR THE SPORTS FAN Golfers, including Laurence Kolding, Don Garcia and Tex Pace, were undoubtedly heartened when Rocco Mediate got into a playoff with Tiger Woods in last weekend’s U.S. Open. That’s because, at age 45, Rocco was the oldest linker in the prestigious tourney. And he almost won it. AND FINALLY … You’ve undoubtedly read in this column about the many times my good friend Bob “Spokie” Kimball has fallen off his bike while logging more than 50,000 miles of cycling in the past two decades. But heck, we now learn that Bob has company, and Bryan Bingham has a big scab to show for it. Bryan is now riding to work at the Patterson District Cemete ry, where he is general manager. That’s admirable. But coming home recently, he admits he fell off his two-wheeler on the railroad tracks and removed a big chunk of skin from his knee. Besides riding bikes, these two guys have something else in common. Each is a past president of the local Lions Club. That’s why this scribe, also a Lions past president, chooses to ride only camels. I suggest that Spokie I and Spokie II either do the same or begin wearing knee pads. Dangerous things, those bikes.
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