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Written by PI Editorial Staff
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Saturday, 15 September 2007 |
Take a positive approach
EDITOR,
I often experience periods of depression when I read or hear of the anxieties, fears and concerns that people express about the future of Patterson. I also often wonder what planet they have been living on all this time. Having lived in more than 30 places in this state during my lifetime, the conclusion about the advancement of society with its chaos is obvious. No one can or will stop growth with all of its problems, no matter how they try.
From Los Angeles and Long Beach, with their freeways going over freeways, to the north of Stockton, Lodi and St. Helena, I’ve seen it all. From Oakland and Castro Valley in the west to Placerville, Jackson and Oakdale in the east, people have struggled and failed to preserve the past.
There are no absolute answers to the questions being asked about future problems. How can anyone say, “How long I will have to sit and wait for a train to go by?” Who can predict the problems that come with the advancement of society? And who is foolish enough to believe future irritations will go away, making everyone happy?
No one has been hurt any more than I have by Patterson’s growth. Come by my home on Baldwin Road — that is, if you can get by, with all the traffic from the Keystone Pacific Business Park, with its hundreds of trucks and cars that go by 24 hours a day. Look at the walnut orchard that is dying because of the lack of irrigation. The water I had used for 25 years was shut off without my knowledge or consent, taking with it my living.
So, what do we do? The choices are obvious: spend the rest of our time complaining about what is apparent — that we cannot stop the inevitable — or take a more positive approach and work to help improve our future as best we can. If we are positive, we can help make changes while accepting what we cannot change.
By the way, the cemetery board that I chair has made provisions for those who might some day come our way, and we have made sure no one will take your place.
Walter Rea, Patterson
Port project key to success
EDITOR,
We really need the Crows Landing inland port project on the West Side. I feel it is long overdue, and maybe such a development could bring much-needed amenities to the surrounding towns, such as a hospital and more public transportation. All of these additions would bring jobs, allowing local households to thrive.
West Park could stimulate local economic growth, not to mention keeping locally earned dollars spent within our zip codes.
A vast amount of people are tired of commuting to the Bay Area or farther. Housing affordability and wages have to be comparable to facilitate and promote steady growth.
I’m not calling for, nor do I want, a mass plan of urban sprawl and an overturn of small-town life. I would just like to see people who already live in this area be able to afford where they live and participate in their communities. The only way I personally envision this happening is through local and competitive employment.
I would love to work for West Park and am very interested in the development.
Eric Ragsdale, Patterson
West Park will balance region
EDITOR,
My family and I moved to Newman from the Bay Area in 2006. I support the West Park development project because the housing growth of the Tri-City Corridor (Patterson, Crows Landing, and Newman) is on the rise, while employment has been fatally dormant. This gross imbalance of the scales is resulting in people traveling to other cities for employment, putting strains on families, and now causing foreclosures and vacancies throughout the corridor.
This is the right time and place for this development.
Stanislaus County and the West Side have an opportunity to bring those scales into balance, with more than 37,000 jobs being generated to include construction work, apprenticeship programs, entry-level jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities.
With the rising concern of homeland security, inland ports will resolve the congestion at our ports in California.
Laroy McDonald, Newman
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