A bold undertaking
EDITOR: Our new city council member, Michael Carnacchi, who very recently was elected into office, has hit the ground running. Almost immediately following his election, he has pounced on an issue that is arguably the most historically pressing dysfunction in our downtown community: the vehicular traffic – its nature and magnitude – and the devastating effect that it directly has on the safety and quality of our pedestrian experience.
His already established vision, courage and determination may be the very ingredients necessary to finally, effectively, address a burning issue that has been ignored and dormant throughout decades of previous Council administrations. His initial focus will be on diverting the highway traffic through a bypass that will circumvent our downtown and greatly reduce not only the magnitude of the traffic, but its frenzied quality as well. He will then follow up with a proposal that will see an improved return to the two-way traffic that once prevailed years ago. Combined, their implementation will be a direct calming benefit to our local community, adding greatly to a promise of an expanded community vitality, and serve as a balancing relief to the rather disproportionate attention that the Barlow, et al, and its revenue/profit-focused, outsider/tourist-centered perspective, has been receiving in recent years.
This is a bold undertaking; he has already initiated contact with state agencies and is steadily gaining impressive momentum. This, however, cannot always be a one-person endeavor; he will be needing our support in many ways, starting perhaps with an open-mindedness, a patience, a trust in his intentions, and an enthusiasm towards its promise as a long-overdue refurbishment of what might just become a truly wonderful downtown.
Robert Beauchamp
Sebastopol
