What?

News Alert!

Yikes, the town where I live is turning into a police state.

Here’s what’s been happening:

The City arbitrarily decided that homeowners, not only have to make perfect new sidewalks, but that the homeowners also have to pay for this.

If a homeowner doesn't voluntarily replace the sidewalk slabs that the city marks with arrows and circles in orange, the City threatens to hire a company themselves at a pretty price and simply bill the homeowner.

It is amazing to me that the City of Fairfield pays an employee good money (taxpayers’ money, that is) to walk around with a ruler and a can of paint so he can paint every sidewalk in the city with arrows and circles in orange.

It must be that the City Council has a dream of turning Fairfield into a perfect Mayberry!

Where I come from, the city takes care of its own liability. Please note that taxes in Fairfield are higher than in L.A., and you don’t get the amenities here that L.A. provides. I bet you don’t pay for the Fire Department to put out a fire in L.A.

The City of Fairfield arbitrarily further taxes its homeowners any way it feels like.

Listen to what happened to my friend Ginny a couple of winters ago. She was out of town for a couple of days when it snowed. When she got back, she discovered that the City had hired the most expensive snow-removal company in the world to shovel her sidewalk. Not only that, the City glibly charged her by the foot – by the foot! She had to pay nearly $300 for the shoveling of her sidewalk that a kid or someone from Job Service of Iowa could have done for $20.

An irony is that Ginny actually likes to shovel. She always keeps her sidewalk immaculately shoveled.

Need I mention that there were plenty of other sidewalks that were not shoveled and were not tagged. (Not that I would want any household to be tagged.)

In addition to the City’s fetishes about shoveling and sidewalks, there is a third outrage about landscaping. What will they think of next!

Before I get into the third command performance, I want to give credit where credit is due. When it came to the sidewalks, the City gave plenty of notice. They sent registered receipt-requested letters and so on. They were at least considerate enough to make certain that a homeowner knew what the City had in mind for them to do.

Now that I have given credit, may I mention an aside? The City that avidly sent notices about new sidewalks finds no time or interest in giving the slightest thank you to the penalized homeowners for spending thousands of dollars on their sidewalks. Of course, who would thank an indentured servant for complying?

Now, the City that wants to become Mayberry, has cooked up a plan to improve people’s yards! Yes, make their yards as perfect as the sidewalks! What will they think of next!

As you may know, I live in a beautiful duplex in Fairfield on East Burlington Avenue. The owner is a single working woman (my daughter) who incidentally paid $5,000+ for an excellent new sidewalk. The house is situated on an acre and a half of land. The yard is an enchanted woodland. No sprays or artificial anything have blemished this beautiful yard in sixteen years.

On purpose, we keep the yard as untouched as possible. There are at least 100 trees of various kinds including huge ancient oak trees. The yard is a sanctuary for birds and butterflies as well as for us. You get the idea.

Besides the many environmental reasons to keep the yard as it is, we personally do not favor manicured yards of grass and perfect plantings. We like nature as it is and want plantings to look like they’re happy to grow where they are and are allowed to grow any which way they want. I like as close to natural as possible, the wilder the better. Neatly trimmed bushes? No thank you.

I must mention one more aside. With the exception of the new sidewalk extortion, the City does not give proper notice for snow-shoveling or yard improvement. They cavalierly leave a card on a door knob, quite possibly on an obscure door which is never used, oh, say like a little door in a garage way in the back. In any case, the card can blow off and the homeowner never find it. Aha, perhaps the City gets a chuckle out of the bewildered homeowner’s not seeing the notice in the first place!

Here is the card that we found by chance on a little unused door in the garage way in the back:

What exactly does the City want? Do you think it wants the whole yard cut down? Really? All of it? Every blade of grass? Every bush and tree? If you figure it out, will you kindly let us know?