More on the “Welcome Wagon”
Terry and I went to the meeting. Frank was there as well.
Here’s where my “dreamland concept” of how things get done in this city was destroyed!
(You see, at our previous home, the city came out and, as a part of their Street Resurfacing program, came through and…. repaved the road, put in curbs, put in a sidewalk, and gave us all mailboxes! It was like heaven! Our property values went up and we decided to sell! Now, our street was Salisbury Road, an important street in northern Independence. However, our PART of the street was not used quite as much. There was car traffic, but not near the amount that the rest of Salisbury gets. And Salisbury ended about four blocks down from our house. So, this little 6 block stretch of Salisbury was magically improved! And, to my knowledge, there was no real activism in the area that caused such a project to happen! There didn’t APPEAR to be a neighborhood council. I had checked their website online and couldn’t find much activity. Nobody ever contacted me or invited me to anything over there. So, I had pretty much assumed that the city’s Street Resurfacing program had prioritized its streets and just “got around” to doing ours. I had assumed that the curbs, storm sewers, etc. were all a part of that program.)
So when I sat there at the Neighbors of Winner Road Association meeting and heard a representative from the City’s Public works department, my jaw dropped! This neighborhood is obviously in greater need of infrastructural improvements than my former neighbohood was. However, we were going to have to beg and scrape for money and submit a plan.. just to TRY to get some basic improvements approved by the City Council!