By Robert Blackmoore

Planning or the lack of it, and the propagation of just more ugly urban sprawl, acres of strip malls, car lots, storage lockers, crooked leaning power poles, phone & cable wires strewn all over the countryside, I'll start my rant against planning by saying put all that hanging drooping wire crap underground. Every year power lines are downed by frost storms, hurricanes, tornados, forest fires, car accidents how many people hit these poles lining almost all of our roads? Too many. Roads another poorly planned item. So in catastrophes not that a head on with one of these poles isn't, millions go without power for days and people continue to die. It has to start somewhere the next time any of them go down keep them down, put them underground.

How long has it been that the monstrosity on Vista Point has sat and rotted? What a perfect time to put some real affordable housing like the development on the hill behind Vista Point lets say where the roof used to be on the rotted roof of the giant empty place at one of the supposed scenic main entry's into Lakeport we'll get into roads later.

At this point I'd like to congratulate Petaluma for at least considering these ideas. It's disgusting how much acreage is on the roofs of these already existing buildings. Just think maybe the elderly on a fixed income could afford to live close to doctors, pharmacies, groceries, shopping, eating. Instead of the way it is in most cities shuttling and driving all those people to and from said areas of commerce and service. Or maybe the overworked not so highly paid single parent assistant manager could live up there and monitor their children from work. As well as having more time to spend with their kids wife, life basically on site, a three minute walking commute. Gee then the low paid could do without a car, insurance, payments,repairs, gas. Most of these ideas don't stand a chance because they have way to much common sense involved. And those in power can't make money off you.

Below is a perfect example of poor planning. Hello I've been to many drive through car washes and none of them denies you from driving through. Here you drive up to the drive through car wash your choice is to roll down the window and put in your code, but as you see you would then run into the wall, so you have to get out of your car to put in the code then get back in and drive through or any number of variations on a theme many of which don't work as by evidence of scrapes, marks, gouges, in the pole placed right in front of you and many other driving mishaps. Couldn't they put a longer pole on the input device? They had to replace the crappie wash with a newer one and I haven't tried it yet. have you?

Heres to progressive, good, long range planning not something learned from a Sims game. Why can't we lead by example instead of sheeple type behavior, or how much can I make out of this deal.
Lake county is really making a name for itself, cut down more trees especially in parks Kill more birds they're just so messy and noisy, so we can put down more concrete and asphalt, everyone knows that's what makes a park inviting. I guess the plan is no shade lots of asphalt nothing to look at making things even hotter so when some confused tourist happens to find the lake it's so freaking hot all he can think of is running to someplace air conditioned which means a handful of restaurants, grocery stores the
big Kame apart or pay outrageous water park prices.

Do any of you think, in our wildest dreams that our shoreline could resemble this? Learning from other peoples attempts to live together and trying to apply them to our landscape might be a simple way to see if it could work.

Have you noticed the roundabout put in on hamburger hill and it's positive influence on the moving of traffic at a constant speed. I wonder how many accidents have happened there? Do you think we could use a few more of these maybe with a beautiful sculptured fountain or a tree maybe.

Or will more strip malls, trailer parks, and storage yards, occupy these prime lake front properties.
As well as our Scenic Corridors.

In looking at these other waterfront locations do you think that there might be a good restaurant with a lake view or waterfront bistro on a patio or hotel or bed and breakfast overlooking the water. Nice little sidewalk cafes bakeries, art galleries, fountains. Maybe a place to take a nice stroll along the shoreline.
And who in there right minds would come to such a place to live or vacation.

Now heres an idea road rallies. The W.R.C. and the F.I.A. put on rallies all over the world. Looking for remote or not so remote locations as long as the road is a demanding one. But not here in the USA. As you can see lots of people go to these events rain, snow, hot, cold, sort of how soccer is outside of The States. I can still remember as a kid nobody would play soccer, what no unnecessary ruffness, no armor, no violence? It must be a game for sissies. Today it's taught in our schools, soccer fields are now a part of most towns and the world is better for it. Now the US has it's own leagues for men, women and children.   These people buy tons of marketing products and need to eat and spend the night, buy gas, camp out etc. Then there are the sale of cars from the various manufacturers.
Lake county has plenty of demanding dirt back roads to put such an event on
Dirt, pavement, snow, rain it doesn't matter they race, the tougher the better.

    
I really like the fence, there's a lake in there somewhere.