Not In My Neighborhood

On the last day of my vacation, I got three emails from a member of the neighborhood homeowners’ association informing me that the King County Council had given a developer the thumbs up to build a strip mall next to the elementary school about three blocks down the street. I guess the enormous strip mall located seven blocks down the street didn’t provide enough hairstyling services, shitty restaurants, and mediocre trinket shops, so the KC Council felt it was necessary to grace us with another.

I’m not against a suburb mom fulfilling her dream and opening up a craft boutique, nor would I speak out against a coffee shop that would provide an alternative to Starbuck’s, what I don’t like is the fact that those greedy fucks on the KC Council want a retail/commercial facility next to a school. Let’s see; busy shopper with car + impulsive first graders = young parents mourning over their child’s headstone. Lest you think I’m one morbid bitch, let me tell you that I’ve seen it happen too many times before, and it’s never a good idea to put a heavily trafficked establishment next to an elementary school. Someone with a basic set of brains should know this, and unfortunately that means that local politicians just like their national counterparts, don’t have a basic set of brains!

My neighborhood was established in 1997, and around that time, there were only two other neighborhoods in the area. In the past three years, one small neighborhood and one monster, huge neighborhood has gone in, and we all use the same two-lane road. Along with the elementary school, we have a private, Christian, elementary school, and a junior high school that also use that same puny-assed, two-lane road. To make matters worse, as if they could get worse, the school district cancelled bus service in my neighborhood, so on a cold, rainy day the traffic for the first four blocks of my commute borders me on homicidal.

The addition of a strip mall would make traffic more of a hell than it is now, which pisses me off because it means that I have become one of those single-issue voter assholes. Courtney Love could run for office in King County and as long as she had a good plan for relieving traffic congestion in my neighborhood, I’d actually vote for her. This makes me absolutely hate myself! However, I have no desire to waste anymore of my precious life sitting in my car fumbling for a halfway decent song on the radio while contemplating the excuse I’m going use to pitch the idea of takeout to a hungry (and irritated) husband and toddler.

Last year, the big talk in this area was that we were going to be incorporated into our own city, which would have had a minor impact on taxes and given us better control over our social services. Since we are usually ignored, most neighborhoods up here have had to hire additional police services to patrol. All of the other issues such as ambulance service, fire fighters, waste collection are all private contract, so there really wouldn’t be any burden in that regard. All we would have had to do was pony up funds for a City Hall, but then my suspicion is that someone got smart and did some math.

I pay over $5,000 per year in property taxes, and I’m one of about 187 houses in this neighborhood. My neighborhood, alone, generates a pretty nice sum of tax cash, and the houses that fill the monster neighborhood down the street are worth more than the ones in my neighborhood. Someone got wise and figured out that by losing our five neighborhoods they were kissing a heaping shitload of money ‘good-bye’. However, we are still being shortchanged when it comes to our needs as a community.

The latest word is that we may still be the City of Fairwood, but no one is sure when the official vote will be or if it will really even happen. All I know is that I’m sick of sitting in traffic, and we already have three crappy Chinese food places here, we don’t need another one. We’ve got the nail salon, two movie rental stores (like anyone does that anymore), three grocery stores, three pizza places, a Mexican restaurant, and the lawyer who claims he can get you out of a DUI. As much as I would like a restaurant where the food actually tastes good, I can’t even imagine what life would be like with another shopping area.

It’s sad when quality of life boils down to money and traffic. In order for my life to be better (i.e. less traffic), I’m going to have to get involved and remind the decision makers that those of us who pay the money have the right to tell them what decisions to make.