Marin Horizon will not be participating in International Walk to School Day "Evergreen Avenue is "too dangerous."

From: Charlessands
Date: October 5, 2010 9:40:39 AM PDT
To: fmansourian@co.marin.ca.us
Cc: BCrawford@co.marin.ca.us, sadams@co.marin.ca.us, jarnold@co.marin.ca.us, hbrown@co.marin.ca.us, skinsey@co.marin.ca.us, cmcglashan@co.marin.ca.us, dstratton@co.marin.ca.us, opinion@marinij.com, jimw@Patch.com
Subject: Marin Horizon will not be participating in International Walk to School Day "Evergreen Avenue is "too dangerous."

Bcc: HVCC, Madrone Park Circle, Save Evergreen and Hearus groups

Marin Horizon, Inc.’s "Head of School, Roz Hammar" recently declared that Marin Horizon will not be participating in International Walk to School Day because, without a sidewalk, Evergreen Avenue is "too dangerous."

Puh-lease, permission to vomit!

If Evergreen Ave. is THAT dangerous, why haven’t the school’s children been deterred from walking it until now? Surely, the deadly peril about which “head of school” warns us didn’t arise just yesterday. If the street truly posed the danger to pedestrians MHS insists, why hasn't the school’s bus been rescuing students at the corner of Evergreen and Miller and ferrying them safely to the school? Why haven’t parents been told, "Evergreen is deadly! Don't risk your children's lives, drive them to our front door!"

Yes! YES!! We all know about the traffic management plan imposed upon the school by the County, but if the “Deadly Evergreen” fairy tale concocted by Marin Horizon, Inc. were true, what conscientious employee of MHS, Inc. wouldn't be at the east end of Evergreen every morning flagging down cars, raising the alarm over a bullhorn, grabbing kids by the arm and rescuing them from doom? Why is it only now, with the approach of International Walk to School Day, that MHS has decided that the street is too dangerous for the school's kids to participate? Come on! This decision is nothing but a transparent, cynical, and appallingly clumsy exercise in fear mongering — a cheap, histrionic performance intended to construct a mountain out of a microscopic mole hill!

A school has stood at the corner of Melrose and Montford for eighty-nine years, and during that time NO ONE walking on Homestead’s Evergreen Avenue has EVER been so much as even touched by a motor vehicle. The fact of the matter is that none of this controversy is about pedestrian safety. It's about smug self-righteousness and underhanded, County politics.

As always, MHS acts as if it knows best. Opinions differing from the school’s are simply, flat-out wrong. Marin Horizon, Inc. has proclaimed ex cathedra that Evergreen Avenue is dangerous. Period! End of discussion! That's how the school has been handling conflicts with Homestead residents since it learned early on that ignoring their complaints and patronizing them with little sacks of cookies only invoked hostility. Dismissing them as "school haters" has proven to be so much more effective. Doubtless, this has become the core of their much-touted conflict resolution program.

As for the politics, the county is hurting for funds to maintain its infrastructure, and Evergreen Avenue could stand some upkeep. Marin Horizon, Inc. tried to get a grant to build this sidewalk before and failed. Last time around, however, a little more "creativity" in the form of distortions and half-truths was applied to "enhancing" the grant application and Voilà! Funding was approved and a gleeful Marin County Department of Public Works, after shamelessly lying to Evergreen residents about its intention to abandon the project if they didn't want it, is now grimly determined to lay down this hated stretch of ugly concrete in order to snatch $1.1 million of someone else's money for their road repairs! That sidewalk is going to be built — Evergreen residents be damned!

And where is the County Supervisor responsible for representing Homestead Valley in all of this? He will undoubtedly be where he was when Marin Horizon supporters from outside his district imported turmoil and rancor to the neighborhood five years ago. He’ll see to it that Marin Horizon, Inc. gets what it thinks everyone else owes it, DPW will learn that it can lie to the community with impunity and Evergreen residents will loose the charm of their neighborhood and get saddled in perpetuity for maintaining the school’s sidewalk. After patronizing Evergreen residents with a sufficiently self-serving speech, Kinsey will once again stab his own constituents in the back. With County money being so tight, let’s hope he won't be sending us all a bill for the cost of the knife — but don’t be surprised if he does!

Frank Lurz