“Wait and Whine” Nursery Rhyme 

 The seemingly innocuous passage below from the September-October, 2007, Spotlight on Montebello, led to the title of this community lesson: 

...Work has begun to clean up street signs (stop, yield, etc.) throughout the city and where needed, replace those signs in most need.  Poles will be repaired / replaced and signage will have anti-graffiti coating.  In addition, Phase 2 of the stop sign replacement and re-striping project began in late August and will include replacement of all stop signs and repainting of pavement markings in the area north of Beverly Boulevard and west of Wilcox Avenue. 

The city keeps telling us what they are doing for us.  That is a good thing, but it does lead to a mindset in which the city is convinced, as are we the residents, that it is the city’s job to take care of us, while, like children, we wait—and whine if the job’s not done in time. 

I keep coming back in lessons and essays to this issue of “paternalism” because I believe that the dependence of the public on burdened civil servants is going to lead to calamity, perhaps of the magnitude of the disaster which struck New Orleans. 

A quaint example.  If you remember, before California National Bank was built on the southeast corner of Beverly and Vail, there was an empty lot surrounded by a fence.  Somebody had bent part of the fence outward, so that the barbs at the top faced outward, close to a bus stop on Beverly.  The possibility that somebody could have injured herself coming off the bus was more than remote and could have resulted in a lawsuit against the bus lines, the city, and the property owner.   Because letters to our city’s code-enforcement office dated May 27, 2004, and June 15, 2004, did not bring about the needed repair, on Holloween night, 2004, I walked up to the fence and, with pliers in hand, bent the barbs inward. 

Of course, the Spotlight passage above is cause for additional concern.  New signs and cleaned signs are simply new marks for taggers, and the new graffiti-tracking system is not going to eliminate the problem.  The ideas that the penalty should increase for defacing a traffic-safety sign and that residents could be motivated to provide extensive assistance have not moved  city hall to action, so I wonder how the signs would be kept tagger-free.

If you answer the multiple-choice questions below and e-mail to lessonanswers@mymontebello.com with “Lesson answers” in the subject field, you will be credited toward a “certificate of recognition in community affairs” to be awarded in 2007 by a local nonprofit organization.  

1.   Our city

(a)  has a cooperative relationship with residents which taps our energy and enthusiasm for neighborhood improvement.

(b)  “performs” and looks to us for approval, but nothing more. 

2.   The worst which could happen if we depend on the city to do a job

(a) is that the job would not be finished on time.

(b) injury or death would result and compel indemnification from the city to the aggrieved person, meaning that taxpayer-generated funds would be lost.

If you answer the multiple-choice questions below and e-mail to lessonanswers@mymontebello.com with “Lesson answers” in the subject field, you will be credited toward a “certificate of recognition in community affairs” to be awarded in 2007 by a local nonprofit organization.  

1.   A campaign mailer in Montebello has significance because

(a)  there is much paper wasted in printing the mailer.

(b) there is a $5,000 expense which could be expended better. 

2.   If a donor instructed a candidate on how to spend a donation,

(a) we could see more campaign money stay in a community;

(b) we could see more youth involved in democracy, even before they turned eighteen;

(c) we could see the integrity of political campaigns improve;

(d) we could set up a community chest which would let people participate directly in improving the community.

November 1, 2007