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In the spring of 2010 I arrived home from work to find my street lined with small orange flags, the type of which usually indicate some sort of digging soon to take place. The flags were quite curious to me since Ryan Place had only been established a few years prior and our street seemed to have all the necessary infrastructure already in place.
What could anyone be digging along the entire south side of the street and right in front of our three year old house? I reached out to a contact I had at the Fredonia DPW who told me that the flags were markers for the no parking signs to be placed all along the south side of Ryan Place. When I asked the DPW employee why no parking signs were being placed on a street in a newly constructed subdivision that only housed six homes, they told me that someone had indicated there was a parking problem on Ryan Place and the signs needed to be installed for safety reasons.
I spoke with my neighbors and asked them if anyone from the village had contacted them about the proposed parking signs. All of my neighbors indicated they were unaware of village government's plan to place no parking signs on our street. All of my neighbors were opposed to the idea for a number of reasons. I then reached out to a village trustee at the time who told me that someone who did not even live on Ryan Place had complained to a couple of trustees about a Ryan Place resident who was often parking their truck in the street in front of their house.
That resident would have been yours truly.
Instead of speaking to the people who actually live on Ryan Place, the village board decided to spend taxpayer dollars to place no parking signs on a street that certainly did not need them based on the complaint of a single individual. That individual, who did not even live on Ryan Place, was often annoyed by having to drive around a single vehicle while using the newly constructed street as a thoroughfare.
The trustee I spoke with at the time told me that the board would be voting on a resolution to place the no parking signs at their next meeting and I should come and speak in opposition to the resolution. Before the meeting I did some research. I measured the width of Ryan Place and compared it to other streets in the village. Ryan Place is one of the widest side streets in all of Fredonia. I obtained the measurements of the village's fire trucks and work trucks and determined that even in the unlikely event that vehicles were parked directly across from each other on opposite sides of the street, large trucks could still easily and safely navigate Ryan Place.
I attended the Village Board meeting with several of my neighbors. Although a few of the trustees were not happy to see us, we spoke in opposition to the parking ban on the south side of our street. I explained to the village board that I often parked my truck in the street so that my children could play basketball and ride their bikes in our driveway. I also parked my truck in the street to slow down the cars that often sped past my house at speeds well beyond the 30 mph limit. My neighbors and I also questioned the village board's decision to place the no parking signs without ever speaking with the people who lived on our street. After hearing from my neighbors and me, the board at the time rescinded the resolution to ban parking on the south side of Ryan Place.
At that same 2010 village board meeting, the trustees passed a resolution limiting parking on Forest Place. I was reminded of this history while watching the Aug. 3 village board meeting and hearing village residents who live on Forest Place express concerns about the current village board's proposal to ban all parking on Forest Place. It seems as though a different village board 16 years later had decided to place a parking ban on another street without speaking to the residents of that street. To their credit, after hearing from a large number of Forest Place residents opposed to the parking ban on their street, the mayor and the trustees seem agreeable to listening to Forest Place residents about the parking on their street.
It is commendable that the village board is now listening to residents' concerns about their recent decisions regarding parking on Forest Place, parking meters in downtown Fredonia and vendor laws for the Farmers' Market and other events. It is also commendable that the mayor and the village board are willing to change directions when shown a better way. But shouldn't the mayor and the trustees have heard from residents before making these unpopular decisions and causing the resulting uproar?
Can you think of any other unpopular decisions by the village board that need to be reversed? Fredonia's water plans maybe?
Andrew Ludwig is a retired math teacher and a retired public school and Catholic school administrator. He currently works as a substitute teacher in Chautauqua County.