Defending Dawson Neighborhood

Dear Editors,
    Our ragtag group didn't have a PowerPoint presentation for the Planning Commission; no colored maps, no aerial photos, no snapshots, no renderings of what wonderful projects could be. Unfortunately, this time even the city had a PowerPoint presentation against the neighborhood. We expected the slick slide show from the developer group. At the first Planning Commission meeting they had surprised us with a PowerPoint presentation. It was a particularly bitter surprise because the developer group had set through the neighborhood meeting the night before, not revealing their opposition. We felt infiltrated.
    Perhaps they changed their minds the next day and quickly put together their computer slide show just in time for the Planning Commission meeting. They showed houses in decay, graffiti, trailers, and the freeway. They portrayed that corner of our neighborhood as being blighted and in desperate need of change. They didn't show Mrs. Ng's rose garden, nor Mr. Sanchez's newly painted front porch. Any house that looked good was not in their PowerPoint presentation. They didn't mention that the houses in the worst decay had recently been bought up by members of this developer group and then purposely not kept up. No one said that nice people can afford to live in mobile homes. And the noise from the freeway and the proximity to the freeway isn't that bad. It is an excavated freeway. That corner of the neighborhood is on high hill, above the service road and way above the actual freeway. Height and trees protect these homes from the freeway. It is not a bad place to live.
    But this time at the Planning Commission, the big surprise was the changes the city's PowerPoint presentation proposed. Families who had owned their homes for generations had not been notified of these changes. Colored zoning maps where their lots had been yellow for family were suddenly turned brown for commercial. It is amazing what miracles modern technology can do. The city made no attempt to explain to these families what the consequences of the changes would be. The only information the homeowners received was from the developer group.
    This time we had several neighbors there. We tried to explain to the commissioners that there had been a mistake, that the city had no right to change homeowner’s properties without their consent. But we weren't very organized, we were perhaps too emotional, and we didn't have a PowerPoint presentation. We lost eight to one. Only the chair of the commission took pity on us. Next time we've got to have a PowerPoint presentation. Otherwise their may not be a neighborhood left to defend.