Guest Commentary: Consider an option other than a tax

Build it and they will come (maybe).

We’ve recently built two large shopping centers in Petaluma – the Target center and Friedman’s. These centers were created with the promise, among other things, that they would help bring much-needed additional tax revenue to the city. So, rather than chasing new revenue in the form of a permanent sales tax increase that may very well cancel itself out by discouraging people, once again, from shopping in Petaluma, let’s be a little more effective supporting what we’ve already created.

The last thing Petaluma, or any city, needs are more half-occupied “ghost town” shopping centers. We need all of our stores – big box and small – to thrive. They all have their place and purpose in a vibrant community and, as the saying goes, the success of one helps “lift all boats.” So here are a couple of simple, practical suggestions to help make that vibrant, economically healthy community a reality, and reduce the need for additional taxation.

n Signage: Thanks to a recent city council decision, there will now be some modest signs that indicate from the freeway what stores reside in the Target center. But there is currently no clear, prominent signage on Washington Street that instructs visiting motorists where to enter the Target center as they approach it either from the west or from the significantly more complicated eastern direction. There is also absolutely no indication from the freeway of what stores, including Target, reside in this center. Boosting the visibility of and access to these stores will help increase the city’s tax revenues without raising the city’s sales tax.

n Traffic: Untimed or ineffectively timed lights along the major thoroughfares of Petaluma - or any city - are a major problem for people and the environment. How much wasted time and global-warming hydrocarbons must we unnecessarily spend crawling from one side of the city to the other, waiting two or three cycles to cross major intersections that barely let four cars through at a time? And what’s with the overlap of people trying to get out of the Target center onto Washington Street, and those trying at the same spot to get from Washington Street onto the 101 South onramp? We can do better. If the City of Petaluma lacks sufficient people-power or expertise for truly effective traffic planning, then let’s hire it out to someone who does. But let’s make the necessary corrections, and get it done. Right now.

Hey, make no mistake: I love big government as much as the next guy. But sometimes being efficient with what we already have beats endlessly asking for more. And this is clearly a case where a little more smarts and a few modest changes can beat a lot more taxation.

Finally, one last note about traffic: An economically vibrant city needs residents and visitors who can easily get into and out of it. Is it really true that all we need is $250 million more to complete the entire widening of the Novato Narrows? I mean, someone could probably stand on the shoulder of Highway 101 with a bucket and collect that amount in a single day from all those who would gladly be rid of one of the worst choke points in the entire State of California. Federal and state officials, are you listening?

(Byron Schneider has been a resident of Petaluma since the end of the last century. )