Poll: Street repair is top Petaluma priority

A recent Argus-Courier online poll mirrored a city of Petaluma online survey that asked residents to rank their top priorities.|

A recent Argus-Courier online poll mirrored a city of Petaluma online survey that asked residents to rank their top priorities. The city’s survey allowed respondents to rank each issue as equally important. The Argus-Courier poll used the same language as the city’s poll, but required respondents to choose one top issue. A majority of respondents chose preventing road deterioration or repairing potholes as their top choice.

Here are some comments:

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“Fix the roads, repaving and restriping will improve road safety. That will help 911 response times and road deterioration. School crosswalks should be well marked and warning lighted where necessary when fixing the roads. Police and fire protection equipment are adequate for the city.”

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“How is adding hundreds or thousands of housing units good for Petaluma? The wear and tear, not to mention overcrowded conditions on the roads, is a serious problem, yet Petaluma is allowing hundreds of apartments next to the train station and along the river. Traffic there is a mess. Recently, a driver drove on the opposite lane just to get out of it. You are ruining what used to be a neat little town.”

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“Public safety is always number one.”

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“Reallly, all of the above. I would add pedestrian safety. On a daily basis as a walker, I have encountered each day at least one or more drivers not stopping at crosswalks even at times while being in the crosswalk. They are drivers who are not paying attention, impatient, in a hurry, speeding and even making a turn with one hand on the wheel and a coffee cup or maybe a cell phone in the other.”

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“The roads are horrible and very unsafe to drive on. Especially the country roads.”

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“This is the worst poll. The choices should have been 1) road safety, which includes repairing potholes, preventing road deterioration and safe routes to school; 2) public safety, which includes rapid 911 response times, maintaining fire protection equipment and attracting qualified police officers; and 3) all of the above. My choice is all of the above. Citizens should not have to choose between safe roads and rapid 911 response times for example. The city needs to rework their budget. Stop the ridiculous expenditures on surveying the residents when the residents have spoken and those sales tax measures have failed.”

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“We should not have to chose one over the other. Each one is essential for our lovely community. Too bad past poor spending projects and practices of city leaders have brought us to this point.”

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“Affordable housing is number one.”

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“The Petaluma City Council’s top priority should be to enact a building moratorium because we don’t have enough water for what we already have. And the top priority of the people of Petaluma should be to replace the whole city council with ones not in the pockets of developers.”

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“Actually none of these are a priority to many people in Petaluma, but we are not even give that choice to say ‘none of the above.’ This, and the city’s recent poll, limits the questions to three areas, road, police and fire. Police and fire use up over 50 percent of the city’s budget. Eight of the top 10 earners on the city payroll are from fire/police.”

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