My homeowner’s insurance just jumped a lot.
About 18 months ago, the fire department and City Council candidate Kim Bowman presented the conclusion of a long and intense assessment of fire danger in La Cañada Flintridge.
Their recommendation was to immediately post the most dangerous streets with special emergency parking restrictions. More than 10% of our streets provide the only way out to a large number of homes from streets that feed down through them.
On red flag days (announced on radio, TV and the internet), when the winds are blowing and the danger is high, those streets must already be posted to allow parking on one side only. Only on red flag days would we have to get our cars into our garages, onto our driveways or onto the other side of those streets.
People need a clear street to escape and fire trucks need a wide path to get in. Obviously, reasonable and easy. Bowman is now a City Councilman but hasn’t been able, despite enthusiastic thank-yous from the Council (and from the audience that night), to get that started.
The first step should have been to have their proposal on the agenda for a Council meeting. Why hasn’t even that been done? We are talking about losing our houses and people dying.
Please email the other City Council members urging that the issue go on the next agenda. Cheap, fast, effective and the easiest of all the things we are going to have to do to protect ourselves.
Lauren Oakes
La Cañada Flintridge
First published in the November 16 print issue of the Outlook Valley Sun.
