Letter: Meyers should focus on locals

To the community,

I was asked, “What did we want Meyers to look like?” After some thought, the things that matter to the people who live here are the things they care about like having a quiet, mountain neighborhood. The fact that people feel secure walking their dogs in the evening is a great part of living here. To know that you are safe in your neighborhood and that your neighbor will help you when you are in need are comforting; also, knowing your neighbors by name, everyone waving to each other as they pass by, and having spectacular views of the mountains and seeing stars above at night.

What else? A stoplight at the intersection of Apache and Highway 50 would be a great start. Why is it not even on the Capital Improvement Project list in our new draft Meyers Area Plan? Meyers residents like us have been asking for the signal light for more that 15 years. A traffic study was completed, funding was approved, and residents were even given a start date for the signal light. Now our request falls on deaf ears.

In one of the Meyers Planning meetings it was brought up again and had lots of residents support, but did not even make the top 25 on the list. Are they saying that giving away free Sierra juniper seedlings (Page 7-5 in Meyers Area Plan) is more important than the safety of our children trying to cross Highway 50 on a Friday afternoon to visit a friend or buy ice cream at Lira’s? To try to get across 50 now is like playing dodge and dash across to the other side. I have been told a stoplight costs about $150,000 and with about 3,000 people living in Meyers, it costs about $16 per person for three years. Is a child’s life worth that or do we have to have a body count high enough to meet the Caltrans requirements for a stoplight?

I am in support of a Meyers Community Hall, a building that would have multiple uses for the community, such as crab feeds, spaghetti dinners, or local fund-raising events. We need a place to have dances, community meetings and other social events. Yes, I would like to see a “Welcome to Meyers” sign and a facelift of the Highway 50 corridor.

I prefer locally owned businesses rather than corporations that really don’t have an interest in our local affairs. Why is it so hard for a local resident to build a small business here? Why does government make the process so convoluted?

On that note, have you looked at the new Meyers Area Plan yet? Don’t cross your eyes trying to figure out what Chapter 2 really says in the Meyers plan. Our government agencies should be looking at what the needs of the community are, not 45-foot-high buildings with high-density housing for tourists, multi-unit apartments, or a 477-space parking garage, or changing zoning boundary lines so that currently protected land could meet the condition for “incentive” projects. Why is the California Tahoe Conservancy able to sell taxpayer owned, conserved property for new land coverage projects? If that is your ideal vision, you probably live near state line.

With agencies such as the TRPA and entities like the MCAC talking about the MAP to the CTC with the new RPU, and trading ERUs or TAUs for CFA, and mixing CUP with just P’s only if you have footnotes (4) and (6) as a condition to build, and don’t forget the BMPs, you really get a feeling that something is not right in Meyers.

Joe Cardinale, Meyers