Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Won't you be my Neighbor?

For those of you old enough to remember, this was the tag line for Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. He was a friendly guy, trying to teach life lessons to kids. Being a neighbor meant following the "golden rule" of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." He wanted to be your neighbor, to be a friend, a person you could count on. Unfortunately, this type of neighbor seems to be in short supply.

As most of you know, I work for the City of Walnut Creek. I handle complaints on a daily basis about all sorts of things. Recently, there was a complaint about a neighbor building something in their backyard without a permit. As with most calls of this type, the person calling wanted to remain anonymous. They didn't want to be known as the "whistle blower". Of course, they also didn't want to talk to their neighbor. Inevitably these people want the "government" to handle the situation and don't want to be involved. Almost all of the complaints we get are from people who don't talk to one another.

What is up with that? Granted, I don't talk much to my neighbors on either side of me, but I will say hi to them when I see them. If there was an issue, I would go next door and talk to them. My neighbor on one side had an issue with my deck and wrote me a nice note. We ended up talking on the phone a couple of times and once or twice in person to resolve the issue. Neither of us wanted to cause any problems, but we had issues that needed to be worked out and we did it. Why can't the people in Walnut Creek do this? Can't we all just get along?

If these people would just talk to each other, I would have a lot less work to do. Most of these problems could easily be resolved with out the City getting involved. It is very frustrating to have to deal with these people. Ah well, I guess that's why I get paid the big bucks.

1 comment:

  1. My neighbor behind me sends me an annual notice telling me that my vegetation is creeping into his yard. Two years ago he sent me a note saying that the leaves from my 20 ft. tree are clogging his gutter. He told me to cut it down and if any branches fall on his side, he won't mind cleaning it up. So I sawed it down and watched a 15 ft. section go timber into his yard. It took him a month to finally saw it into smaller pieces to fit in his green bin. Last year was the first year I did not get a note from him.

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