Starting a petition

Even though I went to bed after 2:30 am last night I woke up in time to call the Flathead County Road Superintendent (Charlie J.) at 6:30 am before he and the department left to do chipping & sealing road work. I woke up naturally (or as natural one can on less than 4 hours sleep) as I never plugged in the alarm clock. How I can do this, I have no idea.

I wanted to talk with Charlie about what he supposedly suggested to alleviate traffic concerns from the proposed 52 home subdivision down the road from me. The road past my place is already considered substandard and adding two foot gravel shoulders on each side of the road to handle an extra 520 vehicle trips a day is not adequate. The impression I got was that with the budget restrictions this is the best we can get. Well, it is not good enough or safe enough.

Naturally after talking with Charlie I went back to bed to get more sleep.

Late this afternoon I wrote up a petition with my traffic concerns and had Amy print copies off for me as I don't have a printer. Then I started visiting my neighbors along the road. I started at the north end as these people are closest to the subdivision and would know about it. The rules are the county only has to inform people who live within 125 feet of the subdivision. Everyone else along the road who would be affected were not notified.

I ended up speaking with a half dozen families. Some people I hadn't met so I took time for small talk and introductions. Most people didn't know about the subdivision plan so I spent time on education. One couple knew about it and had attended prior planning board meetings so I learned from them. Some people had property rights concerns until I explained how the developer's road plan actually infringes on their property and rights, and voicing their concerns would not be anti-property rights.

So far everyone who I spoke with has signed my petition. Limiting the petition to one issue helped also as I had less explaining and more of a chance of people agreeing and signing. Especially about traffic as everyone had an opinion or story about the traffic on our road. These stories also slowed my progress.

The next few days I plan on contacting everyone up and down the road. I hope to get as many signatures as possible to present to the County Commissioners to get them to listen to our traffic concerns. Their meeting is Thursday morning. So lots to do before then!