Death Stare

We’ve lived in our current house for two and a half years. We bought this house in part because, even though it’s in a subdivision, there is nothing directly behind our back yard except what I loving call “The Grand Canyon”. There’s about 150-200 yards of open area between our back yard fence and the next subdivision over. Not having someone’s house, road or driveway buttressed up against us was a big purchasing point for us.

A little under year after we bought the house and moved in, we started hearing about an on-going battle between the residents of our neighborhood and the city. The city had been trying to pass a spending bill to build a road through my beloved “Grand Canyon”, almost literally through our backyard. Oh, hell no.

There was a series of town hall meetings that eventually coalesced into the final voting meeting. There were seven meetings in all, and our whole neighborhood attended…for the most part. WE, however, attended every one of those meetings, showing our solidarity against the road. Many residents got up and addressed the board when we were given leave to make our pleas. We made such a big stink, almost getting kicked out at one point, that when the final meeting where a vote was going to be made several local TV news stations, and one national news station, showed up with their cameras. The featured picture is a screen shot from a News video from that final meeting, with my wife (Linda, the blond) staring daggers at the mayor and the board.

We found out the next day that the board cast a split tie vote, leaving the Mayor to cast the deciding vote. I thought for sure we were sank. The Mayor, who was on his way out and onto a different public office in a different city, vote in favor of the residents and against the road. YEAH!! VINDICATION!!