Housing project approved, but will city take opportunity to make Ocean View safer?

Here is my story in the Mendocino Voice about the approval of Kosh Grewal’s rental housing project. Many questions remain. Caltrans asked the city to use the opportunity to finally make the Coastal Trail there more accessible to the disabled. The city didn’t discuss this. There is a big sidewalk project in which Caltrans plans to run sidewalks from the Pudding Creek Bridge to Hare Creek Bridge. This would make for one of the most fabulous city walks anywhere, especially if the Skunk Train could indeed hook up an innovative electric railroad. But will state funding run out? The State Route 1 crossing at Ocean View Drive is scary. So many left and right turners and sunsets often blind drivers and walkers. Much improvement is needed. Kosh seems like a great guy interested in making money the right way. With the amount of money his family put into upgrading the Emerald Dolphin and now this, I hope he and others will be active and generous in making that crossing safer. Another issue neighbors brought up was the fact that walking on Ocean View Drive is very dangerous. One can walk the Coastal trail from the bridge and back but people don’t. They walk down Ocean View. Neighbors are right. The city should develop a plan for sidewalks down there to one of the most beloved sunset watching places there is.

For any of this to happen, you the reader needs to stay involved and demand it.

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Frank Hartzell

Frank Hartzell has spent his lifetime as a curious anthropologist in a reporter's fedora. His first news job was chasing news on the streets of Houston with high school buddy and photographer James Mason, back in 1986. Then Frank graduated from Humboldt State and went to Great Gridley as a reporter, where he bonded with 1000 people and told about 3000 of their stories. In Marysville at the Appeal Democrat, the sheltered Frank got to see both the chilling depths and amazing heights of humanity. From there, he worked at the Sacramento Bee covering Yuba-Sutter and then owned the Business Journal in Yuba City, which sold 5000 subscriptions to a free newspaper. Frank then got a prestigious Kiplinger Investigative Reporting fellowship and was city editor of the Newark Ohio, Advocate and then came back to California for 4 years as managing editor of the Napa Valley Register before working as a Dominican University professor, then coming to Fort Bragg to be with his aging mom, Betty Lou Hartzell, and working for the Fort Bragg Advocate News. Frank paid the bills during that decade + with a successful book business. He has worked for over 50 publications as a freelance writer, including the Mendocino Voice and Anderson Valley Advertiser, along with construction and engineering publications. He has had the thrill of learning every day while writing. Frank is now living his dream running MendocinoCoast.News with wife, Linda Hartzell, and web developer, Marty McGee, reporting from Fort Bragg, California.

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