Bravo, Debbie Arnold! Thank you for making it necessary for SLO to return federal, state, and local monies needed to complete the Bob Jones Trail (“Supervisors fail to adopt resolution to close Bob Jones Trail gap,” Aug. 22). Really, how important is fully funded community safety? Oh, compared to … the property rights of an intractable and selfish individual?
I walk. Many more ride bikes to work, to school, to market, for joy. You single-handedly have put our lives in jeopardy. Are you proud? Does it please you to have put the interest of one above the community good? Will you wail, give a moment of silence when someone you love is in an accident on the incomplete, proposed, and funded Bob Jones Trail?
Lorraine Goldman
San Luis Obispo
This article appears in Sep 5-15, 2024.
Would Chairperson Arnold be willing to give up the road access to her property in order to return that land to its original owners and inhabitants? Why should she be serviced with transportation options at the expense of the historic land owners and stewards that had a 70-foot right-of-way cut through their land? Of course, Chairperson Arnold likely never considered or understands how infrastructure for the public good is created so this concept would not make sense to her. Arnold is a contrarian, going so far as to verbally reject the oath she took as a supervisor so that she wouldn’t be seen agreeing with the rest of the board. It is sad, but unexpected from her. It is Debbie’s final jab before she retires to her hundreds of acres of land in rural Pozo.
Ms. Goldman seems to think it “selfish” of the owner of the property to refuse to give up his land because she and others would so much enjoy using it, and reckons that the interests of one individual should yield to the “greater good”. Here is a thought: Since local lodging is pretty expensive, and many of us have guests coming from out of town, would Ms. Goldman be willing to give up the use of her home to lodge visiting guests? That, also, would serve the “greater good”, and I am sure that she will want to be consistent in the application of the principle.