Sent by email earlier to:
Honorable Mayor, Chief of Police Sweeney, Ms. Barton City Manager, et. al.:
Over the past several years I've seen our neighborhood on Stanford Way slowly erode into what is becoming another area of suburban decay.
A few years ago an unscruptulous realator sold a house to a family of three separate heads of household of 11 people a single family 1200 square foot home on Stanford Way.
A house on Stanford way was recently the target of gang graffiti spray paint.
Stanford Way was barricaded by the police in October 2007 due to suspected gang related activity.
People on this, and neighboring streets leave their animals outside to bark constantly.
Tonight for four hours a house on Stanford has been having some type of celebration - the bass thumping can be heard in every corner of our home.
There are now four rental houses on Stanford - one is usually abandoned, in a one block section of Stanford Way. Another house on Stanford has had no roof for close to one year, the entire roof was torn off sometime last year, and now has several tarps covering it -
The abandondened property has been a dump for the owners rental properties waste for the better part of 15 years - the backyard filled with garbage is a breeding ground for rats and other vermin, opossums are always running along the fence tops at night.
Three or four months ago there was a stabbing at this property. The property often appears to be inhabited transients - a family on our street sold their home primarily because of this abandonded property on Stanford Way.
On warm summer days you can smell the stench of animal kennels in the backyard of a house on the corner of Stanford and Hayes.
I wonder if there ever really was a time when peace and quite had any meaning.
You can hear ghetto rap music at loud volumes with off color and obscene language lyrics on our street.
Their is no sense of decency - no sense of what it means to be a neighbor, let alone a good neighbor. It's pointless trying to talk to people about such things - they just look at you . . .
This used to be a decent street, not the best, but a decent & quiet neighborhood.
I no longer fly the US Flag on the Fourth of July, Memorial Day or Labor Day - I give up - I give up on all of you -
This was our first home - our kids were born here, we thought we'd retire here - I gave all I had to make a home for my family - I will sadly leave this all behind -
Community used to mean something -
Neighbor used to mean something -
Titles like Police Chief, Mayor, City Manager used to mean something -
I was a Marine - I would have given my life to protect the fabric of America - my Dad was a WWII vet who landed on the beaches of Normandy in this country's name -
. . . I just thought you'd want to know what drives a decent, respectable family from their home -
Posted on Saturday, 3/14/2009 - 11:21 p.m. PDT — by colt44
Joined: Jul 2009
Current Posts: 1
I'm sorry to hear that your street has turned so Ghetto. Who would have thought that Stanford would now be like this? That area off of east ave has been getting worse and worse for decades. I remember when I attended Livermore high 25 or so years ago and riding my bike through there on the way to a friend’s house on Stanford and Hillcrest thinking it was starting to look a bit run down.
The thing of it is, a lot of the decent people left a long time ago and invested in other parts of Livermore or out of the area. For some weird reason you did not see the writing on the wall years ago and decided to stay. It's not like you woke up one day and your street was ghetto all of a sudden?? It’s been going on for a very long time. I’m not sure why you've waited this long to vent and make some decisions about leaving the area but I would not blame it on some random realtor who you assume has control over who a seller decides to sell a house to. The realtors don't sign the offers and make that decision, the sellers of the house do. Perhaps you should blame them not the real estate agent who is just doing his job?
My guess is you are close to having your house paid off unless you've refinanced a bunch, and have a good amount of equity. I'd hire a good realtor, sell your house which is probably not worth a whole lot right now in this market and especially being in a crappy neighborhood and move on with your life. The neighborhood is not going to get any better, only worse. That is the nature of areas like yours. It's been heading south for decades and unless all your neighbors all decide to get up and move one day they'll just keep inviting all their ghetto friends and family to the area. Maybe if you wait 10 more years it will be the East Oakland of Livermore!
I don't mean to sound sarcastic but I'm just tired of the "poor me" attitude that is so common these days it seems. You have complete control of your life, home, neighborhood, etc. Don’t blame anyone but yourself for poor decisions you've made in the past and continue to make. My father always used to say..."you need to learn to accept the consequences of the decisions you make."
Makes a lot of sense to me.
Joined: May 2008
Current Posts: 1379
I don't think Colt 44 was saying "poor me". Read the letter again. It was a letter of explanation about what has happened to his neighborhood. More to the point people should be asking WHY this has been allowed to happen and what has been going on in our country that has allowed this to happen? What policies? What needs to be changed?
This letter could have been written by thousands of people in Oakland. But not everyone has the ability to simply sell and go.
Today we have millions of properties in the US under water with deterioating neighborhoods overnight due to vacated vacant houses. And it didn't happen simply because millions of people made the wrong decision.
This is another variant of the cliche that an individual is able to fix everything wrong if he just "takes responsibility". I agree on the take responsibility part to a degree. I would just add take responsibility for fixing our government's bad policies and to stop leaving things in the hands of so-called "authority figures". The police chief nor mayor have no control over the revenue decisions and budgetary policies and priorities in California.
Joined: May 2009
Current Posts: 19
I am surprised that a neigborhood in Livermore would sound so much like a Neighborhood in South Hayward (the flatlands) or East Oakland!
Anyway, it may be due to section 8 vouchers.
Good link
Search "American murder mystery" and click top link
Opposition link
"the american prospect False Accusation" (search this too)
The rebuttal hinges on the notion that people who left public housing are going to already poor neighborhoods....Livermore is not poor. If the Police can correlate higher crimes with those section 8 people, then at least as far as Livermore is concerned, the rebuttal is weak.
Joined: Aug 2009
Current Posts: 4
A lot of you are going to roll your eyes and say I'm stereotypical, but here it goes:
When you allow people who do not care enough about themselves to get jobs or they don't care enough about their country to not cheat on the system you are going to get people living around you who have this type of behavior.
Stop letting people live off the welfare system. Stop giving away all of our jobs to people who don't belong here. Stop giving driver's licenses to people who aren't even citizens. Stop giving welfare to people who aren't even citizens. Stop giving welfare to people who get Visas to work here and their wives have children here. Stop giving jobs to people who send their money to another country instead of spending it here.
Seriously. Stop outsourcing our jobs and start giving the jobs to actual citizens of Livermore and maybe more will care enough about their jobs to not be on welfare.
As for the people here illegallly - let their own country worry about them. Not ours.
How do you stop all of this? STOP VOTING FOR FLIPPING DEMOCRATS