The BOS(ses)
Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors
Stanislaus County
Stanislaus County
City Council
City of Modesto
Paradise South
City of Modesto
Contributed by Marge Leopold
Friday, 22 October 2004
In the midst of many growing cities there exist pockets of unincorporated streets and neighborhoods. Often as cities annex areas within their sphere of influence, low-income, economically disadvantaged neighborhoods become overlooked by the cities.
Often these neighborhoods were overlooked due to lack of infrastructure implementation by the county. As this lack of infrastructure and economic development leads residents to move to other (often safer) neighborhoods the neighborhood are still more likely to be overlooked for annexation and the services that being a part of the city brings.
Once the downward spiral of decay and deterioration have begun it becomes harder and harder to reverse the trend. Lack of lighting and lack of law enforcement often lead to criminal activities, crime it seems, breeds in the dark. Statistics compiled by the Modesto Police Department and the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department continue to show increased crime in the unincorporated pockets in contrast to the rest of the Modesto community.
Lack of infrastructure especially sidewalks and proper drainage make the streets in these areas hazardous for children going back and forth to school in the winter.
Children often walk in the middle of the streets because the edges are impassable due to mud and water that at times are two to three feet deep. Automobile drivers are forced to go around the children, thereby causing a chain reaction of problems. Even worse, on foggy mornings as the children are walking around the water it becomes next to impossible to see them at all.
Unincorporated islands are forced to depend on septic tanks to dispose of human waste. In Modesto there are many county pockets that are close or adjacent to the Tuolumne River. After the flood of 1997 many of the septic tanks and leach lines began to fail. Since that time the county has received 20+ septic tank repair permit requests in the Riverview neighborhood (approximately 200 homes) alone. The problem of contamination by septic tanks along the river is a health and safety problem that has been overlooked for decades.
In many neighborhoods one side of a street is in the city and the other in the county. It is said by residents in the neighborhood that you can tell if you are in the city or an unincorporated area by just looking. If there are sidewalks, you are in the city, if one side of the street is cleaned you are in the city, but if the other side of the street is unpaved and debris littered you are in the county.
County pockets lack sidewalks, drainage, street lights, trash pick-up, bulky item pick-up and street sweeping and to a large extent code enforcement. When driving through West Modesto it is fascinating to notice the changes from one side of the street to the other.
In 1948 a University of Denver study that focused on the fringe areas (now county pockets) pointed out the problems of crime, lack of fire and police protection, lack of infrastructure and code enforcement. 50+ years is a very long time to overlook conditions that have and continue to exist in our neighborhoods.
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