Now I want everyone to take a breath before we get started this week because there is a lot to cover and I have been up since five-thirty thinking about all of it — and the first thing I need to say is that if you are receiving an email from someone claiming to be with the City asking you to wire money, you do not do that, and I do not care how official it looks, because the people who actually live here know that you do not wire money to anyone about anything, ever, and I feel like this is a lesson that should not need to be taught but here we are — and what bothers me, truly bothers me, is not just the scam itself but the fact that it is targeting people who are already trying to do the right thing, people going through the permitting process, which, and I say this with love, is already confusing enough without someone in another state pretending to be a city employee and asking for a wire transfer — I went through the permitting process in 1987 when we put the addition on the back of the house and let me tell you it was three forms and a Tuesday and nobody emailed anybody anything, which is not me saying things were better, I am just saying it was simpler and there was less opportunity for fraud.
And while we are talking about the city and decisions being made and certain infrastructure situations, I would like to know — and I am asking sincerely — why it is that Barkes Road is closed and I found out about it the way I find out about everything in this town which is by driving directly into a cone — and yes, I understand bridge repair, I understand roundabout construction, I have made my peace with roundabouts even though the one on Nob Hill still does not feel natural to me and I watched a man in a pickup sit in it for a full rotation last Thursday like he was on a carousel — but a little advance notice would go a long way, and I remember when the old Fruitvale bridge was being repaired back in what must have been the mid-nineties and they put up signs for two weeks ahead of time and there were notices in the paper and somebody's cousin handed out flyers at the Safeway, and maybe that last part is not exactly how it happened but the spirit of it is accurate — the point is, we knew, and we planned accordingly, and that is all I am asking for.
Now the school bond — and I have been going back and forth on this all week, so bear with me — Yakima School District is asking for a vote in April of 2026 to replace two aging school buildings, and it requires a sixty percent supermajority which is not nothing, and the money can only go to construction, not to teachers, not to supplies, not to the things that make a school a school rather than just a building — and I want to be clear that I am not against new buildings, I went to a school in this district that had a boiler that sounded like it was making a personal decision every time it turned on, so I understand aging infrastructure, I do — but I also think the people who actually live here deserve a very clear and very patient explanation of what exactly is being replaced and why and what happens if it does not pass, because April will be here before we know it and decisions like this deserve more than a flyer and a hope — and I will say more on this as the date gets closer, and I reserve the right to circle back once I have had more time to think.
That's all for this week. You know where to find me.