South of Sunnyside

A few weeks ago The Business Journal posted a story about the City of Fresno’s Twitter account; at the time, the city had just surpassed 500 followers. The article quoted Randy Reed, director of communications:

“Twitter is an important part of the City’s public outreach effort, so I’m excited to see so many citizens linking up with us in this way…I hope that more people will take advantage of technology like this to stay connected to City Hall.”

I was skeptical that the account would provide genuine connection—that it would be used as anything more than a public broadcast. I decided to test the waters with a series of questions about the growing number of chain drug stores popping up around town. Though they didn’t fully answer my questions, I was pleasantly surprised to receive responses.

I’ve had several interactions since—in fact, I seem to be one of only a handful of residents dialoging with the account, even with a list of almost 750 followers. Each interaction is more informative, and response more timely.

Case in point: After posting about dying trees in the neighborhood, I tweeted the link with a question about who to contact. I received a prompt reply; I also received a warning that funds are tight (my response). I called the next day, and on Friday received confirmation that the trees had been evaluated, and that corrective steps have been taken.

Win!

To Randy Reed, I offer kudos for embracing evolving tools for communication.

If you’re on Twitter, follow the City of Fresno.

UPDATE: I pinged the City of Fresno last night, and received a prompt reply encouraging me to call 621-CITY. I did that today, and was told that city arborists would be sent out to assess the situation.

I really hoped we had seen the worst of the housing market.

But this weekend, Kim talked to the neighbors and discovered that the family across the street is putting their home up for short sell; if it doesn’t sell within a few months, they’ve already decided they’ll just let it go.

The family that rents next to them will also be moving soon—the owners have previously neglected to care for the home, so I don’t have high hopes that they’ll maintain it now.

Three houses down from them, a home twice the size of ours is for sale for the price we paid for ours.

Around the corner from them, another home has been abandoned, and now bears the yellow stains of decaying grass. Another abandoned home sits another three houses down.

As if this didn’t fill my life with enough cheer, a significant number—as many as 20, perhaps—of the trees lining the south side of California Avenue between, Fowler and Clovis, look to be dying. I think our neighborhood is giving up on itself.

Perhaps these trees are over zealous with excitement about the eventual change of seasons. Maybe they’re simply not getting enough water. Whatever the cause of the browning leaves, it’s only affecting trees on the south side of the road. Our side of the road, that is.

I’d like to say that I’ve been monitoring the progress of this construction site in front of the Sunnyside GB3, but truth be told, I haven’t been to the gym in months, and this just wasn’t there the last time I worked out.

Anyone know what it is?

I could say I’m bitter at the state of the housing market, but that would be both an understatement and completely useless. It sucks. We’ve lost over 40% of our home’s value since building in 2005, and watched large areas of our neighborhood deteriorate as a result of foreclosure and negligence.

CitiMortgage has expressed no interest in working with Kim and me to re-package our loans (that’s for another post)—at times it’s been tempting to think about joining the long line of neighbors who’ve just given up and walked away, but we just can’t do it.

We hoped to only live in this house for five years, and while our timeframe has expanded, we see signs of hope for the future (whether we later want to move or not). Just yesterday, in fact, Granville sent an encouraging email to homeowners, which documents good news. From the email:

For those who own a home and have seen their property values decline for the past several years, the end of that trend appears to have arrived and property values are beginning to recover in this area and around the country.

"The first chart illustrates the increase in sales prices since early this year, after the decline over the past few years."

"This graph illustrates the supply of homes for sale. As the home supply decreases real estate prices historically rise."

"The graph below illustrates the number of homes currently for sale that are currently under contract. Higher percentages indicate that there are more buyers than available homes. This is also an indicator of a strengthening housing market."