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Need help on Claremont 

The Daily Planet received the following letter addressed to Councilmember Polly Armstrong: 

Dear Councilmember Armstrong (Polly): 

As one of our constituents who is more frequently a pedestrian than a driver – I try to walk as often as possible – Claremont Avenue is now more dangerous than before it received all the “attention.” 

Within the last ten or so days it has become even more dangerous to cross Claremont and Ashby on foot than before the left turn lane was established. Walking up Claremont and crossing Ashby to walk donw Russell to get to Chery, there is now almost no time to walk before the red hand goes up and the traffic light is red. 

I will really be in fear when the days once again grow shore and I am walking home from work up Ashby. I should not have to be forced to drive. 

I know you have been working very hard on this issue. Please let me know in writing what steps you are taking to remedy this. Perhaps Caltrans can extend the amount of “walk” time for safety reasons. 

Thank-you very much for your attention to this serious matter. 

Kathy Zatkin 

Correct courtyard dangers 

Editor: 

Thank you for your Aug. 4 story on Hayden Perry, a neighbor of mine. Hayden died as a result of a fall in the Redwood Gardens courtyard, as your article relates. I am not privy to the facts of his death beyond this, but I can speculate of the many trip hazards in the courtyard, one may well have caused Hayden’s fall. 

For example, not 20 paces from where he was found is an area of concrete paving marked off with black and yellow caution tape. It oulines the location of another resident’s fall. Several weeks have passed and this dangerous location has not been repaired yet. 

There are other areas of uneven interior and exterior surfaces, grade changes and threshold transitions throughout Redwood Gardens which resent similar hazards to residents. 

Colleen Campbell of the Alameda County Emergency Medical Services quotes National Center for Injury Prevention and Control research that falls are the second leading cause of accidental death in the U.S. Of 240,000 falls annually, 75 percent occur in the older adult population.  

Unsafe physical conditions, such as those existing at Redwood Gardens, may cause falls, with injury, medical expense, confinement, or death likely consequences. In the face of these grim data, the Redwood Gardens administration might respond scornfully, as the administrator did in a February letter to me, that “(W)e have had very few slip and trip accidents on the property.” 

“Very few” is too many. (The complete correspondence is posted on our Free Speech Board.) 

The building code doesn’t exist that would approve raw threshold transitions and unleveled walking surfaces or countenance their being swathed in caution tape. Perhaps one day, all these taped areas will be repaired. Until then, the black and yellow stripes serve only as legalistic traps. (”If you fall, it’s your fault because we’ve warned you”) or memorials to the fallen.  

Ms. Fore, the ball is in your courtyard. 

Requiescat in pace, Hayden. 

Kinsey Marshall