It is a sad reality that we look at 'strangers' being in our neighborhood as being thoughtless and littering. Can you put your trash and recycling cans at the curb with a pleasantly thoughtful sign inviting folks to dispose of trash and recycling properly?
If I were authorities, I would be looking for many defensible locations where people could safely walk that did not have stores or beaches or parks where folks are accustomed to clustering. Those who do not live in single family homes especially have a need for such space. I would look for a space that allowed adequate social distancing and a nearby place to park. I probably would block off such a neighborhood for a week and then move on to another neighborhood. A pair of officers would be adequate to remind folks of social distancing and keep it orderly.
Would I personally like it? Probably not. I am, for the first time in my life, living on a road over privately owned land that is not built and maintained by government. Every other place I have lived the taxpayers paid to build and maintain the road and sidewalks were either taxpayer paid or a 50/50 cost sharing with the homeowner. As a citizen, I have the right to use any of those publicly funded streets or sidewalks.
Edited to add: A couple of years ago a gated community here complained about the garbage trucks coming through THEIR streets at 7AM. This came after years of noise complaints about police, fire and ambulance meeting the needs of the community with sirens blaring and complaints about school buses "blocking the roads" as traffic had to stop while kids were loaded and unloaded.
County legal teams determined that indeed since the streets of the community were privately owned and their insurance did not extend to private property, henceforth there could/would be no more bus stops for school or public busses inside the community and no garbage pickup. Residents would need to avail themselves of garbage pickup, school bus and public bus from designated streets outside their gated community. Police, fire and ambulance would still have access with lights and sirens as needed because there were no insurance restrictions to operating on private property.
Having to drive to the public road each morning for the kids to catch the bus was "outrageous", as was getting their garbage to the pickup point and picking up the maid who arrived by public bus. They tried to give THEIR roads to the County, but the County would not accept them unless the gates came down and the County would have all rights to the roads--including widening as necessary, lengthening or adding roads as needed to most appropriately handle traffic, etc. After all, if taxpayers were paying for them, taxpayers needed to use them. That was completely unacceptable to the gated community.
Assessments have been added to have community arranged garbage pickup to get the garbage to the place where it legally can be picked up by the County. There were not enough homeowners with children or maids to pass some shuttle service arrangement to get transportation for these folks handled to legal pickup points.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/06/2020 09:01PM by Flash.