The Red Phone rides again, taking your calls and fixing your
problems.
The Red Phone rides again, taking your calls and fixing your problems.
This cat will climb your tree for you
Usually, Red Phone gives priority to matters of public policy, but we do our best to help individuals solve personal problems whenever possible. And it was a slow week.
One caller is having the devil of a time finding someone to trim her trees. Apparently, she said, her problem is too big for the small companies and too small for the big companies.
Help me Red Phone! she cries – and we are there.
We called all the tree trimmers we could find in the yellow pages. By far the most enthusiastic was Dale Rigley, proprietor of San Benito Tree Service. We asked Dale if any job was too big or too small. His reply: “I’ll go any time, anywhere.” He promised that he would at least offer a bid on the job. So caller, we suggest you call Dale at 245-6259.
While we had him on the phone, we couldn’t resist asking why he was in the business, which, in our experience, tends to attract, shall we say, eccentric types. Did he have a tree house as a kid?
No, said Dale, and maybe that’s one reason. He’s still trying to get into trees as an adult because he didn’t get enough tree time as a kid.
We even do amateur psychology here at the Red Phone.
Ridin’ that train…
When we last had a little chat in these pages, we told you, with a heavy heart, that an old problem seemed on the verge of resurfacing — or needed resurfacing.
For 338 days the Red Phone bagdered and cajoled and even tried to reason with the Union Pacific Railroad to fix a grade crossing at its tracks over Hwy. 25. just north of the county line in Santa Clara. Then, A Miracle! as Geoffrey Rush would say in “Shakespeare in Love.” The corporation fixed it.
Until now.
The fix lasted all of two months, and already it is starting to deteriorate. We know. We looked for ourselves. We took pictures. We sighed with dismay.
And then we bucked ourselves up and called the train company again.
The problem is with a concrete panel that sits between the tracks. The integrity of the metal frame has been compromised causing the concrete inside to crumble.
Yesterday UP spokesman John Bromley finally got back to us, and when we described the problem to him. He promised swift action. Let’s see if he means it.
The Red Phone runs twice weekly on Wednesdays and Saturdays in the Free Lance.
Red Phone off the hook
We let others do the back-patting …
Sometimes our modest efforts here at the Red Phone result in instant success, and sometimes gratification is delayed a long, long, long … . Anyway, we like it when we can report success, and a letter to the editor Thursday sang our praises over Canal Alley finally getting repaved. An excerpt, and we promise not to break out arm patting ourselves on the back:
“This is for Matt Kelley and the Department of Public Works. I would like to thank him and his crew for starting the repairs on Canal Alley … I also like to thank the hard working Red Phone for doing a terrific job in getting our problem solved. You have a pat on the back for a job well done.”
We let others do the back-patting….
A wording suggestion
A city employee called to suggest that we got a recent reader poll wrong. Instead of asking whether people would approve of a tax increase to improve services, we should have asked whether people would approve of a tax to maintain existing services. This, said the caller, would have been more realistic.
We’re here to help
We know it’s summer, and many of you are out of town or just too happy to care, but we encourage you to keep those cards and letters – and calls and emails – coming. We’re not supposed to make things up in this business, but if we don’t here from you, we may have to.
So Call! 635-9219
or write:
re******@fr***********.com
