“I can’t fix stupid.”

That is the statement made to me by Mayor Lewis that sticks mostly in my mind during a meeting with several of my neighbors and the mayor a few years ago regarding the traffic speeding through our neighborhood on K Street Southeast.

The mayor was meeting with us to check on the improvements the City had recently made by installing a traffic circle and speed bumps on our street. Although those improvements were appreciated, they were not quite enough. I had requested that they place stop signs, in addition to the other deterrents, on each corner. That is when Mayor Lewis made that comment, and I knew there was no hope of having anything further done to protect us.

You see, we are the forgotten thoroughfare. When traffic has been backed up on M Street Southeast from East Main Street southbound, many people choose to try to circumvent the bottleneck by coming down K Street Southeast, which parallels M Street, racing to the intersection at K and 4th Street Southeast, then back up to the light at M and 4th.

So, when the City announced the beginning of the M Street shutdown, I knew we were going to see a significant increase in our traffic and, more than likely more speeding, as people, frustrated by their commute, would come barreling down our street.

I am so sorry to say, I was right. And, as the council and mayor worried about the impact on A Street Southeast and Auburn Way, they gave no thought to us whatsoever.

While the Mayor earmarked millions of dollars to lay down brick paved streets around empty lots downtown, he couldn’t be bothered to spend a few hundred dollars to ensure the safety of myself or my neighbors. He has created a great legacy for himself in that downtown core, but his legacy to me will be something quite different altogether.

You see, that oversight came with a cost to my family last Saturday as someone came racing down my street and struck my family pet, killing her. They didn’t slow down, they didn’t stop. They couldn’t be bothered to let anyone know what they had done. It was only when another motorist passing by noticed her and contacted my neighbor, who recognized my cat and came to tell me, did I know anything was wrong.

So, as I said, the mayor’s legacy to me is this: it is the look on my boyfriend’s face as he bent over the lifeless body of our beloved pet. It is the grief in his face as he picked her up and saw what had been done to her. It is the blood on both of our hands and clothes as we held her, crying. It was the sound of my boyfriend sobbing as he dug her grave. It is the hole in our hearts right now as we wonder why the safety and sanctity of our quiet neighborhood street wasn’t important enough to our elected officials.

You are right Mayor Lewis, you can’t fix stupid. But I don’t have to vote it back into office again either. Maybe that should be your next campaign slogan.

– Deborah Barrett