Vallejo
Last week my wife and I had to make it to our house in Vallejo a couple times to get it ready for the new renters. Check google and you will find a lot of recent news about Vallejo, and not in a positive way; it has recently filed for bankruptcy, an unusual move for such a large town (120,000 residents or so), due to excessive compensation locked into egregious labor contracts with city personnel, particularly the safety union (fire/police).
Just check the evidence for yourself. I am still amazed that the police chief of Vallejo makes $450,000 a year, and the fire chief $350,000 a year. That's almost as much as James Sinegal - CEO of Costco - made last year.
Anyhow, I'm glad to see the city filing for bankruptcy, and hope that the courts will then follow through by terminating all union contracts and having them renegotiated to something sustainable. But that's not what I wanted to write about.
What I did want to write about was my realization about my feelings for the city.
We decided to drop at Bug's Giant Burgers, practically a Vallejo institution, for lunch. As we were sitting there munching on our cholesterol bombs - sorry, yummy burgers and fries - I was looking around and it finally hit me, why I like Vallejo so much.
It's real. It has a unique character, a special feel to it. A little gritty, a little frayed, but it isn't the plastic templatey boring sameness that you get in the vast majority of bay area towns (San Ramon, I'm looking at you). It's not just the look and feel of the town, it's how people behave - they look you in the eye and size you up and judge you not and don't pretend and don't go out of their way to be distant - and how everything seems to just flow its own way in its own good time.
It's the same thing I feel when I go to Point Richmond, which is entirely different in character but still just as real. There are very few gems like this in the bay area, which is otherwise so homogenized and so identical everywhere that it is quite difficult to distinguish your location if you didn't know where you were. It's why Walnut Creek feels like a suburb even though it is quite self-sufficient, whereas when you cross the Carquinaz and drive up 29 you immediately get the sense that you're somewhere else.
Speaking of Walnut Creek, when we lived there we never connected. When we left San Jose it was a relief, not just because we moved to a bigger house but because San Jose feels downright hostile in its detachment. When we left Vallejo we felt a tinge of sadness, because we loved our life there. Sitting at Bud's, I was getting nostalgic. I'm happy to have an excuse to go up there a couple times a month.
So here's a small cheer for Vallejo, a town that's still special.
Just check the evidence for yourself. I am still amazed that the police chief of Vallejo makes $450,000 a year, and the fire chief $350,000 a year. That's almost as much as James Sinegal - CEO of Costco - made last year.
Anyhow, I'm glad to see the city filing for bankruptcy, and hope that the courts will then follow through by terminating all union contracts and having them renegotiated to something sustainable. But that's not what I wanted to write about.
What I did want to write about was my realization about my feelings for the city.
We decided to drop at Bug's Giant Burgers, practically a Vallejo institution, for lunch. As we were sitting there munching on our cholesterol bombs - sorry, yummy burgers and fries - I was looking around and it finally hit me, why I like Vallejo so much.
It's real. It has a unique character, a special feel to it. A little gritty, a little frayed, but it isn't the plastic templatey boring sameness that you get in the vast majority of bay area towns (San Ramon, I'm looking at you). It's not just the look and feel of the town, it's how people behave - they look you in the eye and size you up and judge you not and don't pretend and don't go out of their way to be distant - and how everything seems to just flow its own way in its own good time.
It's the same thing I feel when I go to Point Richmond, which is entirely different in character but still just as real. There are very few gems like this in the bay area, which is otherwise so homogenized and so identical everywhere that it is quite difficult to distinguish your location if you didn't know where you were. It's why Walnut Creek feels like a suburb even though it is quite self-sufficient, whereas when you cross the Carquinaz and drive up 29 you immediately get the sense that you're somewhere else.
Speaking of Walnut Creek, when we lived there we never connected. When we left San Jose it was a relief, not just because we moved to a bigger house but because San Jose feels downright hostile in its detachment. When we left Vallejo we felt a tinge of sadness, because we loved our life there. Sitting at Bud's, I was getting nostalgic. I'm happy to have an excuse to go up there a couple times a month.
So here's a small cheer for Vallejo, a town that's still special.
posted by Blinkered at 9:38 AM
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