Seeing the Past to Solve the Future

Fair Oaks is alive with history, a history that lives next door and just down the street from all of us. On any block, in any neighborhood within the boundaries of the Fair Oaks Colony, we can find a good neighbor who is the child or grandchild of a founder of Fair Oaks. They are the Langness's, the Massey's, the Eubanks's, the Watkins's, the Gum's, the Rice's...

The history of Fair Oaks is many people. And they remember the particulars, the changes, the good and the bad of our fair colony. They remember the feverish gale of 1938 that blew down telephone poles and shattered windows. They remember the hot summers when oranges were fifty cents a basket—when a seventy-acre farm could be bought with hard work and respect for the land. Several long-time Fair Oaks residents even remember as far back as 1910, when Mrs. Minnie O'Neil defeated B. F. Howard to become the first female School Superintendent in the region. They have seen the community become geographically split by the stentorian asphalt speedway called Sunrise Avenue.

Many of our neighbors have spent their entire lives on the rolling, tree-lined hills of the second oldest colony in the Sacramento Valley. Their parents handed down a fine community, which the life-long residents of Fair Oaks will pass down intact to the generation that now attends Bella Vista and Del Campo, Will Rogers, Legette, John Holst, and many others. Newcomers who eventually choose to stay in Fair Oaks will become part of the history and the legacy handed down to future generations.

It is this historical sense of community that makes the issues of the Cemetery District, The Fair Oaks Water District, The Parks District, the Fire District, too much County intervention and gaining more community control over important community topics.

If we don't take care of our community, Fair Oaks is in danger of becoming much like the barren, dilapidated strips that have become so prevalent in the unincorporated areas of Sacramento County.

Any semblance of City government and local resident control is rescinded by the tongue-in-cheek purchase of the empty title of Honorary Mayor of Fair Oaks. Planning and zoning issues have been taken out of community hands and have been tossed into "public hearings" that are scheduled at inconvenient times and places for most working families to attend if they have children in school and in sports activities. Fair Oaks does have control of its Parks District, but not assessments for water, sewer and other services that are established by design and by the authority of the County.

Citrus Heights wants to become a city, to get out from underneath the "squeeze" of county government. Rancho Cordova is screaming about how the unincorporated areas of Sacramento County have become "cash cows" for the county. Both communities have identified a problem and are trying to find a solution. It seems that the county has begun to fail us all, and we all need to do something about it.

Fair Oaks needs to scrutinize the county and make it more responsible to community needs. Fair Oaks needs to remind the county that it works for us.

We have been given a community that provides us with a good quality of life. We need to do the same for our children. Drop by a Cemetery or Water Board meeting. Stop by the Oak Room to visit a Parks meeting or a Planning Advisory Council meeting. Find out what's happening in your community. Knowledge will help at the polls, and it will help us to carve out the future.