Community members filed the council chambers Wednesday night , with one goal — bring increased awareness about safety measures to their street. Their efforts come after a recent crash took the lives of their neighbors.
Concerns and pleads filed the council chambers as Harris road neighbors continued to ask for safer road conditions.
Harris road is no stranger to crashes, with 16 major crashes taking place from April 2021 to April 2026, leaving 9 dead — including the recent death of their neighbors Omar Zacarias and Silvia Reyes, who were killed just steps away from their home.
“No parent should ever have to bury their child and no child should ever have to stand at the funeral of both parents because of a tragedy that our community feared would eventually happen,” said speaker Amanda Bluemel.
After public comments, Vice Mayor Manpreet Kaur chimed into the conversation, stating that since the April 23rd crash, herself, other council members, city staff, law enforcement officials, and traffic experts have met weekly to discuss possible solutions.
In a statement sent to us by Vice Mayor Kaur, she says in part, “While we have been meeting at City Hall every week, I asked our department chairs as well as my fellow council members to join me on a walking tour of Harris Road so that we could feel this road ourselves and see what it's like to be a resident who lives here and what we saw is exactly what neighbors have been expressing.We've been doing advocacy, and we are coming up with solutions and a lot of the request from the neighbors are that we turned this road into a one lane road so that it can be one lane consistently on Harris Road.”
That walking tour taking place hours before Wednesday’s council meeting, neighbor Evelyn Delgado telling me, she feels like they’re finally being heard.
“It was something good to experience with them as far as learning about what their points of view are as well as our point of views and it was something great to have them see our perspective,” said Delgado.
Neighbors say their efforts won’t stop until they see a change in their community and ensure overall safety for not just their kids but future families to come.
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