Merry Christmas. Now What?

So another year grinds to a close.  Thank God.  This hasn't been a good year for Redlands or our country, but we're still here, keeping on.

Let's see what happened this year around Redlands.

Gottshalks went bankrupt in January and closed their store in the mall.

The owner of the mall went bankrupt, too, and there's still no talk of what's to become of it.  Back when it was built, a local engineer friend of ours had said there was no way it would ever make money, and it appears he was right.

The furniture store across the street from the mall folded their tent after many decades, and the plan to redevelop the property into a drive-thru pharmacy were nixed by the city council.  The building remains vacant.

The car wash across from WalMart went bankrupt, too.

The Redlands Daily Facts totters on, supported in part by volumes of legal advertising required when property is repossessed by the banks.

Speaking of banks,  Washington Mutual was taken over by the FDIC and sold to Chase.

On the plus side, business out in the "donut hole" where Target, JC Penney, and other mega stores reside is booming.  Unfortunately,  Redlands doesn't get tax dollars from them.

Redlands' patron saints used to be the Smiley brothers.  These days, Jack Dangermond fits the role. His company, ESRI, is singlehandedly redeveloping the town, block by block.  Their new glass-enclosed building opened this year, and is lushly landscaped.  Jack apparently never met a tree he didn't like.

The city has found itself a couple of million dollars short, and has cut back services to help stem the bleeding.  They're eating into the city reserve fund, which will run dry in about a year by my guess.

The schools are in a real mess.  I believe they're underfunded by something like $11 million, with no clear path out of that jam, thanks to the state being billions upon billions short on revenue.

Our cops even had to face budget cuts, but thanks to grants, they're placing surveilance cameras on damn near every street corner. Don't you feel so much safer now?  Be sure to try and "maintain" when you stagger out of one of State Street's trendy bars... the cops are watching you.

At least none of the half-dozen earthquakes that rolled through town this year did any damage.

So: on to the second decade of the 21st Century.  Good luck with that.