Dueling petitions over Carson Street

If your thing is fighting city hall in the good old American way, the chance to do so over Carson Street downtown is available via petition.Make that dueling petitions. Of course, Carson City’s City Hall hasn’t made a final decision as the Board of Supervisors keeps gathering information. But that’s the point. If you want to get on the record, you can sign a petition on the issue.People can sign one at Comma Coffee, 312 S. Carson St., generally favoring a plan to make Carson traffic two lanes, allow parallel parking and remove wrought-iron fences between the sidewalk and roadway.Or people can trek down the street to Super Burrito, on the same west side of the main downtown drag at 1250 S. Carson St., and sign one opposing narrowing the number of traffic lanes from four to two.They also can sign a petition against the plan at the AM-PM gas station on the southeast corner of William and Carson, at 1017 N. Carson St. across from Heidi’s family restaurant.Or people can sign on as favoring the plan, labeled on petition pages as for a historic downtown, at Mo & Sluggo’s Bar & Grill, 110 W. Telegraph St. downtown. At Comma Coffee, Doreen Mack of Lofty Expressions said last week she had various downtown businesses signing another petition favoring her two-lane plan. On Tuesday, she said she was at 48 and counting. She said June Joplin of Comma Coffee was gathering petition signatures from customers who cared to weigh in for two lanes.Joplin wasn’t available immediately to indicate how many signatures she may have gathered, but a Mo & Sluggo’s bartender projected there more than 100 at the bar.Nine blocks to the south of Comma Coffee, Super Burrito manager Patricia said her concern was a drop-off in business if the street narrows from four traffic lanes to two in the downtown.“The traffic will stop and the business will be very slow,” she said.Petition pages opposing the two-lane plan have been at Super Burrito, according to the earliest date, since Jan. 9. A quick tabulation showed more than 165 signatures. At the gas station to the north, the boss wasn’t in but an attendant confirmed there had been a petition there for awhile.Supervisors at their first board meeting this year gave a green light to city staff refining plans for going to two lanes by re-striping the street and making related changes, voting 4-0.However, a yellow light soon went up as one of those positive votes on proceeding with plans indicated it isn’t a done deal. And two new supervisors took office as two plan supporters left the board. The new supervisors said at their swearing-in ceremonies they would gather more information before going on the record about Carson Street.