The Poles and Lines (P.A.L.) Coalition announced the formation of a community-action, grassroots organization birthed out of a discussion on the Nextdoor app in September 2020. The conversation was sparked by a posting titled, “Blight of Dana Point: Health & Fire Hazard—Unsightly Above-Ground Overhead Utility Wires.”
The post garnered dozens of impassioned responses from neighborhoods across Dana Point and spawned a handful of offshoot conversation threads. The author of the Nextdoor posting, Marilyn Gardner, decided it was an urgent project that couldn’t wait—the first task being to organize the citizenry of Dana Point to find an answer to making the undergrounding of utilities in the city a reality. The first thing she did was enlist her husband, Len Gardner, in the project.
“It is clearly a huge challenge, and I need his help,” said Marilyn Gardner.
The couple held the first P.A.L. meeting in December 2020 and have surpassed 100 members.
In its first phase, P.A.L.’s goal is to organize constituents who hope to raise the issue of undergrounding on the City of Dana Point’s agenda.
P.A.L. will be organizing an informational event called P.A.L. Saturday, set for Saturday, May 15, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. P.A.L. volunteers will go door-to-door and cover neighborhoods throughout Dana Point.
“We will be knocking on doors to bring awareness to the undergrounding situation and listening to how above-ground utilities affect their quality of life in Dana Point,” said Len Gardner.
To volunteer for P.A.L. Saturday, call 949.549.1171. To join P.A.L., send an email membership request to palmembershipdanapoint@gmail.com, and it will provide a link to self-enroll.
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