The city of Lakeport is playing Russian Roulette with our homes and schools.

This winter’s rains have produced a bumper crop of grass and weeds. The Valley fire has taught us the importance of defensible space to help protect against wildfires.

While Lakeport had an aggressive and effective weed abatement program on vacant lots during the 80s, 90’s and early 2,000’s, carried out by the city planner, the city now is spending millions on water meters, solar panels and out of county consultants and is ignoring the safety of our homes and schools.

We are less than two months from the Fourth of July and the fire season, and the east and southwest flanks of our schools are surrounded by tall weeds, and there is no visible weed abatement program. There are also many overgrown lots that abut homes.

The city could do its “normal” thing and hire an out-of-county consultant costing thousands of dollars telling it how to cut weeds, or it could look in its file cabinets and copy what it successfully did for the last three decades.

What we really need is a City Council that thinks about the basic needs of the people who live in Lakeport and quit spending millions of dollars on projects that give no perceptible benefit to the average homeowner.

Bob Bridges lives in Lakeport, Calif.