Ken Martin: CV Residents Are Starving Our Merchants

Ken Martin is Castro Valley Patch's newest blogger.

Castro Valley residents need to wake up! They, not the construction on the Boulevard, are the cause of the financial hardship visited upon the Boulevard merchants. It is not that difficult to get to these businesses. Because our residents might have to walk an extra 100 feet or take and extra 10 minutes to get there, they are damaging these merchants, some of them possibly beyond repair.

People of Castro Valley, it is YOU that are creating the financial problems for these businesses. The construction is just a flimsy excuse for not making the effort to patronize them.

For some time now I have admonished the people of Castro Valley for doing business "over the hill" without even trying to find available equivalent businesses in Castro Valley. Now they have run this abominable practice to the extreme, with "the mess on the Boulevard" as their weak excuse for continuing a detrimental action of which they have been guilty for years even when there ws no construction.

Many of these merchants have supported this community for decades, not only by supplying needed commodities, but many of them sponsor community events and improvement programs, at least in spirit but also financially. Isn't it only fair that we, the residents of Castro Valley, extend ourselves a little to help them now? Put yourselves out a little! Walk the extra 100 feet! Take the extra 10 minutes!

These business people need your concern and your help. CV citizens have come together to help in time of need in the past. Here is another time of need. Let's show some of that Castro Valley compassion that has surfaced before!