{"id":224951,"date":"2018-02-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-23T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/the-good-neighbor\/"},"modified":"2018-02-23T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-02-23T08:00:00","slug":"the-good-neighbor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/the-good-neighbor\/","title":{"rendered":"el buen vecino"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jeff Clemetson |\u00a0Editor<\/em><\/p>\n

Richard Zay is the kind of neighbor who makes residents of other neighborhoods jealous that they don\u2019t live in closer proximity to him.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
Dorothy Nelson reads the message in Zay\u2019s certificate of commendation before giving it to him. (Fotograf\u00edas de Jeff Clemetson)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 62-year-old Zay has always lived a life of service \u2014 in the Air Force reserves for 28 years, as a firefighter for 35 years and currently as a road supervisor for MTS\u2019 First Transit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe deal with handicapped people, wheelchair accessibility, people that don\u2019t have the means to get places, we help them,\u201d Zay said of his current occupation of six years.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
Richard Zay with his certificate of commendation stands in the ditch he cleared for his neighbors.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But what really sets Zay apart from other good neighbors, is what he has done for other people while he is off the clock \u2014 like the Herculean task he recently finished for his neighbors living across the street from him.<\/p>\n

For over 25 years, dirt and debris had piled up in a drainage ditch running behind the housing track on the west side of Lake Murray Boulevard, between El Paso and Bob streets. The problem was so bad, there were homeless camps in the area behind people\u2019s homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople actually lived in the ditch for months and people didn\u2019t know it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Then one day, Zay said he witnessed transients bothering some girls who were on their way to school, so he inspected the area behind the homes and found sleeping bags and a charcoal barbecue.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that started this whole thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The \u201cwhole thing\u201d was completely cleaning the drainage ditch \u2014 a job he did almost entirely by himself for four hours a day every day before going to his MTS job over a span of nearly seven months.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t get a backhoe back here; you can\u2019t use automatic tools,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s pick axe and shovel; it\u2019s getting trash cans up here and hauling trash cans down; getting ahold of the neighbors and getting their trash cans all before Wednesday, disposal day.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of times the trash man would come and before the next one came, I came back, refilled them up and put them back out there and he took them again. So instead of picking up two or four, they ended up picking up eight at one house, because I double-filled them as they came down the street,\u201d he said, adding that EDCO is probably glad that he has completed the project.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
(left) Dirt and debris still fi lls th north end of the ditch. This view looking north shows what the south end looked like before being cleaned; (right) The cleaned ditch looking south<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Zay said he filled an average of 15, and up to 24, disposal bins a week. The bins were needed to carry out the dirt and debris that was piled 3 to 4 feet high, up to 5 feet wide and stretched over 400 feet long.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt started as to help the neighbors, then it became an obsession. You get into a routine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dorothy Nelson, one of the residents who lives along the now-cleared drainage ditch, has known Zay to be a reliably good neighbor for a long time, which is why she felt compelled to see him recognized for his good deeds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI drafted up a letter, trying to explain a lot of the background and how great Richard was,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cI took it to La Mesa [City Hall] and walked through the door and said, \u2018I have no idea who to give this to, but I think this deserves some recognition.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Nelson was told by the city clerk that recognizing Zay would be \u201ca nice positive\u201d for La Mesa, and within a few weeks, Nelson received a certificate of commendation to give to Zay.<\/p>\n

The certificate reads:<\/p>\n

\u201cOn behalf of the city of La Mesa, we would like to express our sincere gratitude for your generous service in assisting your neighbors with various projects, including the drainage ditch that runs from El Paso to Bob. Your actions and community spirit make La Mesa a better place and set an example of the ways we can help neighbors.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

For Zay, helping people in need is not something to do for recognition or compensation, but rather simple appreciation.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou start helping people and there\u2019s a need for it; you kind of forget the overall picture of money value and you think about the idea of people appreciating it,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd for some reason, there\u2019s a bigger value on that, especially when the need is there and people are afraid to ask. People are afraid to let other people know when they need help.\u201d<\/p>\n

- Comun\u00edquese con Jeff Clemetson en jeff@sdcnn.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Por Jeff Clemetson | Editor<\/p>","protected":false},"author":778,"featured_media":224952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11548","_seopress_titles_title":"The good neighbor","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11548,11551,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-la-mesa-courier","category-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/778"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}