This past week, Q-line asked: What is the best possible scenario to close the painful Farmers’ Market crash chapter in our city’s history? Here are your responses: ✆ “This case should have been closed and decided long ago. Who knows what kind of legal maneuvering has kept it from coming to trial this long? Advantage goes to the attorneys involved and Mr. Weller.” ✆ “As far as Russell Weller, who plowed into everybody at the market, he needs to face up, regardless of his age. If he had insurance, that should pay for all of it. They’re playing games and I just don’t think it’s fair. It doesn’t matter if he’s 100 or if he’s 20. The law is the law, for Christ’s sake.” ✆ “First and foremost, the city of Santa Monica denies any liability in this tragic accident, when in fact, they could’ve prevented it with one pick-up truck in front of that scenario down at the Farmers’ Market. They could’ve had those silver poles they pull up and bat down in case one person had a heart attack, instead of losing 10 people’s lives. Second of all, after the city accepts responsibility, they could certainly make restitution with the victims’ families. What to do with that cantankerous Mr. Weller is up in the air.” ✆ “Regarding the Farmer’s’ Market accident, the city keeps saying they want to put those barricades on Arizona Avenue that they have on the Promenade. People are not paying attention. Those metal barricades block trucks. Have you ever seen delivery trucks on the Promenade? But you see a zillion trucks on Arizona. And if you try to put those metal blocks on Arizona, every delivery truck is going to get a flat tire. So I think it’s dumb for them to request those metal bars on Arizona when there’s delivery trucks like Federal Express and UPS. It’s dumb to have people suing the city. The city wasn’t responsible. It was just one of those tragic things.” ✆ “Prior to the crash, I know other people, including myself, had drove in the same direction as Mr. Weller and got stuck and had to turn around upon reaching the Farmer’s’ Market. There should have been large detour signs at least a block or two before reaching the market. Despite what our city claims, this was an accident waiting to happen. However, this doesn’t mean Mr. Weller is innocent, either. Our city’s total denial of responsibility may be financially correct, but it’s morally wrong. The best thing now is for our city to learn from this mistake and to make sure that when we close streets for any event, large visible detour signs are up and strong road barriers block the roads.” ✆ “We all know the components of the equation, an equation that requires a studied answer. In every criminal investigation, the degree of malice and forethought are taken into consideration and weigh heavy in the determination of guilt. Mr. Weller did not leave home that day with the intention of harming anyone. In the final analysis, this is an insurance matter. Also, the city of Santa Monica should have and still should make the outside market and all other city sponsored events safer.” ✆ “Santa Monica should probably do what they keeping doing right now, keep delaying it in hopes that everybody dies before they ever get to having a trial. If Weller’s dead, he wont be able to testify, they wont be able to get his side of the story. If the victims die, we wont have to pay them off either. Just get more lawyers involved and that’ll delay it forever and ever.” ✆ “I think the answer was posted 500 years ago by Mr. Shakespeare when he said, ‘First thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.’” ✆ “Here was a man who should not have been driving to begin with. And then he hits a car and rushes through the thing, hitting willy-nilly. They keep postponing it and waiting for him to get too sick, too incapacitated, or too dead to go to court. I don’t know. I don’t know the best way to deal with it. There are babies and adults that are dead because of him, and no matter how it’s adjudicated, these people are never going to get a chance at life. If they’re going to keep postponing it till Weller himself has to face a higher judge, it will be ludicrous.” ✆ “When the elderly driver plowed through with his foot on the accelerator, I really don’t understand why it has taken so long for this case to come to court. I don’t think he’s been in jail for the last three years. From what I understand, he did have his foot on the accelerator. I do believe that the city of Santa Monica does not protect that area very well. I myself am Caucasian, but I have to say I feel if this were a young black man or a minority he would be rotting in jail for the last three years. So it does seem to be something peculiar going on for this taking so long. Now, when it comes to the city, they are not responsible.” ✆ “If Mr. Weller is found guilty, he must sacrifice all that he owns to make minor restitution for his horrendous lack of judgment in driving a car. But I’m sure all his assets are sheltered by his lawyers — the only ones who will make a large amount of money. City Hall received this Christmas present early this year with a judge’s ruling that the city is not responsible. The City Council is disgustingly responsible for this terrible accident. So the taxpayers pay $100 million to the victims then get a big shovel and dig out the progressive moralists from the City Hall stables trying to get Hercules to help flush the crud.” ✆ “I think that Mr. Weller has had the greatest punishment that any human being could possibly have. There is nothing they could do anything worse than what he has to live with, with his own broken heart and conscience and everything. He was a decent, law-abiding person his whole life. I think it is just pitiful what happened to him. I think that the city is responsible for not having those barriers up. The fact that he was elderly and what happened to him was just a tragic thing — all those lives, it was just terrible. As decent of a person as he is, he’s just going through hell Nothing could be worse. I feel sorry for everyone involved. Only the city is responsible for what happened, not that man.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 22, 2006. Read the original PDF.