Store owner crusades to get tree lights downtown back
Fred Menard: ‘It made Georgia Street magical’
Fred Menard turns 79 on St Patrick’s Day. And he could use a little luck o’ the Irish.
Menard manages to continue to operate Indian Alley Antiques at 412 Georgia St., some nine years after absorbing a brutal beating walking home in 2012.
Though the pummeling left him blind in one eye and legally blind in the other, Menard said there was nothing like seeing the glowing lights of a three-block area downtown when his fundraising efforts led to trees filled with bulbs “that made Georgia Street magical.”
Last year, however, after the lights were removed for tree trimming, they were replaced by a single rope of bulbs strung from light pole to light pole.
“Not even better than nothing,” simmered Menard on Tuesday in front of his store.
Menard said he has no idea where the original lights are, told by the city “they’re in a warehouse” but that’s all the information he could obtain.
“I have no idea where they are,” he said. “They aren’t the city’s lights. They’re the community’s.”
Christina Lee, the city’s communications and public information officer, acknowledged that the original lights “came down because the tree maintenance crew needed to do their normal upkeep and maintenance of the trees so that they could thrive.”
Lee said the original lights were replaced “by new high-tech strands the length of downtown Georgia on both sides.”
Jay Kubovec, a 67-year-old retired fashion designer, agreed with Menard and, for five weeks, has anchored his 6-foot-4 frame at Marin and Georgia streets during Farmers’ Market collecting petition signatures.
Kubovec said he’s up to about 250 signatures with a goal of 1,000 before the petition is presented to Vallejo City Council.
“The only people who don’t sign it have their hands full or don’t speak English. Every merchant I contacted on Georgia
Street signed it,” Kubovec said by phone Tuesday afternoon.
That includes Tim Hiemstra, owner of Napa River Realty next-door to Indian Alley Antiques.
Hiemstra said the former tree lights “added additional spark that we need as we try to bring in commercial tenants downtown.”
A Lincoln, Neb. native, Kubovec said the lights that were orchestrated by Menard gave Vallejo “a calm, safe, old-town feel.”
The string of lights now up and down each side of Georgia Street falls flat, Kubovec said.
“From the top of hill, you can’t even see the lights. The only thing it’s good for is an emergency airplane landing,” Kubovec said, adding the current lights is like “having a beautiful Porterhouse steak or Chateaubriand and the maître d’ offers you ketchup. That’s what these lights look like. They just don’t have the charm.”
Menard, clutching a Billy Yuen photo of the downtown with the community-funded lights, fumed that “when they trimmed the trees — maybe a year ago — some idiot decided this (the current lighting) was better.”
Kubovec said he offered to collect signatures after witnessing Menard “working so hard the first time to get community support to get the original lights up. I think it’s a terrible injustice to not put them back up.”
A 12-year Vallejoan, Kubovec said he was disappointed from the moment he saw the lights that went up after tree trimming.
“There’s no style, no elegance,” Kubovec said. “I told Fred, ‘Anything I could do to help you, I’ll do,’ and that’s what I’m doing. I have the time. I’d go doorto-door, but you can’t during the pandemic so I’m using Farmers’ Market.”
Kubovec said his pitch to sign the petition “is a very easy one.”
“I have a picture of what it (previously) looked like and that this petition is to put lights back on Georgia Street,” he said.
Community activist Peter Brooks supported the cause, printing up several hundred “Georgia St. Trees Are Magic!” mini-posters.
“Trees filled with lights is a great way to say ‘Downtown is coming back!’ Lighting the trees the way they used to be is a welcome reminder that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for the downtown shopping, restaurants, art festivals and entertainment we’ve all been missing,” said Brooks, hoping that “the original lights are safely boxed up waiting for their chance to shine again.”
“It’s time to bring a little more magic downtown,” Brooks said.