Let's see if I have this right.
DOT's decision to pull the plug on the Perry St. Pedestrian/Bike Overpass, as well as the PBMVC's decision last Tuesday NOT to approve overpass, were both based on the fact that more people from the community showed up at the meeting objecting to overpass than those who showed up in support of the overpass? Is that really how DOT project and city funding is determined these days? You've got to be kidding!
Okay, let's assume for now that you're not kidding - that a head count at the January 13, 2005 public meeting was the deciding factor on whether of not the project gets funded, and eventually built.
Please note that the Public Notice for January 13, 2005 meeting (which Matt Logan posted - thanks Matt) stated that: "The purpose of this meeting is to solicit public input on the preliminary design for this project". So clearly then, the public was not properly informed that the number of people registering in support for the project at the meeting would be used as a factor in determining if the project got built or not.
What does it matter if people were informed ahead of time of the significance of their attendance? It matters because there would be people who don't live in the immediate area but who still might want to see the overpass built (like me), so they wouldn't care much what the overpass looked like, so they wouldn't attend the meeting. Those people would not have been counted as being in support of the project because they were misinformed about the meeting's real purpose.
Where should we go from here?
Mike Neuman
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