Forgot to sign my name. WizardMarks, Central
WizardMarks wrote:
JIM GRAHAM wrote:
I sat through the 35W "PAC" meeting yesterday in amazement. I had been
elected to represent an impacted neighborhood, and felt that I may
have been
one of the few people at the table who was. Some impacted neighborhoods,
such as Stevens, were not even at the table, other non-impacted
neighborhoods were.
The I-35 Access Project does not go that far North, according to PAC
Chair Craig Anderson. This is not to imply that an access project
further North is a bad thing, but only that it is outside the scope of
this project. It would be their choice to begin a similar process for
that area.
Also select non-profits such as Green Institute and
Urban Ventures were at the table as voting members while others were
excluded.
Like it or not, Urban Ventures is here to stay. They've made that
perfectly clear since day one. They are impacted by this project.
Likewise Abbott and Wells Fargo, St. Mary's, Harriet Tubman (which was
not at the table), Teen Challenge (also not at the table), the post
office (not there), A to Z gas station (not there), etc.. However, one
can only invite them, they are free to turn down the invitation. My
neighborhood appointed David Piehl as their representative. He did 2
years. There was a gap, then Dave Jensen was appointed. All the other
neighborhoods were likewise invited and went through whatever their
processes were to choose a rep.
Some of us who lobbied the politicians requested that as many players
as possible be at the table so that the decisions made would not
adversely affect them and their delineation of their patterns of
movement, which would impact the change, would be heard by engineers
too. In my mind when I talked to Linda Wecejman, Linda Berglin, and
Brian Herron (I can't remember if I talked to Peter McLaughlin or not)
and asked them to talk to each other and lobby to support this. I
requested mitigation from the ugliness and inefficiency of that
blinkin-dinkin freeway. I drove bus for six years out of the Nicollet
Garage (before the rebuild-in-situ) and we puffed tons more diesel
into the air because of the awkward configuration of the freeway. Our
clothes, our houses, our lungs were full of diesel and so was
everybody around the bus operation. The bus company is, figuratively
speaking, an immovable object.
Businesses such as Abbot, and Wells Fargo were VOTING members in
what clearly was a conflict of interest because they were voting to
increase
their property values by spending 150 million taxpayer dollars. I
think you
indeed had elephants trampling the grass root neighborhoods with the
composition of this "PAC".
WM: Because of this rebuild my property, which is worth very little,
is worth more. It's kinda important to me too. I live on Lake St. and
the dust I have to clean off my window sills in the summer is
something to see. The number of times I have to wash curtains, scrub
floors, etc. is tiresome. The fact that I can't grow veggies in my
yard and eat them or hang out my wash during spring and fall cleaning
is a drag. The fact that I run up and down Lake St. and 31st to get to
the bank, the gas station... and have to go under those butt ugly
bridges that scream ghetto offends my eyes every dang day of the world.
I am not speaking of the viability of the access project, I
personally think
the freeway system has to be "fixed" to mitigate the destruction of
neighborhoods and harm to residents that was wrought upon the City of
Minneapolis by the Freeways when they were first badly designed and
built.
I am speaking of the illusion of neighborhood support that has been
woven
around this project.
WM: Since I lobbied for it and made some suggestions early on about
the process I feel like what I thought might work in pushing this
project was respected by the project and implemented. I have gone to
all their open houses and asked questions which were answered. I have
studied their process papers and diagrams and seen their model. I've
listened to engineers and architects and neighbors and businessmen and
women at these open houses. I asked for a fair process that considered
what everyone had to say and I feel like I got that. That the
committee did or did not choose some of my favorite things cannot be
the issue for me. I asked personally that they considered everyone's
ideas, not that accept them all. I fully expected them to reject more
ideas than they kept.
I have never gone to a meeting because the chair who was selected
(Craig Anderson) is highly skilled and understood that his role was to
protect the process. He did that. He does that. And he's done a
stellar job of it.
I think others who lobbied for this mitigation process asked for
similar things. I don't know it, but it would have to be so since I
don't have anywhere near that much pull with any of those politicians
involved.
Hennepin County fostering this sham group as some kind
of "legitimate" citizen decision making group is at best a joke and
at worst
a fraud.
WM: Hennepin County may be fostering this process just to cover it's
fanny, but I don't think so.
Hennepin County and Corporations who will profit from the access
projects have in large part added a few neighborhood representatives,
to an
already stacked deck, so as to claim some sort of legitimacy.
WM: Actually, I think they did much better than I expected at getting
both residents, businesses, county, city, state involved. :-) Good
show. Rah-rah.
If the
"Elephants" want this group to actually be legitimate then they need to
remove the "marked cards" from the deck and have a re-vote including
only
those neighborhood "Citizen Participation" groups who have been
"Legitimized" by the City Council. Then any vote they take would be
"LEGITIMATE"; otherwise it is just a sham.
WM: Baloney. It is legitimate. Everyone at the table was invited. Many
more were also invited. Anyone could have sat through the process for
the entire duration of this first phase. I chose not to and to trust
the judgement of my neighbors to do the work. You became involved at
the eleventh hour, Jim, and you want to be included in the process
with a separate agenda of lengthening the process at the end of four
years. For all the people who have actually sat for four years, that's
a pretty tall order. None of them intended this project to be their
life's work and it's pretty cheeky to ask for that at this point.
The excuse that hundreds of hours and time have been spent on the
project is
just so much further trampling.
WM: Wrong, so wrong. It was hundreds of hours of work. People worked
to listen, to be fair, to consider every concievable permutation.
That's why it's taken so damn long.
The "Legitimate" neighborhoods thank you
for that work. It will make their decision more informed. Now
please leave
the table for a moment and let the legitimate judges decide what is the
winning hand.
WM: Here is the list of legitimate judges: County Board of
Commissioners, Minneapolis City Council, State of Minnesota, MNDOT,
and the feds. They have been elected to do just that. This committee
was a Project ADVISORY Committee. The elected bodies can accept the
project's recommendations, reject them, accept some and reject others,
shelve it, build it, trash it, smash it. The first phase was the
concept. The PAC voted for the concept yesterday.
My hats off to the chair, the committee members, the politicians, and
the staff involved. It was a democratic process.
_______________________________________
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E-Democracy
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E-Democracy
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_______________________________________
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