Dave Piehl wrote:
Sue Anderson wrote about the Access (Excess) ProjectWM: That has never been true. There have been stenographers at every open house to accept public input. What they appear to be trying to avoid is having any one group dominate so that others cannot get a word in edgewise. Having been a player in that kind of consideration by domination in Central and having watched it in Phillips, I'm happy to cut the sturm and drang and be able to really think about what the committee, the Partnership, MNDoT, etc. are thinking.
meeting:
(snip) it looks like the agenda has been set to limit
discussion. Those party to the Hiawatha-Lake public
meetings may see a similar pattern.
David Piehl writes:
I've attended a few of the Access/Expansion meetings,
and found the structure truly limiting, probably as
intended. At the most recent PAC meeting, Robert
Lilligren pointed out that originally, the public
meetings were supposed to have a public-input
component, but for "whatever reason" that didn't
happen - he continued with a recommendation that the
input component of the up-coming meetings be a central
focus of the meetings. Nevertheless, it looks like
input is STILL UNWELCOME!! It's interesting to see an
agenda for a "public meeting" where the agenda is
locked in a holding pattern. Do they really believe
we are that foolish?
WM: I disagree so loud I'm shouting. Look at everything. Listen to everything. Take all the paper they give, look at their video if they have one.I encourage everyone to attend the meeting, but don't waste time on the regurgitated "facts" they get from their crystal balls about traffic projections for 20 years from now - instead, focus on getting answers as to what the project means to the neighborhood; whose businesses will be priced out of the market, whose will be demolished, etc (check out the article "Linking I35 to Lake; whose gain, whose pain" at www.spokesman-recorder.com). Don't let your opinions fall victim to the reasons other people want the project in OUR neighborhood!
I can go back in my memory to as early as the spring of 1987 and remember people talking about 35W. I talked to people in Phillips, people in Central, of course, and a few folks in Whittier and Powderhorn. And I had already talked to numerous bus drivers about their (then our) perspective on 35W at Lake St. as part of pull-in/pull-out routing and driving the old established lines--9, 21, 18, 10, 23, 2, 4, 6,, 28, 17--you get the picture). Most people talked about one of the following issues:
the entrance to 94/35 at Fifth and Franklin--dangerous
completely inadequate freeway access to and from Lake St.
smell and grease of diesel exhaust
the crazy on at 35 St. (northbound) off at 31 St. configuration and vice versa on the Stevens Av. side southbound
the way it tore apart integral pieces of the city infrastructure and went through neighborhoods rather than along their margins
traffic too fast around 35W--35th and 36th, Second and Stevens, 26th and 28th
how creepy it is under the bridges and around Franklin and Lake because it's semi-abandoned or "edge land"
and how ugly it is.
There will be two more meetings, one Thursday evening, one Saturday morning. After you've listened to them and thought about it, go back to the meeting and dictate your issues to the stenographer. Or, do your cogitating at home and send an e-mail to Johnson or McLaughlin or whoever you please. Or send your thoughts by snail mail.
This is the big and fourth or fifth big input time. Get your word in there.
WM: Yes, lawyers are skilled at that and so are others, including both you and I. There's an assumption embedded in your argument that if what is needed somehow benefits what qualifies as a big business, it is somehow automatically bad news. While I could agree to that with some business endeavors, I'm not sure I agree with it concerning hospitals and a perfectly nice white collar and pink collar banking paperwork joint (rather than, for instance, a foundry or scrap yard, or a mixer of noxious chemicals). Allina has taken the position throughout, if I'm not mistaken, that they would like to have better access to the freeway, but they can live without it. I've never been clear about Wells Fargo's position, and Children's is usually pretty much in sync with Allina--maybe cause they're both hospitals.Perhaps the answer to the question about why a private law firm (Smith Parker)is being paid by the taxpayers to convince us that taxpayers should also fund the corporate welfare scheme called the Access Expansion Project for their clients (Wells Fargo, Childrens Hospital, and Allina) is that lawyers are skilled at fulfilling the letter of the law while ignoring the intent of the laws.
Further, I think their needs are as legitimate as mine. Like it or not, they are part of the neighborhoods which surround them. As a parting gift, Honeywell built a lot of new housing right out one of their front doors. Honeywell founder R. W. Sweat lived on First Avenue all those years ago after Honeywell (then Mpls. Heat Regulator) moved to 28th and 4th. Kind of a tradition. Simultaneously, and going back several years, Honeywell and Abbott helped a lot of people buy homes around the hospital, offering first to their own employees, some of whom are my neighbors. There are a lot of nurses and nurses aides and orderlies, bus drivers, bean counters, and whatever who live in these neighborhoods and benefit from their presence. If we are going to fix the problems that bother us, then we might as well fix the ones that bother them while we're at it.
My question will be, does the configuration the committee approved, fulfill the needs we had planned to address. If it does, goody. If it does not, what is the next step?
WizardMarks, Central
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