Josh,
Maybe I suffer from the fatigue of familiarity. But this website is as
specific as it's ever going to be! Can you name one other City capital
project of $500,000 value or more, about which you can find more
information on line?
FoCP does the best it can. It is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the
most-public community group in West Philadelphia. But it cannot answer
an endless series of recursive questions about the latest plans the City
has for its real estate, from one day to the next.
In answer to your questions:
1) FoCP has reviewed North Park revitalization plans continuously for 10
years. That never means, of course, it is abreast of what /will /happen.
2) I, and others, have seen all sorts of plans. But that never means
I've seen /yesterday's /plans. Construction work is inherently fluid and
there are always surpises.
3) Of course these plans are public. All Philadelphia capital projects
are public. Follow the procedures you usually follow when you are
seeking details on any other City capital project. But no City worker
owes you any special treatment, merely because you have developed a
momentary excitement over Clark Park.
4) I don't know, because I won't know what plans are being implemented
until after they've been implemented.
5) It has been a decade-long process. Every bit of it has been a public
process, because it's a public park. Every step you failed to involve
yourself in was public nevertheless. Contact me off list if you are
truly curious about this process.
But it's nobody's obligation to bring Johnny-come-latelys up to speed on
this subject! If you're a citizen of Philadelphia, and deeply care about
a given piece of policy, it's on you to become a good citizen now and
learn the history of this project. It was always easy to learn.
-- Tony West
On 9/8/2010 12:48 AM, Josh Marcus wrote:
Tony,
I totally agree that there are risks and unknowns when a contractor is
given a scope of work and a limited budget. Of course! But that's
not what I was asking. I was trying to respond to your statement that
we should look at the website if we want to know a) the specifics of
what is being done, and b) what the process was that led to that scope
of work.
I tried to repeat my specific questions a number of times to emphasize
that I think that it's fair to ask for specific answers to these
questions. But instead of responding, it seems like you changed your
stance from "you're not paying attention" to "it's impossible to know
what is actually going to be done". I've never seen any public
statement from you or FoCP that would lead me to believe that there
isn't a public plan or that it is unreasonable to expect that there
would be a public plan -- I only brought up the website as a source of
information because you directed the author of a previous message to
the website, and criticized him for not "paying attention" to the
details that had been posted.
I repeated my questions a number of times to try and emphasize them,
and to emphasize that these specific questions deserve answers. You
didn't answer them. I am disappointed -- do you recognize that you
didn't answer my questions, and instead just asserted that it is an
"inherently fluid" process? I am honestly not trying to argue here,
just trying to clarify what are the pieces of information that
neighbors are missing and try and clarify why that missing information
might lead people to concern. I'm not looking for a rhetorical
argument, but was instead looking for the basic facts of the
situation. I'm glad to hear that you trust the contractor.
Here are my questions, repeated:
1) If FoCP has not reviewed or commented on the plans being
implemented, please let us know. If it is a mistake to think that the
FoCP is not very involved in the process, or if you're not free to
speak freely about what's going on, that would be a good thing to make
clear.
2) Have you have seen the plans being implemented? Specifically, are
the specific plans being implemented by the contractor public or have
they been reviewed by anyone outside of the city? If the contractor
has broad free-reign over the implementation and priority (as you seem
to suggest), does the community or FoCP have any input into the
process? If not, are you concerned?
3) Are those plans public? If not, why not? If so, where can we see
them?
4) How do the plans being implemented differ from the plans that have
been discussed in public in the past?
5) What is the process that led to the current plan? What role did
the public process play?
--j
