Up Sucker Creek: CCI got earful and then had their say

Engineers told: Talk with neighborhoods and revise the TSP. Show how public and neighborhood input is being used to shape transportation and land use planning.

The Engineering and Planning staff are taking comments and suggestions on how to improve the TSP. Residents who have something to add should send comments to Amanda Owings, City Traffic Engineer, before the end of the month.

At the Planning Commission meeting on Monday (4/14), the Commission heard back from the lead engineers for the Transportation System Plan. After being told that their first draft lacked a local focus and contained little feel for what individual neighborhoods wanted or needed, staff is trying to gather comments from citizens in various meetings they have been able to attend since then. It was obvious to anyone who read the Draft TSP (Feb. and Mar. Versions) that this is a plan that requires the city to change to fit the plan, rather than a plan that fits the city. While too idealistic and driven by a narrow vision/agenda to be useful to most citizens, the TSP would have frustrated transportation for many and cost more than the city could ever afford.

Following the Planning Commission Meeting, the Commission members reconvened as the Commission on Citizen Involvement to do their Annual Review. They got an earful in both oral and written testimony. The gist of the testimony was that there was a distinct feeling of an "us against them" when interacting with the city. Citizens feel left out and their city under siege with public servants working against them.

City staff have been dismissive and obstructive of citizens' requests for information and assistance.
Information about the "big picture" of land use planning for the city is being withheld.
Regional and agenda-driven planning goals consistently trump local and individual goals.
There is little effective outreach to citizens about planning efforts.
Private property owners affected by city planning are not informed of plans until the "refinement stage" when the plans have been on the books for years and much planning effort has gone into them.
Private property rights are not respected.
Regional and state guidelines and goals are presented as actual obligations rather than suggestions.
Costs and city debt are not an overriding concern to staff who do not live in the city.
Staff has little knowledge of what residents want, how neighborhoods function, and why people choose to live where they do, or what constitutes quality of life for Lake Oswegans.

The following is an excerpt of dialogue between staffers at the Transportation Advisory Board (TAB) meeting on April 9. (Audio recording is posted on the meeting website.). This transcript was presented as an example of what staff thinks of the city and its inhabitants. What seems like a joke is mocking and ridicule when the speakers refer to a beloved city lane they propose to "improve" to their standards. Staff knows what's the best and the right thing to do.

Excerpt from TAB meeting 4/9/2014
1:30:58 - 1:32:19

Staff person speaking is Erica Rooney with a short interjection in the middle by Nancy Flye.

"One of the comments we hear all the time is that this city has very few pedestrian facilities. It is a suburb, but it is really not a suburb. It is kind of a rural town with the exception of Westlake which was built more in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s where we’ve got curb, gutter, sidewalk. We don’t have that as our normal here. Our normal here is ah- as we often refer to it -um-

Interjection by Nancy Flye: ‘Country lane.’

(Staff laughter.)

Back to Erica Rooney: ‘Goat Path’ (more laughter). We have very narrow roads, 20-foot roads that is a collector carrying 5,000 cars a day does not provide a place for a pedestrian to walk safely in any way shape or form so we’ll put that on here. We’ll put that there needs to be a pedestrian facility, and over time we’ll either get it through development or someday should the funds become available. It's the right thing to do. We don’t want to take them off of here necessarily at this time until further evaluation is done on each road as it comes up and as funding becomes available, because its true, there are no pedestrian facilities on Kelok and it's all homes and there’s people there who are walking, who are pushing their strollers, and some of those people do want to have a place to walk, maybe not all of them, but we’ll get in to that debate when we actually get in to the project should it get that far along, but I wouldn’t worry about that yet. This plan is at a much higher level. Fifty-thousand-foot level."