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This is legislation
by telephone,
email and fax.
PUSH OR SAY 1 FOR YES
Baxter Street has bounced back from decline and decay with
the help of local government streetscape projects: spiffy new
street lights, wide sidewalks, bike lanes and three-lane traffic that
calms the cars, a new police station and new businesses up and
down the street
ACC staff followed up these improvements with a proposal
for medians in the turn lanes on Baxter between the library and
Beechwood shopping center. Four medians would be built, with
trees, that would provide a refuge for pedestrians trying to cross
Baxter and would discourage motorists from using the turn lanes
to speed around other traffic, perhaps to run right over a pedestri
an cowering in the middle lane. The medians would provide safety
for motorists and pedestrians and visual appeal to the Baxter
Street corridor.
The commissioners reviewed these plans, and at their January
meeting voted unanimously to go ahead with the project.
Commissioner Kathy Hoard made the motion, and her motion con
tained the caveat that a final decision be tentative on the median
nearest Alps Shopping Center. Her motion called for staff and the
two commissioners whose districts include Baxter Street (Hoard
and George Maxwell) to obtain input from Alps Shopping Center
merchants and representatives on that median nearest the shop
ping center.
That really presented no problem, because the project was to
be divided into two phases, with only one median to be built dur
ing 2006—the one down at the library. The other three wouldn't
be built until 2007—plenty of time to continue tinkering with
their design.
Accordingly, staff and the two commissioners held two meet
ings on Jan. 10 with representatives from businesses along Baxter.
The meetings elicited a number of con
cerns about the medians—ambulance
access to St. Mary's Hospital, traffic
turning out of Alps Shopping Center,
parents dropping children off at Alps
Road Elementary, big trucks. Nobody at
either meeting had a concern about the
median nearest the library, the only one to be built this year.
Staff evaluated each concern and wrote a reply, conceding that
the median nearest St. Mary's could be shortened. Otherwise, staff
concluded that the medians would make traffic safer for school
parents and Alps customers by limiting the use of the turn lanes as
travel and acceleration lanes.
Commissioner Hoard's motion authorizing the project re
quested that Manager Alan Reddish report back to the Commission
through a Memorandum of Proposed Administrative Action, to let
the Commission know the final decision on the median at Alps
Shopping Center. In that Memorandum, Reddish summed up the
results of the meetings: 'I believe the medians are the most ef
fective way to meet the objectives of increased safety for motor
ists, increased pedestrian safety, and improved visual appeal of
the corridor. Further, it is my opinion that the medians, with the
modification noted within the staff report and this memo, do not
degrade the vehicular egress and ingress for the adjoining proper
ties.*
Reddish concluded by informing the Mayor and Commission
that he would direct the staff to proceed with the project “unless v
I receive a different directive from a majority of you not later than
Wednesday. February 22, 2006.“
Well, he heard. Meanwhile Commissioner Hoard heard from the
owner of Alps Shopping Center and the administrator of St. Mary's
Hospital that they didn't want any medians.
She and Maxwell went to work, notifying other commissioners
that the business people along Baxter didn't want the medians
and asking fellow commissioners to contact Reddish and tell him
they didn't want the medians included in the Baxter project. By
Feb. 22, seven commissioners (Hoard, Maxwell. Chasteen, Lynn,
McCarter, Sims and Carter) had told Reddish to lose the medians.
Accordingly, he directed staff to drop all four medians from the
Baxter Street project.
Nobody can explain how two commissioners were able to over
ride a unanimous commission vote and expand a follow-up analysis
of the median at Alps into scratching all four medians with no
formal Commission action.
Commissioner Hoard says she did it because the business
people didn't want the medians, yet the children who must cross
Baxter to get to school and to the library and to Alps Shopping
Center didn't get another chance to say whether they wanted the
medians for their safety. We're back to the old days, when a few
influential citizens can dictate policy.
This is legislation by telephone, email and fax. The commis
sioners don't even need to meet to take action or change some
thing they've done: they can just phone it in.
Pete McCommons Editor & Publisher editor®f!agpoie com
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ISSUE NUMBER 10
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