Item 13: VisionSMTX
Quick recap:
We’re now three years deep in writing the Comprehensive Plan, or VisionSMTX. (Discussed here, here, here, here, and here.)
– Years 1-2: a 30 person citizen group meets and a draft is written.
– Year 3: A subcommittee from P&Z guts a lot of the important details meant to address suburban sprawl and unaffordable housing. P&Z passed the gutted version.
Council was about to pass P&Z’s version, and then decided to pause and solicit community input.
So how will council go about getting community input?
Basically, a massive outreach campaign. City staff is going to carpet bomb the city with fliers and emails. They’re going to put a little insert in with your utility bills. They’re going to wash social media in links. They’re going all out.
You’ll be able to:
- Fill out a survey on paper, or
- Fill it out online, or
- Leave comments directly on the Summary of Changes table, for other people to read.
The survey opens February 2nd and closes February 23rd.
The problem is that the actual document is long and boring, and the details are fiddly. The summary table is 22 pages long! So it’s going to be hard to get people to wade into it.
Here is my plan: I’m going to try to provide a cheat sheet. If you care about the same things I care about, I’ll have some language that anyone can borrow, to make it easier to fill out the survey.
What did Council think?
Jane Hughson starts, “A common complaint is that this is all about protecting rich neighborhoods. But this is about protecting all neighborhoods! Not just the wealthy ones!”
That is not my complaint. Sure, yes: the changes apply to all the neighborhoods. My complaint is that “protecting all neighborhoods” means locking in sprawl and preventing renters from living in quiet neighborhoods.
There is some bickering over the third survey option, where you’ll be able to write comments directly on the Summary Table. Should comments have a “reply” feature, so that people can go back and forth in a single thread?
Jane and Mark say no. It will disintegrate into fighting, and intimidate people who might not comment out of fear of having their comments shredded. Plus, anyone can leave a new comment and respond to another comment – it just wouldn’t be a “reply” feature on a comment.
Alyssa feels strongly that we should be able to. Adults aren’t kids and you don’t need to be coddling them. Classrooms use this kind of thing all the time. If people can’t handle this level of discourse, they should go to therapy.
Matthew Mendoza says that he’s okay with a little back and forth.
So it’s tied 2-2. Jane says, “Saul, you’re the tie-breaker. What do you want to do?”
Saul says, “I’ll go with the majority.”
Jane: [Eyes bug out.]
Saul: Ok, just comments. No back and forth.
In Saul’s defense, he seems to be feeling really under the weather. Later, when asked for his opinion, he just weakly says, “I took some Advil…”
I’m with Jane, Mark and Saul here: classrooms are heavily moderated by the instructor. Unmoderated spaces deteriorate fast. I personally would not wade into a situation if it felt like a cesspool to me.
…
Q&A with the Press and Public:
LMC asks about the Gateway signs. How much did we pay the consultants? How much staff time? How much will the signs cost?
Answer: The consultants were $63K.
The signs will cost $200-250K.
It takes staff about 1-2 hours per week.
…
That was the whole meeting! It was short and sweet.
The San Marxist 