I don’t know if they care anymore or not…

Posted on | March 29, 2010 | No Comments

Before I get into the most recent progress of the downtown revitalization plan, I’m going to take a step backwards and explain the two groups involved for the city.  The first group is the Mayoral Round Table and is made up of community members that the mayor hand chose – mostly business owners downtown, city hall workers, or citizens that are very involved and interested in bettering the community.  The Round Table’s role in the planning process is to essentially make the final decisions.  They listen to the public’s opinions, our advice as planners, and decide what would be best for their downtown.  The second group involved is obviously the public.  They come to public workshops and work together to come up with ideas and review/comment on the plan to date. 

So last week, the first Mayoral Round Table meeting was held.  There were two main objectives to this meeting: 1) review the goals and objectives I wrote based upon the results of the first public workshop and 2) come up with alternatives for the downtown. 

We initially asked the mayor to find about 15 people for the Round Table, but he was only able to get seven.  That’s fine.  It would’ve been nice to have a larger group, but seven would work.  Except for only one person showed up.  Luckily that person had the Mayor’s home phone number saved in her phone, because he didn’t show up either.    

So basically the mayor, once he got there, and one downtown business owner created the future alternatives for the downtown that will be presented at the next public workshop.

Like the first public workshop, we were disappointed with the turnout, but the ones that were there had a lot of useful input.  Likewise, the mayor and one person that were at the Round Table meeting last week had great ideas.  They at least gave us a starting point.  

So to recap, 14 people showed up to the public workshop in February, and two people showed up to the Round Table meeting this month.  We have figured out that if we originally wanted 15 people for the Round Table, and less than that showed up to the public workshop, then maybe we shouldn’t limit the Round Table meetings to just the people that the mayor selected.  We need more people to show up to everything, and limiting some meetings to just the Round Table might not be the best idea, especially in a community this size.  I think from now on, we will invite the public to all of the meetings.  Hopefully people will show up.  And hopefully the mayor will remember.

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