Y’all carry on. I’ve said my piece.

(Unfortunately, since Planning Commission Meetings minutes and summaries aren’t kept up to date, we probably won’t get to review an official record of last Tuesday’s Mtg. Interested folks can, however, listen to the Mead Rd. neighbor on the 10/1 and 11/5 City Commission Mtgs videos to get a sense of him. Although it’s the proposed Olympic Place trails project being discussed at the 11/5 Mtg, it’s well worth listening to all of the public comments on it as it gives an interesting glimpse into how misunderstandings can happen– and about the Mead St. neighbor– between neighbors over there. )

Deanne, you seem to be taking Dr. Hu and Mr. Valenti at their word about every single thing, which you are certainly entitled to do. However, that requires believing in at least the possibility that Mr. Whitlock and his partners are being less than truthful about how communications have transpired, and I don’t buy that. They aren’t some fly-by-night Evil Developers From Elsewhere, trying to make a quick buck. They are as deeply rooted in this community as many of us and more so than most. It does appear to me that the neighbors have tried from the very outset to block the entire project (including renovation and reoccupation of the existing buildings) using a combination of legitimate concerns and questions along with obvious red herrings and excuses to obstruct.

I disagree with you on several other points, but have expressed my own views at some great length earlier in this thread.

Having some valid points however doesn’t change the underlying motivation of the Mead Road neighbor. If I was hearing this exclusively on this forum or from second accounts, I would more than likely be giving them a little more slack. But when you hear first hand how they plan on calling the police every night to complain about the noise from the ‘bar’ and file regular complaints about the garbage and other issues that don’t even exist yet and probably never will, your perspective changes.

The classic NIMBY strategy is to have a few valid concerns wrapped around a number of ‘safety’ issues. What about the children? What about the pedestrians? What about the dangerous speeding traffic? What about the drunken drivers?

Focusing on ‘safety’ makes it harder for public officials to vote for the change as they don’t want to be seen voting against ‘safety’.

I also might be cutting them a little slack if I didn’t know how much the developers listened to their concerns and made changes accordingly, only to hear ‘new’ concerns, and tried to address those until it became obvious the only acceptable situation would be one where the neighbors got to design everything and have final say on who the tenants are.

The simple fact is that other than the immediate neighbors, I don’t know anybody who is against this development, and other than dealing with the traffic issue, I haven’t heard of any valid long term detrimental effects that this development would have on the neighborhood.

I am however seeing classic NIMBY behavior that is so myopically egocentric that it isn’t even in their own best interest anymore.

BikeBoy- Continue to be ticked off at the neighbors if that’s what you’re set on doing. However, the Planning Commission voiced some of the same concerns about the project. How do you get past that?