Thoughts for the waning moon

Once upon a time a man who spent most of his life looking at the night sky decided he'd build something really special to honor his friend the moon.

His neighbors didn't want him too. After all, he was building on valuable farmland and what he was building didn't conform to their ideas of the local character. They liked things to be like barns and made of wood. This was going to be made of stone. They liked cows and fluffy sheep to be in the field, and this didn't plan for either. Also no one could figure out from the plans the style of it at all. Would it be rustic like their homes or whatever this was - post-modern-apocalyptic? The style didn't matter for, as Mrs. Saxon said, it was just plain Plain Ugly. The people complained and tore out their hair in protest.

The starry eyed man nodded and pretended to listen to the people, but secretly thought they were fools. He told them he'd make it smaller and they wouldn't even notice it. It would fit into their local landscape quite nicely.

And some of the people were foolish and trusted him and never asked for details.  They liked the pretty colors on his map, so they told him yes, he could build it. 

But then midway through constructions as the stones rose high into the sky from the fields, they had some doubts about his intentions.

What exactly is this strange building for? What kind of people would come? What would happen to traffic? Would there be enough water?  Is this what we want in the neighborhood?  They went to the Planning Board to try to stop it.

But the Planning Board just shook their heads and told them it was too late to protest. Details of the 'local character' weren't written in stone anywhere, and besides ground had been broken already. 

The day of the opening ceremony the farmers saw what was built.

It was huge. There were donkey jams everywhere as people drove from far and near to gawk at the new structure.  Strange people in white robes swarmed across the landscape. At least one member of the Walton clan was seen lurking around the edges.

To this day on the full moon in every pub in faraway England the controversy continues.  Was this the work of a Man of Vision or a monumental Planning Failure?


Moral:  Any strange thing can be built in a community with no clearly defined or enforceable character and/or a druidistical building code.



The Stafford Character is not yet defined and so can't be used as a guide or conversation for new construction. Should that be part of our current discussions?

With summer in full swing the Hamlet Planning event has taken a break until September. So, a rushed version of a plan did NOT go before the people for a vote by the end of June as the original timeline requested.

Yippee!!!

 

 After that moment of celebration though, it's time to get back to the real work at hand - defending the process. 

Here's some interesting reading. This first email excerpt is from someone who attended the Town Hall at Rolling Hills:

Et al... for the benefit of those that were not present at the planning meeting where we were able to "grill" Carlotta :) ... and I invite corrections to this comment by anyone... The question came up along the lines of "What will be the ultimate outcome / benefit of the Stafford Hamlet planning effort?" If done with enough detail and community buy-in a METRO ordinance will be passed that permanently establishes the agreed planning parameters (The Stafford Character) for future actions. That becomes our single objective (IMHO). It is an objective we can define and one we can all endorse. It was represented to those present as a way to lock in OUR vision of the future regardless of what jurisdiction(s) get involved, when/what UGB inclusion occurs, how infrastructure is provided, etc...

OK, so when I read this I thought - this is news! If we come up with a plan with amazing community support Metro WILL pass an ordinance codifying it. Not might pass or might consider, but flat out will pass it.   Such an option had never been presented before. It seemed a little too good to be true! Someone else thought so to and forwarded this whole email to Carlotta for confirmation. Her response?

In the first place, I can't promise that any ordinance would be passed. 
In the second place, the issue of an ordinance was posed as a question 
that Ed answered, not me. I solicited a staff response to the question 
of whether density transfers could be ensured by an ordinance if an area
 is annexed. I believe the staff response was that questions like that 
would be spelled out between the annexing community and the community 
being annexed. I am not at my computer so I don't have the actual staff 
response. I'm just going from memory. Thanks for sharing this with me. I
 have been reluctant to participate in the Hamlet conversations for 
exactly this reason. I attended what was billed as a town hall type 
presentation on what the neighborhoods were talking about. It turned out
 to be something different.  

Something different is right, if the 'grilling' comment is accurate.

This may or may not be a classic disingenuous type of misdirect. "Bobby came to play ball and the kitchen window got broke." Did Bobby break the window?  "Carlotta came to our meeting, the question came up and it turns out they'll pass an ordinance!" Did Carlotta say that?

No.

Who said that? 

Ed.

Who?

Herb Koss & the Johnson Road LLC's attorney said that.

Who??? 


OK, so to make my point absolutely clear - this is what a normal person looks like:

This is what a normal person looks like when they're operating off their own bias:

We are all both of these people. We need to be VERY careful what information goes into the Fact Bank we'll be using to create the Vision Map or whatever it is. Currently random groups are running off and interviewing Experts (elected officials and other resource people) to let them know what we're doing and then to ask them questions as input for our decision making. There is NO structure to this. No agreement of who speaks to whom or what we tell them or what kind of questions we ask. And from what I've seen when two or more attend these, not even an agreement on what was said.

Perhaps every 'Expert' transcript needs to go back to the 'Expert' for confirmation before we allow it to be considered fact - otherwise it could end up as

Garbage In Garbage Out