We Are Not Borg

At the March 25, 2009 Commission meeting on the Fairview/Milwaukee Winco expansion (yes, Winco gets to expand and the neighborhood won too - no curb cut to Fairmeadow as yet) one resident from the surrounding neighborhood stated that the ACHD planner told him that it really didn't matter what the neighbors said, the Commission does what the staff tells them to do so the conclusion was a done deal.

Well. The gentleman was quickly disabused of this notion. A Commissioner told him in no uncertain terms that staff would NEVER say that and that he must have not heard it correctly.

However, I'm not so sure about that. This is the second instance of hearing that a staff member has said an issue was a done deal. In fact, that's the whole jist of my previous blog entry on Shamrock/Ustick and heck, I was the one who told them their language sounded like the conclusion was foregone, change it and yet they did it again!

ACHD has a reputation of being a very insular agency that doesn't listen to the people. The commission has long been believed to be a captive of the staff. Certainly comments like the one to the gentleman who testified and letters to the public from the planner about Shamrock kind of tend to reinforce this belief.

Hopefully, having two planners outed in recent weeks might start changing the way staff interacts with the public, you know, at least giving the veneer that decisions are not premade.

We are not all Borg yet people, we have not all been assimilated, resistance is not futile (Brit pronunciation please).