If you have not already read all you want to about the latest
Pier events check out Janelle Irwin's saintpetersblog
Post: Inverted
Pyramid lovers: You’re doing it wrong
Or
Kate Bradshaw's Creative Loafing
Post: Negotiations
for (and probably petitions against) Pier Park to begin
As indicated in the above Post there is a lot more to come. But
there are a couple of lessons for City Council and perhaps an administration to
learn.
First and foremost several have asked the question; "How did
City Council find themselves in this mess where they had limited options?"
My view: by design.
Once the Kriseman Administration put forth the process in Title XIX Chapter 287.055 and Council agreed to letting the Administration set
up the selection committee the die was cast. The head of the committee was
preset by the Statute and the outcome was almost completely assured, the
inverted pyramid was coming down.
Mike Connors was going to run the
show and everyone knew or should have known where he stands and Connors usually
gets his way. When things started going south, his Selection Committee rant
move the members back in line and while the Administration didn't get ALMA they
may get to tear the pyramid down which is satisfaction enough.
Without adding in some caveats,
Council essentially delegated the Pier selection process to a committee that
was handpicked the Mayor, with a chairman with the administration's agenda and
a good possibility of producing the desired result.
"Why didn't City Council
listen to the public?"
The public survey was always a big
risk. From the start the only way the public was going to be heard was if they
agreed with the Administration. Taking both City Council and the public out of
play with the formal selection process was brilliant.
The lingering problem is both the
Kriseman administration and the City Council are now saddled with at least a
segment, and perhaps a growing segment, of the citizenry who thinks they are
being deliberately ignored. And they are.
As much as I and others exhorted
Council to make a different decision, City Attorney John Wolfe summed it all up
in what most of us knew, the possibility of legal action which would be costly
and lengthy and far too big a risk. With the exception of Newton, no one was
really ready to take that risk.
Council took the only "legal
action" they could. Their hands were tied.
Here is where I think the City Council got taken for a ride.
From the Statute:
(4) COMPETITIVE SELECTION.—
(a) For each proposed
project, the agency shall evaluate current statements of qualifications and
performance data on file with the agency, together with those that may be
submitted by other firms regarding the proposed project, and shall conduct
discussions with, and may require public presentations by, no fewer than three
firms regarding their qualifications, approach to the project, and ability to
furnish the required services.
The Statute seems to leave the structure of the evaluation
process up to the Agency, in this case the City. City Council should have
retained the final ranking process as their purview and not delegated it to a
group of 5 non-elected people and one biased staff member.
Too late game over.
However, given the seemingly aggressive redevelopment nature of
the Waterfront Master Plan, this is a lesson that should not be missed.
For now we wait and see what the outcome of the referendum effort
will be.
Given the ease with which it was possible for an administration
to create a process that took both the City Council and the public completely
out of the final decision making process for water front assets, this
referendum takes on a whole new level of importance.
E-mail Doc at mail
to:dr.gwebb@yahoo.com or send me
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