Documents concerning the Christiansburg Aquatic Center.
By Carol Lindstrom On March 5 at 4:50 PM
Monthly Archives: March 2009
Standing Room Only — In the Hallway that is:) Town Council Meeting
(CITIZEN SATISFACTION SURVEY REVISITED)
Town Council Meeting February 3, 2009.
The meeting last night was great. Standing room only (videos coming soon). A hot topic was discussed concerning a proposed developement and how it would affect another neighborhood. (It was absolutely wonderful to see this type of public engagement.) I am sure that there will be further blogs, by various of us who engage in that activity, discussing that and other issues that were presented to our Town Council tonight. What I wanted to make note of was something I noticed tonight that was not on the agenda. There were a lot of people who spoke up at the meeting. Some of them presented their arguments in such a thoughtful, reflective, and inclusive community-based that I could not help but realize that I was listening to people that, if they were to run for Town Council, I would vote for them. Those individuals did the research, they did the work, and they presented their arguments in ways that should require Town Council to take a lot of things into consideration when making the final decision. Another thing that I noted was that the people who were asking Town Council to vote against the proposal, were doing just that. It was the proposal, as it currently exists, that they had a problem with (traffic/road access). Most of the opponents acknowledged that the development, itself, was a good thing, but the limited access to roads would create safety hazards as well as compromise quality of life for the owners of property in the current development. I don’t know all of the ins and outs of the project, but it would seem that simply finding another access point would fix the issues raised. I don’t envy the Town Council in making decisions like this. The laws concerning VDOT set very specific standards for determining traffic impact and solutions to identified traffic issues. The Town Council is in the position of making decisions that go beyond the mere letter of the law. Since VDOT traffic evaluations are based on the number of residential units within a development, it falls squarely upon the shoulders of Town Council to identify all issues that affect the validity of that study in the real world application. For instance, does a traffic study done now when the economy is so severely depressed accurately represent the traffic at more ‘normal’ economic times? What about other developments that are likely to be brought into the area. Theoretically, according to the VDOT applications, it is possible for a developer to do one development that does not have the number of houses on it to require advanced studies while knowing that he/she will be adding another development adjacent to it with a similar number of residences. While neither of these individually meet the ‘count’ criteria, if they were done at one time, they would. Several times tonight it was pointed out that the project was consistent with the Comprehensive Plan. Well, maybe it is time that the Comprehensive Plan had a serious face lift. The town has changed significantly in recent years as to population, demographics, development patterns, traffic, and storm water. The most recent review of the Comprehensive Plan a couple of years ago was passed unchanged. Nothing was done to ascertain input from citizens. Since, the comprehensive plan is the legal basis for zoning, things will continue as they have with no consideration for the drastic changes in population and growth. I think it is time for the Comprehensive Plan to be re-evaluated. And, this time the town needs to make a dedicated effort to involve citizens, obtain citizen input, and ask questions pertaining to the FUTURE of Christianburg. (If you want a look at the type of data that was used in the last one, take the survey I’ve loaded up online. It is virtually the same survey as the one done in 1998 (and used for the 2003 Comprehensive Plan) with only a few changes to accomodate changes in numbers for population and growth. If you feel you were one of those people I was talking about who did such a good job presenting your case, and if you care about the Town as a whole, then consider running for Town Council or consider dropping your name in the hat for the next Planning Commission opening.
Crime and the Economy
(CITIZEN SATISFACTION SURVEY REVISITED)
One of the things I’ve added to the citizen website is the weekly crime reports that are distributed to local media. My thanks to Chief Sisson and his staff for making this so readily available. Extra thanks to Teresa Carroll who is stuck with the job of sending them to me. If you go to the main page of the website, you will find a light tan bar at the top. On that bar are the links to various topical webpages. The second row, 4th block is labeled: Police Dept. Crime Reports. Clicking on that link will take you to a page where you can find a chart with the cumulative totals and links to the individual weekly reports. I don’t have access to last year’s data for a comparison, but it would not surprise me to find that the big increases in Arson and Assault are due to economic conditions. Economic changes such as we have seen in recent years, can have a psychological impact on individuals that can lead them to do acts they would not normally do. The greater the population, the more likely to see criminal behavior increase as a function of economic decline. In part, I feel this is due to that fact that as population increases, community support that comes from the person-to-person contact is lost. All the social services in the world, cannot provide that unique sense of well being that comes from knowing that your family and neighbors care and are willing to help you when the need arises. Don’t get me wrong, I am a strong proponent of social services. However, I am an even stronger proponent of the Golden Rule. These hard economic times, the stress they create for individuals, families, and communities, and the increase in crime bring me to two conclusions. 1. Now is definitely NOT the time to consider reducing any law enforcement, fire, or rescue staff. If money has to be cut from the budget, let it come from other sources. 2. Now IS the time for take a few extra minutes to get to know your neighbors, to be kind to each other, to be supportive….to LIVE the Golden Rule: For an interesting review of the concept of the Ethic of Reciprocity and how it is multi-cultural and crosses a myriad of perceived religious boundaries, check out the Ethic of Reciprocity on Wikipedia.
