As the Mayor said Monday night, it is the council that makes the decisions.

The previous council voted to close the street by approving the Way Park Master Plan which showed the street closed. The current council voted 6-1 to close the street.

The previous council by approving that plan accepted the possible costs to the city of that plan, while telling the FOWP that there would as yet be no $$ budgeted for the park development; they (FOWP) would have to raise a lot of money.

The city’s engineering dept. wants changes to the approved plan that they feel better serve their engineering principles, and in their view, the city’s needs.The bigger emergency path, the bigger culs-de-sac/parking lots, actually increase the costs, over the approved plan.

So, what are the changes that you think the FOWP should pay for?

Sorry, just can’t resist rabble-rousing.

It was an important move for Council to draw the PRAB back into the discussion,since up to this point engineering staff had been relentlessly controlling what could be brought to the table for discussion and appeared to sidestep the Park Board whenever possible.

The fabled 429 Process, in fact, calls for the Park Board to “weigh in” when park improvements are part of an assessment-driven project (Minnesota Statute 429.031, Subd. 2). Staff has managed to overlook Subd. 2, while at the same time citing 429 for other aspects of the project.

As Council formulated a motion for the PRAB to lend its expertise, City Administrator Waliniski,warily and wearily, asked for a definition of “weigh in,” apparently wanting to make certain that the Park Board should not be given rein to “weigh in” too much. Those Park Board members are an unruly bunch!

If the outcome was acceptible both to PRAB and Friends of Way Park (those pushy West Side park proponents), the meeting process itself can only be called weird theater. I recommend viewing the video. The resolution for street closure left open the question of how the stump ends of the street should be bound up and who would do the binding. Council was compelled to grope for a special motion to deal with the terminations. None of us knew at the beginning of the meeting, not even councilors, that staff would try to get Council to make a choice of cul-de-sac options. Mayor Rossing did a creditable job of salvage. It was interesting watching various actors dissemble.

There is much more theater to “weigh in” with, especially the after-the-meeting analyses in the foyer, but I feel myself sliding too far into irony. Still, I feel grateful to the councilors who saw the value of the unified park design,the park’s potential, and the collaborative process of 2006-07.

David, you comment:

Another good decision by the Council.

However, you may not be aware of the full decision: Council approves closing First for Way Park.

The final design is still undecided (size/location of the cul-de-sacs; exact path of the 12-foot walkway/emergency vehicle drive, etc.), but the Council confirmed the wisdom of closing First Street by a 6-1 vote.

A motion was put forward to adopt the Way Park Master Plan, designed by Spencer Jones, and approved by Council vote almost a year ago, but that motion was voted down, 5-2, with only Betsey Buckheit and Jon Denison voting for it’s adoption, or should I say re-adoption.

Mayor Rossing , who voted against the adoption of the plan, said she was uncomfortable with the Master Plan, even though it had been adopted/approved by the previous council, and cautioned that even though the design issues of the cul-de-sac areas were being sent back to the Park Board for their members professional advice,that advice was just advisory. The Mayor then said ,”we’re in the driver’s seat; we give direction”. I assume she meant the council.

I would suggest that ALL who want to support the work of the last 7 years, of Friends of Way Park, show up at the PRAB meeting on the 10th. If ‘they’ are smart, they’ll schedule this meeting in the council chambers, instead of the small conference room.

I’m not so concerned about closing this road as I am about the bad precendent it sets. How can we tell other people that they can’t build a cul-de-sac or convert to a dead end street if we let this pass? I see some compelling reasons why the road should stay open. But, I don’t see any compelling reasons why it has to close.

The engineering staff, from the first public meeting last October on First Street reconstruction, has thrown up every possible obstacle to the Council-approved master plan for the park while at the same time asserting (incorrectly) that the master plan was merely a “concept plan.” Staff asserts that the Council has asked them to provide several street-park options. “We’re only doing the Council’s bidding,” they insist. But at the same time they elect not to include the Way master plan as one of the options, and the options they choose to include bear scant resemblance to the master plan.

There seems on staff’s part not only minimal appreciation for the earlier planning-approval process but also little concern for the social-ecology of the neigborhood,so elegantly embodied in the master plan. I regret that.

Considering the history of this project, and all the proper and proscribed steps through which it progressed, this is not a time when the public can be accused of disrupting or objecting to the process at the last minute.

This would seem to be an instance of the engineering staff not liking the outcome of the council’s vote last spring, the vote that approved the park design which showed a closed road, and therefor bringing the design back for further consideration and possible redesign. If that is not where the dissatisfaction arose, then where?

Citizens are so often accused of this sort of last minute disruption (Woodley street) and in that instance, the cost of last minute re- evaluations was always a consideration brought forward by the engineering staff.
Where are the costs of this ‘reconsideration’, and even possible redesign, being evaluated now?

In the RepJ meeting with Leonard Witt, the responsiveness of the News to their public was brought up by their managing Editor, Jaci Smith. She strongly stated that their success depended somewhat upon their being responsive to their callers/writers/e-mailers and that they tried to some extent to shape their writing to satisfy that public ‘clamor’.

This goes to Griff’s wondering about old and new ‘journalism’ rules, and how they affect content of reportage.

I was saddened to see my Way Park position completely misrepresented in the News.

…

Why does the News keep talking about a controversy regarding closing the street when there isn’t one?

Last Saturday, you relied on a dated survey (done before the park plan had been created) to say that residents on the street were “evenly divided” about closing the street.

Your reporter credited the city engineer for this claim but this does not comport with more recent views documented at the council meeting.

Maybe we should look at doing both. We could install the cul-de-sacs and the existing road. Then, if the master plan ever becomes a reality, closing the road would be simple.

The extra costs of the cul-de-sacs could be borne by the neighbors in the assessment process, or paid for by Friends of Way Park. That would maintain the maximum flexibility, and ensure that the neighbors have some skin in the game. It would also satisfy the police, fire, and city planners. There would be a significant savings for neighbors if they had the cul-de-sacs installed now.

I’m not an engineer, but someone can calculate square footage of asphalt and lineal feet of curb and gutter for each option. “I’m guessing” that the street closing option would not cost significantly more.

Furthermore, I don’t see anyone pushing for immediate completion of the Way Park master plan.

Close the street during this window of opportunity, plant some grass, and we can work on additional ammenities as public and/or private funding becomes available.

There is no money for the park development as originally envisioned. Closing off the street is a minor component of the actual park development.

The park development would certainly be, as you say, “nice to have”. Let me just explain to you that the only $$$ the city has yet committed to the park redevelopment is the costs of the design by Spencer Jones. There is as yet NO money committed to the redevelopment of the additional acreage, and as a matter of fact, the existing old section of Way Park has not received the upkeep and improvement dollars that had been scheduled for it some years ago in that Master Park Plan.

The “city” has made it clear to the Friends of Way Park that the initial impetus for getting the new portion of the park built will have to come from some major fundraising efforts on their part; so as yet there is not any city money committed, beyond what was paid for the design.

There has been a large degree of interest in the redevelopment of this land from supporters all over the community, not just in the immediate neighborhood; but until the vision for the park can be finalized with regard to the street issue, there cannot be significant fund raising. Of course the economic downturn will affect this for the next few years also.

This is a pretty fiscally conservative community for the most part, I think; one which decides what it values and wishes to spend money on, and therefore I think the end results will be reasonable, but also of great value to the general quality of life in Northfield.

I am not familiar with all the details of the project. My gut feel tells me that the need to look at this again might be driven by $$$$.

If that is the case I would support to look at it again. In my mind this is a “nice to have project”.

You can neither fix the problem, NOR SHIFT THE RESPONSIBILITY, by making a little committee for each and every problem, and then redoing what has been a thoroughly ‘processed’ process.

At their ‘shared expectations’ retreat, the new council and the old council members decided to focus on two major areas: public input and process.
Well, welcome to the twofold Problem of both these areas to be focussed on, as exemplified by the rethinking, re-inputting, reprocessing of the whole Way Park plan and the street that may or may not end up being closed.

*****Why is this all being redone when the council passed the Way Park plan, which showed the street closed, last spring? *****

*****Why are they redoing this when they paid for designs from Spencer Jones, a Master Parks designer that we are Oh So fortunate to have living in Northfield ? *****

***** Why are they doing this against the advice and encouragement of their hired Master Parks Plan consultant who repeatedly spoke of the unprecedented opportunity of regaining parkland in a 100 year old neighborhood?*****

*****Where did the initiative to revisit this whole process originate? *****

THAT ONE NEEDS TO BE ASKED TWICE: ***** Where did the initiative to revisit this whole process originate? *****

***** Why is this new council, given their two agreed on areas of focus, going against the very premise they endorsed in their own retreat and campaigned on? *****

After the last two years of complete disorder and dissent, the fact that this project, approved through all the steps, should become a PROBLEM that had to be revisited, is simply ludicrous!

There will be many who will jump all over me for asking these questions… go ahead…
these questions had to be asked.

The whole related projects of the First Street reconstruction and the Way Park Master Plan have been progressing in legislated steps, with public hearings … and re: the Park, through all the processes at the Park Board, and Council. If ever there was a project that has moved ahead slowly, publicly, these two have been that; rescued from the original speculation of 90 apartment units, built as what would pass for hi-rises in this 100 year old neighborhood, one would think most people would be personally happy except for some small details.

The badly needed street reconstruction (all sorts of drainage issues) has been on the engineering priority schedule for some time, already deferred at least a year or two, and now everything should just stop?

I hope the councilors who are working on the public input process are reading; a baptism by fire to say the least!

Maybe Northfield just can’t be a ‘happy’, peaceful place… are we built over a Native American burial ground or something?