The Zoom address is zoom.us and the meeting ID is 835-1838-6873.  The meeting will begin at 5:00 pm on September 1, 2020.

Please make plans to attend.  We will be sending more updates this week along with other breaking news and ways that you can make your voices heard, despite the COVID restrains on public meetings such as these!  

I also wanted to share a personal story with each of you which highlights the importance that this campaign truly has on each and every resident; those who deem to be heard and those who might not, but are equally impacted by the increase in traffic and crime attendant to runaway development.

A few years ago, I received a call from a friend of mine, who resided in Turtle Run, just across the street from the Renaissance Hotel and very close to a new apartment project under consideration by the City.  The project promised to be a large density (300+ unit) apartment complex that would add far more traffic to an already overcrowded Pine Island Road fiasco.  My friend was concerned about his neighborhood and, he was concerned that the van that picked him up for medical treatments would not be able to do so in a timely manner once the project was complete.  As you all well know, traffic at that location was already a logistical nightmare in morning and afternoon rush hour.  Leading up to the City Council meeting on the matter, our Planning and Zoning staff had simply rubber stamped the project and, despite promising to provide the city with a traffic study on that project to date, none has been produced.  Due to his illness, my friend couldn’t make it to the council meeting. I went in his stead and spoke at the public forum relative to the project.  When I stood up, a council member attempted to shout me down stating that since I didn’t “live” in the City I shouldn’t be heard.  No-one seemed to care that the project would add more traffic to an already overburdened roadway nor would it add one more police patrol car to the already crime ridden city and the project received a green light.  All I did was speak up for a friend who couldn’t.  I had no skin in the game other than to advocate for what was the right thing to do for someone who couldn't make it to the meeting.  Ever since, I vowed to hold the City to our master development plan for all the residents who might be stuck at home (today in a pandemic) without a voice to be heard (as apparently, our own Planning and Zoning staff has abandoned them).  This time, we have provided workable alternative plans that the School Board/Applicant can adopt and that make sense and that have been approved by highly regarded land planning experts. We have offered up reasonable alternative densities that work to allow the applicant to actually market the underlying property for a healthy profit while assuring the community that our city will develop its remaining property sensibly and with mindfulness toward all its residents.   We are asking that the Board “defer” its decision to allow the School Board/Applicant to sit down with us to work out a plan that is good for everyone.  It’s a reasonable request.  Simply demanding that the City award the School Board for its intransigence and benign neglect all these past 27 years is not the answer.  It's not what is right for the City or its residents.  It’s terrible planning and only adds to the traffic woes we already have on our hands.