Thursday, February 28, 2008
Editorial: Daisy chain decisions
Roanoke's mayor needs to learn that communication is a two-way street.
From the RoundTable blog
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Mayor Nelson Harris chatted privately with his buddies on city council and decided it's a bad idea to turn one-way Church Avenue into a two-way street. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. No one will ever know now, because Harris has cut off debate.
Harris needs to end his daisy-chain decision-making. It cuts the public off from informative discourse on important issues. The e-mail he sent City Manager Darlene Burcham was on Tuesday was premature. He told her not to expend staff time and resources exploring Downtown Roanoke Inc.'s request to change traffic patterns on Church.
Yes, the mayor said he had already talked with "a majority" of his council colleagues and found "there is not interest" in a two-way Church.
But other council members are quite capable of speaking for themselves. They could have voiced their thoughts as soon as next Monday's meeting. Shouldn't more than the mayor be privy to their reasoning? Like maybe the people who put them in office?
Speaking of people, shouldn't more than a few Church Avenue business owners gain Harris's ear? The mayor said he heard from several who hated the idea.
If that is Harris's preferred method of communication, then maybe all Roanokers ought to e-mail or call him and council members directly. That way they can express their views, because they sure don't get to do much of it in public forums.
We suspect, though, that, like us, most Roanokers had yet to form an opinion on Church's conversion. They probably were waiting to hear the pros and cons. That's what they thought they were going to get after Downtown Roanoke's Bill Carder presented the idea to council last week. It was understood that city planners and staff -- the people who dispassionately crunch numbers and weigh the intricacies of traffic patterns -- would look at Church and make a recommendation.
Then -- and we know this is a novel idea for Roanoke -- people could comment and the council could decide. All in public. What a nifty idea. Someone e-mail the mayor.
