And the band plays on...

Okay, so the title doesn't really have anything to do with a band but considering it is late, I am tired, and I am not thinking very clearly it sounds good right now! We are continuing to make progress on our massive document and though it is drudgery I do feel like we are getting somewhere. Oh, the picture is of Pat, one of the guys that I have been working with for a little over a year now.

Well I suppose I should have led with this picture, but like I said before, I am tried! Anyway just click on the picture and you will get a bigger version. Anyway it is official now, Deanna is sucking her thumb. Devin nor Desirae ever did this so it is kind of new for us. I don't really think we are going to be successful in getting her to stop so I guess we just have to roll with it.

Speaking of rolling with it, tonight was the follow-on Planning Commission meeting in which Vice Chairman Ed Fuller basically told everyone to get over it and deal with the new construction. He was pretty smart as he waited until the public testimony portion of the meeting was complete so no one was able to challenge anything that he said. I guess you have to give the guy credit for speaking his mind and not sugar coating what he was saying. With that Chairman Marv Sass called a vote and it was 2 for and 3 against the proposed plan change. Though I guess you could call it a victory it was mainly because they were concerned with the lot sizes and it wasn't because of the development. The developer asked to appeal the planning commission's vote and now it will go to the city council meeting where they can make up their own minds.

I think what is going to happen is the development is going to be approved. The only way for this to stop would be if there is some endangered living creature calling that area home. If that was to happen then the developer would have a major problem. The only good news is that the block wall is going to have a sidewalk around it, although it is going to be sidewalk then wall with nothing else, but at least it is something. They are also talking about completely opening the park so that you don't have to do into the new enclosed housing area to get to it. However, they don't have to do any of this and if the City Council sides with the developer all bets are off.

The biggest problem I think we as concerned citizens had is with our arguments... A lot of them were based on emotions and did not make an argument that really fit with the process. Even most of the arguments that I made in my letter were not sufficient enough to really stop this from happening. I should have gathered some research on this type of development and how often it was created where homes faced a block wall. That would have been the only point that I think we could have made. Then we had the issue of people going back to make the same comments over and over which didn't help our case either. Again in the end the commission did not approve the developer's change request. We just have to wait and see what happens next... Denise and I are still not sure what we should do. Someone did ask the question of the target price of the homes and there are planned to sell from $240 to $400 for a 1700 to 2500 sq house. I still don't know... Maybe WHEN this happens is isn't a bad thing...