Yes fans, I was there.
What we were presented with was classic urban planning, which was just a narrow sliver of the scope of the Imagine Brownsville study. 
I found that curious, as I had expected far more be presented to the public before the next phase of the study was implemented. If I had to make a guess, and unfortunately I have no choice but to do so, I would say the urban planning was given to the public because it was more comfortable and recognizable to the general citizen who was invited to participate.
Each audience member had a little electronic polling transmitter, that I did not have time to disassemble. The explanations of the different urban planning strategies were well explained by experts in that type of scenario.
On each question, we were given four options:
1) Strongly agree
2) Agree
3) Disagree
4) Strongly disagree
The types of urban planning scenarios offered were:
Regional
Village
Ecological
Downtown centric
Each has its pros and cons and the final plan will have elements of each.
I did find it a bit of a letdown that some of the polling questions were "no brainers" for answers. Having a, shall we say, better than average knowledge of statistical methodology, I found that intellectually insulting, but then again, I do insult quite easily when it comes to matters of the intellect.
Some of the responses that the consultants clearly thought would be 75%+ Strongly agree brought in the low 50's and they were visibly shocked that it wasn't higher.
I don't recall the exact question that caused the biggest shock, but the way it was worded touched on landowner rights vs. eminent domain. That was what I felt at the time and was one of the "Agree" votes when they expected far heaver in the "Strongly Agree" category. Your mileage may vary, but that was how I explain it.
The walls were plastered with the major objectives from all the different sub-committees. An usually high number of the objectives from all the subcommittees began with the word "Want". I again was a touch bothered by this because I associate "want" with "wish" and the word "objective" has military overtones of "do" to me. "Want" is a wishy-washy word in my mind. I'll still have to see how that plays out as the rest unfolds.
Overall, it was professional and concise. I had expected a broader scope, but then the meeting would have taken at least 6 more hours. There were water and cookies, but no coffee. If I had my desire for full involvement, there would have been major casualties as the night wore on and I wore out, so perhaps it was for the best that a small sliver of the overall schema was presented for polling to the public.
I will answer any questions that I can on the presentation.
"Of course I know. It is my business to know." -The Merovingian
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Imagine Brownsville Public Forum
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14 comments:
Did you feel that it was a set-up or that you could give real feedback to the planning process?
Where do I get my money Back?
Who is getting paid for this?
The volunteers work for free, so why do we have to dish so much money?
was there any suggestion that the city leaders should try to recruit and hire professionals to administer our budgets? was there any criticism of the city on the part of these consultants along the lines of "okay, if you want a strong progressive city, then you have to stop filling key management positions with your primos, cunados, sons/daughters-in-laws, or ese fulano because he's a good guy? with $900k, we could hire a lot of good city managers, finance people, engineers, and public works people....and then our city wouldn't be so f'ed up, and we wouldn't have to do this study!!
was there any criticism of the city on the part of these consultants along the lines of "okay, if you want a strong progressive city, then you have to stop filling key management positions with your primos, cunados, sons/daughters-in-laws, or ese fulano because he's a good guy?
I discussed these and other issues privately with a few of the people after the meeting.
It is not my wish to get anyone into trouble who doesn't deserve it. On these issues there was unvoiced agreement; kind of like "well duh!" when you read their faces.
M.
Mr. Mero,
Do you believe those electronic buzzer thingys meant anything? Were they transmitted to a computer that automatically gave them the response they wanted to hear, read, or see?
Maybe those buzzers were just for show and persuade some into believe Imagine Brownsville meant something other than the facade it truly is.
V
This is why I think bringing the hiring of department heads and top assistants into the realm of public meetings would help. I understand that having the City Commission vote to approve the City Manager's choice may not sit well with some people, but I think a fair compromise would be to simply have the Commission vote to acknowledge mandatory public presentations throughout the hiring process. The moment there is a vacancy, at the next meeting HR or the City Manager must publicly present the vacancy through an item on the agenda, explaining salary, qualification requirements, and how they are advertising the position. Then they should be required to post all applicant resumes online for a specified time before deciding. When the City Manager decides whom to hire, he must publicly present his choice to the Commission for acknowledgment. I think this would stir some self-correction in the hiring process, without giving the Commission more power.
I did notice that after we had this discussion on the old BATB, that there have been more announcements on the Herald about vacancies at City Hall. I think this is akin to when Valley Interfaith threatened to petition to require GBIC to spend a fixed percentage of funds in job training, and their response was to say they've been meaning to do this all along and added VIDA. If anybody seriously tried to implement my suggestion, city staff would probably point the Herald and say, see, we are public and open about the process already.
Patricia A.
Ms. A,
We need you on the charter review committee. You are so balanced and to the point.
Any chance?
Stan,
At this time that is not something I can do, but I do think about the charter committee and salivate with envy from afar.
Patricia A.
Rio Grande V said...
Mr. Mero,
Do you believe those electronic buzzer thingys meant anything?
There were no shenanigans with the voting buzzers.
M.
Mr. Mero,
Alas you are too trusting, and I too cynical.
V
Amen to Patricia A's comments. I don't think that you can post resumes publicly, but you can release some basic facts as they did when they hired a port director. Although I live in B-town, I work for another Cameron County City. In that City, the Department Directors give a Department report every other week. All City Committees give committee reports every other meeting. I think that it should be a priority of the commission to make sure that these top level Director vacancies are filled as soon as possible. I also think that once the candidate list is narrowed to around 10 applicants, the applicants should be semi-publicized. Not necessarily by name, since that might cause them problems at their current jobs, but maybe just by basic facts. They could, during the City Commisssion meeting, say, for instance, we have 10 applicants for finance director. One is a finance department employee from a Texas city with a population greater than Bronwsville, another is a branch manager of a local bank, another is a CPA who has 10 years working for an investment firm, etc. But wait, who am I kiddding? The actual scenario would be...One applicant is so & so's brother who used to be a cashier at HEB, and another is a guy that is retired from the phone company, and the other is the son of a local grocery store owner...
Mr. Mero,
Alas you are too trusting, and I too cynical.
Me? Trusting? There is a new one! But all joking aside, I did verify that the the machinery was working correctly, at least with my clicker.
M.
Mr. Mero,
I certainly hope that no one noticed you checking out the machinery and no mentioning it. That may lead to one suspecting your identity. That would be tragic!
I trust you. I don't trust them. So, through your assurances, I will believe like I believe the Dallas Stars and San Antonio Spurs will win tomorrow night!
V
Actually, one "silly" vote on the first no-brainer question was all I needed to verify that the machinery was working correctly.
I watched the on-screen tally click up by one when I clicked my clicker, then I saw the one answer tallied in the 'strongly disagree' column. It was the only vote there and that satisfied me and I answered all other questions honestly. I didn't so much as leave my seat to do it.
M.
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