Another Sunday Ramble

Lakeview has, again, gotten the fuzzy end of the lollipop on the Northside Park closing. Now, I understand, there are problems with the site that would make it good policy to relocate from the old caliche pit; my opinion, Council acted in haste and a replacement park should have been built or at least budgeted before closing Northside. There are vacant properties reasonably close to Northside.

It seemed to me Council was "nudged" by the emotional appeal of Gloria Griffin, whose 9 year old son drowned there 23 years ago. I cannot claim to "feel" her pain, my closest would be the death of my Mother this year, but Mother was 83 and in poor health. It was the anticipated order of things, parents precede children in death. The loss of a child is a much harder thing to bear.

Still, in the 23 years since her son's drowning, no one else has died in this allegedly deadly park. Then we find that the City has two churches contesting for a lease on the property to be used as: a park. Now that may turn out to be a good budgetary move by the city, but it kind of undercuts the safety issue don't ya' think?

If we were to apply the same standard to other city owned properties (no deaths in 23 years) we would close half our streets, the thoroughfares might remain as they are TXDOT roads, but streets, sidewalks and fadaluvagod erect a tall fence around Lake Nasworthy, cut off all public access, maybe drain it: it's an absolute deathtrap, especially now that "everybody knows" it has an alligator.

On this I have to agree with Councilman Morrison, it was a "stupid, stupid thing".

Now shifting gears without a segue; I would not usually pick on a particular business, but an exception I am making. Eyemart, should I find myself needing new spectacles and you have exactly what I need for half the price of X, I will go to X.
I have a longstanding exception to my normal practice; Sunday morning, I read the comics first. I have all day to catch up on the news, it is one of life's little luxuries with which I indulge myself. Before I can do that, I have to tear off your half-page perforated ad. Yes, a minor item, yes that is great ad placement in that it guarantees I will see it, but in that it mildly honks me off every time I see it, it is not, in this household, a plus for your business.

I have resisted the urge to comment on the smoking ordinance. Terms such as "carpetbagger" and "nanny" might offend, so I won't use them. I am glad that Council seems willing to amend the ordinance to allow the Colonel's Pipe and Cigar shop. Entirely appropriate, I cannot imagine either an employee or customer who found smoke offensive wanting to walk in the door of a tobacco shop.

Now we see bar owners coming before Council requesting an exemption. Sorry guys, in the face of a 60/40 vote, Council isn't going there, at least not until some businesses have actually closed, by which time it will be too late for them. I've got to ask; owners, where were you when I was asking for support as treasurer of the opposition? We got outspent at least 5/1, over half of that money from the Austin American Cancer Society. I could give better numbers, but Smoke-Free has not filed a campaign finance report covering the 10 days prior to election. Speak Out San Angelo's is posted online at city's website.

I think this is an unfortunate intrusion on the rights of property owners, but it was approved by a large majority of voters in a large turnout election. My "barkeep" handle aside, it has been several years since I was personally involved in the trade. I don't have "a dog in this hunt", I drink at home where the smoking law doesn't reach (yet).

A final note, you make the call if it is connected. On this day in history, Utah, home of the teetotalling Mormons, became the 36th state to approve the XXI amendment to the Constitution, repealing Prohibition. Hmmm.

Buy the Book

One thing you will discover if you do much research on issues is that there is a tremendous amount of paper involved. The introduction of the computer into government and business has had an unintended result: We are creating more documents today then ever, and they are getting bigger. Lets take a look at some of the paper involved in the Capital Improvement Plan being developed.

The CIP will a number of sections detailing needs and justifications. These, in turn, will reflect what is in the city's Comprehensive Plan. This is a very large document that coordinates all other planning. It is both the starting point and the executive summary of a number of other plans.

One of these other plans is the Parks, Recreation and Open Space Master Plan. This is a 250+ page study plus a large update on what recreation and parks should look like here in the future. This report plus updates cost the city a lot of money, and is only available on paper. There is so much there I doubt many people outside of the parks and recreation department know more about it than the power point slide show that was presented by the consultant who developed the plan. As far as this type of plan goes, it seems to be pretty good, but there are some concerns.

Our paid consultants started with guidelines from the National Recreation and Parks Association. They then did local surveys, polls, and focus groups to fine tune and prioritize the results. A bit of fine tuning, include lists, charts maps of parks and and proposed sites, eight by ten color glossies with circles and arrows and they had a completed plan. So where is the problem.

First off, I find the NRPA guidelines a bit too generic. They start with a plan developed by Kansas City, and then expand it to fit San Angelo and New York City. I will grant you that the hope is that a consultant will really treat each study as unique, but reality, time and money have a way of interfering with that. What most of these reports end up being is a list of about 2 dozen one size fits all sports and recreation activities in the order of their popularity on the last poll and a list of possible sites. They include cost estimates for each.

The problem I have is that we end up with a list with some odd resources on it (do we really need a city owned Ice Rink?) We also see no mention of many locally popular recreations (No, I am not going to mention Mr. Ryans professional Billiard Hall.)

The other problem is that we see project appear on various plans just because some consultant said you should have one so you can keep with New York City, even though the money could be better spent on water, roads, sewer, or even recreations that might stimulate the city.

The unintended consequence of the ease with which computers allow reports and plans to be generated is there are now so many of them, and they are so thick that it is almost impossible to know what is in them. You do have to be careful that some project doesn't sneak onto the budget just because is was one page in a large plan that nobody had time to read.