Let the Jury Decide

Dear Readers,

Hey! Stop shouting! Don’t you know we’re trying to hibernate down here?

It’s mid-2018, and you people are bellowing at each other about Takoma Junction louder than when we bedded down in the bunker a year and a half ago.

If more of you had read this column from 2014 to 2017 when the development process unfolded, you wouldn’t be at each other’s throats. And you’d have your facts straight!

All About You

We covered the Takoma Park city council for about a dozen years, so we’ve observed patterns - YOUR patterns, dear city resident. We've got better algorithms on you than Facebook!

First you elect perfectly normal, good neighbors like yourself to the city council. It’s a lousy, tedious job you elect these people to do. You trust them to follow complicated details of city government. You trust they will deal with issues the way YOU would - if you had the time and interest to learn the fine details.

Then an issue comes before the council that catches your attention. Of the scores, hundreds or thousands of details involved in this issue, a handful of facts - by themselves - are alarming. Maybe you get an e-mail about it, or it comes by word of mouth. Maybe a flyer gets slipped into your grocery bag.

Your logic goes like this. 1) my councilmember, whom I elected in all trust, has all the facts. 2) I have a few facts that make this sound like a really bad idea, 3) THEREFORE: my councilmember is EVIL.

We said it was logic. We didn't say it was GOOD logic.

Break out the pitchforks and torches, storm the city council meeting! Wave your few facts like bloody shirts in their bewildered faces.

The councilmember may say “you don’t have all the facts, here are the rest of them,” but you are not to be denied your righteous indignation. Once you've decided that two or three facts are all you need to know, you dismiss the rest as “smoke and mirrors.”

We're not just referring to the Junction issue. This is ALL. THE. TIME. people. ALL. THE. FREEKIN'. TIME. 

Mother

The Takoma Junction development issue is Takoma Park’s Mother of all Issues. Thousands if not tens of thousands of facts are involved. And if you don’t know most of them, and if you didn’t see the process unfold, you are standing on quicksand when you voice an opinion based on just a few of the facts, especially facts handed to you by an interested third-party.

Here, dear readers, is the shortened, slightly edited version of what I wrote to your councilmembers, even the evil ones, on July 9.

Dear Councilmembers,

You are in the best position to make decisions on Takoma Junction, a better position than anyone else's.

In this case, the council is like a jury. You’ve seen all the evidence and heard all the testimony. The public has not. Aside from the stalwart Arthur David Olsen, no citizen has attended all the meetings, hearings, open houses and so forth. No citizen has complete information.

The public may have opinions, but an opinion based on incomplete information, misinformation or bias, is not useful. I urge you to gently discount such opinions, especially if it seems part of an orchestrated effort. 

I leave it up to you, I’m sure you’ll make the best informed decision.

Now you people just pipe down, please, so the council can get home at a reasonable hour - and so we can go back to hibernating!

But before we crawl back into the bunker, has anyone got a nightcap? We’re dying of thirst here.

Gilbert

PS. Granolapark is on its old blog.com site rather than the Takoma Voice, because, like Gilbert, the Voice is in hibernation, and its easier to do it this way. Enjoy the retro!

Granola On The Move

ANNOUNCING: GRANOLAPARK HAS MOVED!!

The granolapark Blog has moved to the Takoma Voice website! Go to http://tpssvoice.com/category/takoma/granola//

These archives will eventually be moved to the new site.

See you there!

- Gilbert

Tweak, tweak!

Panic!

That’s what many city residents do when they hear that the city is “looking” at its rent stabilization code. For instance, just prior to this week’s council session (Jan. 23) an e-mail circulated warning that “beyond dismantling the rent control law this meeting could result in 20% rent increases.”

The city’s rent control - or “rent stabilization,” as it is officially called - was indeed on the city council’s agenda - as it will be occasionally over the next few months. Revisions to the rent stabilization code are very likely in store. This is part of the council’s continuing effort to review and revise city code.

Council members Terry Seamens and Marc Elrich, both representing large numbers of renters, immediately challenged the approach. Seamens questioned where the council was heading with it, and whether there was a problem with how the city calculates the rate of rent increases. Elrich, eyeballing the thick packet of background and research documents handed out by the staff, asked why the city is looking at this law in such detail - much more than they did with any other piece of revised city code.

Elrich asked why the city is looking at the law at all. There have been no complaints from residents, he claimed. “So, what’s the problem?”

City staff-member Sara Anne Daines of the Economic and Community Development office explained that the law is more complicated than most, hence the heavy paperwork. Council Member Bruce Williams pointed out that the current city code called for review of the rent stabilization law once every three years, and in his many terms in office, this is the first time he’s seen it done. A review is long overdue, he said.

The mayor reassured the two ruffled council members and the large number of observers in the council chamber’s audience that nobody intends to make fundamental changes to the law - there will be only “tweaking.”

“Tweaking” then became the Word of the Evening, along with reassuring commitments to affordable housing from all the council members and mayor.

The staff presented a number of comparisons - comparing Takoma Park's rent control with those of a number of other cities. The key difference seems to be in how annual rent increases are calculated. A number of cities, including Takoma Park, base their stabilisation formulas on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a number calculated by the U.S. Department of Labor showing changes in the cost of consumer goods and services. Takoma Park allows landlords to raise rents based on 70% of the CPI. The city doesn’t allow 100%, as some cities do, because it assumes that some expenses, such as mortgage payments, are fixed.

At the end of the session, all that had been proposed were, indeed, a few tweaks. A few suggestions to make slight adjustments in the annual rent adjustment rate were made. The adjustments would factor into the rate fluctuations in utility costs, higher insurance rates, and the effects of property tax adjustments. There is also the issue of fees and utility costs charged above the cost of rent by some landlords. The code revisions might address this disparity.

So, it seems as though there are no big changes coming in Takoma Park rent control, just “tweaks.” All of the council members gave at least lip service to preserving the law essentially as it stands. The newest member, Colleen Clay, cited a recent Univ. of Maryland study of Takoma Park rent control. That study, she said, found that while city landlords were unsatisfied with rent control and claimed they did not make enough profit because of it, they nevertheless rarely charge the maximum allowable rent. This would indicate, she said, that there were other factors keeping rental rates where they were. She did acknowledge the other point of view , noting that landlords she’d met while campaigning complained to her about rent control. On the other hand, she said that a year and a half ago, when she moved out of a city apartment her landlord never returned her security deposit. The city staff, amused, told her she could have pursued the case through their office, but the statute of limitations was up.

I’ll pass on the appeal the council made to the public. This is the time for those concerned to affect the process of changing - or not changing - the rent stabilization code. The process is just beginning and there are ample opportunities for public comment and suggestions.

The next discussion will be at the Feb. 6th session. The council will discuss exemptions and other regulations and “current trends,” as well as rent increases upon vacancy of rental units. The following two discussions will be on capital improvement rent increase petitions, held on Feb. 21 and 27.

The Mayor and many of the council members noted with concern, that while it may be useful to revise the rent control code, they were not addressing an issue that could make rent control moot - and that is the rapidly increasing loss of rental stock as apartments are becoming privately-owned condominiums. This is happening not only the city, but in the county, the metropolitan region, and even the entire eastern seaboard, as the mayor noted.

All in all it was an easy council meeting. None of the Trail-gate pro- or anti-foot people showed up. Ms Mayor and Ms Austin-Lane were perfectly civil to one another, discussions were generally brief and to-the-point.

How boring!

The most contentious moment came when Council Member Terry Seamens objected to the actions of City Manager Barbara Matthews. She had, in Seamens’ view, “unilaterally” appointed Deputy City Manager Wayne Hobbes to be chairman of the Emergency Responsiveness Committee. Seamens felt it is inappropriate to have a city staff member appointed by the city manager to a committee that has an oversight role. Seamens had brought up this objection previously and he was unhappy that the response had been to make Hobbs co-chair, which Seamens felt was a token measure.

Other than that, the council officially disapproved of the death penalty, approved of “Takoma Park Community Center Sam Abbott Citizens Center” as the official name of the commingled building, though they granted that the staff may refer to it as the “Takoma Park Community Center” for short. I’m betting it will still be known as “City Hall” by most people.

Fear not, readers! There are plenty of hot topics to liven up future council meetings. Trail-gate is on the agenda for Feb. 6th - same session as the rent-control discussion. Hoo, boy! That could be a long, loud meeting!

- Gilbert

Hopping Mad About the Extra Foot

Is this going to be Trail-gate? Is there a smoking jackhammer? What did the arborist know, and when did he know it?

More residents made their displeasure known to the council about this - the extra foot added to the width of a 366 foot long section of the Metropolitan Bicycle Trail. It was supposed to be 7 feet wide to accommodate tree roots along that section, That was the width agreed to after years of study, discussion, and compromise. Allegedly, as the section was being completed two weeks ago, the city arborist gave the contractor permission to make it 8 feet wide.

Some former members of the committee are hopping mad about the extra foot. Last week, you may recall, two of them spoke, one anti-foot, one pro-foot. This time two more anti-foots showed up and expressed outrage.

Mayor Porter assured them that she has asked staff to look into the incident, and City Manager Barbara Matthews said in her first City Manager Report, now a regular feature of council meetings, that she recommends a council work session on the issue. So, watch for this one, readers!

The Washington Adventist Hospital president Jere (pronounced “Jerry”) Stocks himself turned out for what was scheduled to be a discussion of a proposed WAH site committee. However, more significant news came out of the discussion.

Erwin Mack, who serves on the Adventist Community Action Council, a group made up of leaders of local Seven Day Adventist institutions reported that the council was unanimous in its 1) desire to keep the hospital, and 2) concern with the impact of the sale on Columbia College, the Adventist campus adjoining the hospital grounds. There is a movement, Mack said, to find a way to keep it in Adventist hands, and a search has begun to find a funding source. This is not to say that the hospital would remain there, only that the Adventist council hopes the property will remain in Adventist hands.

Though President Stocks is presumably a member of the council which unanimously wants the hospital to remain, he made it very clear that nevertheless the hospital was on the path to relocation.

Stocks, in the opinion of activist/resident Rino Aldrighetti in remarks a few weeks ago to the city council, was hired to head the transition as smoothly and uncontentiously as possible from Takoma Park to roomier, more profitable pastures. Certainly, Stocks chose his words carefully, both staying on message, and keeping the council as reassured as possible.

When questioned, he claimed to have paid little attention to such issues as when the hospital will be sold or what the hospital board’s Plan B is if the state does not approve their proposal to move. In fact, he says they put no thought into these subjects at all. There is not one grain of doubt in their minds that Plan A is all they need to think about and they are SO FOCUSED on their vision of a new hospital, they haven’t spend one second musing about any other aspect of this proposed move.

Right.

Mayor Porter was at pains to get Stock’s public commitment to working with the city on the issue, and he readily gave it. She was also anxious to get on record his approval of the committee makeup. He said it was fine with him. The proposal, prepared by Suzanne Ludlow, the city’s Community & Government Liaison, called for a committee made up of “14 persons: 2 persons appointed from each Ward, and 2 persons appointed by the Mayor; ex-officio representation from Washington Adventist Hospital, Maryland National Park and Planning Commission, and Montgomery County Health Department. City Manager to appoint staff. “

The group’s makeup was not so fine with others, particularly Council Member Marc Elrich, whose ward the WAH site is in. He wanted more residents from the immediate neighborhoods, and he questioned why people were requesting representation from other wards and institutions - for example, representatives from Victory Towers, the Ward 1 retirement home.

The reason for having such a wide community spectrum, he was told, is that the concerns go beyond the immediate community due to the healthcare implications for the entire city if (more likely when) the hospital leaves. Elrich pointed out that since it seems inevitable that the hospital is leaving, it would be pointless to combine the two concerns, health care and development, on one committee. Subsequently, the council decided to create TWO committees, one to focus on the WAH site development, the other on healthcare provision.

In a presentation that was as bald-faced as it was pathetic, a representative from Maisel Development Company tried to make the case that the self-storage facility the company plans to build fits the criteria of the city Master Plan. It was like listening to a small child make the case that a trip to Disneyland would be so educational it would justify missing a year of school. The Maisel presentation was about that convincing - and that transparent. Nobody was buying.

The location in question is the Takoma Park’s very southeastern tip at the corner of New Hampshire and Eastern Avenues. These two major traffic arteries mark the boundaries of Prince George’s County and the District of Columbia.

The prominence and visibility of this location makes it what, readers? All together now, . . . “THE GATEWAY!!!”

Yep, that’s right, readers! Rest assured that your council knows that this is THE GATEWAY, too! Boy, howdy, do they! They told the developer’s representative that though technically self-storage is a retail business, which the Master Plan calls for, this is definitely not the sort of retail that helps create a thriving community economic center, which is the goal, especially for such a high-visibility, important location as THE GATEWAY.

All told, hey must have repeated this message fifty times. Maybe they felt the need to drive the point home like a stake into Maisel Development’s vampire heart, but for those of us watching the already late-running meeting it was one of those pleeeeze-make-it-STOPPP-athons that deliberative governing bodies are so expert at creating.

Maybe I’m missing the point - maybe it’s like a jazz jam session. The Mayor plays a riff, repeats it a number of times with slight variations, then the council members pick it up and do their own variations with different cadences and counter-themes.

However one looks at it, it was LATE, and even the council was complaining about it as they dragged the proceedings on. It is a rule of human nature that, though one is fed up to the teeth with a meeting and all one wants to do is go home, one will still perk up to add “one more thing,” even if it is only to reiterate what the last five speakers have just said.

Last week I reported on testy words exchanged between the Mayor and Council Member Joy Austin-Lane. This was sparked when Austin-Lane rebuked a speaker who had just verbally attacked another speaker in the council meeting’s public comment segment. The mayor and Austin-Lane were more cordial with one another this meeting.

However, at the beginning of the meeting Mayor Porter took a moment of the “council comment” time to remark that she has become disturbed over the last few years with what she called the degradation of respect given by the council to citizens and their viewpoints. She said council members can have discussions that express strong disagreements, but they should remain respectful.

Austin-Lane made no remark on the subject.

Readers, you might want to note that the Council will take up rent stabilization at the Monday, Jan 23 meeting. This is the perennial hot potato issue. The city web site says, “The following aspects of rent stabilization will be considered during the months of January and February 2006: annual rent increase allowance (January 23), Rent increases upon vacancy and exemptions from rent stabilization (February 6), and the Capital Improvement Rent Increase Petition (February 21)”

It also says, “You may submit your comments in writing to the City Clerk at 7500 Maple Avenue, Takoma Park MD 20912 or by e-mail at Clerk@takomagov.org. You are also welcome to attend the Council meetings. . . .
For more information, please contact Linda Walker (301.891.7222) or Sara Anne Daines (301.891.7224).”

Gosh, I feel so public service-y, now!

- Gilbert

The Ten Point Proposal

Dear Readers,

Here, by permission, are the proposals presented by Council Member Doug Barry two weeks ago.

- Gilbert


New Hampshire Avenue Corridor Redevelopment Proposals


1. Market the area to prospective developers--with an emphasis on affordable housing (synthesize and update master plan documents and studies of the area). Organize walking tour of the area. Working jointly with other local governments including Prince George’s County, Montgomery County, and the District of Columbia.

2. Proceed with creating a new business organization for the south end of the corridor to the District line. Success of CDA could be used as a model.

3. Streetscape improvements and lighting for Holton Lane. This would involve city funds and would be fast-tracked to coincide with what EZ storage has done. Original proposal involves mostly new lighting fixtures.

4. Continue work with the County to find an ownership solution for New Hampshire Towers, the largest apartment complex in the city. Emphasize tenant purchase options, affordable rentals, refurbishing condemned units, and improving living conditions throughout the structures.

5. Generate CDBG grant or other funds to help businesses on New Hampshire improve their storefronts.

6. Leverage transit improvements at the Crossroads which will include a transit center, relocating bus stops, signals, crosswalks, median fencing, additional left turn lanes, sidewalk improvements, etc.

7. Insist that the state resurface the accident-plagued section of NH between Holton and Sligo Creek and power up the pedestrian warning lights throughout the area.

8. Resuscitate the work of the International Corridor Task Force, which should be a permanent private/public sector partnership helping guide redevelopment in the area including Piney Branch.

9. Get a public art project with a multicultural theme going in the pocket park near Holton and University.

10. Accelerate installation of way finding signage at both ends of the corridor. Add U.S., MD, and Takoma Park flags at the crossroads, and rotate flags representing the different nationalities represented in the area.

Carpal Tunnel and Sprained Tongues

There’s some serious thinking going on in the Takoma Park Recreation Department. The Rec. Dept. forwarded a question to the council via City Manager Barbara Matthews. The question was, in effect, “in referring to the soon to be officially christened Takoma Park Community Center Sam Abbott Citizens Center can we truncate the ridiculously clunky name?”

They worded it a lot more politely, of course, but your Gilbert knows what they were thinking, oh yes he does! They are thinking of all the wasted ink, paper, time, wear and tear on their keyboards, wrists, and tongues that the long, redundant name will cause. If we added up all the wasted staff-hours, materials, and the repetitive motion syndrome medical bills over the next 10 years, we could afford to build the gym!

The councils answer to the question whether to truncate or not only underlined the problem. It seems that the Takoma Park Community Center refers to the entire Takoma Park Community Center Sam Abbott Citizens Center building, whereas the Sam Abbot Citizens Center refers only to the public areas of the Takoma Park Community Center Sam Abbott Citizens Center. So, if they were to truncate it when someone calls and asks where the Rec. Dept. is located, they could say they were in the Sam Abbott Citizens Center on Maple Avenue, but that might be confusing when that person arrived at the Takoma Park Community Center Sam Abbott Citizens Center and found no clear delineation of which part of the Takoma Park Community Center Sam Abbott Citizens Center is the Takoma Park Community Center and which part of the Takoma Park Community Center Sam Abbott Citizens Center is the Sam Abbots Citizen Center.

The Mayor noted that to complicate the matter, the old municipal building was named after a previous Mayor Miller.

In lieu of a common sense solution, I suggest everyone follow Gilbert’s policy and refer to it as the Center Center. Much easier.

The council meeting led off with high drama. Longtime resident Frances Phipps addressed the council during the citizen comment segment. “Livid” hardly does justice to her mood. With barely controlled outrage, she related the long history of the Metropolitan Bicycle Trail - or at least the segment that passes through Takoma Park. Ms Phipps was active on the committee which worked out a compromise on the construction and width of the trail. The short version, leaving out the allegations of cost overruns and bad engineering, is that after years the committee agreed that a certain section should be 7 feet wide to protect nearby tree-roots, but last Thursday, as that section of trail was being constructed, Ms Phipps claimed a “rouge staff member,” Brett Linkletter, the city arborist, gave the contractor permission to make that section 8 feet wide.

Mayor Porter , who has acquired considerable skills over the years mollifying mad-as-a-wet-cat citizens, knows how to telegraph calm concern. She said in that I-take-you-completely-seriously-though-I-will-not-join-in-your-shark-frenzy tone that the incident would be looked into.

The drama made a 180 degree turn as another citizen, Jim Evans, who had served on the same committee as Ms Phipps, took the public microphone to counter attack. Ms Phipps, he said, was hardly a disinterested party. When bicycle trail routes were first proposed, the favored one ran past the historic Cady-Lee House, which Ms Phipps had just purchased and was renovating for sale. She joined the committee, he said, to fight that route tooth and nail. The seven-foot width, he said, was an unhappy compromise a browbeaten committee agreed on to avoid a long-drawn out battle. He challenged most of Ms Phipps charges, and urged the council not to reprimand any staff member or waste time and money over a perceived injustice. He said the city now has a great bicycle trail and if anything, the staff should be rewarded for their work.

Ward One Council Member Joy Austin-Lane began to question and reprimand Mr. Evans, pointing out that Ms. Phipps, her constituent, had cast no aspersions against him, yet he had publicly attacked her. She asked him if he had voted for the 7 foot width on that section. He said he had. She remarked that even if he didn’t like the decision, it was arrived at through the proper process and should be held to. She asked him if he had come to the council meeting at anyone’s behest. He said he’d come at no-one’s behest, that he’d suspected Ms Phipps would be there to complain to the council and he wanted to add balance.

Mayor Porter spoke up and thanked Mr. Evans for coming forward. She said she had found his comments helpful. She added that citizens who come forward to speak to the council should not be given the third degree. This was obviously aimed at Joy Austin-Lane, who seemed less than happy with the remark. For the rest of the evening exchanges between the two were sometimes chilly.

The frost in the air became almost a snowball fight between the two during the discussion of the instant runoff voting referendum. That referendum won handily in last fall’s city election, you may recall, so it is just a formality to set up a public hearing prior to writing it into the city charter. Piggybacked on the instant runoff voting, however, are proposals to move the dates of the nominating caucus and the council inauguration.

Porter backed the proposal to move the nominating caucus to an earlier date to avoid Rosh Hashanah, out of respect, she said, to the religious holiday

Austin-Lane spoke up in favor of moving the council inauguration date, pointing out that the most recent inauguration had to be done “piecemeal” instead of all at once, due to council members being out of town. Mayor Porter said the original purpose of rescheduling events was to show respect for a religious holiday, not, she sniffed, to work around people’s vacation plans.

Council member Williams stepped in as the exchange grew terse, saying there was no need to argue, the charter amendment could simply be written to give flexibility to the dates. Disgruntled, but looking for a way out of the conflict, the mayor asked the rest of the council what they thought should be done. Council members Barry and Clay wisely and quickly backed William’s sidestepping suggestion and the council moved on.

There was nothing more on the development issues that were explored last week. I do, however, want to mention one thing that I left out of last weeks account. Before they discussed the New Hampshire Avenue corridor, that long section of old strip malls, parking lots, neglected high-rises, and (in places) hard-bitten street-scape that flanks the wide, ugly expanse of New Hampshire Ave where it borders then cuts through a corner of the city, the council heard a report from staff. The report undercut the conventional wisdom, which is that New Hampshire Ave. is a potential tax-revenue gold mine just waiting for the city to guide a development effort t here. In fact, the study shows, the corridor is already quite full, with few vacant store fronts, or lots to build on. Tax revenues are not likely to increase much there, unless there is aggressive gentrification of the area, which the council is loath to support.

A kind person on a white horse has sent Gilbert a copy of council member Barry’s 10 point plan for development of the New Hampshire Avenue corridor, and will be posted here as soon as I have determined I may do so.

- Gilbert

Taking Proactive for a Spin

Dear Readers,

Council member Barry rode in on a white horse last council session.

I don’t know what reforms were discussed in the council’s informal meeting last month to explore ways to make meetings shorter and more efficient, but I have a suggestion. They should all emulate ward six’s Doug Barry. The guy knows how to talk with purpose, without “ummming” and “uhhhing,” and without rambling. The rest of you council members (with perhaps the exception of Marc Elrich), take note! [This is not to say that Gilbert would do any better, you understand]

At the most recent (January 3rd) council meeting Barry barely spoke, but when he did speak his erudition was like a blast of oxygen, and he made probably the best contribution to the evening’s proceedings.

He presented a proposed 10 point plan for development of the New Hampshire Avenue Corridor.

I wish I could share that plan with you, but I don’t have a copy. I e-mailed Mr. Barry for one, but apparently he was busy grooming his horse. I was hoping it was available on the city web site, and indeed it may have been included in the the background information pdf file that one can download. That document is 39 pages long, but alas, as is all-too typical of city downloads, 37 pages are completely blank.

Whatever is in the 10 point program - which was described by Barry as a list of suggestions for projects that encourage affordable housing, pedestrian traffic, a sense of community, and a “sprucing up” - the rest of the council was galvanized. Watch for more on this 10 point plan!

This occurred near the end of a meeting which was a walkthrough of some of the thorny development issues facing the city, and what realistically can be done about them.

Remember the buzzword “proactive” from the election campaign? The mayor, in the face of criticism that her governing style is merely reactive, pledged to be proactive - especially on the subject of development. Pro activity got taken for a test drive by the council last session, and . . . had to be taken back to the shop.

The council discussed both the WAH site and the New Hampshire Avenue Corridor, and as a high number of ongoing and potential development projects was described in these and other parts of the city (including the breaking news that the old VFW hall on Fourth Avenue is now for sale), Council member Seamens called fervently for the city to craft a proactive stance on development.

But City Administrator Barbara Matthews pointed out that 1) coming up with such a proactive stance would require more resources (staff and money) than the city has, and 2) we already have a city master plan. There are only 2 full-time city employees dedicated to city development and they are plenty busy as it is, she said.

Council members Bruce Williams and Marc Elrich pointed out that there is a county development office that should be helping the city. Elrich, in a characteristic rant, said the city can’t come close to matching what the county development office does. There’s nothing the city could do that the county doesn’t already - or could if it were pressed. He complained that the county office previously made improvements that stopped just outside the city border, and currently ignores the New Hampshire Avenue corridor. Elrich also pointed out that “we don’t have jack to say” beyond the master plan zoning. He opined that the most effective action the city can take is to have designer charettes. Out of these would come community approved guidelines - so developers can see the “path of least resistance.” He said these are more realistic solutions, not more staff or spending.

It seems that all parties involved in the potential Washington Adventist Hospital (WAH) move are nervous and touchy. The agenda item read, “Discussion of the process for review of future development of the Washington Adventist Hospital site.”

No sooner had Suzanne Ludlow explained the tricky zoning situation the city might face if the hospital leaves - it will have relatively little say about what gets built if it reverts to residential zoning - when council members and citizens rose to object to the discussion itself. Council member Joy Austin-Lane and Marc Elrich both urged the council to focus on getting the hospital to stay where it is. Both are concerned with the loss of jobs and health care in the community. So too were residents Rino Aldrighetti and Irwin Mack, both longtime community activists. All said something to the effect of “The corpse isn’t dead yet,” and they were afraid that somehow discussing plans for a post-WAH city would cause it to happen, or perhaps insult the hospital’s board.

However, everyone who expressed these worries also expressed fears that if the hospital DID move, whatever replaced it might not be good for the community.

Mayor Porter tried to assure everyone that the city did not want WAH to go, but since the threat of its exodus was real, plans for that contingency should be made. She cited, as she has numerous times before, that she has the assurance of Jere Stocks, the hospital president, that he would work with the city in any contingency.

The mayor requested city staff to compile a list of stake holders in the fate of the WAH site so that a committee can be set up. Objections to such a committee were raised by Council member Clay on the grounds of group dynamics. It would be dominated, she feared, by people who stuck out a long series of meetings. She asked that the number of meetings be kept to a minimum, so that all those who showed up once or twice would have equal voice to those who showed up for all meetings. The mayor added these concerns to the staff request.

- Gilbert