Continuing the coverage of the Mall Redevelopment Meeting of June 16th, I had to comment on one of previous speakers comments and of course the council politics part of it. I didn't identify myself or promote my blog/podcast, just speaking as a citizen in this unprepared speech.

" I just wanted to address the point that he made, that can the citizens, can the community, can they handle this? Can they afford this? And this is what I want everybody to tell their councilmembers: The city and the community can't afford not to do this. They can't afford for the mall to be the way it is right now. They can't afford for it to get worse. And in 2 or 3 years, when they ( Panattoni) still own it, and everybody starts screaming that this has become a nightmare, fiasco, boarded up facility, you can tell those councilmembers that aren't attending these meetings..and if I'm not wrong these meetings have been on (different nights of the week). There's been three meetings, one of those three non-voting people have come to one meeting ( Levison), two of them haven't come to any ( McCoy & Hansen), so I don't want to hear the excuse that they want to listen, they want to learn. No, they're just flat out against it. This thing is bigger than downtown, it's bigger than light rail ( FastTracks), it's bigger than the Lifebridge development, it's bigger than most anything else going on in this city. It's important, so all of you need to tell all your councilmembers exactly how you feel."

The next speaker chimed in, and this wasn't mentioned at all in the Times-Call article, and I'm sure the speaker would like her councilman, Brian Hansen, to be aware of her comments, as she said he's basically ignoring her. She said she voted for Brian Hansen and she lives near him, and that he has his own thinking, but doesn't poll his district to see what they want, and that he won't listen to her. After the meeting, someone else asked how in the world he got elected in the first place. Hey, I'm just repeating what I heard.

The group got a little hostile towards a member of the consulting group when he was showing a design similar to 29th St in Boulder. The question was asked " aren't we all in unanimous agreement this isn't what we want? Why are you showing this to us?" At first I thought it was a little reverse psychology in play; get the crowd up in a lather about adamantly not wanting anything resembling what you're pitching to them. Then slowly turn them your way as you show some nice concept drawings of what they do want, an updated indoor mall. But apparently I was giving this guy too much credit, this did not occur, and the long slide show of other developments around the country was anticlimactic.

I just didn't get the feeling this portion added much to the discussion. I think what people want, and I heard this from people on the inside, is that people, including councilmembers, just want to see a plan of what WE might get HERE, not so much what others are doing. To this, Panattoni's Will Damrath did show a concept overhead rendering of a theater and alterations to the current mall. But he also said whatever they show us now, could change tomorrow. As important as community involvement is, tenant needs and demands rule. Unfortunately, we have some citizens and members of council that think they can micromanage the design, architecture, and building of a mall. Talk about " inexperienced" (see Pt.2).

The Times Call story received a big response, about 39 comments in 3 days. Most are in favor of doing something with the mall, and there was a scattering of apologists for the councilmembers who vote against anything to do with the mall. I'd like to know, if not this plan, then what is their plan for the mall area? Panattoni has been endlessly answering the same questions, but I haven't heard the councilmembers against this answer this one. I get that they a) don't think it was blighted, and b) they don't want a public/private partnership with this corporation. So what's your idea? And don't bring up Downtown or FastTracks. Tell us your plan for this area. Got one?
------------------------------------------------------------------
©2008 Chris Rodriguez/Longmont Advocate LLC
(Chris Rodriguez is a Longmont resident, and the publisher and broadcaster of Longmont Advocate, a community website and podcast that raises local issues to increase public awareness and interest)