Downtown safety forum tomorrow

Sorry Terri for not making my post more clear on that point. What is new, at least to me, isn't the outreach effort but that some folks this morning seemed to be more accepting of this solution.

Will,

The community effort to "get folks with chronic issues on a track to remediation" started more than a year before the Madison trip (along with our own street outreach efforts).

Whoops! Hit accidentally.

That said, I think the Madison Smoozefest actually jarred some folks from their previous stance that legal remedies should be front-and-foremost to looking at end-to-end outreach approaches that get folks with chronic issues on a track to remediation. Liz Parham confirmed that the community would be invited to assist in the DPC's efforts. Now, as you've pointed out, all we need is leadership to make sure we move from "talk" to "walk" in less than 5 years.

Rich, it was interesting to hear the various perspectives at the DPC's Safety summit this morning. I'll be writing up my notes and posting them later today.

Some of the better news coming from the update: street lighting and signage is being addressed - town engineer Kumar Nepalli is now responsible for riding herd on both...plans are in place, and, pending Monday's Council approval, will be deployed over the next 6 months.

While I'm a hulking 45-year old who generally doesn't feel the threat of downtown, I've worked hard to understand both the reality and perception of danger downtown that other folks have...from speaking with Aveda students, to new business owners, to established business folks. I'm absolutely against criminalizing homelessness - a sentiment I hope most of our community shares.

Hey Will,

I always appreciate your thoughtful comments even when I don't agree with them. One thing I would like to point out is that the things I am talking about and are currently being meetinged to death were discussed 5 years ago.... and a couple years before that.

Even if these things were discussed in 2005, that would be long enough to meet, gather opinion, build some consensus and take action. 5 plus years of inaction is just a manifestation of the stagnation and lack of insight that infects the leadership of the town.

In 2001 one of the candidates (a 30ish white male who wasn't me) made the following general comment in one of the candidate forums: That he didn't know what people were talking about regarding not wanting to go downtown. He said that he never felt insecure walking around. “Yipee” I said, “a young white guy feels safe walking around downtown. How do you think the frail or other potentially vulnerable members of the population feel?” He didn't understand where I was coming from, he couldn't (at the time) see what the fuss was all about. Few on council could at the time and I wonder if they can now.

Actions speak louder than words. Downtown advocates have lots of words and virtually no substantive action after ½ a decade. Slogans, logos, slogos, logans, and an endless parade of meetings and consultants are not action. If we were nurses we would refer to the care being given one of our most precious resources as palliative.

To follow-up with the medical analogy I'd like us to implement some regenerative medicine in our downtown, then start a fine program of downtown hygiene. Maybe after breakfast, coffee and the next meeting we can get started on that.

Rich

Ethan, I suggest you contact Cam Hill or Bill Strom for "initiative" related rework.

Richard, the 2005 campaign did have some candidates with quite specific recommendations for improving downtown - recommendations that came with a less than $100M price-tag. The same candidates also criticized our Town's consultancy usage pattern. Of course, one of the most vocal of those candidates lost ;-) (though is still working the issues).

That said, let me direct your attention to a few efforts either currently in-place or moving forward - some directed at downtown - one incidental that will improve downtown.

In-place the town has invested in additional police patrols and adequately staffing the University Square substation. As someone that spends a bit of time downtown, my observation to-date is we have much better coverage.

The town's Downtown Parking task force (of which I'm a member) is finally working the details of the problem. I'm quite pleased that a number of members concur with my view that we have an allocation problem moreso than a deficit of parking resources. We've already started looking at solutions that incorporate a private-public partnership to "solve" (if that's possible) some of the more egregious aspects of parking downtown.

Signage, another issue brought up in 2005, is being addressed with specific actionable recommendations coming out of the advisory structure in just the last couple weeks.

Finally, our town is finally investing some law enforcement resources (through a $50K Governor's grant and the foresight of officers like Capt. Chris Blue) in working the gang issue. During the 2005 campaign, when pretty much every other candidate was calling for a major upgrade in policing downtown at the expense of proactive steps like gang remediation, I wanted us to train and equip 3-4 of our officers to deal with a growing, if mostly imported, gang presence. Hopefully next year's budget will accommodate further gang-related efforts.

That's the good.

For all the hoo-hah on the 9-story stake through Downtown's heart, we still don't have any plans for decent public facilities. A number of lighting and sidewalk improvements are on-hold (rightfully) pending the re-development plan (Downtown Initiative [how's that for framing?]), University developments, etc.

I regret that I can not attend that meeting especially since I am someone that regularly goes downtown and happens to own property downtown. I've written here and other places about my thoughts about the lack of real change that has happened since this downtown partnership has been put in place. I would relish the chance to participate more fully in the discussion.

Since the DP's inception the community has seen great debates over nonsense such as downtown logos and slogans. We have see suggestions for ways to improve safety both real and "perceived" like training our downtown business owners and clerks in self-defense and removing benches so the homeless don't sleep on them. We have seen consultants. Oh my, have we seen the consultants. What we have not seen is real action or change after this lengthy discussion. What we have seen are many discussions about having more discussions.

Meetings and consultants are addictive to some people. Some of those elected and appointed feel like they are doing something if they have meetings and gather opinions. Some use consultants to do things they need a scapegoat for. Don't get me wrong, I know meetings have to happen and consultants are occasionally needed. However, what has to happen after the meetings are over, opinions are tallied and the good feelings subside is the hard part… leadership. You can't lead by writing a report and calling another meeting. You lead by taking in as much information as you can, doing so in a reasonable time frame, then making tough decisions.

This is not completely a DP problem. A big chunk of the blame rests at the feet of the Mayor and Council. If downtown safety, beauty and revitalization were a real priority we would have put together the committees, gathered opinions, and taken action in a defined period of time. We have done and continue to do the first part (information gathering) yet refuse to take action. A classic example of failure of leadership.

Downtown Chapel Hill has been struggling to regain some kind of significance as a place that people in the town and surrounding areas actually want to gather in or travel to. Several years ago I ran for Town Council partially on a downtown revitalization platform. I spoke about the need for encouraging businesses that had community gathering spaces, the need for more security for our merchants, better lighting for our shoppers, better or free parking options, better signage, improved sidewalks and about 1/2 a dozen other things that we should do to make things better. During the 2001 all the candidates talked about it at one point or another. Some of those candidates were elected. The problem is, after they were elected, meetings happened, leadership did not.