With this week’s council decision being discussed, argued, and heatedly debated on every forum, comment section, and on the streets I am revisiting some thoughts I’ve been having since this whole thing started… ahhh, the isthmus will never leave this town… Hello sea-level rise, perhaps that will solve all the problem (just like the Earthquake solved the 4th Ave bridge debate… remember that one?).
Trying to whittle this all down to the essence of the issue, for me one things stands out:
Tri Vo asked the city and we said ‘No’!
It’s not that we had competing plans, or an open bid. There was no empty unused space that no one owned. There is no great master-plan where Larida Passage didn’t fit into a great community vision or someone tried to break the flow.
It was just a ‘No’.
After an exhilarating National Election of “Yes, we can” our city didn’t let itself be inspired and rather voted for “Not on my watch”.
I can deal with a ‘No’. I certainly feel more could have been done to really fit the project into the city’s feel, and no serious attempt was being made to try to baffle us with beauty, ingenuity, sustainable excellence or any other buzzwords of the year.
BUT! It’s a ‘No’ after all.
Was it a defining moment for the city? Some people who claim victory sure feel like it, but this leave us with just that. A city defined by it’s citizen’s saying ‘No’.
One of the biggest gripes I had all along was the fact that there was no alternative on the table. No plan to buy the land and turn it into a park, no plan on where housing could be build, no contractor on the fence having a project ready as an alternative.
Worst of all, I hear from people that have lived longer in the city that this has happened before, many times.
A self-proclaimed “progressive” city and “No” is the defining word? That seems counter-intuitive.
The new council got done what they promised the voters, now it’s their turn to proof that they are not just a “No” council but can actually deliver. And it’s up the new opposition to prove that they are not just “No” people either, but are really interested in the health and future of our city.
Sure, we are for some things, but we need real leadership that takes the pie-in-the-sky ideas that are being discussed in book group over tea and shares them with the people. Concrete ideas for citizens to get involved, not in picketing, but actual breaking ground, not in debating, but in actual shaking of hands, not in creating statistics and word-smiting but in creating jobs and solutions.
We need a Leadership of Yes in this town and as Evelin Lindner is being quoted:
Pessimism is a luxury of good times… in difficult times, pessimism is a self-fulfilling, self-inflicted death sentence.
