One Year Anniversary

One year ago today was the first detailed presentation to my knowledge about problems with the plan then moving forward for the redevelopment plan for downtown Columbia. I made that presentation at the Columbia Democratic Club’s December meeting. Steve Fine, who now runs the blog Fineline, organized a panel on the redevelopment of Columbia’s downtown. Bill Mackey of the Department of Planning and Zoning came and presented the plan, then I gave a power point highlighting some of the problems in the plan that would need to be fixed before it was approved. Josh Feldmark, Mary Kay Sigaty, and Ken Ulman were also invited to give their thoughts and join me and Bill in answering questions.

I have always thought that one of the most important roles political clubs like the Columbia Democratic Club play is to provide a forum to voters to voice their views to the candidates and elected officials before the voter goes into the voting booth so that the candidate can listen to their constituents and learn from them before it is to late and they get an election night surprise. In putting together this panel Steve provided just this service to these three candidates. I am grateful to him for doing so.

I truly believe that through community dialog we can come up with a plan that works.