Letter to the Editor: "A very vocal minority" or worried residents?
Monday, March 9, 2015
To the Editor:
When a large number of residents started writing to and attending City Council meetings, expressing objections to a proposed Council action as has happened with the Radical Rezone of 25% of Shoreline, the Mayor - with no factual basis because no survey was taken – implied that objectors are " A very vocal minority”.
When constituents are emotionally distressed by the planned destruction of their long-established way of life in an affordable community among neighbors who have become family friends, good leaders respond to these concerns.
Instead, the Mayor indulged herself in a public analysis of her own psychological discomfort with the way her constituents express themselves, but said of herself “Frankly, I'm just not good at hiding my emotions” in response to criticism of her demeanor at meetings. Could she extend the same understanding to the thousands with homes in the Rezone areas who are stressed out by the prospect of losing these homes if the Radical Rezone is adopted?
This Radical Rezone is also terribly wrong for all Shoreline residents because the terms of this rezone would become the precedent for future arbitrary major city changes without citizen right of appeal.
It would take only four (4) Councilmembers to adopt some version of this Radical Rezone on March 16, before all residents have had a chance to study and comment on it. If this happens, Shoreline will be governed by developer-based profit-seeking interests, without citizen agreement. This would be bad for our neighborhoods and bad for our families for the foreseeable future.
When deeply worried constituents, normally serene members of their community, turn to their elected officials for help, the “natural” response of good leaders is to delay action long enough to find a remedy, given that there is no emergency requiring precipitous action.
Elaine Phelps
Shoreline
Posts
8 comments:
I have been to several meetings over the last 1.5 years and have never seen a clear majority in favor of this aggressive rezone. Yet I keep hearing the mayor and city employees stating that there were many people who insisted on more and higher rezoning at the two meetings 3 years ago. I do know the city is making a big play for federal funding, and they think they need this type of plan to out compete other cities.
Thank you Elaine.
Kindly,
Tabitha
If we are a minority, someone has been hiding all the public comments from the majority that werapparently were submitted. Maybe those were comments from the Councilmembers neighborhood or parties and haven't made it into the public arena. Decisions should be made on what can be found in the public arena. Broaden your range of associated accounts (like LinkedIn and Facebook) and you would have fewer anonymous posts.
Well said, and brava! We are not a vocal minority. We are the majority.
Perhaps the mayor should have worded her response differently, but I think you're being a little extreme in both your characterization of what is going to happen as a result of the rezone (i.e., the planned destruction of your way of life, etc) as well as your assumption that those opposed are a significant majority.
@11:11 -- the public record clearly shows which side is the significant majority. Either those in favor don't feel strongly compelled to write in, or they don't exist.
If you were put in the position of having your home in the rezone area, and not knowing when you would lose it to developers against your will, and because of this status you could not sell it for a price that would get you anything similar, and the same were true for all your neighbors and thousands of other family homes in the rezone areas, would you consider it too extreme to describe it as "the planned destruction of your way of life"?
Well put, Elaine! Here's what we do know, in general, most people don't want to get involved. Perhaps 20% have some interest. Normally serene, to use Elaine's word, it takes something big to turn them out in the kinds of numbers we've seen of late. That tends to agitate the serenity of the city council, who can get lulled into complacency, used to sparse attendance and thus relatively free rein to consolidate, even group think, around a position. "Group think" is where, after the most vocal expresses their opinion, the others fall in line rather than to be seen as upsetting the established "alpha" position. This isn't seen when the public is out in droves, for scrutiny brings accountability.
@ BR98133 My guess is that those who were insisting "on more and higher rezoning" don't live anywhere near the areas proposed for it. Everybody's always happy if the costs are borne somewhere else, by somebody else. In part, that's why the rezoning is targeted around the stations, for to spread it out throughout the city would agitate more people and, in some locations, be less practical. However, not everybody's going to be taking light rail to work, while others will be content with walking, bicycling, or taking a bus to the station in exchange for lower rents and mortgages, while still others will commute/shop/recreate in the many places not served by light rail.
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