4.A. Communications - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

On Wednesday, October 3, 2012, 1 was called to a meeting with Jason, from Burke Engineering, and Bill Schalliol, representing the City of South Bend. I went into the meeting with an open mind in hopes of a final, acceptable resolution. My mood changed drastically when I questioned if there would be local truck and semi traffic coming down the road. I was told no, except for the occasional lost truck. When I questioned where local delivery traffic would be routed instead, I was told that they would use US 31 to enter and exit the city. This confused me because I thought that the whole reason for this project was because US 31 was being made limited access and we needed an access route for local traffic. They then explained that by limited access, US 31 was just being closed off to side streets from the US 20 Bypass, south to Kern Road. At this point the meeting changed and I was upset. That told me that my home was in line to be destroyed so that we could make it more convenient for the one square mile of homes from the. US 20 Bypass south to Kern Road, and from US 31 east to Miami Street! Not to mention being held in limbo for the last five months while more taxpayer money was spent on ridiculous convoluted plans that were just for show. Dr. Varner tried to explain to me last night, October 8, 2012, after the Common Council meeting that the New US 31 would effectively dead -end the soon -to -be Old US 31 and that the traffic would have nowhere to go but this new access road that INDOT is building. I was a little bit appeased with his explanation. Since then, I have researched and looked at the INDOT plan all morning and I find a flaw in Dr. Varner's explanation. There is clearly an access ramp onto and off the New US 31 at Kern Road that will give access to vehicles on Old US 31. 1 am not sure where the major influx of traffic is to come from now. I look at both the city's plan and INDOT's plan and I fail to see it. With this being said, this project should have never been presented, the 1/3 million dollars that has been spent should never have been spent, and the citizens should not have even been bothered with this project. Analyzing all this information brings me to one conclusion: The only responsible thing to do is to stop this project. I'm not saying, table it for later, re -plan it yet another way, but throw this plan in the trash can and burn it! This is why my wife and I have decided that if this City pushes any part of this project through and it requires even one inch of my property to be used, you will now have to try and take it, and I will take you to court. Now, the next matter at hand is Mr. Bill Schalliol. I have been to the Replanning Commission meetings to see his presentations of the revisions of this Fellows Street Corridor project and I am frankly quite disturbed and in awe of his blatant deception. I truly wish I had known about the meeting in which this project was first presented as having the involved homeowners in unanimous favor of the project. I've been looking for the recording of that meeting online, and have not found it. The moment that we as homeowners took our disapproval of this project to the City Council, Mr. Schalliol should have been either asked to resign or fired. This project is too serious for the citizens to be misrepresented by someone WE pay. I've also found myself in these Replanning Commission meetings wondering who exactly the boss is and who the employee in this situation is. If I tried to push my boss around like Mr. Schalliol does the Commission, I again would not have a job. I have a signed petition with many of the homeowners along Fellows Street's names on it, stating that they will in no way sell their home or property to the City of South Bend. Many of the names on that petition are names of people who now want to sell their property to the City for this project. I'm not saying that people can't change their minds, but I am questioning the ethics of the processes that have taken place with the citizens involved. There have been phone contact, meetings, letters of intent, and other miscellaneous, unrecorded, undocumented involvement of Bill Schalliol all of his own accord, not under request by the Commission. So what's in it for him? Why is it so important to him that this project