10-28-13 Common Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING OCTOBERT 28, 2013 but also, a sense of urgency. I don’t know if you have had a chance to view any of the meeting presentations on line. Councilmember Henry Davis Jr.: I went to the presentation at the Century Center. Yeah, I have paid attention to it, but the “we” thing is getting to me, because I am trying to figure out what is that “we want to see.” Could you enlighten me on what “we what to see.” Mayor Buttigieg: Well, in my view, the City of South Bend “wants to see” a more inviting downtown, a more livable, a more walkable and more dynamic downtown. I think that is a view that is shared. I think that most people in the City of South Bend want us to have more business growth. I think that most people downtown want to see that potential for residential growth in our downtown area accelerate with more options. I think that most people would want to be able to shop downtown, hang out downtown. I think a lot of voices have made themselves heard, some at the Century Center Meetings, some in the public forum such as right here in this room, some simply by sending you and me e-mails, or by grabbing one of us at the grocery store. I think that each of us has the best reasons we can for what people want, what people don’t want and where we really hope to be. I think that we have such a great opportunity before us to kick start downtown with one of the most powerful things that we can do something that seems to be powerful as you mention it that some of the communities that you have observed as well as some of those that I have observed as well around America. I would hate for us to miss that. Councilmember Henry Davis Jr.: Yeah, but we also had an awesome opportunity to do that with the Chase Tower, we had an awesome opportunity to do some of things with the College Football Hall of Fame. So this is why I am back here at this vision of understanding because most of these things are done within the context of comprehensive larger plan. When you begin to develop a process there is obviously a process of developing a plan. And I have not seen or heard of us adopting a new plan based upon the traffic. What is TRANSPO interest into this? How are they going to reconfigure making their routes or move about on the streets that are seemingly not as large as they once were? What does the traffic count become once these things do happen? The amount of enforcement for speed right or parking? How are we in a larger context of a comprehensive plan are going to be able to evaluate these things once, if these things do take fold. I have not seen those things. Now there is an adopted plan that has been there for many years now, but as far as you being a newly elected a couple of years ago, and you started on this venture, this is why I was asking why are you going so fast, I cannot prove to folks that are living in the neighborhoods that this is a part of a larger plan so, year 1, year 2, year 3, here we are. Right, so why haven’t we adopted more of a comprehensive plan that promotes all the things that are logistically apart of a downtown development plan? That includes the public transportation system, it also includes street parking, also includes garage parking, everything that deals with cars and traffic. Where’s that plan at? Mayor Buttigieg: So, I think you will find that with the meetings that have taken place and some of the materials that have been circulated since, considerable thought and analysis has been given to a range a transportation questions. Such as the very important one that you brought up parking and it is certainly right that we need to remain in steady dialogue with the public transportation system. Of course the City adopted a comprehensive plan a few years ago in terms of the City Plan, then we had more detail plans in terms of the specific proposals for the different streets and the different phases being contemplated. I think that any executive in City Government faces the need to balance wanting the perfect plan would want to get something done. I suppose if we were trying to have the perfect all-encompassing plan we would wind up with something that we might never quite finish. And in my experience there have certainly been different projects that have had a different ratio between planning and action. But I would argue that in recent years in our city, it’s not the case that we’ve had too much action and not enough planning. Relative to having a lot of plans sitting on the shelves and perhaps not enough action. 7