Wednesday, May 12, 2010

A Public Comments to the Commission on the WMMS Parking Initiative

45 Minutes of 3 minute comments

Last night at the Commission meeting there were 45 minutes of comments from members of the public.  That may not sound like much but when you realize that that represented about 35 minutes of heartfelt backing of the Main Street initiative, this immediately becomes more important.  This was also the third commission meeting in a row that this has happened.

These people who were mostly non resident business owners were able to use the meeting effectively as their only outlet for comment to get the word out about their feelings for the initiative and for the state of the drive.  Along with the remaining residents who spoke on the topic, the statement could not have been more unanimous nor more strongly said.  These people to the last, whether resident or business are all in the strongest favor of accepting the WMMS initiative as the basis for a rebirth of the Wilton Manors Drive Central Business District who spoke on that subject.

The Drive is dying the way it is currently laid out.  There are people dying crossing the drive.  The residents and the businesses of the City deserve a progressive change and this will achieve it.  If we pass whatever is needed to reconfigure the drive without delay, we can work with what we have to get the City and the Drive we deserve and need.

The only thing that can stop this other than continued Commission inaction would paradoxically be the ill advised idea that this all needs to go to a non binding straw poll.  Any straw poll will be saddled with the problem that those who will be asked to decide will be doing so with nowhere near the needed amount of information on the topic and a knee jerk action will occur.  If the non binding poll came up as turning down the Initiative, the Commission would then be free to take the slackers course by not proceeding with the initiative. 

As was stated by the owner of the What's The Scoop gelati shop at the north side of the drive, this was planned to be put into force back more than 10 yrs ago when he was "lured here" by then Mayor Jim Stork with visions of a better than Las Olas on our drive.  As a former snowbird, I can tell you that Las Olas is a world class destination. 

We can have that too.  It is time to act... NOW.

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