city council - good news/bad news

Dear Old Town Residents:

 

Historic Old Town NIA was actively involved in two items on the city council's agenda last night: the Neighborhood Infrastructure Improvement Project ("target area funding") and the Bethany Place parking lot issue.

 

The good news is that the council unanimously approved the target area funding. HOTNIA is among four NIA's that will share $1.5 million in city funds for infrastructure improvements. However, there is a dark cloud to the silver lining. Our request included funding for 20 decorative streetlights, which we designated as a high priority because it will improve the aesthetic value of the area and, hopefully, deter crime. That money is included in the package - but there is no money in the city budget (approved last week) to pay the ongoing utility cost of running them. Each of the other three NIA's requested street lighting, and they're in the same boat. Randy Speaker of HND assures us he will do everything he can to find the money somewhere. This promises to be an ongoing struggle and we'll need to continue lobbying the council in future years to make this work.

 

Meanwhile, despite the efforts of many, many HOTNIA people, the council voted unanimously to approve Grace Cathedral's request to pave over part of Bethany Place for a parking lot. Interestingly, after the public comment, councilmembers began discussing among themselves an issue that had never been raised before - not during the public comment; not in any of the presentations or correspondence leading up to the council meeting. Their question (raised by Councilman John Alcala) concerned a recent court case that said the city of Atchison's denial of a demolition permit for a church violated the 1st and 14th amendments of the U.S. Constitution's separation of church and state.

 

The fact that this issue came up so late in the discussion, and seemed to sway so many council members, leads me to believe there must have been a number of behind-the-scenes meetings and discussions between council members and the church - discussions in which other interested parties were not involved and had no opportunity to respond. Unfortunately, anyone who has spent any amount of time following government closely would not be surprised by that. It happens all the time. Big decisions are rarely made in meetings - they're simply ratified there. Perhaps we should have seen this coming and been more involved in lobbying the council before the meeting. But that's water under the bridge.

 

There may be some legal recourse that can be pursued to block the project. I'm led to believe that the group "Friends of Bethany Place" may be looking into that. Many people believe this action is a clear violation of state law. The issue may not be dead. Stay tuned.

 

Peter Hancock
pqhancok@swbell.net