Atomic City Talk

I too, do not think there is need to be concerned about any referendum. The city has learned, painfully, that the fast hustle will not fly here.

Ann Coulter is a sharp lady. I knew her when she was with the River City Company and I supported her candidacy for mayor. I knew Jim Kennedy and Stroud Watson as well. This firm could be a real asset to Oak Ridge. I'm disappointed that they were not one of the firms that replied to the visioning RFP. I'm curious about why they didn't submit.

I have a bit of a concern that we might be about to do another visioning exercise just for the sake of the exercise. I wonder how many of our current council member and City staff have gone back and read the visioning study done in 1999.

I think that the 1999 visioning was flawed in that it was used to push for a particular development that included aspects that were not even considered in the visioning exercise. That having been said, that does not mean that the data from that exercise should not be considered. In fact I have heard that the responders have been asked to include those results in this exercise. Keep in mind that this time around, all aspects of the city are fair game, not just the city center development.

My recollection is that this was a city wide visioning exercise not just limited to one area or one subject. One of the recommendations resulting from the exercise was to develop a City Center Plan. The City Center Plan was developed as a separate, later effort. Arnsdorff and his partners bought the mall property after the City Center Plan was completed.

With that said, I intent to check my recollection today. Memory isn't what it used to be, you know.

I think you're right, Ray. I remember there being a lot of discussion about housing in the 1999 visioning, but retail was the top of the list of concerns even back then.

And look how far we've fallen since in that arena.

Ray and Netmom, you are probably right about the original visioning activities. The problem is that the City Center was seen as a direct outgrowth that attempted to use the visioning in a way that was not justified by its results.

That being said, the bidders are being asked to use that information as a basis for this process. I would be happy if we, as a city, decided to just adopt that earlier visioning and somehow transformed the citizenry into a more unified view of the future and how to achieve what we need. The real benefit that I see for "doing it again", if you will, is that it does build a level of understanding and purpose that is necessary to go forward. I think the visioning needs to be redone so that we have a renewed focus on doing it right. We need to use the ideas from visioning to update the comprehensive plan for city actions. We need to use the collection of ideas as a basis for other groups confidently chart their future actions. And finally, by now, it would be time to revisit the vision in a big way, anyway. It clearly did not transform the view of how business is done here and we seem as fragmented as I have ever seen a city.

True. But in defense of the earlier exercise, that's where the push for redevelopment of older neighborhoods came from, and we have seen the beginnings of progress in Highland View. The first couple of Applewood buildings are gone, and that's one of the things that I heard over and over at the meetings in 1999.

I made the suggestion to Councilman Hensley yesterday that it might be worth checking to see if someone at UT -- involving grad students, perhaps -- might be able to conduct the process without costing as much as some of the consultants are asking.

I want the visioning project to go forward, but am a little wary of someone coming in with a dog-and-pony show who hands us their solution, rather than listening to our ideas and coming up with a way to actually execute it. We do have a bit of a reputation for studies collecting dust on a shelf, and it may not be entirely undeserved.

I believe the group you mentioned did respond to the RFP.

I just revisited the visioning work done in the fall of 1998. The final report, available for review at the City, is forty-six pages long with another fifty or so pages in the appendix. The study included a wide variety of issues including, economic development, housing, retail, recreation and communication. It was interesting to discover that we have made progress on several of the recomendations and disappointing that little if any progress has been made on others. Part of the study included a comprehensive survey which was mailed to the citizens with a respones from over 2100.

The process began with a Friday night and all day Saturday visioning session a citizens group. The session was facilitated by Stroud Watson. Stroud is a partner along with Ann Coulter in Kennedy, Coulter Rushing and Watson.

Good info Ray. I wasn't in town during this last visioning.

One of the things that I hope comes out of this new round of visioning is that information about the process, its data, and its conclusions is more available so that it really becomes the basis for ongoing discussions. Right now it almost seems squirreled away.