How is it possible that our city isn’t capable of placing two light posts on Main Street? Under the guise of allowing the peasants a choice, the city and their design team decided they would let us pick out which light bulb we liked best. Not the lamp post, the light bulb.
So the city goes about preparing to place the lamp posts on the sidewalk by setting anchoring bolts in freshly poured concrete. What could possibly go wrong? Well it appears at least one of the anchoring bolts didn’t hold.
So we have this $10 million project (and at the last council meeting the Capitol Center for the Arts asked the city to spend an additional $1 million to bury power lines in front of their location) and the city and their almost $1 million design team can’t put up two light posts.
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And there’s more to this story. At an earlier city council meeting I asked the design team how far apart the trees would be spaced on the sidewalks. They answered that it would be 45 feet apart. So when the city decided they were going to give us the opportunity to select a light bulb, we were told that the lamp posts would be set at 60 feet apart. Just a thought here, but wouldn’t it make more sense to have the light posts and the trees at a consistent distance apart from each other. Say for example that the trees and lamp posts would be centered in relation to each other.
The city engineer told the Complete Streets Committee to trust him. Steve Duprey responded by saying that we shouldn’t leave the final design in the hands of a design team and engineers. The city council asked if the engineer and design team would be giving them options to choose from. The answer was no. The engineer and design team would be providing the city with the direction the project would take. The city council could then approve that concept and the blanks would be filled in for them.
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Once again the city is unable to get it right the first time. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The next time Concord gets it right on the first try, will be the first time they get it right the first time.
There is absolutely no chance this project will be delayed until it makes fiscal sense for the community. And there is no chance that this project will delayed until there is a design that makes sense for our city. And there is absolutely no chance that we (or the city council) will know what it will cost, how we will pay for it or what it will look like, until after the city council has voted on the final approval for this project.
If you pay property taxes, if you are a business owner downtown and if you own property downtown, it’s time to stock up on Tums and Prozac.
