A follow up

I've been getting some feedback today from last nights forum... and many supporters of the Realtors position seem to share some confusion.

First, I've heard repeatedly that the KGVAR representative seemed to be against an interchange at Kingman Crossing. However Dave Hollingsworth did say that the KC and the Rattlesnake Wash TI were both needed and everyone involved should be looking towards solutions for both.

Other feedback shared with me is that many thought that Dave seemed to support the efforts of RAID, as far as the land use designation change that RAID successfully has challenged in the form of a referendum to vote on later this year. According to RAID and other folks that I have some respect for (including Mr. Hollingsworth) it appears the city of Kingman may have looked the other way in preparing the information in, perhaps, an illegal or unethical manner in order to present the major amendment to the General Plan for City Council to vote on. The details here are many, but I'll just say that at this time I'm inclined to trust the various folks I've discussed this with over the last few weeks... and that it will perhaps change the direction of the KGVAR committee in the coming days and weeks.

Back on May 7th, we asked the Members of KGVAR to mobilize to support the decision to change the land use change and many Members did show up to do just that. The City Council decided to pass the major amendment. I just watched a few videos of city meetings and up to that point on May 7th, not one word about the process being illegal or unethical was uttered by the 'clipboard brigade' (my friendly nickname for RAID). I certainly felt, at that time, that moving the process along and changing the land use was sensible in reaching the highest and best use of the city lands to condition the property for a future sale.

I wasn't able to be at the May 7th city council meeting but others told me that the talk of a petition drive for a referendum began that evening. I'm not sure when the alleged ethics of the city's process to change the land use actually began, but I think the media helped uncover it and RAID and some others jumped on.

I can say that if the process was possible for the city to do this in record time, but it would take a regular private property owner much longer than the five weeks this apparently took the city to achieve then -- yes -- I'm going to have some reservations about what happened. In fact I'm considering right now to cast my vote in favor of the side that RAID is on. If the referendum was successful, I would then ask the new city leadership next year to do this again, but do it under the same rules that apply to any and all private property owners. If it doesn't pass the required muster, then it shouldn't be considered for a decision.

Lastly here, I am challenging a comment made by the RAID spokesperson from last night. One where he said to the effect that RAID was not ever against a traffic interchange near Kingman Crossing.

Again, watching the past videos on the city website of the 4/24/2007 planning & zoning meeting, two members stated they'd rather see a traffic interchange only at Rattlesnake Wash and there was no need for a second TI. The other member that spoke said that she did not want a TI at KC because it would mean more traffic on her residential street.

At the city council meeting on 5/7/2007 all of the RAID members that spoke were against the major amendment but said things such as; Rattlesnake Wash is the better option, developers were not to be trusted (especially out of town developers), and to put the entire project off for at least another year. All things that pointed to opposition of the traffic interchange (I'll be fair and say that in one sentence a founding member said that he wasn't against the interchange under some conditions).

Now at a later city council meeting a member of RAID stated for the record that RAID was not against a TI at Kingman Crossing... and I was elated that he did. I do believe that presently the group is not anti-traffic interchange and that they still have unresolved problems with other issues surrounding the entire project. But it certainly wasn't always the case.

I presented that last bit here because some feedback I'm getting is that I've become too soft on RAID myself. Sorry folks if this wasn't good enough but it is all I have.

I think the time is right to work together with RAID on some, SOME issues. I certainly want to see them with a seat at the table for hopefully more public discussions. We can be free to disagree at times (and I'm certain there will be time for that), but for now RAID (and other community groups) should be recognized for some valuable contributions.