On Friday, March 24th, the Town of Carrboro released a Scope of Work (Town Scope) for the Bolin Creek Greenway (BCG) Public Input Process that several Carrboro residents, myself included, believe significantly ignores not only the will of the community, but also the direction and guidance of the majority of the Town Council at their February 14th work session.
As quick examples, on February 14th, several Carrboro Town Council members:
- stressed the importance of reaching out to renters in this process.
- mentioned interest in using a lottery approach like Raleigh or other methods to get statistically valid data from diverse populations
There is no mention of renters in the Town Scope, nor is there mention of the 2021 Town Survey which has statistically significant response rates due to its rigorous sampling approach. For more coverage of what is NOT in the scope, please read this coverage at Triangle Blog Blog. While the Town Scope is disappointing for what it leaves out, several items in the Town Scope will not help the town reach its goals, and are more likely to produce delays.
The Town Scope states as its purpose: “The goal is to engage the community in determining its vision and expectations for consideration of Phases 3 and 4 of the Bolin Creek Greenway.”
That is not what the community nor, in our opinion, the Town Council wants to see out of this process.
The community is not looking to develop a vision, or “determine expectations to consider” something. We are looking for the Town Council to vote to select an alignment for the Bolin Creek Greenway, and to start the process of building it as expeditiously as possible.
Seeing this fundamental misunderstanding of what the public and Council majority is seeking based on the content of the February 14th work session, we do not have any suggested edits for the Town Scope. Instead, we have drafted an entirely new one. We recommend that this new Community Scope should be used as a replacement for the Town’s draft, or at least as a starting point for new edits before a Scope of Work is finalized.
The Town Scope was drafted over six weeks. This alternate Scope of Work (Community Scope) was drafted in approximately 8 hours on March 25th and 26th.
The Community Scope is built on the following principles:
- That a clear schedule, and a project management structure that reflects urgency and focus is respectful of the public’s time. Studies that have no defined schedule and do not identify decision points are wasteful of the public’s time, favor the time-privileged, and are by their nature inequitable.
- That the opinions of town residents at large, and not the priorities of the most “plugged-in” citizens is what should guide Town Council decision making. The Community Scope is designed to reach out to residents instead of waiting for them to opt in, and aims to have participation match town demographics. Self-selective public participation in Carrboro has proven time and again to attract participation from wealthy residents, older residents, white residents and homeowners out of proportion with their presence in the Town population.
- That there is more than enough existing data, analysis and other technical information available about the BCG, greenways, creeks, and other facilities in Chapel Hill and Carrboro to make a decision about which alignment to select, and to make a decision to proceed with design.
Many of the items raised in the Town Scope that involve additional analyses, engaging property owners, and other technical activities are unusual for a public involvement exercise. Checking on the current use of the rail corridor isn’t helping us evaluate the three alternatives in the 2009 plan; all that does is re-open the alternatives process to delay a decision by trying to add new choices to the mix.
As for reviewing regulations to see if rules may prohibit old designs from proceeding, this is inappropriate. The whole point of final design of any facility is to complete the design WITHIN various regulatory frameworks, with the National Environmental Policy Act as a tool to help the design of the facility ADAPT as it moves towards construction to be in harmony with local, state and federal regulations. Reviewing regulations and regulatory change without having a design team on hand to attempt to adjust the design of a facility to meet any new regulatory requirements is stacking the deck in favor of project cancellation and against thoughtful mitigation of any impacts that may arise
Below are links that Town Council, staff and community members can use to view the proposed scope and a recommended schedule associated with the scope of work.
This Community Scope can surely be improved – it was written very quickly! That said, we believe it represents an accurate representation of the type of actions that residents are looking for the Town to undertake, and we offer it as a resource for discussion as the Town Council works to refine their scope of work and begin this process.
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Proposed Community Scope SCHEDULE
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