- Member Verification via Zoom - TODAY @ 10 AM and FRIDAY @ noon - 1 Update
- Pedestrian Safety: Highland Ave & Grove St - 3 Updates
- How much delivery traffic does 500 housing units generate? - 11 Updates
- Nominations for 2026 -- NEED INFO ASAP - 1 Update
- Nomination Committee: details - 1 Update
Louisa Stephens Bissett <lstep...@gmail.com>: Feb 27 12:16PM -0500
Good afternoon Zach, Marco, Carol, and Rachel,
Sorry! We had technical difficulties with the link on our end. Please try
this link instead:
Join Zoom Meeting:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84287775541?pwd=cX165VSKYhl4Emem2RG6gzZ3ANHhBA.1&jst=2
<https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fus06web.zoom.us%2Fj%2F84287775541%3Fpwd%3DcX165VSKYhl4Emem2RG6gzZ3ANHhBA.1%26jst%3D2&sa=D&source=calendar&usd=2&usg=AOvVaw1vi998WuLJa0r5jA7rOBis>
I plan to only meet with one of you at a time, so three of you will be in
the waiting room initially.
I will extend office hours an extra 15 min to 1:15 to make up for this late
start time.
Sorry,
Louisa
Veronica Michelle <veromic...@gmail.com>: Feb 25 08:00PM -0500
Hi neighbors,
I frequently see cars speeding through the crosswalk where Highland Avenue
intersects with Grove Street, located between Five Horses Tavern and
Rockland Trust. I have been in the middle of the crosswalk when inattentive
drivers failed to stop, forcing me to run to avoid being hit. Over the
years I’ve lived in Davis, I’ve witnessed several near misses at this
particular crosswalk.
Just this evening, my husband was nearly hit in the middle of that
crosswalk by a driver making a left turn from Grove Street. They slammed on
their brakes at the last moment, stopping less than a foot away from him.
Is anyone else interested in advocating for pragmatic approaches to making
safer crosswalks in the square? I would rather be proactive than wait until
someone is seriously injured. I am wondering if there are engineering
solutions we can explore, such as raising the crosswalk.
Are there any civil engineers or urban planners in this group who can offer
their perspectives?
Best,
Veronica Lane
jlau...@comcast.net <jlau...@comcast.net>: Feb 27 04:32PM
Yes, that intersection has always been a problem. The existing crosswalk was installed many years ago only after Ellen Mason, a long-time resident who had complained of the danger, was actually hit crossing Highland Ave. She had to walk with a cane following her hospitalization. Clearly, something more is needed. A speed hump? A traffic light? Lee
_________________
Josiah Lee Auspitz
17 Chapel Street
Somerville, MA 02144
Landline phone: 617-628-6228 fax: 617-628-9441
Phones do not receive text messages
________________________________
From: daviss...@googlegroups.com <daviss...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Veronica Michelle <veromic...@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2026 8:00 PM
To: daviss...@googlegroups.com <daviss...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [DSNC] Pedestrian Safety: Highland Ave & Grove St
Hi neighbors,
I frequently see cars speeding through the crosswalk where Highland Avenue intersects with Grove Street, located between Five Horses Tavern and Rockland Trust. I have been in the middle of the crosswalk when inattentive drivers failed to stop, forcing me to run to avoid being hit. Over the years I’ve lived in Davis, I’ve witnessed several near misses at this particular crosswalk.
Just this evening, my husband was nearly hit in the middle of that crosswalk by a driver making a left turn from Grove Street. They slammed on their brakes at the last moment, stopping less than a foot away from him.
Is anyone else interested in advocating for pragmatic approaches to making safer crosswalks in the square? I would rather be proactive than wait until someone is seriously injured. I am wondering if there are engineering solutions we can explore, such as raising the crosswalk.
Are there any civil engineers or urban planners in this group who can offer their perspectives?
Best,
Veronica Lane
--
Davis Square Neighborhood Council · https://DavisSquareNC.org · https://linktr.ee/DavisSquareNC
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Davis Square Neighborhood Council" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to davissquaren...@googlegroups.com<mailto:davissquarenc+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com>.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/CAMDRGdXsmGaNmBLS0TXO96pm1g%2BuJncQBa9%2BYPgGy6DCyuVP5Q%40mail.gmail.com<https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/CAMDRGdXsmGaNmBLS0TXO96pm1g%2BuJncQBa9%2BYPgGy6DCyuVP5Q%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
Zachary Yaro <zmy...@gmail.com>: Feb 27 11:34AM -0500
Hi Veronica,
I am wondering if there are engineering solutions we can explore, such as
> raising the crosswalk.
Unfortunately, so far, the city's response has been a low chance of street
construction on our end of Highland until the ongoing Highland utility work
reaches our end (and I do understand not wanting to spend the money on a
new raised crossing only to tear it up in a year). You can sign up for
project updates at SomervilleMA.gov/HighlandAve
<https://somervillema.gov/HighlandAve>.
Is anyone else interested in advocating for pragmatic approaches to making
> safer crosswalks in the square?
Yes!! In addition to the DSNC's primary function negotiating community
benefits with property developers, pedestrian safety improvements were one
of the top neighborhood priorities we identified early on! Right now, the
Elmway Action Group is the main committee focused on street improvements.
Officially, the group's focus is Elm St., but we have ended up discussing
most pedestrian, micromobility, and transit improvements to the Davis
Square commercial area—including crosswalk improvements at Grove &
Highland. That said, while the committee has been exploring less expensive
quick-build traffic calming we can ask the city to implement sooner than
full construction, I am unsure what options there are for that particular
crosswalk.
You can join the mailing list for that specific group at
groups.google.com/g/elmway-action-group.
Are there any civil engineers or urban planners in this group who can offer
> their perspectives?
If there are, the Elmway Action Group would love to have your help!
Best,
Zachary Yaro
On Fri, 27 Feb 2026 at 09:49, Veronica Michelle <veromic...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Jim Gallagher <jimgsom...@gmail.com>: Feb 26 07:03PM -0500
Hi Christopher
When I heard the disappointing news that ITE's Trip Generation I contacted
the Metropolitan Area:Planning Council (I used to work there). MAPC is the
regional planning agency for 101 communities in eastern MA, including
Somerville. I asked if they knew of any studies the measured trips
generated by a proposal like Cooper Mills. Their response is below.
Felix, Alison
Wed, Feb 25, 10:58 AM (1 day ago)
to Eric, me
Hello Jim,
I hope you are doing well!
Below are resources that may be helpful. However, please note that these
are national estimates of deliveries and do not represent trip generation
estimates. I am not aware of any study or resource that has estimated trip
generation specifically for e-commerce or food deliveries for a specific
location.
*E-commerce Deliveries*
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Summary of Travel
Trends – 2022 National Household Travel Survey, residents aged 16 years and
over ordered goods for delivery (e.g., Amazon, Walmart, etc.) an average of
6.37 times per person over the past 30 days. This equates to 76.44
deliveries in a year (6.37 x 12).
https://nhts.ornl.gov/assets/2022/pub/2022_NHTS_Summary_Travel_Trends.pdf
According to Capital One Shopping Research, U.S. parcels shipped at a rate
of 66 packages per person in 2025.
https://capitaloneshopping.com/research/package-delivery-statistics
*Food Deliveries *
A recent NYT article "Freedom with a Side of Guilt: How Food Delivery is
Reshaping Mealtime" (1/30/26), states: "In 2024, almost three of every four
restaurant orders were not eaten in a restaurant, according to data from
the National Restaurant Association. The number of households using
delivery had roughly doubled from 2019, just before the pandemic, the group
said. And in a survey last year, about one-third of American adults told
the association that they ordered food for delivery at least once a week."
This information came from the National Restaurant Association’s 2025
Off-Premises Restaurant Trends
<https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=4406516-1&h=2831370184&u=https%3A%2F%2Frestaurant.org%2Fresearch-and-media%2Fresearch%2Fresearch-reports%2Foff-premises-restaurant-trends-2025%2F&a=2025+Off-Premises+Restaurant+Trends>
report. The report is $99, but here is a more detailed article:
https://www.bluebookservices.com/nra-off-premises-dining-more-popular-than-ever/
Here's
a PDF of the NYT article. How DoorDash and Other Food Delivery Apps Are
Reshaping Mealtime in the U.S. - The New York Times 1.pdf
<https://mapc365-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/afelix_mapc_org/IQDrq1MC_aXUTbKv457Q00gdAeOImDw4l8fg0zGtxCvLRXc>
This MAPC report, Considerations for Retail Delivery Assessments (August
2024) may also be useful.
https://www.mapc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/MAPCPolicyBrief_RetailDeliveryAssessments-final.pdf
There will certainly be trips to pick up and drop off people and packages
at the proposed building. These references may be helpful in estimating how
many short term off street parking spaces are needed to keep these delivery
vehicles from blocking Grove Street.
Earlier trends here have expressed a desire for objective experts to help
the community evaluate this proposal. MAPC could help with many of the
issues. Somerville would just need to ask.
Jim Gallagher
On Mon, Feb 23, 2026 at 4:21 AM Christopher Beland <bel...@alum.mit.edu>
wrote:
Christopher Beland <bel...@alum.mit.edu>: Feb 27 01:31AM -0500
On Thu, 2026-02-26 at 22:23 -0500, Rachel Rosenberg wrote:
> Shouldn’t the Copper Mill be paying for *professionals* to do *evidence-based* studies to convince us whether its proposal is feasible?
> Why are volunteers from the DSNC attempting unscientific studies? Why is volunteer labor being used to relieve a developer of his own burden of proof? Is this being done by DSNC board members for Copper Mill pro bono? Or am I missing something about the relationships that exist between such DSNC board members and Copper Mill? If so, please disclose.
I don't see what's unscientific or not-evidence-based about me going out and collecting data.
I took observations because I believed some of the concerns about traffic flow were unrealistically exaggerated, and it seems more useful to reply with actual information than just asserting that in my imagination things go differently.
I have no particular relationship with Copper Mill other than that I've attended some of their public meetings and been on phone calls with the rest of the DSNC Board. I do support their current design, because it responds to the concerns that I and other neighbors have expressed in those public meetings about not having sheer walls at the street, while still providing lots of desperately needed housing. It's a good implementation of the transit-oriented, human-scale urban design philosophy I've held for decades. It's also visually attractive, the covered retail arcade looks like a fun place to go and sit outside next to, the views from the tower will be spectacularly nice, it'll help clear the unconscionable backlog of people needing subsidized housing, and no-parking housing next to the Red Line will be good for regional traffic congestion.
Personally, I don't support demanding that developers burn huge amounts of money doing lots of studies. We need a lot more market-rate housing to bring down rents and home prices, and adding a lot of up-front costs before planning approval is even granted scares away a lot of potential developers because it puts more capital at risk of being completely wasted. It's particularly galling for people to come up with wildly unrealistic concerns and then demand that developers burn money proving them wrong. I'm not saying that's what is happening in this case, but sometimes people demand study after study or keep moving the project completion goalposts on purpose, as a way to try to kill a project that serves an important need but which they don't happen to like. That's part of the reason the 40B process has time limits, so that neighbors can't demand an infinite number of studies and effectively veto the creation of affordable housing. Those limits also mean there might not be time for the developer to commission a number of professional studies one after the other. All of our factual questions need to be put on the table now, and if there's a way for us to quickly get answers on our own, we should do that. Otherwise, we risk the project being approved or disapproved without the benefit of those answers.
Part of the problem in Davis is that the government hasn't come up with a set of reasonable parameters for what the community actually needs and wants. If that were the case, developers wouldn't need to do any studies; the city will have already sorted out questions about shadows and traffic and parking and apartment size mix and subsidized housing and community amenities. If we do our planning properly, developers should be able to look at our requirements, design something that fits them, and go to the city and get a building permit within 30 days. Instead, we have zoning regulations which it seems hardly anyone thinks match our actual needs, and we are telling developers they need to convince *us* to grant them an exception to build what market research shows is actually needed. I don't want our lack of neighborhood planning to derail or delay the construction of desperately needed housing, nor to result in a poorly designed building, so doing some independent research seems like a good use of my time.
-B.
Christopher Beland <bel...@alum.mit.edu>: Feb 27 02:03AM -0500
While I appreciate MAPC's efforts to help, I did not see any useful numbers in those references; do you?
National numbers are poorly calibrated, given that most of America does not live in a tower in a walkable, restaurant-rich neighborhood within a block or two of a subway station. Camberville's age and home-owner/renter demographics are also pretty different from the rest of the country. Using a similarly situated building I think gives a much more accurate picture than studying how often Door Dash delivers to a country of suburban single-family homes.
I do find it interesting that one of the "development without displacement" strategies on MAPC's web site is transit-oriented development. The building proposed by Copper Mill (not Cooper Mills) is an excellent example of this: it doesn't displace any existing residents, but prevents the future displacement of people from lots of 1-, 2-, and 3-family buildings. It does this by giving higher-income people an alternative to bidding up rents in small buildings, and obviates the need to demolish those small buildings and replace them with 4-6 story apartment blocks to serve the same demand.
-B.
Michael Chiu <michael...@gmail.com>: Feb 27 08:28AM -0500
Chris,
You stated: "I don't see what's unscientific or not-evidence-based about me
going out and collecting data"
Your very next sentence was "...because *I believed* some of the concerns
about traffic flow were unrealistically exaggerated"
This is exactly the definition of bad, biased science and why engaging
neutral experts with training, experience, data and models is needed.
You had a 'theory' and you collected a single data point, immediately
stopped collecting data as soon as your belief was confirmed, then declared
that you are correct. This is not how it works.
At face value, the concern that adding a 26-storey, 500 unit building to a
single block of Davis Square where all other buildings are < 4 stores
appears valid to me. This is a major development for the community and we
will have to live with whatever gets built for the next 100 years. Let's
not take shortcuts or give the developer a break in the name of expediency,
just because it appears to align with your objectives.
Michael
On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 1:31 AM 'Christopher Beland' via Davis Square
Ashish Shrestha <ashres...@gmail.com>: Feb 27 08:34AM -0500
Michael, this feels overly hostile and aggressive. Chris heard a potential
issue being raised and sought to do some analysis, which I (and everyone)
should commend him for taking the initiative and doing. We now have a
single data point - which, yes, is small but more than we had before. I'm
sorry that this data point does not align with your pre-concieved notions.
If you, or anyone else, would like to gather or research data to counter
the data provided by Chris, you are welcome to. At the end of the day,
this is a volunteer organization and we all encourage you to volunteer and
find more information.
Ashish
On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 8:29 AM Michael Chiu <michael...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Michael Chiu <michael...@gmail.com>: Feb 27 09:17AM -0500
Jeff, all,
I responded to Chris and Ashish offline to avoid expanding the thread.
I agree that Chris' approach and intent were good, but feel that presenting
preliminary, confirmatory results to the full list ultimately damages the
overall conversation.
In science, we require some level of peer review before presenting
results.
Michael
On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 8:42 AM Jeff Kaufman <jeff.t....@gmail.com>
wrote:
Colin McMillen <colin.m...@gmail.com>: Feb 27 09:23AM -0500
Nobody on this list is Doing A Full Scientific Review before replying. That's an unreasonable standard to apply.
On Fri, Feb 27, 2026, at 9:17 AM, Michael Chiu wrote:
ebm...@comcast.net <ebm...@comcast.net>: Feb 27 02:36PM
I feel anyone is of course free to observe anything public, and then share what they saw. This may provide some kind of insight, depending. But I agree with the general point that relevant analyses must be done in a systematic and objective way, and that would strongly suggest the onus not fall on a volunteer neighborhood organization.
So much of what is being discussed/disputed just keeps highlighting the crucial need for comprehensive Davis Square planning to be completed with very broad community input, before a drastic step such as approving anything like the proposed tower can go forward. I'm glad that our current mayor is supporting this direction if I have (hopefully) understood correctly.
Elizabeth Merrick
________________________________
From: daviss...@googlegroups.com <daviss...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Ashish Shrestha <ashres...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2026 8:34 AM
To: Michael Chiu <michael...@gmail.com>
Cc: Christopher Beland <bel...@alum.mit.edu>; Rachel Rosenberg <rachelro...@gmail.com>; Davis Square Neighborhood Council <daviss...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [DSNC] How much delivery traffic does 500 housing units generate?
Michael, this feels overly hostile and aggressive. Chris heard a potential issue being raised and sought to do some analysis, which I (and everyone) should commend him for taking the initiative and doing. We now have a single data point - which, yes, is small but more than we had before. I'm sorry that this data point does not align with your pre-concieved notions. If you, or anyone else, would like to gather or research data to counter the data provided by Chris, you are welcome to. At the end of the day, this is a volunteer organization and we all encourage you to volunteer and find more information.
Ashish
On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 8:29 AM Michael Chiu <michael...@gmail.com<mailto:michael.a.chiu@gmail.com>> wrote:
Chris,
You stated: "I don't see what's unscientific or not-evidence-based about me going out and collecting data"
Your very next sentence was "...because I believed some of the concerns about traffic flow were unrealistically exaggerated"
This is exactly the definition of bad, biased science and why engaging neutral experts with training, experience, data and models is needed.
You had a 'theory' and you collected a single data point, immediately stopped collecting data as soon as your belief was confirmed, then declared that you are correct. This is not how it works.
At face value, the concern that adding a 26-storey, 500 unit building to a single block of Davis Square where all other buildings are < 4 stores appears valid to me. This is a major development for the community and we will have to live with whatever gets built for the next 100 years. Let's not take shortcuts or give the developer a break in the name of expediency, just because it appears to align with your objectives.
Michael
On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 1:31 AM 'Christopher Beland' via Davis Square Neighborhood Council <daviss...@googlegroups.com<mailto:davissquarenc@googlegroups.com>> wrote:
On Thu, 2026-02-26 at 22:23 -0500, Rachel Rosenberg wrote:
Shouldn’t the Copper Mill be paying for professionals to do evidence-based studies to convince us whether its proposal is feasible?
Why are volunteers from the DSNC attempting unscientific studies? Why is volunteer labor being used to relieve a developer of his own burden of proof? Is this being done by DSNC board members for Copper Mill pro bono? Or am I missing something about the relationships that exist between such DSNC board members and Copper Mill? If so, please disclose.
I don't see what's unscientific or not-evidence-based about me going out and collecting data.
I took observations because I believed some of the concerns about traffic flow were unrealistically exaggerated, and it seems more useful to reply with actual information than just asserting that in my imagination things go differently.
I have no particular relationship with Copper Mill other than that I've attended some of their public meetings and been on phone calls with the rest of the DSNC Board. I do support their current design, because it responds to the concerns that I and other neighbors have expressed in those public meetings about not having sheer walls at the street, while still providing lots of desperately needed housing. It's a good implementation of the transit-oriented, human-scale urban design philosophy I've held for decades. It's also visually attractive, the covered retail arcade looks like a fun place to go and sit outside next to, the views from the tower will be spectacularly nice, it'll help clear the unconscionable backlog of people needing subsidized housing, and no-parking housing next to the Red Line will be good for regional traffic congestion.
Personally, I don't support demanding that developers burn huge amounts of money doing lots of studies. We need a lot more market-rate housing to bring down rents and home prices, and adding a lot of up-front costs before planning approval is even granted scares away a lot of potential developers because it puts more capital at risk of being completely wasted. It's particularly galling for people to come up with wildly unrealistic concerns and then demand that developers burn money proving them wrong. I'm not saying that's what is happening in this case, but sometimes people demand study after study or keep moving the project completion goalposts on purpose, as a way to try to kill a project that serves an important need but which they don't happen to like. That's part of the reason the 40B process has time limits, so that neighbors can't demand an infinite number of studies and effectively veto the creation of affordable housing. Those limits also mean there might not be time for the developer to commission a number of professional studies one after the other. All of our factual questions need to be put on the table now, and if there's a way for us to quickly get answers on our own, we should do that. Otherwise, we risk the project being approved or disapproved without the benefit of those answers.
Part of the problem in Davis is that the government hasn't come up with a set of reasonable parameters for what the community actually needs and wants. If that were the case, developers wouldn't need to do any studies; the city will have already sorted out questions about shadows and traffic and parking and apartment size mix and subsidized housing and community amenities. If we do our planning properly, developers should be able to look at our requirements, design something that fits them, and go to the city and get a building permit within 30 days. Instead, we have zoning regulations which it seems hardly anyone thinks match our actual needs, and we are telling developers they need to convince us to grant them an exception to build what market research shows is actually needed. I don't want our lack of neighborhood planning to derail or delay the construction of desperately needed housing, nor to result in a poorly designed building, so doing some independent research seems like a good use of my time.
-B.
--
Davis Square Neighborhood Council · https://DavisSquareNC.org · https://linktr.ee/DavisSquareNC
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Davis Square Neighborhood Council" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to davissquaren...@googlegroups.com<mailto:davissquarenc+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com>.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/181e60425c71749ca35000367b4801572b2bebef.camel%40alum.mit.edu<https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/181e60425c71749ca35000367b4801572b2bebef.camel%40alum.mit.edu?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
--
Davis Square Neighborhood Council · https://DavisSquareNC.org · https://linktr.ee/DavisSquareNC
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "Davis Square Neighborhood Council" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/davissquarenc/NLeB6R5szM8/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to davissquaren...@googlegroups.com<mailto:davissquarenc+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com>.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/CAKhjUPc4ubTx-9KkjVMKR062cTWYcpaAWFYWiZ2bWshqLpSfpw%40mail.gmail.com<https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/CAKhjUPc4ubTx-9KkjVMKR062cTWYcpaAWFYWiZ2bWshqLpSfpw%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
--
Davis Square Neighborhood Council · https://DavisSquareNC.org · https://linktr.ee/DavisSquareNC
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Davis Square Neighborhood Council" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to davissquaren...@googlegroups.com<mailto:davissquarenc+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com>.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/CAMQNHnxrF793rkTvQd2_DaAHgKh27r2CDsuoZZv4WkzR2tcN_Q%40mail.gmail.com<https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/CAMQNHnxrF793rkTvQd2_DaAHgKh27r2CDsuoZZv4WkzR2tcN_Q%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.
Rachel Rosenberg <rachelro...@gmail.com>: Feb 26 10:23PM -0500
Shouldn’t the Copper Mill be paying for *professionals* to do
*evidence-based* studies to convince us whether its proposal is feasible?
Why are volunteers from the DSNC attempting unscientific studies? Why is
volunteer labor being used to relieve a developer of his own burden of
proof? Is this being done by DSNC board members for Copper Mill pro bono? Or
am I missing something about the relationships that exist between such DSNC
board members and Copper Mill? If so, please disclose.
Best,
Rachel
On Thu, Feb 26, 2026 at 7:03 PM Jim Gallagher <jimgsom...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Jeff Kaufman <jeff.t....@gmail.com>: Feb 27 08:42AM -0500
Michael,
I hear you saying it's unscientific for Chris to respond to hearing claims
that sounded unlikely to him by going out and collecting data. This is
actually a completely scientific thing to do, and is how much science
operates, now and historically. There is definitely risk of bias, as there
is in all science, and you're right to have some skepticism, but overall I
think what Chris did was very helpful and moves our discussion closer to
anticipating the likely real effects.
Jeff
On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 8:35 AM Ashish Shrestha <ashres...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Zach Meyer <zfm...@gmail.com>: Feb 27 09:24AM -0500
Chiming in here
Chris, thanks for taking initiative - it’s frustrating that none of these
critical studies have been administered professionally so I understand why
you sat outside that apartment building and observed your findings. Thanks
for getting the process started.
Ironically, the only hostile tone I perceived here is from Ashish. Ashish,
I appreciate that you have a viewpoint on the matter, but a single
un-scientific anecdotal data point should not prove your belief of tower
feasibility, just because that aligns with your stated desire. And more
importantly, let’s not put down folks like Michael, who are simply
advocating for a calm, measured, scientific-based approach.
To bring it all back to the topic of the tower itself, we all know that a
huge-scale development such as this shouldn’t be done without professional
un-biased scientific studies, just like any other development like this
would require.
The developer is supposed to commission these studies themselves to prove
that their designs work, and also to show the public that this development
will improve the well-being of the neighborhood - also doubles as sign of
good faith... You can’t have public meetings to discuss a project of this
magnitude without any data from said studies…
As a professional engineer here, I would never determine a product’s
feasibility without running reliability tests, and you can’t do those until
studies have been completed and variables have been defined. You’d have
product recalls if you acted this cavalier - no one here want the
equivalent of a “tower recall”. Currently we have far too many unknowns to
discuss tower feasibility at the level these discussions often reach.
Rushing the process that will alter our Square for 100 years seems foolish
and short-sighted. Let’s do it right instead!
Let’s support development that supports our community. But let’s not
believe that us volunteers are a substitute for professional, unbiased
studies. Let’s use science instead of our gut. And with those results in
hand, it’ll then be easy to make a final decision on tower feasibility.
Thanks
Zach
On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 9:17 AM Michael Chiu <michael...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Madeleine Werner <wernerm...@gmail.com>: Feb 26 06:37AM -0800
Hi,
I need key information here:
- What is the time commitment for being on the board?
- What is the board members' duties?
- What is needed to be nominated? Signatures? Cover letter/resume?
- What are key qualities for nominees?
- What is the current makeup of the board? Gender, relation to DSq, age
I HAVE TWO PEOPLE INTERESTED AND NO INFORMATION TO GIVE THEM. CURRENT BOARD
PLEASE REPLY ASAP*.*
Madeleine Werner <wernerm...@gmail.com>: Feb 25 06:18AM -0800
- Who else is on the committee?
- What is the time commitment for being on the board?
- What are the current proportions of representatives to the board?
- As in: residential, business, worker and real estate owner
- Are there any persons receiving supportive services on the board?
- How will unhoused people access the council at all let alone
consistently attend the board?
- Are we collecting resumes and letters of intent?
- Who is the selector to run? Is it the committee, or are we the
outreach arm to find people to nominate?
- Is there a signature requirement to secure nomination?
You received this digest because you're subscribed to updates for this group. You can change your settings on the group membership page.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it send an email to davissquaren...@googlegroups.com.
I was about to reply making this exact suggestion of pedestrian activated flashing crossing lights at Highland and Grove.
Another thought—perhaps the crossing could be on the other side of Grove, so there’s no need to interact with traffic turning from Grove onto Highland. That does have the downside of interacting with buses that turn from Highland onto the busway before they reach the current crosswalk. Still worth a thought.
I’m glad the original poster brought this up. I always find myself in a desperate scurry to get across this intersection.
-Hume
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to davissquaren...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/davissquarenc/CAFrbfaDfpdQOxT1KByf-dPrFzHakO4VPn%2BX3_krHB77UksPDxQ%40mail.gmail.com.