A bigger picture

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Dancrow

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Jun 27, 2012, 4:59:19 PM6/27/12
to City Parks board Jerry Perales, Mary Ann Neely, Hill Abell, Env Board Chair Dr. Maxwell, Carol Lee, linda guerrero, Brad Burns, BSPmas...@austintexas.gov, barton...@yahoogroups.com, Jennifer Walker, friends-of-bart...@googlegroups.com, Robin Cravey, Price, Johnnie, Li, Victoria J, shannon...@austintexas.gov, CM Kathie Tovo, Rush, Barbara, Riley, Chris, TM MURPHY, CM Laura Morrison, City PARD Assistant Director Kimberley McNeeley, Martinez, Mike [Council Member], City Assist manager Bert Lumbreras, Mayor Lee Leffingewell, Hensley, Sara, Gregson, Gary, Cole, Sheryl, bill.s...@ci.austin.tx.us, Nelson, Tom
 
June 27, 2012
 
The master plan began as a needs list for the pool prepared around 2002 and morphed into a grander idea when architects were put on the payroll. The need to get things done and having a structured plan to move things along was and still is a good thing. The bad thing is that the Master Plan has been used to blindly push disastrous plans purely for the sake of being able to claim success by checking them off a list within an artificial time frame that was not part of the authorizing resolution passed by council Oct 19, 2006. 
 
Cutting down 29 major trees at the pool, raising the height of the sidewalk 10" with a solid steel cap to keep it from floating away, terracing the south lawn and chopping it up with various pathways come to mind. The Friends of Barton Springs Pool are mentioned by name in both the 2006 and 2011 resolutions concerning the Master Plan giving them special standing and access to staff. This specialness is further supported by high praise for Robin  by the Mayor at council meetings and has been used by FBSP to push staff to hurry up at any cost even to the point of almost destroying the Barton Springs tree canopy.
 
In answer to people who were saying  too many mistakes are being made, slow down, Robin Cravey of FBSP remarked at the August 25, 2011 council meeting that asking staff to slow down was like asking a cow to chew its cud. This bit of sarcasm was not totally unjustified as certain members of Park's staff have been chewing their cud and dragging their feet for years, but not everybody. Most of the Park's staff work hard and want to see things improve, but are caught between Robin and the push to hurry on ever project and the demands to give some projects careful attention such as the bypass tunnel, cutting down trees and the Grounds short term projects. This constant pushing to hurry up with the first plan offered no matter how flawed it may be or how much resistance it generates, makes the hard working contingent of staff who wish to do it right feel that they are not appreciated by anybody.
 
Furthermore, general resistance to the prescribed public in-put process caused staff to take a short cut that left out the first step shown in the top box of the public process chart that called for staff to meet with the public before meeting with consultants. This failure to follow the protocol has wasted a lot of time on the Grounds projects. Resistance to changing the original Bypass Tunnel proposal  which was doomed to failure from the start because it proposed a 14' deep 8' wide trench adjacent to salamander habitat is another example of how pushing a flawed plan slowed things down . By the same token pushing ever subsequent equally flawed plan, including the raised sidewalk that needed Federal Approval because Barton Springs is a National Register Historic District , also slowed things down. Haste makes waste .
 
 
Something needs to be done to root out the part of staff that are just chewing their cud and I generally applaud Robin Cravey and FBSP for their efforts , but now I am pleading with them and the sub-committee not to be stampeded into doing things that will harm the pool for generations to come. Many of the short term projects have been completed so please be patient with the public process and realize that there are no mandatory time tables or pots of already funded money that have to be spent. Instead please put your focus on PARD staff and find out who has been dragging their feet and let us move toward a "can do- want to do" culture that will make PARD proud of itself and all of us proud of them.
 
Dan
 
 
Copy of BSP pool attendance.xls
pp1.pdf
08252011-55.80x60.jpg
BSPool.pdf
bypass tunnel 01.25.10.pdf
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