What Could Explain This?
We will likely never receive a satisfactory explanation. Since the City has refused to answer questions we can only hypothesize:
- Hypothesis 1: The city did not require the North Hills Developer to include the traffic and safety features being proposed for the rest of Six Forks.
- Did this variance necessitate the City meet the Department of Transportation requirements for the rest of this section of road.
- Thus – we all pay for the City’s illegitimately granting variances by living with costly, inconvenient, and unnecessary “safety,” “congesstion,” and “aesthetic” features.
- A follow-up question: What is the relationship between the developer and the Mayor and other contributions.
- Did this variance necessitate the City meet the Department of Transportation requirements for the rest of this section of road.
- Hypothesis 2: This is a vanity project for city planners that see this as a chance to look good by including all the latest features into the project even if they don’t make sense.
- Hypothesis 3: This is a vanity project for city planners and/or bike rider rights groups that see this as a chance to make statements by actively pressuring City decision-makers to include bike lanes to the detriment of the rest of the community. Based on the mistaken belief that if a few progressive city planners and bikers want it — it should be done over objections of a less well-organized majority of citizens.
Abuses of Power
We observe that Abuse of Power has been involved in this process for the following reasons:
- Claiming data to support the plan when there isn’t any or seriously flawed
- Refusing to respond to citizen groups
- Refusing to hear thoughtful citizens’ concerns (cutting them off without hearing the facts and details)
- Falsely claiming the project is only 65% planned but voting to authorize it
- Authorizing the project without a budget
- Granting access to campaign donors while refusing access to concerned citizens
- Dissolving the Citizen advisory group
- Failing to hold hearings on this topic
- Making decisions without public notice or comment
- Making decisions without the required two-week notification timeframe