The longest METRO board meeting ever?
Rad Salee of the Chronicle reports on the 3+hour METRO board meeting yesterday:
The unofficial score was eight opposed to rail on Richmond, four in favor and 16 wanting the Metropolitan Transit Authority to consider all its options, talk with a lot of people and make a wise decision.
That’s a good score (count me as one of the 16, by the way) – and it should be noted that none of the people who Rad tallied as favoring Richmond wanted the board to preemptively dismiss other options. What the board heard was that there are plenty of members of the public who want to see this properly studied. METRO chairman David Wolff assured the crowd that that would happen, and that everyone’s input would be taken into account. Four of the five public officials who spoke (council members Ada Edwards, Anne Clutterbuck, Pam Holm, and Peter Brown) promised to work with METRO to make that happen. (Robin has more details).
The meeting also made clear that there are a lot of people who live or own businesses along Richmond who are very worried. Their opinions need to be taken into account as the process continues. And their concerns need to be addressed in a substantive way. Tory Gattis of Houston Strategies, the last of those 28 speakers, had some good suggestions on how METRO could help businesses during construction. We need METRO to take concerns seriously and to implement measures like that.
Rail politics in general – and in Houston is particular – is unusually contentious. Issues like this usually devolve into shouting matches. There was some of that yesterday. But I did notice that everyone seemed to care about the same things: the quality of life, mobility, the economic health of our city, and the urban landscape. Here’s hoping we can build on that.