Carla's Genesis Part II

We did as much research as we could before the April 5 informational meeting, and talked with as many people who live on and around Perry Hill Road, encouraging them to attend the meeting.

Oh the informational meeting, I will leave that to Greta to discuss except to say we left with the strong feeling the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing, among the FHA, DOT and city, no one knew the whole story. Greta will have to tell us if the bottom line was that Proposal A got rid of Flip's and took a 15-foot triangle off her side yard and Proposal B kept Flip's and took less from her side yard. Both proposals took 2 feet (maybe, there is confusion about that as well) from my yard.

We were given a comment sheet which had "I support the project" and if you supported, you chose Plan A or Plan B, and "I do not support the project." We didn't know what would happen after that, would we be informed of the process or would some guy from DOT show up one day to negotiate our land price? Where did it go from here? Who made these decisions? All of that we needed to know.

Greta hired a private investigator and consulted an attorney (if you would like to donate towards some of her costs, use the PayPal button at the top of the screen).

We have sort of determined that the Montgomery Area Metropolitan Planning Organization is the body that makes the final decisions. This is a group composed of the following (although this does not appear to be current):

Voting Members:
Bobby Bright – Chairman – Mayor, City of Montgomery
Jim Byard – Mayor, City of Prattville
Clyde Chambliss, Jr. – County Commissioner, Autauga County Commission
Randall Estes – Sixth Division Engineer, Alabama Department of Transportation
Jo Glenn – Mayor, City of Wetumpka
Kenneth J. Groves, Jr. AICP. – Director of Planning and Development, City of Montgomery
Frank R. Houston – Mayor, Town of Coosada
Charles Jinright – City Councilman, City of Montgomery
Todd Strange – County Commissioner, Montgomery County Commission
Al Kelley – Mayor, City of Millbrook
Janet May – Councilwoman, City of Montgomery
Joe Faulk – County Commissioner, Elmore County Commission

There is lots of stuff I'm skipping over, but basically we think we made a small difference in that the city asked the DOT to make the I-85 interchange a priority and do further traffic studies. We're not sure if they mean do studies now as to the projected impact of a well-functioning interchange or have the interchange fixed and then do further studies.

Then we discovered the MPO's 2030 plan, which widens by two or three lanes every major road in the city: McGhee, Carter Hill, Vaughn, and others I'm not remembering right now. It appears the MPO's big plans for the future of Montgomery are to pave the whole damn town. We are now learning about and advocating SMART GROWTH, which means not solving every traffic problem by widening a road, being less motor-vehicle oriented and more people oriented, and using the ideas that are already in place and working beautifully in cities such as West Palm Beach. Smart growth will make a city people want to live in and want to invest in, as opposed to motor-vehicle oriented growth which makes areas where people don't want to live and they move out and no one invests in the area and it becomes a bad area of town.

We don't want Perry Hill Road to become like Ann Street!

We want the MPO and the City to begin to think outside the box, hire forward-thinking consultants and engineers, and look to the future of this city and the effects of the decisions they make now.

We can end up with a crappy, crime ridden, urban, polluted area with anyone who can do so moving to Prattville or Wetumpka or areas beyond, or a beautiful, forested, safe, innovative, pedestrian-oriented place where people want to live and that other cities can look to as a positive example.

It seems pretty obvious to us, but now we have to convince the people with the power. The way to do that is to have as many citizens as possible behind us with at least their signatures, and maybe some can donate time or money.

We want to bring together all like-minded people in Montgomery, especially those whose lives will be affected by these proposed projects - residents on McGhee Road, Carter Hill Road, Harrison Road, and anywhere else that short-term solutions are slapped on traffic or property issues.

With enough people behind Smart Growth, we can affect the direction in which our city is going.