Reply to Alexandria Mayor Race

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

Reply to "Alexandria Mayor Race"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]That image is blurry but there's more here if you are interested. https://pycr.blog/

Basically residents of Potomac Yard did a FOIA around the metro mezzanine deletion and found evidence of the city council knowing about the deletion in 2017 (not "just a few weeks ago" as several are stating).

More importantly, the documents show that when WMATA posted an image of the one mezzanine design in early April, city staff worked hard to get it taken down - even as WMATA expressed that it was not confidential under their rules (recall that the city is saying the WMATA NDA is why they couldn't tell the public).
[/quote]

Holy crap... thank you for posting that.  If their interpretation of the information holds up, my vote has been changed.[/quote]

Against Smedberg?

Why against Wilson?  It appears he wanted to share the information.   But believed (presumably on advice of City staff) that the NDA did apply.   And where was Silberberg?  Just out of the loop, because well, she is? [/quote]

What Wilson is advocating to share in that FOIA email is this useless memo about the timeline slipping (which was eventually posted). 
 https://www.alexandriava.gov/uploadedFiles/Potomac%20Yard%20Metrorail%20Project%20Update%20(002).pdf

He (nor any other council member nor the mayor) ever advocated for actual transparency to the public about this dramatic change.  Or if they did, it's not in this FOIA request (which is missing well over half of the responsive documents due to the city continuing to suppress them)

[/quote]

That is the only document that mentions Wilson. I think you are giving it an uncharitable reading.   [/quote]

I disagree, as a person who has read the entire set of FOIA documents as well as the FOIA request itself (as as someone who by must accounts is a Justin Wilson supporter actually!).

If any members of the council/mayor/vice mayor advocated for pushing back on WMATA's NDA, it would have been responsive to this request - and it's not in here.

Now I do think Wilson gets a bad rap because he puts more in writing than the other council members.  I have every reason to believe the mayor knew everything the vice mayor did - she just doesn't respond to emails, so she was unlikely to write it.  But I fully believe either could have pushed back on this and that neither did.

Now did that happen because they were too trusting of city staff and abdicated their oversight responsibility here, or because they thought life would be easier without public knowledge of this change...?  That I can't say.[/quote]

See I don't get the motive for the latter.  I mean it was coming to come out sooner or later, obviously.  Only case I have seen is that there was an upzoning that might not have gone through if this were known.  But its an upzoning on one parcel, and given that there IS likely to be a short path to the north entrance, and eventually a south Mezzanine I think the upzoning might have gone through anyway. I just don't see that as motivation for some nefarious plot to hide things from the public.  [/quote]

What are you basing this "there IS likely to be a short path the the north entrance" on?  Real movement in that direction would mute my screaming dramatically, but:
--it was not included in the July 2017 RFP revision, even though it could have been
--it is not scoped or funded at this time, nor will it be part of the contract awarded this month
--There are two big retaining ponds in the way of that solution right now, plus the need to rise high over the CSX tracks to meet the north mezzanine - at an ADA compliant angle.  None of this has been studied at this point in terms of feasibility.

So like...sounds great, but without a plan to buy it or pay for it...I remain skeptical.

[/quote]

It is to be proposed by the bidder.   They want to do the design process with the community, and could not have done so until the issue became public, AFAICT. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics