Tonight's Study Session on high-cost rail with the City Council and staff yielded a few new insights into how the City will proceed with protecting its residents' interests in the face of possible emminent domain takings, traffic disruptions, towering eyesores and the division of the city into two parts.
Due to Brown Act restraints, the Council members are not often given freedom to discuss what they each want to do and tonight's public Study Session provided that opportunity. I won't attempt to recap the whole two hours that I heard, but here are a few observations. Feel free to add your own.
Unlike the last meeting in Palo Alto, Big Labor was only here in small numbers, but when they realized they wouldn't just get to get up and talk about "jobs, jobs, jobs" they got bored and started leaving after about 45 minutes.
The discussion about the overall goal of the City's efforts on HCR was interesting. It wavered between stating that we want to "minimize the impact" on the city to stating unequivocally that some underground design is the only acceptable design. The more vague choice appeared to be the final statement because some councilmembers don't think they have the facts and the data to make that more stringent call now.
There appeared to be an appetite for hiring either one or two advisors. In the two-advisor scenario, one would take care of the technical information like watching legislation, design alternatives and estimating costs. The second one would be a Public Information Officer (PIO) charged with routing inbound inquiries and non-technical information and designing a local communication plan to inform residents and enlist support when the time comes. The goal is to counter claims of NIMBYism from people like Robert Crankshaft–a Monterey-based blogger who appears to support High-cost Rail because it doesn't go near his pristine shoreline but might be green enough for the rest of us.
There was a lot of discussion about what the PCC can do, what they say they can do but never get around to, and what they cannot do. The councilmembers appeared to have the most interest in using resources separate from the PCC to estimate the economic impact on property owners near the tracks and businesses in the downtown areas. A Blue-ribbon Citizens group was discussed that would bring local flavor to that effort by assisting the advisor and many potential nominees were in attendance tonight.
All in all, an informative night that indicates this Council isn't sitting around wondering what to do. The tough decisions will be on what not to do.
