To Bridget Maniaci’s characterization of their last meeting on the Edgewater . . . this is from Adam Plotkin, President of Capitol Neighborhoods Inc.
Bridget,
I am concerned at the way you have mis-characterized our meeting and the conversation that took place on Tuesday night. Since you were late in arriving, you missed our discussion on the purpose of Tuesday’s meeting. That meeting was intended as an organizational meeting to set regularly scheduled district meetings for 2011 of the Mansion Hill District of Capitol Neighborhoods, it was not a steering committee meeting.
Our point about who was hosting a meeting on January 5, and our insistence in not delaying the meeting until the next evening, came out of the desire to begin a schedule of regular 1st Wednesday of the month meetings actually on that first Wednesday. We saw no reason to subjugate or delay our first meeting to accommodate a developer-sponsored neighborhood meeting that was scheduled, without coordination with the neighborhood, for only an hour’s difference on the same night.
Your comment that we “rebuffed your desire” to send a neighborhood notice is factually incorrect. The discussion was that the neighborhood meeting on Jan. 5 can, and should, be noticed by all groups to their own lists. Specifically we talked about Mansion Hill sending electronic notices and leafleting all houses in the neighborhood, Hammes sending notice to any and all of their lists, the City sending notice to affected property owners for the Gilman/Carroll reconstruct, and the Alders doing a mailing for the portion of the meeting devoted to the Edgewater Use Plan discussion. By my count, that means all interested parties are encouraged to notify anyone they can of the neighborhood meeting and that some residents could potentially receive up to 4 separate notices. Aside from your continued insistence that the neighborhood allow the developer to host and run the meeting, there were no objections to having that heightened level of notification.
When the Planning Commission met on Monday, the suggestion of altering the agenda and attendees at the neighborhood organizational meeting was not appropriate or well taken. It was not the other parties’ right or privilege to dictate our own agenda to us. Had the intention been sincere of talking to the neighborhood prior to Monday night about the use agreement, that offer should have come from the applicant or resolution sponsor long before Monday night’s meeting. But we took the charge of the Plan Commission seriously to coordinate a meeting, something we agreed to discuss the following night at the neighborhood organizational meeting And we did, at length and in detail in planning our own meeting for January 5. As an elected representative covering a portion of the Mansion Hill district, we expected that you would accurately convey our discussion Tuesday night. The e-mail you sent Wednesday was not a fair representation of our discussion.
This interaction has been sadly typical of the entire Edgewater saga. I feel that we can no longer rely on you to be our advocate or a representative for our interests in this matter. I have copied Bob Dunn and Amy Supple directly in an effort to reduce the massive miscommunication that you have begun on this topic. Should they want to hold a separate meeting and since they have offered to move their meeting to an earlier time, I would suggest they schedule that at 4:00. That would accommodate both in the same evening.
Adam
