July 20, 2003
(Updated) Comments Due In Two Days For 'What Goes On Top' Guidelines And Designs For Mt. Tabor Reservoir Replacement
Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.
I managed to completely forget that yesterday was the open house to review the design combinations for what happens to Mt. Tabor Park as part of the Open Reservoir Replacement Project.
At that above link, you will find pdf files of the draft design guidelines and a set of rather murky and unhelpful sketches of three possible designs -- as well as an online comment card.
According to that page, the draft guidelines are dated July 10. The open house was July 19. And -- for some ungodly reason once again illustrating the farce of public involvement when it comes to the Mt. Tabor reservoirs -- public comment is due by July 22, for consideration at the July 24 meeting of the Public Advisory Committee.
So, do the best you can with the somewhat limited information provided on that page, and get your comments in as soon as possible. Be sure to find a place to mention that a 12-day window between the date of the draft guidelines and the deadline for public comment -- especially when combined with crappy design sketches -- is, in essence, a betrayal of proper public comment processes.
Update
Let me get this out of the way before someone calls me on it. Yes, those individuals and groups who have been the most consistently involved in the reservoir issue have likely had somewhat more time to consider the guidelines and designs, at least in some form or fashion.
But proper public involvement is not only about the hard-core supporters or opponents of a project or policy. Neither is providing design sketches which are next to useless for the purposes of the general public getting a real sense of what the designs would do. Compare these ragged sketches to the planning documents and computer-generated simulations TriMet is using for the transit mall light-rail proposals, for instance.