9/28/2005 10:23:00 PM WVRRG asks county to be more cooperative
By GEORGENE LOCKWOOD Special to the Courier
I represent Williamson Valley Residents for Responsible Growth (WVRRG).
Williamson Valley Residents for Responsible Growth is a grass-roots citizens’ organization made up of supporters who are united to protect the rural, scenic character of the Williamson Valley Road Corridor and its fragile environment, recreational value and quality of life.
We seek a well-planned, safe, efficient, less costly and less destructive road design. WVRRG advocates alternatives that take into account improvements to SR 89 and the creation of east/west access roads from Williamson Valley Road to SR 89.
We also believe completely and passionately in a participatory form of government, where public meetings receive prominent publicity and citizens have more opportunity to state their case than less.
This project has been the subject of only one public meeting, on March 2 of this year. Any objections voiced at this meeting met with summary dismissal. The Daily Courier covered the meeting with only an advance notice on the day it was to occur and made no mention of the current proposed five-lane reconstruction. It didn’t do any subsequent coverage of the meeting. No public meetings have occurred since.
First, the county told those working on the plan that it wouldn’t dream of interfering with the planning process, but within months it told the committee what topics it should or should not include on the questionnaire that would form the foundation of the planning process.
If the state and fate of Williamson Valley Road is not one of the topics germane to a plan for the Williamson Valley Road Corridor, we don’t know what is. The very path this project has taken has denigrated the planning process in which the residents of the Williamson Valley Corridor are engaged.
We have questions. We have doubts and suspicions. We have objections. We would like to see and discuss alternatives. We would like to see a more comprehensive, coherent plan for roadways in our community – and we want access to the process.
Why does this government appear to be so disdainful (or is it fearful?) of public participation? Why is information so hard to find? Why are we still unable to get a copy of the preliminary designs for this road after asking four times, including before and during a recent documents search session we initiated at the Department of Public
Works?
The county granted us this search after a formal written request and an appointment, and we offered to pay whatever cost necessary to get them. However, the county did not take this request seriously. No one had even investigated what the cost of making such copies might be. We have since learned from several homeowners that a smaller, more manageable set of documents exists, yet the county didn’t offer us these. What could possibly be the reason?
Also, why didn’t the county make available to us any communication between this current Board of Supervisors and the Department of Public Works at our search session? Perhaps it was part of the materials we were unable to obtain because of computer problems? If none exists, we find this to be even “curiouser.”
We would like to have complete and current information on this road reconstruction, and we ask this board to delay any further action on the Williamson Valley Road widening project until it’s available to the public. Not piecemeal. Not hit-or-miss. Not hidden. Not disconnected and made difficult to retrieve.
Are we wrong to expect open, honest, responsible government? Do we not deserve public servants who take doing the will of the people who elected them as their solemn trust?
We look forward to increased cooperation in the future and a greater dialogue on the details of this project and how the county arrived at its decision on the project and how to pay for it.
(Georgene Lockwood is a former newspaper reporter and the author of several nonfiction books.)
