Bell responds on Harvard Ave. paving issue

Somehow I missed this little follow-up to the Harvard Ave. paving story we talked about here a few weeks back. In case you don't remember, there was a bit of a dust-up over the City's decision to move Harvard Ave. to the top of the pecking order for paving, ahead of a number of roads that completed the petition process successfully and were promised to be paved in the selling process for street and sidewalk bonds in 2007.

Bill Bell -- who was suggested as the party responsible for the switch in the Herald-Sun's coverage of the story -- responded last week with an opinion piece in the paper where he disputed that notion.

First, Bell argues, the desire of Harvard Ave. residents to see paving happen (a process stymied by the long opposition of a landowning church that refused to sign a petition) has been well known as an issue "long before I became mayor," a point on which Bell is absolutely correct.

The mayor also rebuts the claim that he has "secret meetings" with the city manager, and notes specifically that while he sometimes brings citizens to his scheduled meetings -- affairs which, he notes, other Council members held with Patrick Baker as well -- he did not do so in this instance:

I meet weekly with the city manager. My meetings are not public meetings but at times they do include citizens, where I felt it was important to have them present and the appropriate staff present to attempt to address their issues. However, none of my meetings concerning Harvard Avenue involved any persons other than the city staff.

So, then, just how did Harvard Ave. come to the top of the list for city paving dollars? In Bell's recollection, he was just checking in on the will of the City Council:

It was at [a meeting with the deputy city manager] I first learned that Harvard Avenue was not scheduled or funded to be paved in 2008. I was astonished and asked when that decision was made and by whom.

After further inquiry I learned that at a City Council public hearing (Nov. 19, 2007) at which I was not present, the City Council voted unanimously (6-0) to adopt a resolution ordering curb, gutter and paving and water and sewer laterals on Harvard Avenue from S. Benjamine Street to Miami Boulevard.

Therefore, my question was why was the administration was not following the directive given by the City Council? I later shared this concern with the city manager and he informed me that he was not aware that provisions had not been made to pave Harvard Avenue. He assured me it was his intention that it be paved, as he understood the intentions of the council and would follow through on that action.

It's a bit of an odd line of discourse for hizzoner. Did he really want to say in the Herald-Sun that he was unaware of a vote taken by the City Council at a meeting he missed? Doesn't he watch the meeting videos or TiVo the damn thing like the rest of us? (OK, maybe I'm an outlier.)

Anyway, Bell's point is, insofar as what it covers, accurate enough. The City Council voted, without him, to pave Harvard Ave. The administration hadn't moved forward with the paving project. Bell wanted to know why. What's wrong with this picture?

Nothing -- insofar as the public debate were about whether or not Harvard Ave. should be paved.

But that's not, as far as I'm concerned, the heart of the matter. At issue isn't whether Harvard Ave. should be paved, but instead the question is, how should it be funded.

Specifically, should it be funded with dollars voted on by residents in 2007 that were specifically promised to a certain number of streets, Harvard Ave. excluded from them?

Bell never addresses this point, the real lightning rod in the matter as far as I'm concerned. Tepidly, he noted "It was then up to the administration to find the funds to pave Harvard Avenue" after the City Council voted on the matter.

Yet the City Council and the administration both should have been well-aware that 2007 bond funds weren't going to Harvard Ave. The minutes of the November 19, 2007 City Council meeting where Harvard Ave.'s paving was approved couldn't be clearer on this point:

 

Nate Engram, representing the Pastor of Greater Emmanuel Temple of Grace, noted overall his Pastor is supporting the project, but expressed concerns relative to the property frontage and assessment that has been levied against the Church.  He asked if bond funds recently approved would cover the paving of Harvard Avenue and what are guidelines to determine who is assessed and the amount of assessment.

 

City Manager Baker stated money that was set aside in 2005 and 2007 addresses the petition dirt street requests and Harvard Avenue will not be funded out of the 2005/2007 bond money which has been directed to existing petition street repairs. 
 

This, to my mind, is the great matter left unsaid by the mayor in his comments. Sure, the questions about what access PAC1 activists had in the process required addressing, but frankly, I think few people watching local politics would be surprised by the lobbying that happens on all sides of issues.

What surprises at least me is the City administration's sudden amnesia, it seems, over how we're funding the Harvard Ave. paving.

What changed in the mind of Patrick Baker and City staff between November 19, 2007 and the summer of 2008 in terms of priorities? And why?

Mayor Bell makes no attempt to answer that in the Herald-Sun story. Perhaps because it's a decision made by the City administration without elected official input -- in which case he should say so.

Instead, the silence seems deafening.

Comments

[Todd Patton]

You have hit the nail on the head. This is about the money.

It is difficult to dispute whether Harvard Ave or any of the other 20 miles of unpaved streets in the city limits should be paved. This is 2008, not 1938 - all of Durham's streets should be paved. It's a pretty basic expectation.

But it is also a basic expectation that when a community follows the city's process (circulating a petition) for getting their street paved, and the Council approves it, and the citizens vote bond funding for it, that THOSE streets get THAT bond money.

But now, some of those streets will not get paved, since the money will be spent on Harvard Ave instead. How would you like to be a resident of one of the neighborhoods that followed the process all the way through, only to have the rug pulled out from under them at the last minute because someone had better political connections?

This is not a message the City of Durham should be sending to it's neighborhoods. I wonder if TomBon would consider reversing this decision - and find another money source for Harvard Ave.