Residents Meet Opposing Bus Station

Posted on August 4th, 2006 in Political Action.

SOME ELEMENTS OF DISCUSSION

A chronology of events published by the Williamson County Sun showed that following a study of the entire county, CARTS brought its recommendations for Georgetown to the city council in 2003.

As Will Moore explained, the council then handed the task of investigating a fixed-route transit system for Georgetown to the City Manager’s office, rather than to the Development staff, who would ordinarily have handled such a matter.

In December 2003 CARTS presented its site selection study to the council, with site scoring developed and conducted by City Manager staff. Development staff were effectively in the dark about all this.

According to the Sun’s chronology, in March 2004 the council gave City Manager staff an official go-ahead to apply for a grant for the terminal. In October 2004 at a workshop the council saw plans for Holly Street terminal. During 2004-2006, City Manager staff negotiated with the owners to purchase the requisite land from the Georgetown Railroad Company.

In April 2006, City Manager staff presented its proposal to the Planning and Zoning Commission, applying for a zoning change, and bringing the proposal to light for the first time. The Commission rejected the application, sending the proposal back for further study.

At this point Development staff and the general public learned of the project for the first time. [see next page for the future …]

			
 

			
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One reply

  1. ross (blog author) says:

    Added on August 4th, 2006 at 7:13 pm

    The natural surmise is that this unusual delegation of responsibilities gave rise to the extreme invisibility of this project. And now when Tom Yantis and CARTS staff say they regret not making this project public earlier, they may indeed feel this way from their own discomfort, perhaps learning a political lesson for the very first time.

    The disconnection between City and voter seems more understandable now at least – Council slipped in its delegation of tasks, the City Manager ran with the assigned task. This reveals a hole in the fabric of delegation and accountability within our city government. The easy scapegoat in this issue is the City Manager’s office, but once the situation is better understood it may be enough simply to plug this hole and make sure the council doesn’t overstep appropriate bounds again. This is a political matter still to be addressed.

    Feel free to sign up and comment on this point if you want.