Disjoint
I neglected to get my hair cut, so I'll be the shaggy-looking member of the Planning Commission at our hearing tomorrow. With only two agenda items, it looks to be a relatively short meeting. No findings of blight or anything located in a flood plain.
The ride home was chilly, but pleasant enough. Gloves are going to be the most critical article of cold weather gear, I think. I was surprised by a couple of joggers on the Rock Island Trail dressed all in black. Seems like a bad idea; there are some really dark spots along the trail, like below Sheridan and by the zoo.
Planning Commission makes it difficult/inconvenient for me to ride my
bike tomorrow. Using the word inconvenient
sure makes that an
uncomfortable statement...
I've got comments displaying again, so the comment form can't be far behind. After that, maybe the feeds, maybe a pyblosxom-based microblog. That could actually be as simple as a separate directory with its own rss-only flavour. I'm not sure about dedicating one file to each microblog entry though. How many previous blurts are anyone interested in reading? (I realize there's a big assumption here...)
I should get comments working again, and wait for answers to come rolling in.
Cyborg Planning Commissioners
There's been a move toward use of laptops in chambers among members of the Planning Commission. Despite governmental love of paper, it's my preferred way to work, as it saves me from carrying large binders full of important information. I thought I'd jot down a bit about how I use my laptop during a hearing.
During the days before the hearing, I go over the agenda and the staff reports. Using Tomboy, I create one note which represents the agenda, with each item listed as a link to another note specific to that item.
On each item's subnote, I place a link to the online staff report along with any questions or comments I have. I highlight things I want on the record. Even if these questions are answered in the staff briefing or testimony before I can ask them, as they often are, this helps me organize my thoughts. Sometimes I have no specific questions on an item; when this happens, I think maybe I'm too complacent about it, but that's how it is.
On hearing day, I try to get into chambers a few minutes early to
boot up and establish a connection. The wifi ESSID is
City_Cnty_Public
. Sometimes the wireless connection in the City
County Building gets flakey, and I'll lose connectivity for a few
minutes at a time, but it's the nature of the hearing that a realtime
connection is not critical.
Aside from the connectivity issues, there are a few drawbacks to the system:
- Page numbers referred to in the hearing are usually in terms of
the entire packet, instead of the original report. Page three of a
particular report might be page 127 of the distributed packets. Some
mental gymnastics are required to convert from one system to the
other. (Or maybe your neighbor on the dais is using paper, and
you can look over his or her shoulder to find the
real
page number.) - It's hard to annotate the reports themselves. I think you can do it using Adobe Acrobat or something, but with free software tools, the capacity doesn't exist yet.
- Perhaps most significantly, City Council member's laptops were unsuccessfully subpoenaed by a disgruntled petitioner in a suit brought against them in federal court. Even though the request to do a forensic examination of the laptops was denied, the city was still required to supply a list of websites the council members browsed during the hearing.
These drawbacks are offset, in my opinion, by the benefits of not having to carry binders full of stuff, the ability to search in the reports and packets, and network access, especially Google Maps and the city/county's interactive maps, both of which, I've been told half-seriously, qualify as ex parte communications. I reject that, though, because the same would apply in my decidedly non-lawyerly opinion to visiting the application site, which some commissioners do from time to time.
Commission Again
It's Planning Commission day today. After almost a month away because of Independence Day, receiving the agenda for today's hearing last Friday was a little shock. Back to reality.
Over the last week or so, I've been contacted by a couple of people who are apparently being considered by the city administration to fill an upcoming opening on the commission. Candidates want to know what the time they will need to commit each week, how much reading is there, what is the working environment like, etc.
What do you find challenging about serving on the Planning
Commission?
I was asked.
Coming up with an answer for this was a little tougher than the other, quantitative questions. Basically, the Planning Commission doesn't spend most of its time making big, interesting decisions. Mostly, it's relatively small, run-of-the-mill stuff. Really meaty stuff, like updating the Comprehensive Plan, is relatively rare, while more mechanical things, like a change of zone from AGR (agricultural residential) to R-3 (developing, mid-density residential) are much more common.
Does that mean it's boring? No, but it can be difficult to maintain a perspective on the entire city and county and the future when faced with questions of block-length or sidewalks in an acreage development. And even this is decepetive, since block-length and sidewalk considerations are vital elements of urban design for the future, as Lincoln grows around, over, and through the existing development.
And what are the ethics of converting cultivable land to residential use?
Maintaining perspective. Remembering that block length waivers affect the community. That's a challenge.
Tomorrow morning: Free To Grow Core Team. Tomorrow night: Hartley Neighborhood Assocation board. When the planets align, it makes for a busy week.
Pitch Camp
Again, I'm breaking my normal taboo regarding blogging about work to say the Death March is finally over. I slept well last night and woke up refreshed this morning.
I've been commuting to work by car day after day, necessitated by lugging the laptop back and forth. I'm looking forward to riding on Monday, and I'm in the market for a set of panniers suitable for laptop transportation.
Working on the Comprehensive Plan 2030 revision, we didn't have time to get to the Bicycling section in the Mobility and Transportation chapter. It's exciting to be able to have a hand in making Lincoln a place that encourages environmentally friendly, human-powered and alternative transportation.
This weekend I've got a few things I need to do: I need to make sure the bikes are ready for Monday. (In fact, I'd like to bike down to the south farmers' market tomorrow, too. Brian sells his bread there.) Also, I have to get together the Focus Area housing survey for Bradd. Finally, I'd like to invest some time in Pylons, a web framework architecture using Python.