The Daphne Little Theater production of “Passing a High-Rise Ordinance,” featuring the Daphne City Council Players, was on stage again at The Council Chambers. Unfortunately their recent Monday-night performance showed that the material was still too much of a challenge.
While they have shown considerable talent in lighter, simpler vehicles, such as “The New Sidewalk Ordinance” and “Authorizing the Purchase of Hay and Straw,” taking on the complexities of enacting a high-rise ordinance for the city has proved to be beyond their grasp. Although they have been discussing this production for years, the urgency of actually performing as key players has only recently forced them onto the public stage.
Some of us who saw them during working sessions feared they weren’t up to actually passing an ordinance, however we hoped the re-writes by the Planning Commission and the seemingly endless discussion would result in material so good that even these amateurs could perform it successfully.
Sadly this was not the case. After this confused, even embarrassing, recent performance, Greg Burnam, playing the lead role of President of the Council, admitted an incomplete grasp of the material. “We still don’t have a clear understanding of this ordinance,” he observed during one of the numerous halts to the proceedings. Their lack of understanding was obvious to all in attendance as they stumbled almost from the start.
Despite prompting from the wings by David Cohn (city clerk) and Jay Ross (city attorney) and at one point even from the audience, the president and most of the council couldn’t keep things moving, communicating confusion and uncertainty. Toward the end it appeared they actually had reached the climax of the play – the vote. But it was anticlimactic and resolved nothing.
Stepping back from this theatrical metaphor and taking a more serious view of the behavior of the council, there is a clear absence of leadership and control over the process of planning for Daphne’s future. The high-rise ordinance has been an active agenda item for over a year. The council just finished a special work session in preparation for a vote on its adoption. But when asked to vote on the ordinance, council member Cathy Barnette started amending it to reduce the height from the proposed 200 feet to 140 feet. Having already lost the battle to keep high-rises out of Daphne, her goal now, apparently, is to have as few of them as possible and to keep them as low as she can.
Planning commission recommendations don’t count, council planning sessions have no impact, Barnette knows what she wants (or doesn’t want) and is out to get it. Unfortunately for those in her way, she’s effective. Among the council members, she usually is the best prepared and informed, as well as the most proactive and articulate. If there are a few more disasters like this meeting, I suspect people will increasingly see Barnette as the council’s de facto leader. Council President Greg Burnam may have the title right now, but Barnette’s got the momentum.
Anyhow, after a series of false starts on taking action and even a couple of votes, the council adjourned. They returned shortly with a new commitment to action – but not, unfortunately, to progress. They rescinded the vote that had just taken place and then voted to table consideration of the ordinance. Burnam announced another special planning session and directed the return of the high-rise ordinance to the planning commission. The planning commission will hold more public hearings, redraft the ordinance as needed, and report back to the council. In the interim, the moratorium on high-rise construction is extended – again.
By my assessment this returns them to about where they were in March of 2005 – things have drifted for nearly a year. This sad state exists because the council shows little inclination to make a tough decision about the city’s future. Maybe they hope the planning commission will give them an easy, non-controversial solution. Or perhaps they just hope, given enough time and talk, that somehow this will work out and we’ll all have a happy ending with high-rises loved by both the developers and the public. Yeah – and here comes the Easter Bunny.
Come on guys, agonizing over something for better than a year isn’t prudent, it’s paralysis. Get this resolved ASAP and move on.
Meanwhile, elsewhere on the Eastern Shore…..The Fairhope City Council seems to have shaken off the Wal-Mart blues and recognized that if the city’s Comprehensive Plan is to survive, they are the ones who will have to keep it breathing. Cecil Christenberry continues to be the council’s advocate for effective land-use planning. He was the force behind the recent town meeting where city, county and state officials came together to address the subject and listen to citizen comments.
Although the citizenry focused on stopping Wal-Mart from building a super-store just outside the city, the meeting started a dialog on creating land use planning areas around Fairhope. Action is being taken to establish zoning in the county adjacent to Fairhope, replacing the “anything goes” permitting that exists for most county land in Alabama. Since Wal-Mart has now received approval from Fairhope to build, this action comes too late to affect that project, but it will be a valuable tool in the future for controlling use of the county land that surrounds the city. This degree of cooperation and coordination at multiple levels of the government was described at the council meeting as a “First.”
Although the organizers of “A Fair Hope of Success” didn’t stop Wal-Mart, they have had a “Fair Success” by getting action on controlling what’s going to be built on Fairhope’s doorstep. Real progress.
Hope you’re taking notes, Daphne.
Contact Pete Gleszer at jubilee@lagniappemobile.com.
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