Wednesday, Mar. 03, 2010

Unhappy trio vs. manager

Behind Raleigh City Council member Bonner Gaylord's critique of the proposed Lightner Public Safety Center lies a deeper rebuke: the city's manager and council have neglected their duties to justify and scrutinize the $205 million project.

Gaylord, a developer newly elected to represent northwest Raleigh's District E, has criticized the project with increasing sharpness.

In a Jan. 14 memo to his fellow council members, Gaylord wrote: "With all humility, I would ask that we put aside our pride, act as good stewards, and request a redesign."

Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker and City Manager Russell Allen pushed back Feb. 1 in a meeting with newspaper writers and editors, making a belated public case to proceed with the 17-story public safety center.

The next day, Gaylord and two other council members - architects Russ Stephenson and Thomas Crowder - proposed an alternate plan to build an emergency operations center elsewhere and renovate the 50-year-old police department.

"At a time when some are calling for burdensome tax increases and others are calling for painful service cuts, we believe there is a middle path that is responsive to our long-term emergency services needs, without raising taxes or overshadowing other important current and future needs of our citizens."

During a council meeting two weeks later, with the body deadlocked 4-4 on whether to build the Lightner Center, Gaylord rejected the project's purported usefulness. "The current design provides no measurable benefit to the residents of Raleigh," he said.

Then he went further, faulting Allen and the council:

"We never received all the information we could have, we didn't thoroughly debate the issue, we didn't explore consequences, we didn't get any public input - and thus we have a plan that doesn't make any sense to the vast majority of the public and half this council."

Then last week, Gaylord, Stephenson, and Crowder sent Allen a memo faulting the design process he has overseen and demanding more information.

"The most important planning and design questions were not brought to the council or the public for discussion," they charged.

Allen firmly denies that. The city staff fully involved the council all along, he says.

With the city's council and manager at odds, much more than a building is at stake.