Roanoke Times Editorial

The Roanoke Times had an editorial in today's paper that deals with the recent Council vote to hire a consulting firm to come up with conceptual plans for the Market Building. If you missed it, please visit:

http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/wb/192408

I think it does a good job of addressing the need for vision in directing the renovation of the building. I encourage you to read it.

Market Building vote... again (and open government)

Market Building
Earlier this evening, Roanoke City Council voted to hire a consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. to perform work surrounding the Market Building. The Market Building is an icon in Roanoke, the center of the downtown market area, and vital to the economic future of our city center.

I voted against hiring this firm (it was a 6-1 vote). My reasons are fairly simple, and I will try to succinctly explain below.

First, I still feel, as I did several weeks ago, that City Council has not yet provided a clear vision for what we want the building to be for the next 20, 30 and 40 years. For example, "we are committed to maintaining the building as a public market, with food vendors, retail and entertainment opportunities." Following this we can consult the numerous past studies conducted for ideas and concepts and work to pull together this vision. Maybe outdoor seating on the mezzanine level, a community room for rent on the top floor, food vendors with service both inside and outside of the building... etc.

Second, I believe that we need to decide on a budget. What can we afford presently, could we phase the project into two steps, etc. This is an obvious point but vital to moving forward and committing money to conceptual ideas.

At this point is when I believe that we should hire an Architecture & Engineering firm, and if appropriate, would like the firm to be a local business. As a City Council we should certainly try to do our part to help the economy in Roanoke.

We do need to assess the facilities, such as HVAC, plumbing, electrical and structural soundness. In all fairness, this is the piece of the contract that I believe is the most useful. But I believe that the A & E should be part of an overall design/construction document contract.

My fear is that we spend $120,000 (amended amount of contract) with this consulting firm, don't think about it until the report comes back in May (out of sight, out of mind), and realize that Council has "lost taste" to move on with the renovation. Then, we have a $120,000 conceptual report sitting on a bookshelf. No construction documents. If the overall A & E were part of the actual contract where Council has decided to move to contruction, we can guarantee the usefulness of the information gained.

I simply did not feel comfortable committing $120,000 to a hopefully useful report at the same time that our schools are slated to lose between $10 million and $15 million in funding this year, with no certainty that we would actually get to the renovation itself.

I'm hopeful I've been clear.

Open Government
As you all are aware, an issue has come up surrounding Blue Ridge Housing Development Corporation and Councilman Alvin Nash. I have enjoyed getting to know Alvin over the last six months and enjoyed working with him.

I do not have all of the information surrounding this yet, but do feel that Council should have been informed immediately once this issue arose. When it involves a sitting member of City Council, I believe it is appropriate that each member be told of any matter involving official business.

I am committed, however, to getting all the information and will comment further at that point.

The Market Building (again)

As most folks know, at its last meeting, City Council brought to a vote the allocation of $160,000 to a consulting firm from Washington, D.C. to provide us with three conceptual plans for the renovation of the City Market Building. Due to technicalities, we have to re-vote on the matter at our next council meeting, even though the vote yesterday was 4 to 3 in favor of hiring the consulting firm.

Let me say right off that I respect the opinions and decisions of each Member of Council, whether I agree with them on this particular matter or not. Any thoughts I share are mine and mine alone and guide my reasons for voting against hiring this firm. Below are my reasons.

The City Market Building is an historic landmark in the center of our downtown, next to many restaurants, retail stores and offices. In fact, it houses small businesses. Because of this, I do believe that we need to move forward and renovate it with an eye towards the next five, ten and twenty years. The Market Building has been neglected for far too long, which is one of the reasons it is now in such disrepair and requires such a major renovation. So let's renovate, right?

Not quite yet.

Over the past several years, there have been public sessions with input from interested residents and parties as to what the Market Building and market area should look like. We paid for a received a report in 2006, and a coalition of downtown businesses commissioned a study with suggestions that was authored by the Partnership for Public Spaces, the leading national experts on market areas.

So now the idea is to hire this consulting firm out of D.C. to provide us information on the utilities of the building, hold three public hearings, and then provide three concepts. It is important to note that the concepts are not architectural renderings sufficient for construction, but rather general conceptual ideas. We will then have to come up with the money to pay for the actual construction design documents.

I voted against hiring this consulting firm for a few major reasons. First, given the past few years and the studies we have regarding the market building, I am not convinced that we need to hire another firm to tell us what they think the building should look like. Second, City Councils past and present have yet to provide a clear vision as to what we want the Market Building to function as for the next several decades. Without a vision for the future use of the building, why bother paying a huge amount of money to consultants to conceptualize for us.

Yet another reason (the most important) I voted against hiring this firm is that we learned less than three weeks ago that our schools could be losing more than $5 million in state funding this year. And yes, you read the number correctly. I believe that it is the responsibility of the City and its governing body to do everything within our power to help the schools offset this enormous gap in funding. $160,000 clearly won't solve the entire budgetary problem, but it sure is a good start.

And last but not least, I simply do not believe that we need to hire a consulting firm from Washington to tell us what the electrical, plumbing, structural and HVAC systems look like and need - we can certainly hire local businesses to tell us that once we begin actual architectural design. We can also handle holding our own public hearings. So what are we really getting for the huge sum of money we will pay? In my opinion, it is not the best value for taxpayer money.

I intend to vote again in two weeks against this hiring. We can move forward renovating the Market Building right now if only we would provide a vision to a local architectural firm, express to them the budgetary constraints in which we find ourselves, and are willing to be decisive in our action.

The Market (Building)

The Market Building re-opens this morning at 8AM. The small business owners in the building, employees of the city and many others have worked tirelessly, weekdays and weekends, from morning until late at night, to remediate the problems that caused the building to be closed in the first place. Although the grills will be fired up this morning, there are still decisions to be made.


The next step City Council faces is when and how to begin renovating the building. There is no question in my mind that a major renovation needs to take place. The Market Building is a historic, central part of our downtown, and I believe that Council must soon define a vision for the next twenty-five years of its life. But we cannot only continue to talk about these changes, rather should seek public opinion, direct the design/re-design, and move forward to have the work done that needs to be done.

It makes a great deal of sense to me personally to have the city serve as the general contractor for this process and to direct the architecture and engineering process, the subcontractor bid process, and to oversee the actual construction. I believe this for a couple of reasons:

1) If the city is going to front the costs of the Market Building renovation, it may as well direct the process, which would save the time necessary to issue an receive responses to an RFP. Costs in construction are increasing every day, so the more decisive we are and the sooner we move, the less it will hopefully cost.

2) The city serving as general contractor should allow the work to be done more quickly at better prices as we can hire local small businesses (electricians, carpenters, masons, plumblers, etc.) that might not otherwise be hired by a larger, potentially out of town, construction management firm.

I hear from a lot of folks who are excited about the potential the Market Building has and the history it has provided residents for more than eighty years. And some express concerns about whether or not Council can act decisively to take care of this facility that serves as an anchor in the entire market area.

I believe we can, should and have got to- while times are tight budgetarily, to allow the Market Building, its small businesses and its physical facilities, to continue to deteriorate beyond the point of repair should simply not be a choice. This is one of the situations we face as a city and as a City Council that will show whether our priorities for our city mirror the needs we have as a community.

What do you think should happen to the Market Building?

A lot of debate lately has been centered on what the Market Building should look like once the city renovates it. I would love to hear from folks as to what you believe the city should do to improve this deterioriating building that is an anchor for our downtown.

As a city, I believe we need a vision and goal and should accordingly work to accomplish our vision for the future of the Market Building.

What do you think?

The Market Building

As you probably know, this past Tuesday City Council got into a lively discussion regarding the DRI/Coalition proposal to overhaul the Market Building. This was the only proposal received in response to an RFP issued seeking a public/private partnership for the future operation of the building. See the RFP here http://www.roanokeva.gov/DeptApps/PurchasingBids.nsf/4932692bdcc8a5d885256fc00069a3f5/cecc8411a230eac0852573fc006400f7?OpenDocument.

There were a number of good aspects of the proposal, but one significant problem: it did not conform to the guidelines as set out in the RFP. Some folks within the Coalition dispute this, but a unanimous vote by a board of city officials all agreed on this point, as did a number of area business folks who were a part of the coalition. But this is beside the point. The point is that Council decided that the city should issue another, broader RFP that allows for flexibility and hopefully creativity in responses. And DRI/the Coalition will be able to re-submit their proposal, with improvements based on our discussions. To me, this is a good thing.

Additionally, there are legal requirements when a response to an RFP does not conform to guidelines. Though many of us would have liked to have discussed/negotiated/worked on the one proposal we received, the law requires that we issue another RFP that affords others the opportunity to submit broader proposals. I wish this point had been shared in media accounts more clearly.

But the main point of all this is that members of City Council were not allowed to read the proposal before we had to make a decision on whether to accept or reject it. This is a big problem.

In a City Manager form of government, the city manager should be the person responsible for working on the details of everyday business within the city. But when there are proposals, particularly ones of this importance, Council members should absolutely have the ability to ask for and receive a copy to read. Unless it violates a law, harms the civil rights of an individual or otherwise directly hurts the city's ability to negotiate with an entity, we as members of Roanoke City Council have a responsibility to know, question and understand what it is we are voting on and how we are spending taxpayer money.

It is true that I asked for a copy of the proposal the week before we were first briefed on the DRI/Coalition plan. And it is equally true that I was told it was against administration policy to receive one. Instead of arguing, I called a local business person and asked if they could get me a copy which was done and in my hands within the hour.

The administration works hard and we should all, whether we agree with or do not agree with decisions made, respect their efforts and know that they are doing what they believe to be in the best interests of the city. But as members of City Council, we are answerable to the citizens. We are the ones who must explain why we decided to spend taxpayer money in certain ways. We should always keep this in mind.

I will work to make sure that in the future members of City Council have access to any information deemed fit or necessary to make the important decisions that affect our everyday lives as residents of Roanoke.