Friday, November 12, 2010

Bay May Abandon Riverwalk

That is the headline in this weeks TI Sun.  The story is a pretty accurate account of what has recently transpired.  However, there are some details missing.  Several years ago the Riverwalk project was managed by  Trustee Sweet, later it was handed over to Trustee Chaltain, and then Trustee Drake was overseeing it.  Finally,  without any discussion, the mayor took charge of the project.

The article goes on to say that months of negotiations [with River Hospital] were fruitless and village trustees decided to bypass the hospital property and reroute it on Fuller St.  There were no negotiations with the hospital officials.  They [the hospital] learned of the change in the routing via the news papers.  You can not have negotiations when the other party [the hospital]  is not aware there is a problem.  Not all the board members were in favor of rerouting this project, actually only one board member was in favor of it, and that was the mayor.

The project with kiosks, planters, benches, and interpretive signs could have taken on many variations.  There are many engineer firms out there with as many different ideas for our Riverwalk project.  Had the board chosen another firm, then the results we see today most likely would be very different.