The Most Important Happening on Davis IslandsBy Lee Medart, Chair It’s not installation of the water system; it’s not speeding; it’s not parking (or lack thereof); it’s not new business openings…well, then, what is it? The plan for the future of Davis Islands!!! Authorized in 2002 by the Tampa City Council to create a neighborhood plan, the Task Force has been reaching out for ideas from the inhabitants of Davis Islands in every way possible. In two years we’ve spent over 2,000 man-hours in Task Force meetings and 330 man-hours in Community Open Houses. Not to mention some 55 articles in the DI News and elsewhere and over 400 man-hours in individual interviews, study circles, and other interactions with out neighbors. Would you say we think this process is important? We know some people are saying that this process is not important and won’t hold up to time. The City of Tampa’s government is empowering their citizens to govern themselves. Is this not important to you? We are very fortunate in that our Task Force is comprised of many professionals that do this kind of planning on a daily basis. We have an architect, a transportation engineer, and three land use planners on the Task Force. The City/County Planning Commission staff, who provide wonderful government support, is advising us! Do you think that the City would allow such investments of city resources to come our way if they weren’t serious or didn’t think we were serious? Enough said. Just wanted to jog your focus if you haven’t participated at all in the process. Like voting, if you don’t vote you have no basis for degrading the elected official. If you don’t participate in this process, you have no foundation for objecting to the final outcome that will be law! I thought it would be interesting to put a short survey in this article about what the “drivers” of Davis Islands, teenage and up, think about a traffic-calming plan. I’ll report how many responses I received in the March issue of Davis Islands News. This will be the “pre” survey before the plan is implemented and we’ll do another after the plan is implemented to see the difference, as was done in the German study mentioned in the article on Dr. Kecskes’ thesis article elsewhere in this paper. It will be a simple one. Just two questions: Check the ones that reflect you: Traffice Calming Survey
Cut it out and drop it in the mail to DI Neighborhood
Planning Task Force, P.O. Box 1722, Tampa, Fl 33601
or drop it off at Java & Cream. It will
be interesting to see how many people respond to this
request. |