Your Accomplishment
A lot of readers are praising me over today’s developments with the Bricktown fire station. But really, I just delivered the news to you. It was you the readers who decided the designs were unacceptable and made enough noise to stop these designs from becoming a done deal.
Think about that. You emailed a couple of council members and they heard you. Yes, it’s really that simple.
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Comments
Before we get too carried away high-fiving each other, I’d like to ask what exactly was accomplished in the council meeting? Yes, Ms. Salyer made some great comments regarding the design. And yes, the Mayor seemed to echo the same sentiments. However, from a “process” standpoint, the motion passed unanimously with Mr. Couch saying that something more would be provided to the council before the council is asked to approve final designs.
Question: Where does this leave the Bricktown Urban Design Commission in the process? And when this issue finally does come before them, won’t too much water have passed under the bridge for that Commission to make any substantive changes?
Basically, the fire department has promised to submit their project to the scrutiny of the Bricktown Urban Design Committee and not use cost or schedule as an excuse not to follow their ruling.
Are we assured of a good design yet? No.
I had lunch with a couple of folks from Oklahoma City yesterday in Dallas. We all agreed that you (Steve) played a major role in surfacing this issue. The suburban-style firehouse appeared to have been dangerously close to getting built… had it happened, a primary eastern gateway to Bricktown would have been permanently destroyed.
Yes, we all made phone calls… but none of us would have even known this was happening if not for your detective work.
Thanks, Steve!
Steve,
You were the one that brought it to our attention, so THANK YOU for keeping an eye out.