{"id":15422,"date":"2022-02-16T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-16T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=15422"},"modified":"2022-02-16T01:06:11","modified_gmt":"2022-02-16T06:06:11","slug":"council-reflects-growing-concern-on-thrive-2050","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=15422","title":{"rendered":"Council Reflects Growing Concern on Thrive 2050"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Councilmember Sidney Katz at Thrive 2050 Worksession, 2\/15\/22\" width=\"474\" height=\"356\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qOcadothM1s?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Yesterday, the County Council held a work session on Thrive 2050. Council President Gabe Albornoz set a thoughtful tone by explaining that he doesn\u2019t have an &#8220;arbitrary date&#8221; for getting Thrive done but hopes and expects that it can be completed by this Council. In other words, he wants to do it right but also wants to move forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Elaine Bonner-Thompson presented in a straightforward manner the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=15409\">initial Racial Equity and Social Justice (RESJ) review<\/a> for the Office of Legislative Oversight. The RESJ review calls for better consultation of people of color and low-income residents. It also voices concern that the policies proposed would worsen racial and economic disparities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Representatives from Planning, including Planning Board Chair Casey Anderson and Planning Department Director Gwen Wright presented a PowerPoint in an effort to rebut these claims. But this defensive effort to show proper consultation and support may have backfired. They faced pushback, for example, from Councilmember Nancy Navarro who championed the law requiring a RESJ review and opposed sweeping these concerns aside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Councilmember Sidney Katz, shown in the clip at the top of this post, crystalized community and Council concerns in his comments. For a start, discussions around Thrive need to be much more upfront about the likely impact on zoning:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>I\u2019ve said all along that part of my concern on this is that we don\u2019t always tell the complete story. And I understand that it is a foundational document. But there again, it\u2019s because of that, and we say, well, there\u2019s we\u2019re not changing the zoning. In order for it to happen, zoning will need to be changed. So I think we need, when we discuss it, I\u2019ve said this before, I believe we need to include the entire story. We need to say this doesn\u2019t change zoning but in order for it to happen we need to have zoning changes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Katz also explained why Planning\u2019s presentation unintentionally validated concerns regarding consultation and inclusion:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>As an example of what I think people are going through, for this, and I believe it was Gwen Wright, that had a slide up that showed the organizations that were supportive of the plan. (Am I right?) Well, part of the problem, I believe, is that you didn\u2019t have a slide up that said you had organizations that had issues with the plan. And I believe part of the problem becomes that people believe, rightly or wrongly, that you are only listening to the one side rather than both sides. This is such an important plan. This is such an important document that we need to make certain people are comfortable that they believe\u2014that they know\u2014that we are listening to all sides.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The evidence continues to mount that the process was designed to produce a specific outcome rather than gain and include community input. Councilmembers pushed back on efforts to force them to move full steam ahead notwithstanding these problems as part of an effort to pass Thrive in its current form. Council Vice President Evan Glass, for example, expressed that he&#8217;s ready to take a &#8220;deep dive&#8221; into the document and to engage fully with the community about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At this point, the Council laudably wants to take time to improve a troubled process even as they rightly also want to bring it to a conclusion. The question now becomes how they will go about accomplishing this goal. Beyond <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=15378\">facing an array of ethical challenges<\/a>, Planning showed once again that they believe all is well and that it\u2019s fine to include only one side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Council is going to have to take an active role.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, the County Council held a work session on Thrive 2050. Council President Gabe Albornoz set a thoughtful tone by explaining that he doesn\u2019t have an &#8220;arbitrary date&#8221; for getting Thrive done but hopes and expects that it can be completed by this Council. In other words, he wants to do it right but also &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=15422\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Council Reflects Growing Concern on Thrive 2050<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,2481],"tags":[422,772],"class_list":["post-15422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-montgomery-county-council","category-thrive-2050","tag-gabe-albornoz","tag-sidney-katz"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-40K","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15422"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15437,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15422\/revisions\/15437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}