Just a quick break from Louis Black’s balls for this: As City Council gears up the morbidly obese zoning procession that consumes the better part of every single meeting, wouldn’t it be nice if, instead of having to micromanage every construction debate in the city, the Zoning and Platting and Planning commissions (and whoever the hell else) could take a more aggressive, proactive role in smoothing some of the rough edges out there, ensuring that most cases before council can sail out on consent?

I can’t help but think that with our growth explosion, council can’t see the forest for the trees. If they had more time to look holistically at city planning instead of having to troubleshoot each PUD or VMU redesignation or neighborhood plan, they’d have the time to look at the bigger issues driving development in this town. Because what we have now is government by crisis – which benefits no one, except those satisfied with the status quo at City Hall.

This article appears in February 23 • 2007.

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