From: Bill Maurer [mailto:billm@millsoft.ca]
Sent: Friday, December 14, 2001 3:26 PM
To: dbell@dnv.org; ecrist@dnv.org; bdenault@dnv.org; hdunsford@dnv.org; jharris@dnv.org; macdunn@dnv.org; lmuri@dnv.org
Cc: Ken Krueger; dhowes@dnv.org; Irwin Torry; zerrr@dnv.org; newtonr@dnv.org; ReithT@dnv.org; Phil Holland; Willy Schuurman
Subject: Feedback on Riverside Drive Traffic Calming - Monitoring Update - Report To Council #3

The third report to Council regarding Riverside Drive contains the same biased viewpoint that was present in the previous process and reports. In fact, it can be argued that this report would not be any different if the two advisory meetings held on November 28th and December 12th had not occurred. It continues to show a blatant disregard for the views of the majority of the residents of Riverside Drive and District Policy. This time Richard Zerr has signed it so it clearly represents the view of the entire staff hierarchy.
 
What important material facts are missing from this document that are vital to making an informed decision?
  • The Seymour Valley Community Association which is supposed to unite the neighbourhood is providing no assistance in working to a common solution and has failed to schedule a meeting in December as promised by Chairman Ray Burns.
  • At the Nov 28th meeting Sgt Beaudoin clearly stated that Riverside drive has less of a speeding problem than other DNV streets and he is aware of 4 accidents occurring in a 5 year period. This is why it's hard to justify enforcement and policing.
  • Riverside Drive is a collector road.
Once again staff is presenting a set of options which are not clear. Rather than having a clear question for keeping or removing them staff is presenting you with 2 keep options and 1 remove option. Why? Because it will encourage those of you with a moderate view to retain the humps. Staff is not interested in resolving this issue with the community. They want to retain the humps regardless of the problems this causes.
 
What will be the result of choosing the various options in the report:
 
3) Remove speed humps and work with the neighbourhood group on solutions.
This is what we all want. We want to move forward and come up with solutions that work for the entire neighbourhood, not just the residents of the 800 and 900 block. At the last meeting we came up with a list of issues and suggestions. We are ready to hold bigger community meetings which solicit input from all attendants. We then need to determine feasibility and implement an acceptible solution.
2) Complete monitoring, survey the neighbourhood, host an open house, and report back to Council in February 2002.
This will delay the process even further and waste more tax dollars without getting any closer to a solution until after February. This option needs to be ammended to ensure that a clear keep/remove question is asked of the neighbourhood in the survey. If it is left to staff they will give at least 3 options with most of them favouring keeping the speed humps. They will subsequently add all the keep numbers together even when they don't perform the specific variant of the option. See how they did this in questionaire 2 (http://seymourvally.ca/speedhumps/questionaire2.pdf). Donna combined the "keep" and "keep with changes" numbers together in her report even though no changes were made.
1) Retain the speed humps and continue to monitor and work with the neighbourhood group on solutions.
I will not participate in this. If staff already thinks that speed humps are the solution then what else is there to discuss in these meetings? It has received approval to install the humps without following its own traffic calming policy and without community support. This option will polarize the neighbourhood and will cause the situation to deteriorate even further than it already has.
Until this point I have believed that staff would try to achieve solutions which are acceptible to our community. Actions speak louder than words and the third Riverside Report To Council is an action with a significantly different tone than the words spoken at Advisory Committee Meetings. It is clear that staff arrived at a plan on February 27, 2001 with a small minority of residents and has not deviated one inch from that plan. I have also believed that Council was misinformed by the July 3rd Report to Council. Since then you have all been made aware of the real feelings of the community and how badly flawed the process was (and still is). I hope that based on this information you make a decision that allows us to achieve a solution which is satisfatory to the majority and addresses some of the issues raised by the 800 and 900 block residents.
 
I am adding a report card to the web site which shows each of your votes on issues affecting our neighbourhood. At election time every resident does get a vote and the majority viewpoint counts. Please support us and vote for option 3.
 
 
Regards,
 
Bill Maurer
604-789-2172