Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
City Councilwoman Julie Conley recently pressed a representative of the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) on the status of the in-person meetings that the agency was supposed to hold here and elsewhere to get public input on the Suncoast Connector.
Conley's questions followed the brief telephone presentation of Greg Garrett to the Monticello City Council on Tuesday evening, June 2.
Garret, a consultant project manager with Atkins North America, an engineering firm that is providing consulting engineering services to the FDOT on the toll road, essentially informed the council about a coming webinar, saying that the focus would be on broadband and its deployment in relation to the toll road.
“I’m concerned that there’s been no mention of a rescheduled task force meeting in this community,” Conley said, referring to the Suncoast Connector Task Force, the group that is supposed to be setting the guidelines for the selection of the road corridor.
Conley said she understood that the coronavirus pandemic and related governor's shelter-in place order had caused the cancellation of the task force meeting that was supposed to have taken place here in March.
“I realize it was through no fault of the FDOT or anyone else that the meeting was cancelled,” Conley said. “But since the proposed terminus of the toll road is in this community, we should have an opportunity to address the issue on our home turf.”
Another concern that she had, Conley said, was the transition to a webinar format for the meetings.
“This project is already not following any established protocols,” Conley said. “And now we, the public, are unable to participate in a meaningful way. We have no way of knowing if the task force members even listen to the public comments. We do know that a number of the members log off the webinar when the public comment period starts. Maybe they come back and listen later. But we just don’t know, and that’s not right. We ought to be able to observe the task force members’ reaction to the public comments.”
She asked that the council request that the FDOT hold an in-person meeting in Monticello as soon as it was safe to meet, even if the project had to be delayed a few months.
“I think you all know how I feel about the toll road, especially terminating in Jefferson County,” Conley said. “But this is an issue of fairness for people on both sides. It needs to be a thoughtful, transparent process that involves more than looking at slides on our computer screens and listening to people we can’t see. We should be getting enough information to evaluate the impacts of different scenarios. And we can only do that through open and easy access to the people with the information.”
Councilwoman Gloria Cox alone supported Conley's request.
“I agree with Julie,” Cox said. “This is very important to the community and we need to have input in person.”
No other councilman commented however, and the council made no formal request.
Even so, Garett assured Conley that that the FDOT plans to hold a meeting here as soon as it was safe.
“The FDOT is doing its best to work through this,” Garrett said. “We are prioritizing Monticello to hold the next in-person meeting here. But we have to find a balance.”
That balance, he said, was one of allowing for public input while also ensuring for the health of participants. The challenge, he said, was to find a space large enough to accommodate the task force and members of the public, and yet allow for social distancing so that everyone would be safe.
“But the FDOT has it as a priority to hold the next meeting in Jefferson County,” Garrett reiterated, adding that the logistics would ultimately dictate when the department got back to in-person meetings.
Added Garrett, “All the future opportunities that you require will be afforded to everyone.”
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