It appears for most of the Rochester City Council members, that is the majority that seems to vote together all the time, that they only listen and change course when a storm hits.
A little thunder from a few residents expressing a concern or opposition to a topic seems to fall upon deaf ears, but let a storm blow in with a standing room only crowd at a council meeting and finally they hear the roar. This time it is ROAR - Residents Opposing All Reservoirs.
This has happened before with the deer shooting and the Tienken Road proposals. The city didn't respond until residents starting holding public meetings of their own, became organized and showed up in large numbers.
This does not seem like representative government to me. These council members are there to represent and to serve, not to speak rudely and dismiss residents when they take the time away from work or family to come to council and speak about something that is important to them.
Last night there was a standing room only crowd of residents at city council to express their dissatisfaction of the Proposed Water Reservoirs. Ironically, it was exactly six months since they awarded a half million dollar contract for an engineering study to the same company that was paid $50,000 to decide if they should do the study in the first place.
Now, after strongly impelling a sound business case for the reservoirs, they have agreed to go back and take a second look and consider some of the points residents have made over the past nine months.
The next storm to hit is the paving of Washington Road. Based on the resident feedback at the public information meeting last week, The Road Commission of Oakland County has again proposed a plan that residents are irate about. According to a RCOC employee 98% of those at the information meeting were against paving at all after seeing the RCOC plan. they were saying, "This is not what we asked for, just leave it dirt."
Basically, a quaint country road that runs along two historic districts will be changed to a thoroughfare with a 45 MPH speed limit with large trucks barreling through.
To read more about some of these topics and see see video visit the links below.
http://therochestercitizen.com/viewnews.php?newsid=654&id=1
http://www.freep.com/article/20101207/NEWS03/12070445/1005/news03/Water-tanks-Rochester-Hills-will-reconsider-after-residents-object-to-plan?GID=2t/YLy2oe5IJPNkiqjPlUwbp1iys3aJDpX8nmubVPiU%3D
http://rochester.patch.com/articles/rochester-hills-leaders-seek-answers-to-residents-concerns-about-water-reservoirs
Thanks for your comments at the council meeting and for keeping us informed. You are absolutely right about the RH City Council members' (except Yamalachi and Rosen)lack of listening skills. They'll hear what the residents really think about them at the next election when we vote them out.
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