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LETTER: Cottonwood Falls Market plan fails

The Cottonwood Market quickie tear-down — decided on in/by council on Nov. 16 — came as a back-door surprise.
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The Cottonwood Market stalls are being taken down this week.

Re: Cottonwood Market stalls to be torn down next week

The Cottonwood Market quickie tear-down decided on in/by council on Nov. 16 came as a back-door surprise. The item was not on the agenda for the committee of the whole either. Seeing that city staff had their ducks all in a row for this the week prior,there’s no logical reason why this could not have been made known through the agenda.

Unless the presence of a concerned and prepared public the ugly duckling would not have been convenient, with comments during the public segment, prior to introduction of the item.

A new Cottonwood Market should have been part of the heart of the Railtown development: a multi-purpose meeting place. Telling us that the design “can be completed that does not impact the large Railtown revitalization planning work” is presumptuous and potentially disruptive by limiting the scope of overall planning. Thed esigner of which already hired will now have to wait until a market-design has been approved. Or what?

The EcoSociety may be happy with this but their narrowly focused vision is not coming from benefit to the greater whole! The money used just on a plan for a new stand-alone market with all its envisioned bells and whistles on crucial Railtown space could have been spent on new roofing and wiring of the current structures. This as a temporary solution until the overall Railtown plan supposedly with public input is ready to become a reality.

But maybe also without concern for the concerned that reality already has been locked in as well.

Claus Lao Schunke, Nelson