Change happens no matter who tries to stop it or promote it. When I go into a town to revitalize, by definition of the word it means change. You are taking what is in the town and offering either an enhancement, or repositioning in the regional marketplace. I always seek to look at how I proceed in terms of a linear programming model — To get from point A to point B in the straightest line possible, which will, in many cases be subject to constraints.

I look at constraints falling in two categories: real constraints and artificial constraints. By arriving in a town from outside the normal flow of local folkways, I have a little bit of perspective concerning what are real and what are artificial constraints. Much of what I find is in the first days of my arriving, is that everyone is “gung ho” to do what it takes. Things start to moderate a little bit after the goals and objectives setting takes place. 

After the initial meetings, the constraints that you are subject to are more pronounced.  In DuBois, they had a main business district street called Long Avenue that intersected in the with Route 219. The street was one way, and it was the wrong way. The street emptied onto 219, and the business district was like “I can see it, but how do you get to it?’ So through a contemplative process, we worked through how to make it two ways.  The big complaint was that it was one way for so long, that someone would not know and be killed. This even came up in the public hearings, and a few people were being very one sided with public safety issue of the man or woman doomed to die.

The question for me was how to engage in a constructive manner the concerns. I always fall back on Plato’s Socratic Dialogs, where it is all reasonable input that is talked about, and reasoned to derive the truth. It is through free exchanges that the constraints outlined as a reaction to a premise are discussed and not debated. To arrive a real truth, the real constraints are either taken into consideration and utilized in a new premise, or discarded because they are artificial constraints.

In a public forum sometimes it is hard to get this across to the group, because when you ask someone a question, and take the idea out to the logical extreme, sometimes the person will take offense to the process. It is my job to arrive at the truth and try not to make it a debate, or try not to hurt someone’s feelings or bruise an ego. 

So how do you do that? You have to understand that there is a possibility that the premise was flawed and in the discussion, the truth will be found and there will be an alternate premise to the original, which will incorporate the enlightened thinking.  

One of the constraints of the project, in the beginning, was that the street was not wide enough to accommodate two cars, and two sides of parking. Eliminating parking was going to be a real constraint. There was no way that the business district could survive if we eliminated 25 spaces from in front of the stores. That led to a discussion about what it was going to cost to widen the street. The street widening was almost an artificial constraint, because the street had to be widened by less than a foot. But it was true and all of the requirements needed to be met.

Then there was the money constraint, because now instead of just changing the way the street goes, we had a capital project that needed to be funded. I was going to do a streetscape project anyway, and it did not cost that much to put the new curbs and it meant that there would be one linear foot less of sidewalk along one side. So we were back to the beginning.

There was the question concerning if the sidewalk would then become too small, but there was really plenty of room, handicapped accessibility and all of that, so that constraint withered and died under the rules and regulations set forth by the governing bodies.

But I ran into a brick wall when the issue of someone dying came to light. The guy pressing this was a guy who had a very authoritative tone in his verbiage and was somewhat persuasive. After about a half hour of carrying on without a comma, he brought forth his witnesses.  Here were about six older people who each said they feared that they would be killed. I sat there at this public hearing and listened intently about the witnesses not knowing that the road was going to go two ways and being afraid they would die. 

It got a little wild when people were saying they were not good drivers, they could not see and they were afraid they would die. The guy leading the charge was shaking his head yes and he moved to help people back to their seats after they spoke.

At that point I had no real argument that was going to sway them one way or the other, and it appeared that by just making this an open decision making process I could not dismiss their fears… they were old… they were half blind… hard of hearing… poor perception in distance and I was putting them in danger. It was all true… it would be harder for them.

Then from the back of the room arose the police chief. In uniform and looking particularly concerned.  He was not my buddy under any stretch of the imagination, and he was not particularly in favor of changing the timing on the traffic light at the intersection. I think he said I would have traffic backed up a mile.

As the chief rose and walked slowly to the microphone he asked the following questions. “Do you know about this improvement now? They all shook their head yes.  He said “well none of you will die because you did not know… am I correct?’ They all shook their head yes. He then said something that I will remember ‘till the day I die, “I forgot who said what, who has trouble driving that creates an unsafe condition?” There was silence, not only was there silence but a couple of muttered denials.

He then turned and sat back down. The truth prevailed but it prevailed in a way that was not adversarial. It was common consensus that the street widening did not pose a threat and the possibility of someone dying, because we changed the street to two ways was not a real constraint. It is the collaborative process without a presumption of right or wrong that seeks to identify the truth that works in almost all cases. It is working together to improve the situation and completely vetting the idea in a non-prejudiced forum that made it a good project for everyone.