Welcome to the Fence

I like and respect both Dennis Maloney and Ben White. They are both a pleasure to speak with. They have both contributed tremendously to our community and they both have the city’s best interest at heart.

While we can all nicely say that everyone who serves on Council has the city’s best interest at heart in that they contribute generously. But those who listen to citizens stand out in my mind. Both of these men stand out in this way. This is not to say that I do not disagree with them. On many topics I do. This is not a problem for me. The problem arises in how little they seem to disagree with each other.

From my perspective they are both way too cozy with the big box idea and the mechanics of sprawl. They both seem to mark progress more in dollars than quality of life, but neither is the slash and burn type. Though, Dennis citing the Home Depot as good development and Ben saying that the only problem he had with a super Wal-Mart at Rock Prairie and SH 6 was traffic sort of begs the question.

While I’m worried that Dennis thinks that privatizing code enforcement may be a good idea, I am lock step with him on the idea that development needs to pay its own way.

I am not a fan of Ben’s traffic loop. And I do not agree that our only choices are this sort of development or gridlock. The loop will almost inevitably mean more sprawl. This will not decrease our dependency on vehicles; it will increase it. It will spread us out and have us in our cars even more. Personally I would much prefer gridlock.

On the other hand Dennis’ focus on neighborhood integrity often seems to lack a holistic perspective that includes the whole city. Dennis cut his teeth on the battle over putting Welch through to Jersey (Bush.) Much to the appreciation of those who live on Welch, he won that battle. Unfortunately the folks who live on Dexter and Glad paid the price. College Station suffers from a patchwork of poorly connected neighborhoods. This is not good for the city but those few who are most impacted always raise enough of a ruckus to prevent connections from being made. We need strong neighborhood integrity for all parts of our neighborhoods and some times that means that a street needs to go through even if there are some on that street who would rather it not.

One of the most striking differences between these men is that while Ben is somewhat conflict adverse, Dennis seems to seek conflict. This means that Ben would likely to be a better consensus builder and Dennis would be a better facilitator of dialog.

I know that many of you have made your mind up on this race. I would love to hear your thoughts. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a shame that one of the guys will not win.