Logic? What's that?

They say you can't fight City Hall. They must be right.

John Brummett is blogging daily online.

Allow me to list high-level people and groups not having any luck lately fighting City Hall in Little Rock.

Pulaski County Judge Buddy Villines. Pulaski County Prosecutor Larry Jegley. Pulaski County Assessor Janet Ward. The Downtown Partnership that advocates for growth downtown. The Quapaw Quarter Association that advocates for historic preservation in the original city.

For that matter, we can add the employees on the professional staff of City Hall's own Planning Department.

They got overruled last week by the citizen-composed Planning Commission.


What all these people and groups opposed--for transcendentally logical reasons--was the erection of a 24-hour, seven-day Mapco Express gas station and convenience market and dining outlet.

The location? That would be Third and Broadway, square-dab in downtown Little Rock, where fuel islands and a market and eatery would replace a vacant bank building and old parking garage.

The site is across the street from county government's administrative offices.

It's across another street from the prosecutor's offices.

It's a couple of blocks from the county courthouse itself, not to mention City Hall and the Robinson Center.

Down the way a few blocks is the eStem school. Down the other way a few blocks are federal government offices.

It's a place of rush-hour bedlam already, bustling with heavy vehicular and foot traffic. Pedestrians occasionally have been struck by cars. Cars frequently have crashed into each other.

And now the Planning Commission, by a vote of 7-to-2, has said we should put gas pump islands on this site, along with a place to pick up bread and milk and sit down for a lunch, dinner or breakfast of whatever Mapco serves.

And the Planning Commission seems to think left turns across traffic to new curb cuts off Third Street and off Broadway would represent a fine addition to the downtown rush-hour vehicular dynamic.

Left turns are restricted at the intersection itself during rush hours. So let's add new unrestricted left turns in midblock.

Isn't that nuts? That's what I asked the city planning director, Tony Bozynski, and an assistant who was on the speaker phone with us.

I heard laughter.

Bozynski said the planning staff had recommended against approval for those very kinds of concerns.

He also mentioned the proposal's suitability for the area, which he defined as a "government corridor."

So why in the world would the Planning Commission defy every prominent county officeholder and overrule its own professional staff?

Prosecutor Jegley told me he sat through the commission meeting and adjudged that "the fix was in."

Villines said all he can figure is that commissioners were concerned about potential legal vulnerability stemming from arbitrary rejection of the proposal.

But acceding to overwhelming community and official opposition would not amount to an arbitrary action.

As Villines pointed out, declining to restrict zoning and planning for fear of legal retribution would mean doing away with zoning and planning.

Here's how the Planning Commission voted: "Yes" votes were cast by Keith Fountain, Janet Dillon, Bill May, Thomas Brock, Alan Bubbus, Buelah Bynum and Keith Cox.

The sensible and responsible votes, by which I mean the "no" ones, were cast by Jennifer Belt and Rebecca Finney.

It all goes now to the City Board of Directors, perhaps in June. The board will receive both the planning staff's recommendation of rejection, and the planning commission's recommendation of approval.

The city board should trust the staff and blow off the commission.

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John Brummett's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected]. Read his blog at brummett.arkansasonline.com, or his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.

Editorial on 05/22/2014

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