Reston 2020 E-Mail re Failure to Provide Public Access to Task Force Materials; Reston 2020 Alternative

UPDATE:  Planned votes this week canceled per DPZ e-mail.

• RE: Failure to Provide Meeting Materials, Reston 2020 Comments and Proposals on Existing Materials‏

To Terry Maynard, PNICOSON@aol.com, Selden, Fred

From:	Merkel, Heidi T. (Heidi.Merkel@fairfaxcounty.gov)
Sent:	Mon 2/14/11 9:41 AM
To:	Terry Maynard (terrmayn@msn.com)
Cc:	PNICOSON@aol.com; Selden, Fred (Fred.Selden@fairfaxcounty.gov)

 

Good morning Terry,

 

Thanks for your continuing input.  It was my error that the draft agenda that went out on Friday indicated that the Steering Committee would be taking votes at Wednesday's meeting.  Patty let me know on Friday afternoon that she does not want to have any votes because we were not able to circulate the materials with the agenda.  We will be circulating a revised agenda noting that later today. 

 

I checked with the County Attorney's Office again last week to confirm that the FOIA requirement is that copies of meeting materials be made available to the public at the same time as they are made available to the committee members.  We are working hard to post items on the webpage at the same time as we send materials to the committee members. 

 

Please note that the Public Comment period for Wednesday's meeting is at 8:10 a.m. if you or other Reston 2020 members would like to make a brief statement re: the comments you're submitting. 

 

Regards,

Heidi

 

Heidi T. Merkel, AICP

Senior Planner

Planning Division, DPZ

direct phone: (703) 324-1383

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Chariman Nicoson, Reston Task Force, and Heidi Merkel, FC DPZ,

For the second week in a row, the Steering Committee, the Task Force, and the public do not have a timely opportunity to review and comment on matters to be voted on by the RTF Steering Committee.  As this message is sent, meeting materials on which the Steering Committee will vote two days from now have not been made available to the public.  Whether this is a violation of Virginia FOIA law is unclear, but it is clear that it prevents a  constructive public dialogue on the Steering Committee's efforts.  We anticipate significant changes in content in the draft Reston Vision & Planning Principles and the character statements for the three TOD station areas given the Steering Committee discussion and the direction it gave DPZ to draft the wording rather than rely on the committee to do so. 

That said, we have attached our comments and suggestions for alternative language for the previous draft Vision and Planning Principles statement as well as the character statements for the three TOD areas based on the versions made publicly available only last Monday.   We hope that these ideas will make it into your revisions and that they will  be discussed as this Wednesday's meeting. 

Terry Maynard, Co-Chair
Reston 2020 Committee
Reston Citizens Association

cc: Reston Task Force

Reston Vision and Planning Principles Discussion Document--R2020 Final

Proposed R2020 Reston Station Area Character Statements--Final