Moderation is important, y’know?

@TennisGuy – I haven’t had any serious conversations about it with the other Council members. You are correct in your recollection of my previous comments. I suspect what I said then is still true now, but how should I know when there are so many anonymous voices?

FWIW, it perplexes me, too. I ran for office specifically because I am driven to participate in the discussions. I think it’s the only way to fulfill my duties as an Alderman. But those are my feelings on the issue and each of the other Council members was elected by the public and they are justified in governing however they feel is best.

If you’ve noticed, none of the candidates for Council are commenting in the open either. That worries me a lot more than the habits of Council members currently serving. I’d vote for someone who was well-spoken and active in the forums before I’d vote for just about anyone else. Transparency and engagement is that important to me.

So, have you had those conversations?

i can totally relate. i sit at home and smoke weed about 10 hours a day. the rest of the time i run small projects as well. if you know what i mean. we should hang, broseph.

Mr. Petty, Burgerboy, OffCamber, Me, Daniel Maner and all kinds of others make this one of the most enlightening AND entertaining ways to spend one’s time.

Since we’re going to have paid parking, let’s get the good word out to folks so they don’t have an unpleasant surprise when they come and “experience” it for the first time.

All you guys rock, because you all take the time and effort to make your opinion known, and can disagree without being disagreeable.

But that’s….

Just my opinion. To which their own everyone has the right.

One of the reasons I’m so active is because I refuse to get a regular job. I work from home and take on other projects that don’t require me to work 40 hours a week, and one of the reasons I’ve made that decision is so that I can be as active as possible in the conversations our community is having. Not every person has the luxury to make that choice.

If I was working 40+ hours a week for one company, I probably wouldn’t have the energy to do all of this commenting either.

Shirley, you must have some sort of barometer of what they are or are not thinking regarding this matter.

as far as paid parking is concerned: if this town wants to be lil austinnashvilleathenstown then it’s going to have to start acting like it. and that starts first and foremost with expecting to pay for stuff, from parking, to covers, to any entertainment that’s worth it.
that being said, parking provisions must be made for those who own houses and/or businesses in the area, as well as their employees and guests. adversely effecting the service industry, a great deal of which live as well as work in the area, would have a profound impact.

and if i may add my voice:
I was reading the article on magazines and thinking “who the f@ck still reads magazines?” when a great wave of gratitude hit me. the flyer is such a remarkable publication, useful to the point of addiction; well written, well thought out, and even well commented upon. a close second to my gratitude are the glorious Unihogs that lurk on these comment boards. even the trolls are entertaining, to say nothing of the multi-paragraphers. and I would vote for Reed for president.
print is dead and much respect goes to the flyer for showing us the new way.

It is too bad there isn’t a convenient and cheap way for the city to get input from everyone on issues like paid parking, etc. If only everyone in the city was plugged in to the Flyer!

On one hand, I would like more analysis on local news, but I also feel completely overwhelmed by the amount of news I get. Unfortunately the 24 hour news cycle and internet has diluted the important stuff. The Flyer is really the only local news source I use and it is just enough. If I am interested in a topic I can look into it more. Thanks Fayetteville Flyer!

And I don’t expect the media to “spoon feed” the public either, but I don’t deny the value that robust analysis of current events has. Calling all of that analysis a spoon feeding is to deny the value of something like… a Paul Krugman editorial in the NYT on the financial bill (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/paulkrugman/index.html)

Our local columnists aren’t given enough space to analyze anything in any detail. With the local coverage in the paper slashed and burned during the merger and the Flyer being a young startup company with limited resources, I don’t know why it’s hard to acknowledge this gap in our media landscape.

I trust people with a history of success and follow through. So yes, I believe the Walton Arts Center leadership when they share things they have learned through decades of operating the region’s only major performing arts center.

So yeah, I talk to donors. I talk to their administrative and executive leadership. I talk to the leaders in City Hall working on this issue. I talk to their board. Sometimes I hear things I don’t believe, so I talk to yet more people about that and eventually reach an opinion that I am comfortable with and can be confident in.

Who do you talk to, Monroe? Where do you get your information? It seems like raw speculation, but I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.

And before someone (@Offcamber) thinks I’m completely isolated from the working people on Dickson. I talked to hundreds of “regular” people when the paid parking discussion was up for a vote, so I didn’t just “take the bait” that other leaders in this City were offering me. I’m out on Dickson several times a week (maybe I should be ashamed of that), and I made it a point to talk to as many people as I could about paid parking. There was an overwhelming majority of people (4 out of 5 or so), that could tell me, in their own words, why they thought it was needed and would ask me how I was going to make sure we could pull it off without being careless and destroying the district. I made a conscious effort to talk with people I didn’t know and turn their suggestions into legislation.

Some people here have claimed that a huge majority of people didn’t want paid parking and the Council ignored them. That has not been my experience. Four or six incensed and adamant commenters on the Flyer do not constitute a majority of my constituents. It’s easy for each of us to think that the majority of the population believes as we ourselves do, because we are surrounded by mostly like-minded people. I made an effort to break out of that insular environment and speak with people I didn’t know, and I’m still confident that my decision to vote in the affirmative is supported by a majority.