Longer Term North Fork Riverfront Improvements

Call me a heretic, but "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Obama's new chief of staff.

We have the attention of the Corps of Engineers who are very active supporting the permit process to rebuild the railroad line southwest of Norfolk. While they are visiting our community should we not engage them on the Norfolk Sanitary District’s project to rebuild the bank pilings along the North Fork below the mill day spill way (box culvert).   At the same time we should have them consider the reconnection of Johnson Park to the North Fork by removing the one block section of Nebraska Ave. and how this can support the City’s Park and Trail Master Plan. What can we do to improve the access to the natural resource water features and still satisfy the Corps of Engineers?

It is time to reconvene the “all parties” meeting at improving coordination and the future vision for historic center of the community to include Riverpoint, City’s Arts and Culture subcommittee, City’s Trail subcommittee (to be established), NorthFork Riverfront Development, Downtown Vehicle Parking District, Community Theater Association, Preservation Norfolk, Norfolk Economic Development Plan, as well as other connected activities. Joe Ferguson started the process recently and the recommendation was to reconvene with more participants from the community and established a structure to move forward to help everyone meet their needs as a collaborating team.

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Press Release published on June 25th, 2010 at 3:23 pm