"Middletown Master Plan"

How many "master plans" do we need and how often do we need them? The old "master plan" talk seems to surface quite often it would seem.

"Community Visioning — Handled by Middletown Moving Forward Inc. and the Community
Building Institute — will identify neighborhood and economic issues, create a vision statement
that “clearly defines Middletown’s desired future,” and recommend solutions and strategies to
achieve them."

This isn't "community visioning" at all. If it were, the "community" would be asked to be involved. You know, it sure would be nice if the city leaders would ask the people who live here for input as to what they want for their city and the direction they would like to see taken. But no, they only allow MMF to have input thereby controlling all future plans while once again, excluding the very people who live here. Unbelievable lack of common sense coming from the city leaders. Has Middletown really prospered allowing the MMF group to call the shots all these years? Are we really better off with them around? Or, would we have seen more progress for the city by now if a group of common sense people, who truly cared for the city and without any special interests, were involved years ago?

"Downtown Master Plan — A project of Downtown Middletown Inc. and a consultant to be
named next week — unlike the Middletown Master Plan, this plan will focus on downtown and
how it connects with other parts of the city. It will evaluate existing conditions, recommend a
comprehensive streetscape design and preferred architectural styles for the downtown, suggest
future land-use patterns, evaluate market demands for the downtown, offer information about
prime sites for developments that development companies can use, and suggest funding
strategies to achieve the plan’s aims."

Well sure. Of course there will be the ultimate focus on their dam downtown and, of course, forgetting all other parts of town as usual. It is really getting old city leaders. One track mind running just the downtown horse in every race mentality. Ridiculous. Neglecting all other parts of town while focusing entirely on your downtown will only come back to hurt the city. Try equal attention for a change city leaders.


"Bicycle/Pedestrian Plan — Will evaluate existing conditions, analyze where new bike-
pedestrian connections should be made, prioritize the potential projects, and determine the types
of paths that should be built, and what amenities the paths should have."

Why the focus on the bike path? Since when is it an intelligent thing to do to appease such a small percentage of the community who would use this bike path and omit any and all concentration on what the MAJORITY would prefer? Tell me, in the overall scheme of things, just what does this bike path do to grow Middletown and how is this worth the effort and money spent to activate it and maintain it? If the bike path were not available, would it hurt the city in it's attempt to show progress? How does the bike path add any real value to the city compared to a focus on decent paying jobs, decent streets and sound infrastructure, reduced crime and drug usage, better schools, adequate police and fire coverage, upgrading the city population quality, etc? Why the focus importance on this when there are many other initiatives to focus on that are far more important? Shouldn't we take care of the important things first?

"Housing Study........" Do you really need to hire a consultant for this? Seriously leaders, you can't figure how to handle your housing shortage and establish decent housing for this city? No idea as to the type of people you want locating here, the demographics of the neigborhood and the type of housing to provide them? No idea how to fill all the empty lots you have created through demolition with the proper type of house in any given location? No one in your city government that has a clue on how to do this? If not, why not schedule a meeting with a successful city around here that can give you some information about building housing stock without spending money on a consultant for this.

"Mallory Greenham, executive director of Downtown Middletown Inc. “We’re not duplicating efforts,"

Would she know it if she was duplicating efforts?