October 12th Event Center Update

Oh my, I listened to the first Event Center Update to the City Council on October 12^th.  Whenever I was involved with or ran a large project for the City, the first thing I did was set out a master timeline. A master timeline for a large project  illustrates the big picture, a roadmap, on where you start, where you are going and your final end result. The project master timeline drove my discussions and information updates with the Mayor/Council. The end result  for the Event Center project is the public vote.  The RFP presentation is the beginning of the project  timeline.  Actually, the beginning action item on the Master Timeline was the approval of the first $500,000 in the CIP. All the questions from the Council at this first update session were in direct relation to the fact that they cannot get their arms around this entire project.  Cotter did a nice job outlining the RFP. A little too engineering speak, but that is the world he lives in.  All this talk about the RFP is a waste of time.  Cotter is the professional engineer for the City.  This RFP process is right in his area of expertise.  The Council does not need to be involved in designing or commenting on the RFP.  It is one action item in the big picture. The Council is losing sight of the big picture and why is that?  Why do they have these questions? Because the Mayor and his team have not set out the master time line for this project.  The Master Timeline sets out the major action items/activities of the project and the expected date to complete each one.  The master timeline may be adjusted dependent upon certain action items/activities but the master timeline should drive the big picture monthly discussion.  The discussion on October 12^th was the minutiae and they got bogged down in the minutiae instead of the big picture.  Why?  Because the mayor has not presented the big picture.  He even said he hasn’t thought that far ahead yet. The frustration exhibited at this information meeting was of his own creation because he hasn’t thought that far ahead yet. This is going to be painful if this is how each information monthly update is going to run.