Raleigh City Council sure is making an awful lot of plans for downtown without public input | Opinion

Let’s talk about manners for a minute. While most of us are sipping iced tea and chatting about the hot weather, Raleigh leaders seem to have forsaken all sense of etiquette. They are behind closed doors, cooking up final plans to deploy $400 million in tax revenues to build a convention center addition, a new Red Hat Amphitheater and another hotel — without inviting us.

This is not only impolite, but a tad distasteful. It is obvious and only fitting that the public be cut in on this conversation.

Some of us old-timers remember that this is the same playbook we ran through only 15 years ago. A shiny, gigantic new convention building, hotel and amphitheater with a price tag in the hundreds of millions, justified with the promise of a magical transformation of downtown. The result has been, well, meh. The convention center is a loss leader, requiring millions in continuous subsidies to operate. And the blocks around the convention center are still among downtown’s most bleak and lifeless.

Now, it’s time to go at it again, doubling down on size — and price tag. No prizes for originality here.

So, where are the plans? Are we going to do better this time, or will it be more of the same?

We, the people of Raleigh and Wake County are taxed on our meals and entertainment to generate this cash. Surely our leaders didn’t mean to leave us out, did they? Maybe our invites got lost in the mail.

I ask because the latest buzz is that city leaders and their convention-boosting cohorts are attempting to rush decisions about the design, including closing South Street on a critical block of downtown, without public debate. Whether right or wrong — and I have my opinion, the last thing downtown needs is another closed-off street — there should be a robust and healthy public discussion here.

If done well, could this half-billion-dollar remodel/expansion scheme be a success? I suppose, maybe. I do like having a concert venue downtown. Red Hat has arguably been the most popular and fun part of the whole undertaking, at least for locals. Nonetheless, our new music venue is currently slated to be on a site that is too small, necessitating the street closing. And it’ll be next to active railroad tracks, with passing trains, their big, deep rumbling noises, air horns and what have you.

On behalf of Raleigh area music lovers, I respectfully request that a reality check be initiated.

Another point to mull, maybe over an after-work beverage: If we have money to burn, we might want to address some more immediate and pressing needs around here, like paying our police and firefighters enough to keep them from quitting and going to work in the suburbs. How about safe streets to attract visitors and locals alike, anyone?

But hey, I’m not the city manager or head of the convention bureau who is trying to compete with Austin and Nashville, for whatever reason there might be for that. Austin, incidentally, is spending $1.2 billion on its new center.

So, I say to the city manager, Raleigh City Council members and convention bureau crew — love ya, I know you mean well. But please don’t forget us, your voting and taxpaying dates. We brought you to this party to begin with, and it’s just not polite to be behind the curtains carrying on without us.