This is what the TYPChoice group asked for and was turned down. So as long as a neutral moderator like Gene Patterson isn't there the Ten Year Plan will attend?

What is the TYP hiding? They always hide behind Ginny Weatherstone or Bill Lyons. Now they will hide behind City Council?

I hope at least one person on Council will ask the TYP why there is no 24/7 security and mandatory drug counseling.

The main focus of the workshop is to review and discuss TYP's efforts to communicate more effectively. While Council members may, of course, get into other areas if they so choose, the workshop was not scheduled to revisit the substantive issues that have been discussed during the community conversations.

To all of you out there that feels that the TYP has been doing a good job since March with their claims of better communications. please make a post here.

Here are my observations.

TYP Communication accomplishments since March 1, 2010.

1) Convinced 150 people at the Arnstein center meeting that they had no plan on how they would pay for or provide the Mental Health and Addiction counseling services needed for their PSH to be successful.

2) At the DeBusk Lane site meeting at County Commission in November, Jon Lawler stated that there were 800 Chronically Homeless in Knoxville. At the Arnstein Center meeting he said there were now 1252. This is about a 55% increase in just 4 months.

3) At the April 6th city council meeting Bill Lyons disclosed that the costs of providing the Mental Health and Addiction counseling services were going to be covered by Tenncare/Medicaid. Mr. Lyons stated this because the residents will automatically qualify for Medicaid because of the SSI disability designation. Thousands of people were cut from this program in February of this year. Seems curious that they are counting on the State and Federal Gov. for this ongoing cost.

4) In April, David Arning, filed for a Variance for the Flenniken School property, to reduce the number of Zoning required parking spaces from 58 to 24 with no notice to the neighborhood.

5) In May, Mr. Arning received approval of his Variance over neighborhood objections, and two weeks later, after an appeal was filed by one of the Area residents, they announced that they would have a meeting to explain to the community why they had not told them about the Variance, before it happened.

6) In June, the TYP announced that they had received a donation to hire a PR firm from a local Foundation. Turned out that a single individual gave that 100,000, to the East TN Foundation for that purpose only.

7) April to July, the TYP begins to have community information meetings. 4 have been held so far, with three of them at the Cansler Street YMCA, with average attendance of about 65 people, most of whom are either employees of the City, County or the Services providers. One meeting at the Deane Hill Rec center, drew over 150 people, with lots of questions and not many answers. Guess they learned their lesson, and moved back to the Cansler St. Y, after that meeting. When asked by Ron Peabody, What was the total number of Homeless in Knoxville?, Jon Lawler, answered “I don’t have that number”

8) TYP advisory board meetings basically eliminated. At the June Meeting, Jon Lawler announced that they would no longer cover all the item by item updates and projections that they had done since 2007, and instead, would go to a conversational format, and then meet separately, in private session with the Board Members to actually discuss anything. PS. As of today, this TYP Advisory Board meeting information is still not posted on the TYP Website.

Keep up the good work TYP.

The pledge by the TYP was to have these meetings all over Knoxville. After 4 meetings they have been at 2 locations. This by my math is not all over Knoxville.

I know how much you respect deep, penetrating analysis of exhaustive research, so I looked here, here, here, and here, and I don't see any pledge made by anyone to hold these meetings "all over Knoxville." And you are always quoting "friends" who go to all these meetings, aren't you? They must not be all that hard to find.

It would be cool to pick some different places, but keeping them central, which the Cansler YMCA is, makes a lot more damned sense than trotting the whole mess out to some deep west oven like the Deane Hill gym.

Wonder if Ackermann thought this was a good idea?

This email was sent out yesterday to neighborhood groups on the Southside. Maybe they can explain this to City Council at the workshop.

----Original Message-----
From: Robert Finley
(recipients removed)
Sent: Fri, Aug 13, 2010 4:32 pm
Subject: Flenniken: working group forming, meeting cancellation

All:

The TYP has held meetings with residents of the community surrounding Flenniken School since spring of 2008. The last two, held at the South Knoxville Community Center, covered a wide variety of topics, including concerns about community safety and the site plan for the Flenniken project.
We appreciate the time invested in these meetings by everyone who has attended. We have listened to the concerns of residents near Flenniken School and of individuals from other parts of Knoxville, and we have answered a lot of questions. We have learned a lot in these conversations and have hopefully communicated good information about the prospective residents of Flenniken Housing and the role that housing will play in their rebuilding their lives in the community.
At these meetings, many questions focused on the Ten-Year Plan in general. At the same time, we have been unable to devote appropriate attention to the concerns and questions of those individuals, institutions and businesses who live and work in close proximity to Flenniken.
Therefore, for now, the TYP will cease holding general meetings on the Flenniken project; the meeting previously scheduled at the South Knoxville Community Center on Monday, August 16, has been cancelled. Individuals in South Knoxville and elsewhere interested in learning about and discussing the various elements of the TYP are encouraged to attend the TYP's citywide public conversation meetings.
Since the Flenniken project will soon become a reality, the emphasis now needs to be on building relationships among those who will be involved in and live near the apartments. To that end, Knoxville Leadership Foundation/Southeastern Housing Foundation, Flenniken's prospective owner, is in the process of developing a working group made up of stakeholders in the Flenniken development.
The purpose of this group will be to foster good communication among the owner, key service providers, residents of the community surrounding Flenniken, and other stakeholders. The ultimate goal is of the group will be to help Flenniken integrate well into the community, and to help its residents to be good neighbors in a good neighborhood. We anticipate this working group being up and running this fall. Stay tuned. We'll keep you informed of its progress.
Sincerely,
Robert Finley
Mayors' Office of the Ten Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness
400 Main Street
Knoxville TN 37902
rfinley@cityofknoxville.org
(link...)
865-215-3071

IMO, an advisory group - IF properly constituted and handled - will be of much more use than these meetings.

The meetings have pretty much been just one big mess of acrimony. I understand why people are upset; but I don't see much getting accomplished.

Also, the Advisory Group should be long term rather than short term.

Vernon, MPC's UOR ruling can be appealed to Council, so the decision on Flenniken is not necessarily a done deal yet.

No matter how you try to spin it, the reality is that if 3 - 4 commissioners came out like the first one did in support of a Denial, the vote could have gone the other way. Its hard to go against the trend.

But of course you actually have to be there to have this kind of impact.

And as far as the "it wouldn't have made a difference" thing,
My guess is that it would have made a difference to your Southside neighbors if ALL the Commissioners had been there Thursday.

Maybe the residents could use this vacated meeting room to discuss filing an appeal.