Bastrop, Tx–On a 3-2 vote Monday, following a sometimes sharply worded debate, the Bastrop City Council reaffirmed a previous plan to name a six-member panel including residents and city officials to screen and recommend design ideas for final approval to build a new City Hall and Convention Center on Chestnut Street immediately east of the Union Pacific Railroad line through town.
Construction could begin later this year.
The issue, raised a week earlier by Council Member Julie Hart, was whether to continue with the review panel dominated by local residents, or to turn the job over directly to the city council. Hart said the council should shoulder the responsibility, but she was outvoted at the Monday session. Her only council backer was Council Member Dock Jackson.
Council Members Joe Beal, Willie DeLaRosa and Terry Sanders shot down the proposal.
Following that vote, Hart said she would not serve, as previously agreed, as chair of the citizen design review panel. Mayor Terry Orr said he would chair the committee. Other members of the review group include Gary Schiff of the Bastrop Economic Development Corp., Dan Hays-Clark of the Bastrop Historic Landmark Commission, Deborah Rogers, former mayor Tom Scott and Bastrop City Manager Mike Talbot.
Orr said input and suggestions from local residents will be welcome during the final stage of the design process. Beal said the current planning schedule would, ideally, finalize a design by the end of February so that architect Mervin Fatter could complete construction and bid documents about 60 days later, and a construction contract for both buildings as well as related work on Chestnut Street could be awarded about June 1.
In an interview today, Orr said that timetable could be slowed, allowing the review group and the council to “make haste slowly,” as urged Monday by Reid Sharp, president of First National Bank of Bastrop Sharp cited advice he often heard from the late Bastrop architect Richard Dodge who worked on a number of building projects for the with bank.
During Monday’s council debate, Hart suggested that one impetus for her call for the council to take direct charge of the design issues was a previous (and contentious) council rejection of a citizen panel recommendation for a branding and visitor marketing plan for the city and its Main Street Program. She urged consistency in how the council reviews and approves city initiatives which may have far-reaching public implications. The marketing proposal, backed by a group including Main Street Program and Downtown Business Alliance members, was rejected by the same vote as Monday’s decision. Beal, Sanders and DeLaRosa voted against adopting the marketing plan and subsequently voted to disband the marketing advisory panel.
Nota bene: The familiar saw, “make haste slowly,” is based on an ancient Latin aphorism, “Festina lente.” The same sentiment and advice has another classic equivalent, often translated as “Less haste, more speed.”