message thread from Mark Snyder

message 1

On 7/3/03 3:36 PM, "Tom Johnson" <tjohnson@smithparker.com> wrote:

Mr. Snyder,

Please consider contacting me to arrange a time to discuss the Access
Project. Your assumptions and speculations are completely groundless and an insult to the hundreds of citizens, businesses, residents and non-profits who have dedicated years of effort to bring this Project to its current status. I'll leave it to you but I really do hope to hear from you. If you decide to not make contact, please then consider getting the facts from someone, perhaps a member of the local Project Advisory Committee. TOM J

message 2

From: Mark Snyder
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2003 3:56 PM
To: Tom Johnson
Subject: Re: I-35W Access Project

Dear Tom,

Is this supposed to scare me or something?

I said at the beginning of my post that I was purely speculating. I really have no great interest in the Access project other than occasionally following the discussion that appears on the Issues Forum.

Now I'm wondering just what I said that appears to be scaring you so much.

Mark

message 3

On 7/7/03 9:51 AM, "Tom Johnson" <tjohnson@smithparker.com> wrote:

No, I am not scared of anything you wrote. When someone speculates on the Digest casting negative comments on the Access Project or Smith Parker the natural assumption of all readers is that there must be some basis for the speculation because someone would not purposely toss out this kind of stuff without some level of fact. I do not need to explain this any further but I am stll hoping that you will get some facts before speculating again on the work of literally hundreds of South Minneapolis people. But, I am only suggesting, I have no reason to tell anyone what they should or should not say in their postings. Thanks TOM J

message 4

From: Mark Snyder
Sent: Monday, July 07, 2003 8:50 PM
To: Tom Johnson
Subject: Re: I-35W Access Project

Well, judging by the comments that others have had in recent days, I'm not the only one who's "casting negative comments" about the Access project. Some of them even seem to be fairly similar to the ideas I offered. Are all those folks totally off-base as well?

If so, you must be awfully busy putting out all these little fires, huh?

Maybe you should just go ahead and respond to our comments in the Forum so readers can get your side of the issue instead of trying to stifle people's speech. Mark

message 5

From: Tom Johnson <tjohnson@smithparker.com>
Date: Tue, 8 Jul 2003 09:30:42 -0500
To: 'Mark Snyder'
Subject: RE: I-35W Access Project

All I can say is that this is a very complicated Project. It's traffic modeling, congestion analysis, safety, design,operations analysis, construction engineering, mitigation/enhancement, cost analysis, environmental study and historical inventory has exceeded that done for any other Project developed in Minnesota or for any Project proposed in the Upper Midwest including the Chicago area. Many people have or still are attacking the Access Project from both specific and more general points of view. That's to be expected, I have no problem with that. My 30+ years of experience working with largescale infrastructure projects has taught me that public debate, at all levels, is not only healthy but usually leads to a better Project when all of the dust settles.

Many of the comments made recently in the forum are similiar to the comments made by many of these same people for the past 4 years or so. They have heard responses from Project Advisory Committee(PAC) members, our technical consultant team and myself. They do not agree with our responses and continue to label the various components as terrible for So. Minneapolis. I either have or have attemped to meet with every one of the Project's critics. Most do not want to meet, many of those who have are continuing to criticize various components after learning the How's What's and Why's because they want to stop the Project. Many of the Critics use the information given in ways that are much different than presented and discussed during the meetings but that is not a new situation.

Mark, I sincerely mean it when I say that your participation and input is welcome and I certainly did not mean to give you the impression that you shoul "shut up". For this, I apologize. I hope that we can meet to clear the air on this and then have a discussion on each Project element. Please let me know if you are interested and when you might be available. Day, night or weekends are fine with me. Thanks-- TOM JOHNSON