I attended the Oct. 6 Auburn City Council meeting with the intention of informing the public of future lane-mile restrictions and the problems of wholesale residential development of the Auburn downtown city center.

After downloading the video of the City Council meeting, I was shocked to see that the public comment period had been edited out. I felt robbed of my public effort to inform the citizens of Auburn of the consequences that they will face in the future as a result of the current policies.

The Auburn Reporter has offered me a chance to reach the public, to make the arguments I intended the public to hear at the council meeting and to give the residents of Auburn the meaningful adversarial testing of these policies that they deserve.

My argument is that city centers should be used for grand civic spectacles that are open 24/7, buffered by housing developments that are there to live near civic spectacles and the nightlife. The bedroom communities should be located in close proximity but should not encroach upon the civic spectacle or the 24/7 district.

This strategy will make the City of Auburn more money and positively affect square footage rates for developers over a larger area. Developers should have no trouble going to a bank to get funds to develop properties that are in such close proximity to a grand civic spectacle.

The next phase in that plan is to then link the grand civic spectacle in the Auburn city center with the other grand civic spectacle profit centers in the area, and to provide cheap parking with a transportation system called Levx.

Levx is cheaper to build, operate and maintain than any other transportation investment, including bus service, plus it operates at 100 to 120 mph. Levx will outperform the automobile even during non-peak hours and link the profit centers together with incredibly fast service. This plan will make Auburn more money and offer more of a draw to the region.

The current strategy is to build transit corridors with transportation funding, to relocate the public into these corridors, to get rid of their automobiles, to have them take transit system milk runs everywhere they need to go for everything no bigger than a bread box, then come home, put on a sweater, turn down the thermostat, and stay home.

This strategy is a draconian social engineering copout that will cost the city millions of dollars in the long run by pushing out the 24/7 districts, significant civic spectacle space, low-income housing, along with the mom-and-pop operations and the revenues from them. Your mom-and-pop operations will not be able to afford the higher square-footage rates that will be charged by the developers who have helped the city acquire gentrification with the unsuspecting public’s tax dollars. These newly gentrified corridors will be filled with wealthier citizens who will pay higher property taxes, after the poor residents, mom-and-pops, etc., have been forced out.

The problem with all this is they are not up front to the public about their intentions because they need the tax money from the current population in order to instigate the gentrification process that will more than likely evict them.

My plan develops a major profit center in the Auburn city center, links it up with other major profit centers and instigates proper residential development locations, paid for by the proper funding sources. This plan looks better on the City of Auburn’s general fund and on the post card.

The current plan gives public tax dollars to lucky-skunk developers to gentrify the City of Auburn, force the poor out and move the rich in under the guise of global warming, all without ever telling the people what they are trying to do.

Politicians know that if they told the people what they were really doing, the public would not only revolt but they would not be re-elected. There can be no excuse for any of the members of Auburn’s city government to say that they did not know that this was going to happen. They have been informed of the consequences of their planning, and have chosen to do nothing about it. From this point on, it will be sheer log rolling by city officials.

Time to act

It will be up to the public to intervene. If the citizens of Auburn do not act, they will suffer from the consequences that I have outlined.

The Muckleshoot Tribe is using gaming profits to assimilate bits and pieces of Auburn, and the City of Auburn is becoming more and more irrelevant. The citizens of Auburn need to make a stand and demand a non-native profit center of their own in order to bolster the city of Auburn’s municipality, and counter the presence of the Muckleshoot Tribe. The Auburn city center is the place to make that stand.

Gentrifying city centers, moving out old, moving in new, forcing out 24/7 districts, and significant civic spectacle space, regulating lane miles, practicing civic isolationism, will come up short, look awful on the post card, and shift total balance of power to the Muckleshoot Tribe.

I challenge the citizens of Auburn to be more than a copout social engineering scheme community. Confront your leaders and demand more from them than just payouts to developers and log rolling. Your city center will be posted in hotel lobbies all across America.

Give them something more to see than rich, condo-community hermits, huddled up in transit-oriented developments, wearing their sweaters, turning down their thermostats, wishing there was a civic spectacle or a 24/7 district nearby.

Auburn resident John Worthington, a former commercial truck driver, now is on disability. In his own words, he has become “an obsessed transportation activist.”