Disappointment in Davidson as Board votes through Beaty Street proposal 3-2

After nearly 90 minutes of public comment on the Luminous project proposal (almost all of it strongly opposed) Davidson Town Hall made a packed house wait until the last item on the agenda for a decision.

At the meeting, a 4th option for the Luminous proposal was presented for the first time, and this one did have on-site AH put back in the plan.  (See update on the previous post.)  That's a change from what was available online just the night before and one whose details had not been presented to the public at all previously.

After each Commissioner took their turn making their case it was unclear right up until the end how the vote would go.

One could rightly assume that the two "developers" on the Board were for building more stuff.  That would be home builder Rodney Graham and land planner Brian Jenest.  Commissioner Beth Cashion spoke very favorably of the project, but ultimately said she couldn't vote for it largely because of timing it seemed.  Commissioner Fuller made an impassioned speech against the project recounting the numerous people he has spoken to over the past months.  That left Commissioner Anderson to be the deciding vote.  Her comments left her position unclear other than her saying she had changed her mind during the meeting (which of course was also still unclear).

It was then time to vote.

Commissioner Fuller motioned to table the decision indefinitely.

That motion failed.

Then Commissioner Anderson motioned to go forward and form a committee - yes, another committee with citizens who will be nothing but political cover - to work on the contract with DDP.

That motion passed 3-2.

Here is how the vote fell:

Yay - Graham, Jenest, Anderson
Nay - Fuller, Cashion

The crowd sat in stunned silence for a few seconds.  Then, there were a few murmurs.  Then...well, then it was time to leave.

Overflow crowd ignored by
Commissioners Jenest, Graham, and Anderson