See, I told you so

In a stunning move that surprised no one, especially me, the Blacksburg Town Council approved the special use permit for the Sonic restaurant. 

As promised, I am writing this blog entry to remind everyone that I predicted this outcome.  This is a great sacrifice on my part, because I have one arm in a sling, due to tendon damage sustained from patting myself on the back.  

I plan to contact Rush Limbaugh to see how he deals with this problem, besides taking more oxycontin that is.

To summarize the results of the Town Council meeting on Tuesday night, the BTC accepted all the conditions proferred by Sonic the first time around, thanked Sonic for their willingness to drop the lawsuit, and passed essentially the same SUP that was voted down last time.

No TaliBURGers spoke out against the SUP during the meeting.  I have it on good authority that this was because they had read my blog from yesterday and were afraid to say anything.

One BTC member actually admitted that she had been flooded by emails taking her to task for the first vote.

One public speaker essentially told BTC that they were insane for even talking about idling cars at sonic because first of all, nobody idles their cars at the drive ups even in bad weather, and secondly, all the cars sitting in line waiting to get into or out of Lane Stadium for football games were a much bigger problem.

Councilman Don-eL (apparently from the planet Krypton) immediately offered to require a SUP for use of Lane Stadium.

Also, Don-eL specifically thanked Sonic for agreeing to all the changes and told them that TC would have approved their SUP the first time if they had just suggested these special conditions.

So, let's see what changed.

1.  No external speakers for Sonic Radio.  Well, even though data was presented that showed conclusively that Sonic Radio was broadcast at such a low volume level that nobody, including Sonic patrons, had ever heard it or was aware of it, the previous SUP was declined and this was not cited as a reason during the TC meeting.  In fact, as I recall, Don-el had only mentioned the outdoor speakers in connection with the order entry and confirmation system, in which only 3 speakers are allowed to be on at any given time.

Which brings me to the next big change agreed to by Sonic:

2.  Only 3 speakers can be on at any given time.  This was a huge concession from Sonic, since in the first plan, up to 3 speakers would have been allowed to be on simultaneously.  Thanks go to Don-eL for getting this important change rammed down the collective throats of the Sonic folks.

3. No Idling signs - in spite of evidence to the contrary, part of the reason TC turned down the SUP last time was because cars might sit at the drive up with their engines idling.  In a blog entry immediately afterward, I suggested to a TaliBURG member that simply putting a "no idling" sign up at the restaurant would take care of the problem.  This is not actually a Sonic problem, but rather something that TC could require by amending the town ordinances to require it everywhere in town.  But no, apparently TC encourages cars to idle everywhere but at the Sonic.

4. Sidewalk access - since the entire south main development is supposed to be bike and pedestrian friendly, Sonic was taken to task for not providing specific access.  When the Sonic folks asked TC "What else do you want us to do - just tell us and we'll do it" the TC slapped them with a disapproved SUP.  This time around, Sonic agreed to paint white stripes on the roadways around the facility indicating to the pedestrians where they should cross the street.  TC could have just asked them to do this the first time, but that would have eliminated the possibility of punishing them for requesting to build a low-class, non-vegetarian restaurant in town.

So, in effect, the only concessions made by Sonic were to paint stripes on the road for crossings and to eliminate speakers that nobody could hear anyway.  

Don-eL's point is well taken that all of these items could have been taken care of the first time around.  If only the TC had wanted to.

The most interesting thing I saw at the meeting was Don-eL asking the construction manager of Sonic whether or not at the corporate level the Sonic people were considering to put electrical plug-ins at their drive up stations so that people could recharge their electric cars while they ate.  To his credit, the construction manager, who just builds buildings to the plans they hand him, did not roll on the floor laughing, but tried to give a reasonable answer (No) to Don-eL's obviously pandering question.

So for the moment the TaliBURG have been driven underground, sort of like the Republican Party, where their damage will be limited for a while.

But I already see a new challenger to the special interest control of TC - the Bicycle Lobby.  During the public comment portion of the TC meeting, a number of people rose to speak about making BBurg a more bike-friendly town.  One of them even went so far as to threaten TC members reelection bids if they didn't support the petition for whatever it was relating to having friendlier bikes in town.

Here we go again...