The Way I See It: Give That Man a Cookie

By Dennis J. Lane

"I sure hope they're better planners than presenters."
Amen to that.
I was sitting with local attorney Paul Skalny at the General Growth Properties (GGP) presentation of the draft master plan for Town Center in Columbia last month. You'd think that a presentation of a $350 million redevelopment plan would be a pretty polished affair.
You'd be wrong in this case.
Slides were out of order, laser pointers danced across the screen in a desperate search for a target and consultants fumbled over each other as they attempted to add clarity to some of the proposals.
The only redeeming factor about the presentation, at that point, was the fresh baked cookies they provided at the break.
Still, you have to hand it to Greg Hamm, GGP's general manager of Columbia, who emceed the evening. Despite the miscues, he managed to maintain his composure and even asked the audience for some forbearance. The audience generally seemed to oblige.
I'm not so sure I could've kept my cool like that. I wonder if he maintained that same composure once everyone had gone home. If it were me, I'd be looking to place somebody's head on a plate.
That being said, the initial reaction to GGP's plans was generally positive. At the conclusion of the presentation there was even polite applause.
It was a big crowd, too. The Washington Post estimated that there were 500 people in attendance, and that presumably didn't include the myriad consultants that GGP has hired. Five hundred people as may not seem like much for a town with a population of 100,000, but it's almost twice as many people as the number who voted in the recent hotly-contested election for Columbia Council in the Village of Town Center.
All in all, it was a big night for Columbia. I saw many familiar faces. In fact, it seemed to be the same crowd that has been attending these types of events for years. This, of course, is a major challenge Columbia faces in the years ahead.
Hamm identified it as "age diversity." Early on in the presentation, he asked for a show of hands from anyone in the audience under 35. About 10 hands went up.
"Welcome," Greg said to the accompanying laughter. I think he was surprised that there were so many.
Ian Kennedy was one of those who raised his hand. Ian lives in Oakland Mills, works for the county and runs a local blog on "the issues and politics of Howard County (http://hocohayduke.blogspot.com/). He posted the following on his blog the day after the meeting:
"Although I've wrung my hands in the past about the lack of young people involved in the downtown planning process, that's not my intention in sharing this anecdote. Rather, it's to highlight the disdain this hand-raising exercise spurred in the dude sitting behind me.
"'What's the point of that question? Parents come to these meetings. Kids should be home doing homework. What a stupid question.'"
Ian then quipped, "Run along little kiddies. The grown-ups need to talk about important stuff."
Funny. I also couldn't help but think that, with a presentation this lame, you aren't likely to get many more young people involved in the planning process. These guys are way beyond PowerPoint presentations and warm cookies.
On the other hand, Greg was certainly happy to see one very important 34-year-old at the meeting. Ken Ulman would have shown up even if the presenter had used a chalkboard. I don't know how he felt about the cookies.
Aside from Ian and our young county executive, the younger folks were a decided minority of the attendees. More typical was the lady sitting behind me. She appeared to be in either her late 60s or early 70s. She spent the entire three-hour presentation furiously knitting away. I don't know if she ate a cookie or not.
But Greg was right to identify age diversity as a concern. Folks who have been around Columbia for 20 years or more aren't getting any younger. Consider also that many of the plans that GGP is outlining for Town Center won't come to fruition for another 25 years or so. If we don't actively engage the younger generations in planning Columbia's future, we run the risk of Columbia becoming nothing but a big retirement community.
If GGP is going to attempt to create a new, dynamic, vibrant downtown, it is going to need to be thinking about the needs and wants of a younger population. Youth is what gave Columbia its original dynamism. Young families came to Columbia in droves with boundless optimism and energy. They truly saw places like Columbia as a big part of the "Next America."
GGP needs to recapture that energy. It would be well advised to think hard about how best to present its plans to this constituency - with more than a half-baked PowerPoint presentation and cookies.
Not that there is anything wrong with warm-baked cookies, of course.

Dennis Lane blogs about Columbia and Ellicott City at www.wordbones.com.