Hello, Collar City! This is Issue 37, dated May 31, 2019.



Greetings, readers! In this issue: Riverfront Park North Extension, a CDTA omnibus item, early voting RensCo-style, planning commission approvals, and more.



About three months have now passed since I launched



It's my understanding that the typical fraction of donors to total subscribers for things like this is about 1 percent. TL's is currently about 20.6 percent, which, again, I take as a sign of the value many of you see in this work (which feels good).



I had also said back in March that my more ambitious goal was to reach 200 subscribers, a goal I have not quite reached. This goal was essentially based on the hope that TL would bring in about $1,000 for me per month, which seemed to me like fair compensation for something that doesn't amount to a full-time job but can nonetheless be fairly time consuming.



I'm still committed to continuing to write TL. But I've now formally added a $50 tier to TL's Patreon page for six—and only six, at least for now—"sponsors."



If you/your organization chooses to support TL at this tier, for as long as you keep the pledge, you'll be recognized in each issue in the introductory section (the section you're currently reading). More specifically, here's what can/will be included in the recognition: you/your org's (i) name, (2) a brief (like, one clause) caption that might describe you/your org or a related event, and (3) and a hyperlink. Like this:

In this issue: Riverfront Park North Extension, a CDTA omnibus item, early voting RensCo-style, planning commission approvals, and more.About three months have now passed since I launched TL's Patreon . I said at that time that I'd continue producing TL, cost- and ad-free, for at least three months if I garnered 50 Patreon supporters—a total that, as of today, I've more than tripled. I am astounded by and grateful for your support.It's my understanding that the typical fraction of donors to total subscribers for things like this is about 1 percent. TL's is currently about 20.6 percent, which, again, I take as a sign of the value many of you see in this work (which feels good).I had also said back in March that my more ambitious goal was to reach 200 subscribers, a goal I have not quite reached. This goal was essentially based on the hope that TL would bring in about $1,000 for me per month, which seemed to me like fair compensation for something that doesn't amount to a full-time job but can nonetheless be fairly time consuming.I'm still committed to continuing to write TL.If you/your organization chooses to support TL at this tier, for as long as you keep the pledge, you'll be recognized in each issue in the introductory section (the section you're currently reading). More specifically, here's what can/will be included in the recognition: you/your org's (i) name, (2) a brief (like, one clause) caption that might describe you/your org or a related event, and (3) and a hyperlink. Like this:

Special thanks to TL's sponsors: Troy Letter , a weekly email newsletter about the Collar City; John Doe's Restaurant , a totally made-up and not real restaurant; etc etc etc

Riverfront Park North Extension

You'll be able to change the description/clause/link week to week, if you so desire. (I reserve the right to veto your sponsorship or your blurb if they, for whatever reason, don't seem to comport with TL.)To give you a better sense of how many people might actually see your name in lights: The last four issues of TL had 475 unique opens (out of 747 recipients), 492 (out of 735), 493 (out of 732), and 480 (out of 725), respectively, according to my TinyLetter dashboard thing. Those open rates, if you do the math, range from about 63.5 to 67.3 percent.Becoming a sponsor, of course, will not grant you any special/privileged say or influence over the content of TL, aside from the introductory mention.I had not really wanted to court sponsors. But this option seems minimally intrusive and does not give any sponsor even the appearance of undue influence by virtue of the size of their financial support (and the related implicit threat that they could yank it at any moment), I think, since total smaller-dollar contributions from readers will still handily outweigh them. Plus, they'll help TL survive! So I've made my peace with this course of action.Feel free to contact me (luke.s.nathan@gmail.com) if you have any questions about all this. And if this sponsorship thing proves to be unappealing to everyone, I'll keep brainstorming ideas re: how to make TL pencil out.OK, enjoy the news!The city held a meeting at Brown's Revolution Hall on Tuesday to unveil a conceptual site plan for the Riverfront Park North Extension , a nine-foot-wide promenade that will run from the current, northern end of the park (near Dinosaur BBQ) under the Green Island Bridge and through the parking lot behind Ryan's Wake and other businesses to Jacob St.Progress on this path has been repeatedly delayed, most recently by the seawall project, which is now expected to be completed later this year.Earlier concepts had eliminated a lot of the parking spaces behind "Restaurant Row" to accommodate more green space/vegetation/bioretention areas (that collect stormwater runoff) and a kind of secondary, meandering path that would have run alongside the right-next-to-the-river promenade. Like this one, from 2014:But at least in part because of discussions with owners of businesses on Restaurant Row, that potential greenery/extra path area, as you can see from the first image in this section, will now be 26 angled parking spaces. This latest plan would mean a net loss of parking in that area of about 10 spots, according to one of the project consultant team members.It would also mean, when compared with the 2014 concept iteration, a loss of about half of the square footage previously designated for bioretention, the consultant said. (Stormwater in this area tends to go into the combined sewer, he said, and "part of our project on the engineering side is to try to take offline as much of that as possible.")One member of the public, who said he runs from the Congress Street Bridge to the Collar City Bridge, questioned the proximity of the parking spaces to the promenade. "My concern is, wherever there's cars, there's litter," he said.Deputy mayor Monica Kurzejeski later said that maybe in five years the city could eliminate the parking spaces. "We're building for right now," she said, but it's "changeable for the future."The path takes two routes around Dinosaur Bar-B-Que—one, on the landward side, is essentially the existing route you would take if you were to walk around it today along the water, and the other will be a three-to-four-foot path, closed during colder months, between the restaurant and the water. (The latter route is being built by the seawall contractor.)The new plan makes the parking area behind Restaurant Row a southbound one-way drive. The road under the Green Island Bridge will be a northbound one-way drive. The drive between those two areas (immediately west of the two parking lots) will be two-way.An employee of an organization on Restaurant Row criticized this configuration. For people who park near Restaurant Row and need to leave to head north, she explained, it's easier to exit from the Jacob St. side than to try to turn onto River St. (southbound) and immediately take the turnaround outlet that allows you to head north on King St. without crossing Federal, which can cause you to block two lanes of traffic, if you're even able to get out. Here's a visual (the yellow line/arrow is the difficult turn):The project consultant said that a separate study of potential pedestrian improvements to Federal St. will also examine that River/King turnaround spot.The revamping of the city's downtown marina is being led by a different consultant team that has nonetheless coordinated with the team assigned to this project. As the site plan shows, the new dock master boat house will be located just north of the Green Island Bridge, while the fuel tank for boats will remain closer to Jacob St. A new, removable bathroom trailer for marina users will be sited near the fuel tank.The city intends to issue a request for proposals for the Riverfront Park North Extension at the end of June. Construction, ideally, would be completed by Christmas. A $562,803 state grant will cover about half of the project cost.