The council quickly approved the new, somewhat downsized version of Neiman Marcus in Broadway Plaza. The Contra Costa Times reports that people attending Tuesday night’s meeting spoke for and against the 92,000-square-foot store at the corner of Mt. Diablo Boulevard and South Main Street.
The council initially approved a larger version of the luxury department store in the fall, but Macerich, the owner of Broadway Plaza, pulled that proposal and went back to the drawing board after a lawsuit was filed over environmental impact and a petition drive forced the issue to be put up to a city-wide vote. While the lawsuit is still pending,the council hopes the Neiman Marcus will be up and running in Walnut Creek in five years. City Councilman Kish Rajan said “he wants to be ‘mindful’ of those who expressed concern over the project, but asked that opponents try to work with the city instead of against it.
Crazy in Suburbia 
I think it a bit disingenuous of
some members of the council who
said that they listened to the
community, and encouraged people
to work with the city in the future. If I remember correctly,
the council voted 5-0 for the
original proposal and didn’t listen to the community until
the overide measure qualified
for the ballot and only when
Mace-Rich requested that they
rescind their vote.
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Fair enough 11:41. But also to be fair, that first vote was last fall before the election of 2 new members (Simmons/ Rajan). And the project they approved last night is very different and much better than the original…
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apppreciate your comment 11:47.
You are correct on the first item.
My main point is the city seems
to only listen to the citizens when they are forced by circumstances to do so. I do hope
new members of the council will
do a better job of listening and
making changes before the fact.
11:41
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Hopefully these 2 new council members will be open to citizens’ input despite the fact that they did vote for the original plan. In the past it has seemed like the council had made up its mind before any public meetings were held, particularly when it came to big projects. The original Neiman Marcus project was unanimously approved despite reasonable objections from citizens. It wouldn’t be surprising if the public may still be wary of council members’ motives and egos.
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Well, I vicariously ‘worked’ for Rajan who was wrapped into the Democratic/Obama office on California last fall.
When my neighborhood came up to city council about an issue, Rajan was the Lead to dismiss it as irrelevant and ignore the concerns of an entire neighborhood who put hours into a presentation.
IMO, he is a total licker trying to make his way up in WC, and kow-tows to the Regalia-Hicks dynasty who placed him in ‘power’.
I will never support him again, and if he is ever on the Dem ticket, will petition to demand that he be removed.
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