Council members draw the line — at golf carts?

A bad case of analysis paralysis? Or, maybe it was just plain dysfunction on display at Monday’s City Council meeting. It got bogged down for 40-plus minutes as some council members got hung up on the description of a planned pedestrian road crossing. Not the crossing itself — the description.

The time might have been better spent addressing citizens’ concerns raised earlier in the meeting about the city’s widespread problems with homelessness along streets, parking lots and other public places. (Council members sat silently through that one.)

Yet, some members couldn’t say enough about the crossing, whose plans — in a rough draft provided by City Hall staff — referred to it as a “pedestrian / golf cart underpass.”

It’s part of a much bigger road project — the widening of Chambers Road from 105th to 116th avenues — which is just a sketch on the drawing board for now. All that the council really was supposed to do Monday was give its OK to hiring a consulting engineer to work with the city on a more detailed design. It’s standard procedure for such projects.

Some council members couldn’t get past “golf carts,” however. 

City staff reasonably assumed golfers from adjacent Buffalo Run Golf Course might be among those crossing the ever busier stretch of Chambers in coming years. An underpass for pedestrians, bicyclists, golfers and others is far safer than a crosswalk and a lot cheaper than an overpass, a staffer explained to the council. 

But for some reason, it made some on the council see red.

Ward IV council member Susan Noble was among them. She said there were other needs in the city that were more pressing. Staffers tried to explain the underpass was an essential safety feature for use by the general public, but Noble dug in her heels.

“I can’t vote for something that has golf carts in it,” Noble flatly declared to bewildered city staffers. 

At-large council member Craig Kim was even more outspoken.

“I hate golf. I hate golf with a passion,” said Kim, who was appointed to the council last fall to fill a vacancy. “I tried it, and I just wind up hitting people’s houses.” 

It wasn’t clear if he feels as strongly about the crossing as he does about the game, and he seemed willing at one point to approve hiring the engineering firm just to keep the road project on track. But some others wouldn’t even go that far.

Novice at-large council member Renėe Chacon, whose background is in political activism rather than local government, was so adamant she seemed ready to turn it into an us-vs.-them grudge match. It was as if she thought the underpass were only for golfers.

“This isn’t equitable,” said Chacon, who was virtually participating in the council session from home. “I mean, kind of the tone deafness, they’re talking about pedestrian roadways (sic) and pedestrian bridges …Not everyone’s going to have golf carts.”

At least one council member tried to inject a dose of reality into the discussion. At-large member Craig Hurst pointed out the need for the crossing as a basic safety consideration for pedestrians, bicyclists, scooter riders and others trying to cross Chambers.

“If you want to get to the bus stop, you have to cross Chambers Road,” Hurst said. “To be able to access the RTD points…you have to have a safe opportunity” to cross. 

“Let’s get in front of the issue,” he said. “The importance of Chambers Road is going to continue to grow.”

But Noble didn’t seem to be in a practical mood, and well past 40 minutes into the odyssey, she got the council to agree to delay approval of the agreement with the engineering firm to proceed with a design. It seemed she had worn down even those council members who couldn’t fathom her aversion to golf carts.

“I’m only asking to table this until September to bring back language to us that doesn’t include golf carts…it is embedded in this somewhere, and I just don’t want to be voting for that when there are so many other road needs.”

“Councilwoman Chacon called it tone deaf…,” Noble had said earlier. “I think there is a certain tone deafness involved in this as well.”

Tone deafness? In letting the public safely cross the street?