Maplewood Village Parking - an Opportunity

First of all the question to some is - is there a parking problem in Maplewood Village?  Some people feel that there is not.  It might be safe to say that those people carefully plan their visits to weekdays between lunch and dinner and dinner and lunch, don't mind walking from what many people would consider not worth making a trip, or are consistently lucky.  However, an overwhelming amount of people have expressed to Engage Maplewood members that they believe there is a significant parking problem.  These people are merchants, residents, landowners and shoppers, the stakeholders of Maplewood Village.  Merchants especially are concerned as they do a bulk of their business on the weekends and during the holiday season when parking in the Village is most limited.

The members of Engage Maplewood have come up with a list of concerns and questions regarding  how the parking problem may be increased with the redevelopment of the post office site:

- we believe the proposed developer should present an analysis and specific solutions to accommodate parking for the expanded supermarket, additional retail, and 25+ new residents.

- we believe our representatives should meet with the Village stakeholders to assure that either the proposal that the developer suggests meets the short-term and long term needs of the Village and/or that a discussion and committee with the stakeholders should be formed to assure the same.

- we ask that our representatives hold off on the development of the post office site until a solid parking plan is in place and take advantage of this huge opportunity.

To understand more about our questions and concerns about parking, please go to the following link that details our statement that was forwarded to the Maplewood Township Committee:

http://www.engage-maplewood.org/Post-Office-Discussion.pdf

Why a Kinder Maplewood Community Forum?

Although the reality tv business model may attract and even increase viewership, we decided that the type of community dialogue that we are interested in developing is one of spirit making rather than spirit breaking.  When Engage Maplewood initially surveyed over 300 individuals we found that approximately 68% of those surveyed found out what was going on in Maplewood by reading Maplewoodonline.  After reading and engaging on Maplewoodonline, we felt that it may be beneficial to try a different way of communicating on line.

So, here is the Engage Maplewood blog.  If you're interested in watching a personal attack, questionable behavior or basically a train wreck within this community, you won't find it here.  Here we hope to discuss current developments and issues without attacking the individuals. Yeah, agreeing with each other sounds pretty boring these days, however, this blog is not intended so that we all need to agree.  There has been disagreements between the founding members of EM, and between the members of our core crowd yet overall the dialogue has been interesting and productive.  We've been able to reaquaint with old familiar faces and make some new friends as well.  And we've recommitted ourselves to being active participants of this great community.  

As a matter of fact those of us who have joined Engage Maplewood are proud of this inclusive and diverse community and welcome differences of opinion from which we can learn from each other.  So please feel free to add your comments.  We are hoping that if we can create a dialogue within this blog, that we can then entertain the possibility of expanding to a more expanded online chat.  Engage Maplewood hopes you will find value, inspiration and community spirit in these posts.

The Engage Maplewood survey also told us that most people do not go to meetings, want yo search through websites or still have local newspaper subscriptions so for now, this appears to be the best way for us to try and help make this amazing place even more amazing.

A New Season to Engage

Wow!  Are we all looking forward to some warmer weather coming our way?!  Just to be able to get around and about and do some of the outdoor activities that we love.  So what if some of them may be chores too, feeling the sun and seeing signs of Spring will certainly be welcome!

This winter Engage Maplewood has been taking some down time and reconvening to determine the focus of its involvement in the redevelopment of the Post Office site  Originally we saw that what we know about the site lacks a common sense of cause.  We believe that because of this disconnect there has been various and sometime heated dialogue regarding the development, yet still no clear answers or direction.  On January 7, 2014, Engage Maplewood submitted a document for the record at the Township meeting that contained approximately 42 questions which were compiled by the Engage Maplewood members through our conversations with residents, merchants, customers and visitors.  As of this date, we are anticipating the answers.  The document was quite lengthy and everyone is crazy busy so we are assuming, those are the reasons for the delay.

In the meantime EM has received requests from individuals who would like to host a coffee and invite friends and neighbors to discuss the post office redevelopment.  If this is something that interests you, please let us know.  Another topic several members have been discussing is the specifics of open government.  Open government policies/laws are relatively new.  There are intricacies that can be missed that could be the reason for the disconnect in the understanding of important issues such as the post office location.  As you know, we believe that the more information we can obtain, the more more chance of increased understanding, active community involvement and and buy in, and that will result in an amazing end result for this landmark location.  So we plan on plugging away at learning about and informing you about open government.

Finally, we realize how incredibly busy everybody is.  This even includes us EM people who are trying to gather as much information as possible and trying to communicate it in the best, unbiased way we know how.  We hope that our information will not only inform you but if it interests you, that you will reach out and inform us of your concerns, questions and give us information that you may have that we are missing or that you would like to hear more about.  We also encourage you to get involved; attend township meetings, Village Alliance, and Springfield Ave. Partnership meetings when you can; and reach out to township members to be a part of this great inclusive town where we all can make a difference!