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The proposed LINKS route that would connect the Barraza-Aviation Parkway to Interstate 10 is not prudent, and mitigation should always be an integrated part of the planning process, not an add-on at the end to mollify the community.

I realize that people who have not been deeply involved in the Downtown LINKS Citizens' Advisory Committee could see this as neighborhoods behaving badly. I would like to point out just a few examples of city staff trying to ramrod a destructive option over the protests of people who live in the most-affected areas.

The advisory committee and city staff did not follow through with the promises for a public process laid out at the May meeting. Instead, staff presented and the committee hastily approved a rushed timeline that did not allow for sufficient public notice of the changes.

The primary reasons stated by city staff for the abrupt change in plans from the "thread the needle" proposal to the 3-D plan were restrictions placed by the railroad, especially regarding the temporary third rail or "shoefly."

Yet the notes that were reconstructed months after the one meeting that the HDR engineering and architecture firm admits to having with the railroad in November 2007 absolutely do not reflect this conclusion. In fact, the only mention of the word "shoefly" is in the title of the notes, but nowhere else in the document.

"Thread the needle" would have the least negative impact on Downtown business because fewer streets would be closed.

There is an overwhelming lack of information about the 3-D alignment, and thus no strong points as to why this would be an efficient and affordable solution.

For example, there have been no traffic studies completed for this particular alignment, nor have there been updated traffic counts. In other words, we have no idea if this roadway will work for its intended purpose of moving traffic.

Most importantly, city staff has not provided an accurate depiction of the costs involved in this project, taking into consideration unanticipated costs that have surfaced and will not go away regarding a cemetery, contaminated soil and the increased cost of steel, concrete, gas, et cetera.

To prevent another situation like destruction of the Muse, or the halt on construction of the joint city-county courthouse, it is imperative the the mayor and City Council fully understand their fiscal responsibility to ensure that this project can indeed be started and completed. All the money must be in place before work is begun.

There are numerous questions about the so-called flood-control efforts of this project, and yet the suggestion that this roadway will take certain neighborhoods out of the flood plain has been a selling point. There is no guarantee of that.

Actually, the current plan has not considered budget costs for the entire length of the roadway, nor a solution to what happens when all of the diverted water from Fourth Avenue west gets dumped out at Perry Avenue in the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood.

If this were happening in your neighborhood, you would be outraged, too.

We ask the mayor and council to vote against the 3-D alignment, help us find an unbiased consultant and demand this process be transparent.

On the surface, it seems like the citizen's advisory committee has worked long enough on this. In actuality, city staff has prevented the real issues, such as cost, traffic studies, accurate flood-control information and railroad input, from being discussed. Process matters.