I’m saddened but not surprised by the City Council’s dismissal of Scott Walker from the Non-Motorized Transportation Advisory Board.

Scott has been a visionary, tireless advocate and worker for better ways to get around our town for many years, and we all owe him huge gratitude for his efforts.

Yes, he can be blunt and chafe some at times; let the saint among us cast the first stone. But he has been clearly speaking a very necessary carbon-cutting truth to car-centric power, and some in the city establishment, David Timmons and engineer Dave Peterson, in particular, are challenged by that truth.

Scott will no doubt continue his good work by other means, but the real victim here is a culture of constructive, valued volunteer civic engagement guiding our local government. The city manager needs to step back and let the council really hear us citizens before the town is paved over with bureaucratic good intentions.