Comment on Comp Plan tonight
To the Editor:
Boundary County Commissioners will meet in a special public hearing at 6 p.m. today in the Becker Auditorium at the Boundary County High School to consider a document a year in the making, one that will result in the creation of land use law that could well apply for the next decade. Law that will govern what you can and can't do on your own private property on one side; what your neighbor can and can't do next door on the other.
If you live or own land out in the county, it's most likely that sooner or later what begins tonight will affect you, for good or ill. Building permits, subdivisions, starting a business … all and more is in the balance.
In the past year, the nine members of the Planning and Zoning Commission have conducted more than 50 meetings involving over 80 county residents to develop the 116-page Comprehensive Plan proposal that is the topic of this evening's meeting. They gathered facts and analyzed data. And argued, often heatedly, what it all meant. What resulted is a proposed guidebook for the future of Boundary County.
Despite all the work done so far, it enters its most critical phase tonight.
The people who've done the work to date, and it has been considerable, are all volunteers, a consultant and a county employee.
Tonight it goes to the three people with the responsibility you gave them for making the hard decisions; theirs because you elected them to represent you.
Last October, after hearing the community's concerns that the current Comprehensive Plan and the land use laws it led to no longer work, they took steps to slow things down and directed that this work begin. With an array of options, they insisted only on one thing; that it be the people of this community who tell them how to fix what was broken.
Then they stepped aside.
County Commissioners have not been part or party to the creation of the impressive stack of paper they are confronted with now, though legally they could have been.
They have the right and authority to decide all legislative (lawmaking) county matters, which the comprehensive plan is.
They could have written this plan themselves or hired the job out, but they didn't.
They asked the people they represent, the people who will be affected, to do the job.
Before they make the important decisions facing them tonight, they will listen to what the community, you, has to say. Despite assertions to the contrary, the plan the County Commissioners are considering tonight was not pre-ordained at the outset, and it's not locked in stone now. It's not a matter of if the plan will be changed, it's a question of how, and how much, it will change. Because this is not their plan; it's yours.
Whether you like the proposed plan or hate it, tonight is the time to make your voice heard, because tonight begins the process of making the real choices, the hard ones, the ones that can be made solely by the three people; Ron Smith, Dan Dinning, and Walt Kirby, whom you can hold accountable.
No matter how you call it; last call; speak now or forever hold your peace … it's now to the final analysis, and afterward it will be too late to complain or argue.
Mike Weland
Zoning Administrator