Planner Nixes Planning Idea--If you don't get the right advice, get someone who will?
Note: The county commission has a new group, Create Pocahontas. We wonder if this is the same group that once called themselves 20/20. We thought that group was dead or seriously defunct but like Michael Jacson they may have just had a "nose" job. Some of the same actors are involved.
Of course, they don't want it called "zoning" which it is. (Remember that Jackson claimed to not have had plastic surgery.) Or perhaps this Create Pocahontas County group has been out walking the Appalchian trail and have just returned!
Any way "zoning" is "zoning." But this time the "zoners" could get their collaborator to agree with them. Pocahontas doesn't need a planner. We agree 100%. Why on earth does a county that cannot afford some of the basic essentials of gov want to waste money on a county coordinator.
The last county coordinator burnt part of the county down and then tried to see them a fishing business. Crazy!!!!
The Pocahontas Times has this to say about the matter this week.
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Wednesday July 01, 2009
Commissioners discuss county planning ideas in public meeting
Pamela Pritt
Editor
If customers are supposed to get what they pay for, perhaps county commission president Martin Saffer will want a refund on his payment to rural planner Meghan Dorsett.
Saffer and county commissioner David Fleming wanted Dorsett to reinforce their idea that the county needs to hire a coordinator.
Not so much, Dorsett said. Or at least, not so fast.
Dorsett, who has considerable experience in rural planning, has just completed a comprehensive plan for Greenbrier County through her company, Cambria Planning Group. The company charges between $80,000-$100,000 for their services which would include writing the comprehensive plan.
Pocahontas County does need to have a plan, she said, but not necessarily a planner at this stage.
Questions like, “what do you want to see in 20 years?†can be asked by a former teacher, pastor or anyone with an interest and the county does not need a comprehensive planner to do that, she said.
Talking to community members about vision, goals and opportunities is the starting point, she said.
Getting someone who knows Pocahontas County is important, she said.
The West Virginia Legislature has mandated that all counties in the state have a comprehensive plan by 2014. Dorsett said the law is a “pretty piece of planning law,†but noted that the state has no planners and that neither major university offers a graduate degree in planning.
However, she said counties who pursue a comprehensive plan—only about 25 are—will be in a better situation to apply for and receive grants in the coming years.
Several people who attended the meeting, including county commissioner Reta Griffith, had participated in Create Pocahontas earlier in the day.
Their explanation of that group’s activities intrigued Dorsett.
She said she believes in the kind of asset-based community development that groups like Create Pocahontas use.
Create Pocahontas is in the process of gathering information about four topics:
•Communications/Technology
•Education/Talent
•Tolerance/Diversity
•Quality of Places/Arts and Culture
“It’s a framework we can operate under,†said board of education member Margaret Worth.
Pocahontas County Free Libraries Director Allen Johnson said coordinating and helping to develop leadership and finding emerging assets, should be the upshot of this planning, not coordinating government efforts.
Dorsett said everyone can be an asset in the plan, regardless of their educational background, but instead focusing on their talents and how to get those talents connected to the people who benefit from it.
Dorsett said she’d been involved in distributing surveys to residents in Greenbrier County, where about three percent of the surveys were returned.
That’s typical for returned surveys, she said.
The four-page surveys have traditional demographic information, like-dislike scales, two pages of open-ended questions and a place for solutions and are really the starting point for comprehensive planning.
“Don’t discount anything,†she said.
Comprehensive planning does not equal zoning, Dorsett said. Zoning ordinances fall under another form of planning, she said.
Re: Planner Nixes Planning Idea--If you don't get the right advice, get someone who will?
May we suggest that old Stinkwell might fill three of the roles suggested by the "planner." He's a teacher, pastor, and a definite "anyone."
Questions like, “what do you want to see in 20 years?†can be asked by a former teacher, pastor or anyone with an interest and the county does not need a comprehensive planner to do that, she said.
