County Could Use A Little Help Public Hearings, Workshops Abound As Workers Finish Long-Range Plan

Spokane County commissioners have adopted a resolution outlining past and future strategies for involving the public in creating a new 20-year comprehensive plan.

Some opportunities, such as joining work groups or adding ideas to the county’s Vision Wall, already have passed. However, chances to comment at public hearings and workshops are still plentiful.

“There will be many different opportunities from late spring and into fall to participate,” said Geralyn Haas, with the county’s division of long-range planning.

Workshops will be conducted this spring to introduce several possible growth scenarios and to collect concerns on environmental issues to be addressed in the comprehensive plan.

By summer, more workshops and public hearings will be scheduled with the planning commission to review the draft comprehensive plan.

The County Commissioners could adopt the new plan as early as next winter.

Blueprints 2000 is the county’s public participation process, required by state law under the Growth Management Act.

The comprehensive plan is a vision of what the community should look like in 20 years and describes how, where and what type of development can occur.

Groups of county residents, planning commissioners and county staff worked for months developing ideas for the new plan.

Organizers estimate 80 public meetings were conducted with about 300 participants.

The policies created in the work groups aim to protect the environment, provide housing, improve roads, support alternative transportation, encourage economic development and preserve natural and historic resources.

Kathy Miotke, a Five Mile Prairie resident long involved in growth issues in her neighborhood, took part in the Rural Lands and Critical Areas work group that met from summer through fall.

“At first I was dismayed,” she said. “It seemed like everyone had their own agenda, something they wanted to plug. I was thinking about dropping off the group.”

But Miotke stayed, encouraged when county planner Steve Davenport pulled all the loose ends together for the group.

“I learned a lot,” Miotke said.

County planning commissioners now are reviewing material generated by the work groups. Later this month they will begin work on the first draft of the comprehensive plan.

Long-range planners are organizing hundreds of work-group policies and citizen comments into scenarios that will be presented to the community at the workshops.

“We’ll ask the public to pick components that will then be put into the final plan,” Haas said.

“We’ll just keep boiling it down and keep getting opinions until we are done,” she said.

Planning Commissioner Tom Hargreaves said he’s pleased with efforts to involve the public in creating the comprehensive plan.

“All the work has been done in public, with public participation. Another round of public meetings is planned,” he said.

By early summer, planning staff will begin figuring out exactly which visions the county can afford.

“We have to show how the policies are economically and environmentally going to be sustained,” planner Paul Jensen said.

The need for more county parks was mentioned often in work groups. How will the county pay for development and maintenance of new parks?

Jensen said funding possibilities include taxing districts, working cooperatively with school districts or by setting aside a portion of the general fund specifically for parks.

Some work-group participants were frustrated that they weren’t given time to work out the details of the plan, only the big picture.

Others wanted disagreements settled before disbanding their groups.

“There were a lot of divergent opinions around the table,” Haas said. “I was really surprised that the discussions weren’t more contentious.

“I really see this as an opportunity of a lifetime for county residents to have an impact on what the community will look like in 20 years,” Haas said.

Miotke agreed, noting the work is far from done.

“The public can still participate, there is still room for changes.”

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: MORE INFORMATION More information about public participation opportunities is available by calling the county’s Growth Management Information line, 625-4725. Meeting dates, summaries of work group meetings and more information on growth management and the comprehensive plan are posted on the county Web site: www.spokanecounty.org/lrp