Comprehensive Plan Committee to Announce Recommendations and Next Steps, and Then Get Public Input

The Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee has scheduled a "public hearing" on a new comprehensive plan this Tuesday evening, October 27, 2009 at 7 pm. The meeting will be held at the Granville Intermediate School. There have been repeated concerns in the community that the committee has not been receiving and fully following public input. This makes notice of a "public hearing" a good thing.

However, the agenda produced for the meeting is interesting.

The agenda places the "Public Questions & Comments" time after both the "Committee Recommendations" and "Next Steps in Process" portions of the meeting. Having public comments after the committee has already made their recommendations and determined the next steps seems like putting the cart before the horse. Placing public comments at the very end of the meeting also increases the risk that members of the public wishing to comment will have to leave before public comments can be made.

Perhaps minimizing public input is the goal. An email sent by village staff announcing the "Public Hearing" reads "Members of the public are encouraged to review and commit on the plan." When we first read that email we thought the village meant "comment," but maybe it was Freudian.

At a minimum, the committee appears tone deaf to the risk of a public perception they have been once again off working on their own with minimal public input.

This meeting agenda reminds one of the meeting agenda the Township Trustees had on a prior version of the plan. That agenda indicated that the Trustees were going to let the public talk and then vote on the plan later in that meeting despite the fact that the plan was very far from being acceptable to Township residents and could never be suitably modified in that meeting. But at least the Trustees had the common sense to put off their decision once they heard the public input.