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Greenbelt Alliance In the News
January 15, 2007
Citizen input critical
And so is need for on-time general plan
Editorial
Disconcerting was news from the Solano County Board of Supervisors that its citizens committee charged with helping update the blueprint for growth in the region is behind schedule and suffering from a lack of participation.
Not only are there too many vacancies caused by appointees resigning from the Citizens Advisory Committee, there is poor attendance by others who committed to assist with updating the county's general plan, a key document in deciding how cities and the county will cooperate - or not - in growth policy.
In addition, it is apparent that the committee is struggling to get organized to stay on schedule. So much so, the committee has established a subcommittee just to set the agendas for meetings.
The importance of this committee cannot be overstated. As assembled, if everyone were attending, the committee includes appointees from all geographic areas, members of farm community, Greenbelt Alliance and business groups. All of those groups should have a voice in updating the out-of-date general plan, which is the basis for land-use decisions outside city limits. And while the Orderly Growth Initiative strictly curbs the types of development on rural land, the interplay between the county's future plan and the cities' own growth plans are critical.
So is the need to keep this process on schedule. It could take up to three years to finally present a new general plan for public approval. And that plan needs to be in place to precede a decision on how to extend the Orderly Growth Initiative, which runs out in 2010.
The overriding principle of keeping urban land use in cities and rural land use in the county remains overwhelmingly popular. Any extension of the Orderly Growth Initiative, with amendments to protect the viability of farming as the county's leading industry, can come only on the heels of a successful county general plan update.
County supervisors John Silva and Jim Spering have the task of recommending changes to the structure and organization of the committee. Their main mission is to inject some accountability for members of the group.
Four members already have resigned since being appointed. Another five have been removed after they missed three or more meetings. Perhaps they were poor choices, or perhaps the workload exceeded their expectations.
Of course, there is healthy skepticism that this could be a device to eliminate committee members who do not see eye-to-eye with the majority view. If there are to be changes to the committee makeup due to absenteeism, then the rules about missed meetings must be uniformly applied before anyone is booted from the panel.
Talk about reducing the size of the committee also fuels this skepticism. Could a supervisor choose a rival for elimination based on a perceived need to shrink the committee to a more "workable" size?
In any case, success comes from choosing folks who have the time to commit to this thankless task.
It's complicated. It's time consuming. It will become political at some juncture.
But it is essential, and it is imperative that it be completed on time.
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