11/11/2003 Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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r ? 1-2-or 3 people can't attend a meeting, you end up with a dysfunctional group because you cannot vote on things, and you do not have the input from enough people to have diversity of opinion. She said it needs to be a mixed group of Planning Commission members, Council, citizens, the business community. That can happen right away. The steering committee can look at the work program and worlc with her to develop a schedule. Mr. Hreha asked Ms. Wenger how she intends to reach out to the residents and business community to let them know this opportunity is available to sit on the steering committee. Ms. Wenger indicated she has already made contact with the Chamber of Commerce and they are aware this process is beginning. She will be attending their meetings. One of the things she found effective in past planning processes is to have focus groups, comprised of small groups where citizens or special interest groups can sit down and talk about their issues. Public meetings tend to be good for presenting information to the public but not as good for soliciting feedback. There are certain things they just do not have the time for to stay within the budget such as doing a huge community survey which takes months of preparation and follow up. There are ways to notify citizens through the community web site, local papers, newsletters that the community may put out that would identify dates or times when focus groups may be meeting. It could be invitation or it could be open to the entire community. There may be groups that are targeted, or a business-oriented focus group, or an open space and recreation focus group. There could be different topical areas to get people involved because people often have a particular interest that they want to talk about. People will be able to participate in a way that is meaningful to them. Mr. Yager asked what happens if the plan is not completed by June 2004. Ms. Wenger said she would need some direction from Council, or the Mayor, or the board as to whether the date is hard and fast, how much leniency they have with the date. Mr. Yager said they really only have 7 months, 6 months, to put together a master plan for the city. That is a challenging time frame. Ms. Wenger agreed and asked Mr. O'Malley if there is any flexibility with the way the charter is written or if there is a body that could authorize an extension of the time frame. Mr. O'Malley said there isn't one. There isn't a variance procedure to excuse them from living within the charter. He said he does not know who would be in a position to take action against the city for not living up to its charter. The charter outlines the requirements, it doesn't outline ideals. He said he would recommend they continue on the course they are outlining and leave the deadline issue for another day. Mr. Hreha said in the private sector he has sat on many strategic planning commissions and many involved 5 year plans. He said they were slapped together and put on the shelf and 4 years and 6 months later someone would pull it off the shelf and suggest they take a look at it. He said it seems as though something like that may have happened here. The master plan was done quite a while ago with a clause in the charter that says it has to be updated and they didn't really address it soon enough. He thinks the board's concern here is if they slap it together in 6-7 months just to meet a deadline, the quality of the product will reflect that. Mrs. Hoff-Smith said they are fortunately not starting from scratch. They do have a master plan and it is not as though North Olmsted is a wildly developing community. They need to do revisions to the existing plan and do it in a quality manner. If they are approaching the deadline they can address the extension but she thinks they need to try to get it done. Mr. Hreha said he too would like to meet the deadline but since the city has a planner for the first time, they might be able to enjoy the luxury of not putting the plan on the shelf for 4 1/2 years. He said get it done by the deadline and then have annual reviews or it could be a dynamic kind of thing that is ever changing. Mr. Yager commented they are in an era of community input and when you have that, you have to have ample opportunity to be at meetings and respond to the issues. He said from what he has seen in other master planning programs, the time frame of inputting is 5-6 months or longer. He expressed concern about dusting off the old plan, which may have very little relevance today. He said someone should determine what pieces in the old plan are of value today. He said you used to be able to simply present a master plan to the city. Now a city requires more communication and input. If you don't have that, there is backlash and the master plan becomes a negative thing and it is disregarded. Mr. Durbin said he has looked over the master plan to some degree. The existing plan is not too bad but we have caught up with it. It projected out in the next ten years what the city was going to do and the city basically has achieved a lot of the goals that were in that plan. Some need to be revised and expanded on but he does not think they are that far 3