Read an excerpt from this article below. You can download the full article by using the link at the end of the excerpt.
There are many important planning, zoning and land use issues in your community. You would not be on the planning commission if you were not sincerely dedicated to solving them.
Then, why are you sometimes vaguely dissatisfied that you were pressed into making important decisions prematurely because there “just was not enough time” to do it right? Why does the commission spend hours on minutiae and minutes on policy? Why do you always seem to be playing catch up to meet the schedules of other agencies?
Holding a public hearing until the early hours of the morning after a full meeting on the budget is less an indication of how busy you are and more a symptom of a commission out of control.
Jamming the agenda with personnel matters so that either you take up public testimony when you are too tired to focus intelligently or postpone the hearing and risk the ire of people who have come miles to participate, is neither politically wise nor good management. …
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Elaine Cogan, founding principal of the Portland, Oregon planning and communications firm of Cogan Owens Cogan, has consulted for more than 36 years with communities undertaking strategic planning and visioning processes. Cogan has been honored for her work on a variety of citizen involvement projects.
