Communicating with the Town

On Monday night, last week, the town council communications committee held its third community outreach event. The 35 or so townspeople who attended sat in small groups at separate tables with six or seven at each. And then they chatted: about what they liked, preferred, and loved about our community and also about their concerns for the future. Each participant was heard by the others. There were lively exchanges, enthusiasm, laughter, mutual respect. And ideas captured on paper for a summary report. The communications committee deserves our thanks.

I believe there were valuable take-aways from that evening. I’d like to mention three.

First. The community cares about the town and wants to be heard.

Second. The communication committee chose an effective model for public input – one not constrained by three minutes or a “hearing- like” process that stifles open and creative discussion – the flawed go-to of the Town’s public involvement. Such a process, repeated over a few weeks, months or even a year should be the foundation of important policy, visioning, comp plan reviews and code amendment. The council and planning commission would find them useful and the community would actually have a voice in the runup to important decisions.

The third takeaway is that at least half of the tables identified a concern that there have been troubling mistakes in development decisions that have resulted from the administration and not the planning commission or town council driving the outcomes. There is a serious and disturbing imbalance between the influence and roles of the administration on the one hand and of the council and planning commission on the other.

Some of us feel that the planning commission and the council are our best hopes for capturing and reflecting community values. However to achieve that, those two bodies must be supported in their efforts to understand community values and by changing the code to return to them to the roles and influence they once had. The Town is hiring an assistant planner. I hope that planner will have a commitment and responsibility to seek, actively, community input, to understand community values and to directly support the planning commission and the council in their efforts to reflect community values in policy, plans, and codes.

A friend recently opined that too many horses have already left the barn. There are still valuable horses in there. They should be protected from rustlers. The barn door can still be closed.

Bob Raymond

La Conner