FLOOD PLAIN news

1. Vote Hiccup

At the June 5 Board of Supervisors work session, George Shanks brought up the Vote Hiccup at the last Planning Commission meeting. He said that Ms. Donato's "vote change" was not valid.
However, he also said that the "proposed flood plain ordinance" had not been acted on for 100 days by the Planning Commission so that document was dead as far as they were concerned, but it had no time limit as far as the Board was concerned (do not ask me how this convoluted interpretation came about, I don't know). THEN he said, the Planning Commission's motion to start up again with a NEW flood plain ordinance WAS valid, and they could do that in the Zoning Subcommittee if they wanted to! In fact, when asked, most but not all of the Supervisors said, no, no, it's in our hands, but Shanks said the Planning Commission could start all over again if they wanted to. We also asked Mr. Shanks if they could talk about items not on the agenda, and he said yes.

So the Chairman of the Zoning Subcommittee, who is Alan Eldridge, based on that motion made at the last Planning Commission, apparently has the legal right to pick up the Flood Plain Ordinance and start all over from the beginning, without putting it on the subcommittee agenda. We already established that he was not legally obligated to have minutes of the meeting. Although in April, Chairman Woodward announced that subcommittees in the future would have minutes, the subcommittee which wrote the flood plain ordinance originally (which is the zoning subcommittee) did not have minutes in the past. Page County Watch will request subcommittee minutes.

2. Zoning Subcommittee
The Zoning Subcommittee will meet today, Wednesday, June 6, at 6 p.m. at the Courthouse. The agenda topic is "home based businesses". I will not be there. If any of you can go, please let me know what happened.

3. The Donato Document.
Under the topic "The Donato Document - DRAFT" written by Planning Commissioner Dot Donato. Ms. Donato called me after the vote hiccup, and apologized for the surprise. She said she did not mean to revive the Flood Plain Ordinance. She said she meant to get community involvement in a larger issue. This document reflects the larger issue. On the surface, I agree with her concept, but I am deeply concerned that its implementation not be turned over to the Zoning Subcommittee of the Planning Commission, for all the reasons that we saw on the Flood Plain issue. Ms. Donato has asked that we review her document, and give her feedback and assess whether we will support the effort. I do appreciate her effort in getting feedback, and I hope you will go to that topic and Blog it. Press the Comments button.

4. The Retreat

The Supervisors Retreat will be on June 14 at 9 a.m. in the Montana Room at Skyland. It will probably last until 2 p.m. The Montana Room is right off the dining room, so follow the signs to the dining room. Skyland is located on Skyline Drive, so you have to pay the fee to get on the drive to get there. It's possible that if you tell them you are going to this meeting they will let you through without paying. Please let me know if you are coming. The topic is the Comprehensive Plan, which can be downloaded from the county website. It is posted under "public notices" The file is 25Mb so I can't post it. The Flood Plain Ordinance is not the topic, but it may be discussed. The key issue is all those references in the Comp Plan to the Flood Plain ordinance.

5. My notes from the June 5 Board meeting are posted on the Blog, under the label "The County's Business."