2011-04-27 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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wasn’t here for that. I want it to start all over again. And that’s the biggest problem we’ve had in any substantive comprehensive amendments to the code. And that’s just my zoning code, not the whole county code. MS. O’HARA: On the topic of the steering committees and action committees, I’m still not clear as to longevity of the action committee. It’s an ongoing process. And your community development plan has to be redone every 10-20 years, whatever the length of time. And as Bobby pointed out, she’s loosing members. And this is going to happen over time. It’s an exciting process initially for the steering committee. They generally get very involved and stay involved. The action committee takes it on and after a year or two, especially with the decline in staff resources that are made available. It puts more work into the public’s hands to keep these committees going. And you’re going to lose interest. So, I’m just looking at the sustainability of that process over time. MS. LEITHEAD-TODD: I think some of that will shake out as we go down this road. This is relatively new for the community, even for the county. But I think maybe some of the discussion has to be on what exactly the role is because many of themview themselves as trying to be more like a mini planning commission. I’ve tried to focus them this year and say, hey, you have a plan, what do you need to implement your plan. So please identify CIP projects or specific actions that should be taken. If you identified a road that you wanted or you identified that you need parks, where would you like the parks? Can you narrow that down? Can you identify how much money that would take? And should there be a CIP appropriation. Should there be at least some kind of study. And I’ve been trying to shift them from, I want to review that subdivision application to, we have a plan that says roads, infrastructure, etc. What do you need to get the roads and infrastructure in your community? So, it’s an ongoing conversation in trying to shift where I personally think the focus should be in terms of actually trying to implement the plan as opposed to getting hung up on every single application that comes through my department. MS. WONG: So, the bottom line on the question of eliminating either the steering committee or the action committee or both, your answer is no. MS. LEITHEAD-TODD: At this current time, I don’t see a significant cost savings because what I would do is I would reassign staff. It would mean that I would then take the staff that’s doing that and I would start moving them more on subdivision amendments and zoning code amendments where we’re just not getting to the work. MS. WONG: But then wouldn’t that be the reason for eliminating the action committee so you could reassign the staff? MS. LEITHEAD-TODD: I live in a political reality. And the political reality is that there is far more public interest and advocacy for the action committees than there is for revamping the subdivision code or the zoning code. And part of that reality is, is that government and even the Planning Department is not just a dollars and cents operation. A lot of it is the whole concept of the consent of the governed and the public trust. And as much of a headache as I personally view the action committees, as much as I personally think I can function effectively without them, I think the level of public distrust and disconnect, the sense that I was trying to hide something from the public, that I was 27