NS Contract - Strategic Growth Rural Conservation Consultant Implementation Update Amendment

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. 6 want to accomplish this. Any thoughts you would have would be wrapped into .the comments to the commissioners. My role is not to be an advocate one way or the other but try to implement the contract that was approved by the commissioners through the specific amount of meetings they ask for. Ja B an: M understandin is that we are not asked to take the action listed in the abstract? The Y rY Y 9 action has been withdrawn? Craig Benedict: Yes. This is for information for the board and we are not asking you to take any action. It was sent just to the committee. Renee Price: One thing that should be clearer. One of the main reasons the group wanted to slow down the process was there had not been participation of the group for nine months. rra~~ Benedict The last meetinTs A ri1 . , 2007 Renee Price: Most people did not feel they had an opportunity for input. We found many items uncomfortable, for example the 50 acres and that would leave out a lot of people. We didn't condemn the program we just wanted more input. Judith Wegner: There were questions. If we wanted community buy-in, we need to break the complex material down into information that is more feasible to understand. We have a lot of questions about sending and receiving areas. This seems out of sync with many issues. Some of the issues were; what were the criteria for a potential candidate to be in a sending area. There has to be a balance created. There is also an issue of how this is explained to people. I don't see the market for that. The issues are complex. The small task group said, "don't go there yet". Renee Price: There was a thought to slow it down. On the other hand there was also the speculation to • go forward because we have been looking at this for fifteen years. Jeffrey Schmitt: I commend this ad hoc group and anything that this Board can do to slow down that process will be a benefit the County and citizens. At a minimum it would seem we would have the Comprehensive Plan developed and ready to go forward before we decide this will work? Can we put this consultant in neutral for a while? Craig Benedict: Consultants often have a proposal to finish something in a specific timeframe. A suggestion by the ad hoc group was to have more committee and outreach meetings. So they are coming up with a proposal. The contracts are up to $47,000 now for Phase III work. It may be the new timeframe will be something that is agreed to. There will be additional monies for additional meetings. The November 19th meeting was not to have an ordinance, it was to have a plan and how credits would be created in sending and receiving density bonuses would be created on the other end and if that looked fine, we could proceed to ordinance writing in the spring of 2008. It would be a two-step process like with some of the small area plans. Jeffrey Schmitt: It seems this is a way for the County spends more money that most committees think has no value added. How can we go to the Board of County Commissioners and stop this? Craig said he is the manager of the process. If it were I, I would be frustrated. Craig Benedict: I am hearing this is a fast process but it has been discussed for 15 years. In 1997 it became a clear commission goal. The Board of County Commissioners has approved the process for Phases I, II and III, which is the implementation program. My direction is not to discuss policy questions but maybe the timing of it now. I agree that maybe November is too early. The task force appointed by the commissioners for Phases I and II was different than the task force where this board offered up interested parties to work on the implementation and the amount of outreach and involvement was more • on a technical basis. You can suggest changing the timeframe to have more community involvement and those modifications can be brought back to the commissioners.