July 14th, 2009

The Honorable Julia W. Gouge
President
Board of County Commissioners
225 North Center Street
Westminster, Maryland 21157

Dear President Gouge,

This Board of Commissioners will be remembered for its willingness to tackle vexing legacy issues. None is more important than our comprehensive land use plan known as Pathways.

I have been giving some thought to what sort of public engagement process might be helpful when the Planning and Zoning Commission gives us their recommendations for Pathways. We need to start now to establish the parameters of that public engagement process.

Once we receive their proposals our sixty day time frame will push us and the people to quickly process and act upon the plan that will be delivered to us within weeks. It would be a grave mistake to wait until we receive the plan to design our Commissioner Board process.

My preference is to see a multi-layered series of efforts. I envision two layers of workshop oriented meetings culminated with a series of concentrated public hearings.

The first set of meetings could be five Pathways Regional Workshops. These would include ten groups of ten participants each to work through a written survey as a group. Each group would have a staff member or Planning and Zoning Commission member present to answer questions that the group members may have as they work through the survey.

Each group’s work product would be summarized in a verbal report at the meeting and a written report after the meeting. Good meeting spots could include Oklahoma Road Middle School, Mt. Airy Middle School, Winters Mill High School, Northwest Middle School and Shiloh Middle School.

Participants should be identified in advance and provided a healthy background package of information. The actual survey should also be presented in advance so each group could really hit the ground running.

The next series of meetings could be outreach meetings that blend presentation and public comments and questions. They could start at 6:30PM with a presentation from staff. That could end at 7:15 PM followed by a presentation from members of the Planning and Zoning Commission. That could end at 7:25PM to end the evening with public comment and questions. Some Commissioner involvement would be helpful at these meetings. Each of us could attend all three. Alternatively each could be moderated by one of us.

Good locations for these meeting could be Century High School, Manchester Valley High School and Winters Mill High School. This again should allow for a broad cross section of the county to participate. These meetings should be televised.

There remains a place for traditional public hearings in the process where the public comments and we just listen. Rather than one really big meeting to take comment, What if we had three separate meetings spread out over one day?

For example we could have a morning meeting from 9:00 to 11:00AM in room 003 here at the county office building. In the afternoon we could start again for more comment from 1:00 to 3:00PM in the same room. For the final meeting a larger venue would be preferred. The Scott Center from 7:00 to 9:00PM would seem to fit that description.

This letter is merely to stimulate discussion on what an engagement process could look like. I have no intentions of trying to dictate these parameters. My goal is merely to engage with you, Commissioner Minnich and our staff to craft together such a process.

I respect the fact that others may prefer a vastly different system from what I have out lined. I am happy to discuss alternative visions or modifications to these proposals that would enhance the public engagement process.

There have been times during our term where I have been extremely proud of our public engagement process, such as during the waste-to-energy discussions.  There have been other times, such as the future of law enforcement, where we clearly fell short of the mark.

Let us make land use, which may be the last and most important legacy decision of this Board, be characterized as one of our better moments from an engagement perspective.

Very truly yours,

Michael D. Zimmer
Commissioner