The Future of Columbia County is at Stake
By Karla Boggs
It is unquestionable that the most effective and enduring decisions occur when those who make the decisions are those who feel the impact of those decisions.
A broad cross-section of local citizen involvement in the updating and maintaining of the County Comprehensive Plan and the Development Regulations is essential to the planning process.
The new Columbia County Planner has stated that after the first of the year, he plans to set up public visioning meetings. This should allow the residents of our community to provide valuable input on this county's future, including the opportunity for individual opinions of precisely how this county should grow and how much control the residents wish to have over that potential growth.
A very important component of the Comprehensive Plan is the Rural Element. According to one of several guidance documents published by the Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development, called "Keeping the Rural Vision, Protecting Rural Character and Planning for Rural Development", the heart of the Rural Element is: we, as a community, define and plan for the protection of the rural character of our county.
Each county must define rural character based upon the natural environment, historic properties, traditional rural lifestyles and visual landscapes unique to its rural areas within the framework of the Growth Management Act.
A recent study done by the University of Idaho's Department of Conservation Social Sciences suggests that the majority of the residents of Dayton, Starbuck and Columbia County would like to:
• Maintain small town, rural, peoplecentered
lifestyles and values
• Maintain agricultural heritage and
working landscapes
• Continue historic preservation
• Provide economic lifestyle incentives
to retain youth and young families
• Grow the economy
Without diluting values through:
• Major in-migration
• Overdevelopment
• Conversion of land from agriculture/
forestry
• Loss of small-town character and
heritage
• Succumbing to outside pressures
and becoming dependent on outside
resources and government
Some ways to become involved in the planning process include: attending planning meetings, writing letters to the Planning Commission, County Commissioners and local newspapers, finding a group or organization that you are interested in and volunteering to help in whatever capacity you are able.
Because power rests with the citizens, the future of this county is in our hands. In order to effectively plan for the future of our community, it needs to be viewed not only as a place of residence, recreation, and retail, but as a place that nurtures active and informed citizens with the skills and productive capacity to generate real wealth and the authority to govern our own lives. This includes accepting responsibility for the welfare of our members and for preserving our community for future generations.
Copyright (c) 2008, Blue Mountain News