Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2015 14:34:08 -0400
From: Whatzup
Subject: The Fix is in? Jim Elza has a history of disregarding public input
Jim Elza was the Polk County, Iowa’s director for planning and development. From the article below we can see that he has a history of claiming “broad-based public input is essential to the success of the plan,” but not really following through on the claim.
Unfortunately we are seeing this same non-transparent pattern being followed right here in Chatham County now.
The article is a long read, so I picked out the pertinent paragraphs that show a pattern of disregard for public input by Mr. Elza.
*Mother Earth:*
http://www.dmcityview.com/archives/2006/01jan/01-26-06/mother-earth.shtml
By Carolyn Szczepanski
Rebecca Holdridge hasn’t taken a vacation in five years, and, lately, she says even a good night’s sleep has been hard to come by. Living just east of Ankeny with area development running rampant, she worries that, the moment she takes even a moment’s rest or leaves town for so much as a week, some nightmare scenario will deal the final blow to her rural way of life.
So, a year ago, when Polk County began the process of revising its Comprehensive Plan – a document that guides, not only land use and housing development, but outlines economic development priorities – Holdridge was first in line to make good on the county’s claim that “broad-based public input is essential to the success of the plan.” Over the course of 2005, as more than a dozen participants from her North Central region met month after month, Holdridge says, “I made sure I made every meeting; it was that important to me.” But, as the draft plan debuts next week at a handful of open houses, Holdridge and others say the county’s claim of “broad-based public input” is little more than public relations. According to critical citizens, they were fed a bunch of rhetoric about their vital participation while the fix was already in for a feast of development that feeds the expansion-hungry cities and starves rural integrity.
As *Jim Elza, county’s director for planning and development and project coordinator for the comprehensive plan* says, the revision was needed, not just because the previous one dates to 1990, but because the past decade of growth has necessitated a new vision. In that effort, the county signed a *$384,000* contract with URS Corporation to provide background studies and facilitate six committees – economic development, housing, and four geographic quadrants – over a 15-month process culminating in a tangible strategy that Elza says will “steer public and private decisions” as the county moves toward 2030.
*Those committees, Elza explains, offered the public “tremendous” opportunity to engage in open debate and have their ideas and concerns directly considered by the plan’s overall steering committee. But, make no mistake, Elza emphasizes: the steering committee – staffed by “people in public and business occupations” appointed by the Board of Supervisors – was the “ultimate arbitrator.” And participants who are crying foul about their level of input are simply trying to “misconstrue” the process, Elza says.*
*”These are advisory committees,” Elza says forcefully. “They are not deciding, they’re advising. They were given instruction on their roles in the beginning and if they thought they were a deciding body, I’d take umbrage with that.”*
And Holdridge wasn’t the only one who began to question the consistency of the committee’s progress and the efficacy of the public input. As Mike Baldus, also a North Central committee participant, explains, there was the perennial dividing line between the supposed “zero-growth fanatics” and the development-hungry “grow-or-die” types. But as the meetings progressed, he adds, it seemed that “there were also some mysterious things going on behind the scenes that, to this day, I’ve not really figured out what was happening, who was pulling what strings.”
“Towards the very end,” he explains, “they came back with maps [outlining proposed patterns of growth] for us to pick from again, and some of what we had already established had changed. Which left some of the members saying, ‘Wait a minute, I thought we agreed to this map and, if so, why has that part of the map changed?'”
Elza, who fielded calls from concerned residents like Holdridge, counters that such supposed mysteries were simply a matter of “point of view” and, in an attempt to foster consensus and dialogue instead of divisive voting, the process included inherent compromises. But some worry that the process stacked the deck in favor of cities, rather than citizens.
Elza counters that, “We clearly said the Beltway was in the plan; there was no vote on whether or not to have the Beltway,” and instead emphasizes that, on the issues up for debate, the public’s voice was heard. “I think people don’t realize how much we’ve gone out to ask people what we should be doing,” he says. “But we have to absorb 150,000 people in this 25-year period, and part of the question we struggled with was, ‘Where do you put them?’ You might be in favor of saving all the agricultural land; we want to save as much as possible, too. But you still have to put 150,000 people here. No matter how you cut it, we have to provide for that, and that’s what the plan does.” Not to mention, he adds, the plan deals with population realities while addressing environmental issues like water quality and runoff. “It’s more concentrated growth; less sprawl, if you will,” he summarizes. “Of course, that’s not the view of everybody.”
Maybe Mr. Elza needs to step down as the chair of the Chatham County Land Use Plan subcommittee.