Slow down and explain

I live in Whitefish. I recently attended the Flathead County Board of Commissioners' review of the draft growth policy night before last in Kalispell.

I counted 32 from the audience who spoke. It seemed clear that the great majority of speakers felt the planning board has significantly worsened the document prepared by county staff several months ago.

The most disturbing aspect of the meeting to me was the planning board's response to the commissioners' questions. The commissioners asked many questions of the planning board: Why did you take out this? Why did you modify that?

The invariable answer was, "probably because…" or "perhaps the reason was…." Basically, they repeatedly responded by saying their work was done in a hurry without documentation, and they just did not remember for sure.

The commissioners were not well served by this display. In my view, the commissioners should be entitled to cogent explanation of each change the planning board made to the work of county staff. After all, the staff labored many hours, and you paid them good money to prepare their draft.

For you to implement a vast array of changes for reasons, which are not remembered, is far the other side of reasonable. Why not call the planning board to task and require preparation of a compendium documenting the reasons for their proposed changes? Then you, as commissioners, can make intelligent decisions and move forward with something to stand on.

The most frequent criticism by the speakers from the audience was the proposed changes to Chapter 10 on neighborhood planning. Today, I have had a cursory look at the planning board's markup version of this chapter. My God — practically the whole chapter is changed. It seems clear you three gentlemen need to step back and take a close look at what has happened here.

Ben and Doreen Cavin

Whitefish