(from the Thursday, August 11th lead article at Arcata1.com)
See also:  The Gateway Plan Advisory Committee: Why it’s crucial
The original request, from the August 9th Planning Commission meeting agenda packet, is here.

Gateway Plan Advisory Committee proposed

At the Tuesday, August 9th Planning Commission meeting, a period of over an hour was devoted to the presentation by Scott McBain, and subsequent questions and discussion, for plans for a Gateway Plan Advisory Committee.  See transcription and video here.

The Advisory Committee, made up of perhaps 7 to 9 members appointed by the City Council, would serve as an adjunct to the the Planning Commission, the City’s Committees, and City Staff to more fully research, explore, and obtain public input on some of the larger issues affecting the Gateway plan and its process. This Advisory Committee would in no way replace the work of the existing operational groups, but could provide in-depth reporting on matters that simply cannot be covered over the course of a two-hour or three-hour meeting.

For anyone who thinks that the Commission and the Committees have it all covered and “there’s no additional meaningful fact finding or public review … which an ad hoc committee would add to the process,” as Colin Fiske said at the August 9th Planning Commission meeting, I only need to direct him and others to the example — one of many such examples — shown in the testimony of Arcata Fire District Board of Directors member Eric Loudenslager at the previous Planning Commission meeting, just five days earlier. See the entry on August 8th on this page here or read his words in full here.

If the Fire District can feel snubbed, with their advice for taller buildings disregarded and requests for an evaluation of the real and currently-unknown costs to the community of this development, what else is put in the category of “we’ll cover that later”? How about:  Schools, police, wastewater treatment, sea level rise, feasibility of constructing an 8-story building in an area where you hit water just three feet below the surface, the tiny likelihood of getting insurance coverage and bank loans on the theoretical “home-ownership opportunity” condominiums…. Would you call these major issues?  I do.

I’m not saying that we have to solve everything in order to create this plan.  I am saying, however, that it certainly pays to know and comprehend the size of the issues we’re dealing with. As I’ve said elsewhere, a plan that cannot be reasonably implemented is not a plan at all.