Community championless in planning process

Again, the community is championless, their voices drowned out by the virtual din of a three-minute timer. At a Douglas County Planning Commission hearing this week, a packed throng gamely made public comments opposing yet another major master plan amendment and major zoning map amendment; this one proffered by the much venerated land steward of Douglas County, Don Bently, and employee James Usher.

As usual, the county's citizens were constrained to a time period barely sufficient to cook a soft-boiled egg, much less to give adequate voice to their serious concerns. The focus of their ire were two amendments involving five distinct project components; consisting of 67 parcels; totaling more than 2,100 acres from east of the Carson River to Fish Springs; and with concomitant zoning changes involving one dwelling unit per 19-acre forest and range and irrigated agriculture land use parcels. Also included in the complicated, inadequately understood hodge-podge project applications, were zoning map amendments transforming one dwelling unit per 19 acre minimums to one dwelling unit per 5-acre rural residential parcels.

The county planning commissioners approved virtually every aspect of the two amendments. We must be living in an alternate universe. How else can one account for such blithely ill-informed decision-making? By their questions and by their total reliance on staff, whose role is clearly advocacy rather than impartial information-giving, it was apparent the county's citizen planning commissioners had a generally shaky grasp of the projects' implications and long term burdens. Were it so that we lived in a world where supposed good intentions alone sufficed for public governance. But that is not the world we live in. Ill-considered decisions have consequences.

Apart from decisions made without complete understanding, the approvals were all the more surprising at a time when the county's master plan is undergoing its 10 year review. The approvals were also surprising because available water studies promised circa 1996 on the last master plan have yet to be completed along with other elements of the master plan. To some, it seems that the plan is a document meant to be honored more in its breach than in the observance. Astonishing, too, were that the approvals were made in spite of ongoing and seemingly endless growth management litigation. And startling as well because these approvals came on the heels of this month's county election when a restive electorate remained reliably ill humored at paying the increasing cost of growth-related infrastructure.

But despite all of this, the county's self-defined savants paternally ignored, as though inaudible, the voices of the many speakers who rose in opposition. Sitting in disinterested silence, testaments to the triumph of endurance over enlightenment, the county planning commissioners waited as the queue of citizen speakers said their pieces for whatever good it might yet make.

When the will of the people goes unheeded and their voices are unheard, who speaks for the community? Why is their will thwarted? Who among us yet believes the sincerely insincere pabulum of campaigning politicians who disingenuously solicit constituent input? Indeed, at this week's hearing, our newly-minted county commissioner but still chairwoman of the planning commission felt compelled to repeat how the hearings normally end at 4 p.m. as her undissuaded constituents nevertheless continued to exercise their right to speak. And the beat goes on.

The role of county staff at these planning hearings remains of more than passing interest.

Thoroughly invested in their own recommendations, county planning director Mimi Moss and her staff are advocates rather than neutral advisors presenting an application's pros and cons to the commissioners. In reply to one planning commissioner's question asking, "Why should we approve this?," the director's condescending reply was, "Why not?" Moreover, without being asked by any party, the director interjected, commented, and suggested, relentlessly advancing the staff's position. Such conduct repeatedly begs the question of whose will is served, especially when it increasingly appears that a "rubber-stamp" is a verb and a "responsible amendment" is an oxymoron. Don't these public employees work for the citizens of Douglas County? The department's high-minded mission statement seems to say so, "To provide the highest quality and professional service to the citizens of Douglas County in the areas of Engineering, Planning/Code Enforcement, Building, Water/Sewer Utilities and Roads."

Thomas Jefferson said, "Where the law of the majority ceases to be acknowledged, there government ends, the law of the strongest takes its place, and life and property are his who can take them." (Thomas Jefferson to Annapolis Citizens, 1809). One can yet hope for the day when government will speak for the community rather than minority special interests. But until that day comes and until our speech is no longer constrained by egg-timers, we must renew our resolve by something else Thomas Jefferson said, in his letter to Benjamin Waring in 1801, "The will of the people. . . is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object."

n Mo Hernandez is a local Minden attorney.