Time to execute plans

Fail to plan, plan to fail.

That old saw has been around for a lot longer than any of the 10 plans consultant Karen Craig waded through to build a new business plan for the economic future of Douglas County.

All 10 of those plans went to keeping the economic heart of Carson Valley and Stateline pumping and now we're paying someone else to go through them and tell us what they said.

It's not a bad thing to review the plans, but the danger is that the plan Craig is working on will go on the shelf with its 10 predecessors where it will be unearthed by some future consultant.

Fact is Douglas County is facing a serious challenge both in building a plan and following it. The building industry was a major source of income for the county with revenue sources ranging from building fees and sales tax on the front end to property taxes on the back end.

Without that source of money, the county is forced to look to others to support any economic development it plans. Hopefully that means the county can achieve its goals in coordination with private and other public entities while maintaining the reason we live here in the first place.

This place has great potential, and the county has to start somewhere. But a plan is just a stack of paper unless we also develop the force of will to make it a reality.