Have you heard of this plan? I’ll bet not. Actually it’s a year-long effort to create a plan, a County-wide brainstorming process to figure out what we need to do to improve life in Niagara County. More concretely, it's a series of meetings of representatives of supposedly all the "communities" and "stakeholders" in Niagara County. These representatives constitute the Steering Committee. There will also be 4 more open-to-all public meetings apparently of an informational nature but also open to comments and questions on the part of the public regarding the progress of the process.
It’s just getting under way although the representatives for the steering committee have already been chosen. I'm not sure how often they will meet. If you did hear of this project, I fear that it appeared as another HoHum technocratic endeavor that begins and ends with a lot of talk by business, managerial, and bureaucratic types but nothing happens.
That was the fear that a few people at the first public informational meeting expressed quite vociferously with sharp overtones of anger, cynicism and pessimism. Nevertheless, this project is a countywide comprehensive plan to serve as a concrete vision of our future that will include specific recommendations at its conclusion next Fall. New York State does not require this planning process but encourages it.
The meeting was held at NCCC last Wednesday, Feb. 27 in the Fine Arts Auditorium. There were roughly 25 people in attendance. If there are about 250,000 people in Niagara County that’s about 1 in every 10,000 people in attendance. There was a “stakeholders” meeting earlier in the day. I wasn’t invited. Were you?
I’ll take responsibility for not knowing anything about this until I saw it in the paper last week. But I suspect that even if I did know about it at the start, I still wouldn’t have been able to get myself invited. I jest of course. Why should I be invited? What “stake” do I have, mild-mannered insignificant philosophy professor that I am.
My point is that it seems the choice of stakeholders while based on a reasonable if not obvious criterion may still be suspect. But why should I be suspicious? After all the brochure says, “Each phase of the process relies on participation by the stakeholder communities and the public for its input.” Ok, fair enough. But in the first place, why distinguish ‘stakeholders’ from the ‘public’? Could that mean, pray tell, that there could be some citizens who aren’t stakeholders but still get to count as part of the “public?” But since the “public” isn’t a stakeholder, that means that they only get to participate in these “informational” meetings. They don’t really get to “plan.” Did anybody consider that with such a criterion, that the public itself is really at "stake?"
Does that mean that the stake-less public gets to be “informed” after the real decisions by the people that matter have already been made? Well, my fear is that the usual suspects or their spokespeople will be on the Steering Committee. Yes there will be some ordinary, average everyday citizens who will represent their communities, at least I hope. Nevertheless I seriously doubt that the representation will really be representative. And I doubt that the “public” will be represented. My last doubt is that the summing up of the whole process at the bitter end by those leading the process will resemble the data gathered.
I have many more doubts and questions. I hope you look into it. After all we’ve apparently spent a lot of taxpayers’ money on this little adventure. One attendee at the Public Meeting asked the speaker representing CLA, the consulting firm running the show, if it was true they were getting over $300,000 for this love fest. Walter Kalina, the consultant representing CLA, refused to answer.
I have my doubts but I am really not cynical. Possibly a skeptic and not really yet inspired. Yet it could be a great thing if it spurs public discourse and stirs a sense of community. Hopefully it will not continue in the spirit of the naysayers who set much of the tone of the first public meeting.
My lingering puzzlement is why I don’t hear about these things until after the players are picked. It reminds me of reading in the paper that Wal-Mart in NT was a “done deal” even before I knew the big-box monopoly was possibly setting up shop on the Boulevard. It reminds me also of reading in the paper that some other “consulting firm” had completed their plans to “improve” Gratwick Park before I even knew they were hired to do so. From what I read of their proposals my cat could have come up with something considerably more creative for much less than the $50,000 bucks I heard NT spent. Ok, ok maybe I’m just out of the loop. But will someone please tell me where/when the “loop” starts?
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