A process is underway in Niagara County called the Niagara Communities Comprehensive Plan. I wrote about it below on March 2, 2008. I’ll bet you still haven’t heard about it. I bet if you had heard about it you have since forgotten it. That’s too bad because this is a chance for you as a citizen to engage the communities as a potentially unified whole over the next 6 months of meetings and discussions regarding the future of Niagara County.
Actually, I do not exaggerate if I say that this is an amazing opportunity for the “stakeholders” in Niagara County to meet monthly to systematically discuss the issues, problems, potentials and possibilities of our communities, their concerns regarding land use, infrastructure, business needs and economic prospects and much more.
Hired to lead the process was a group of community planning experts called Clough Harbour & Associates. The project began on Feb. 27, 2008 with a Steering Committee meeting and one Public meeting. Since then a second Steering Committee meeting took place on March 26 at the Niagara County Center for Economic Development.
At the first Public meeting there was much negativity, cynicism and suspicion about spending several thousands of dollars on a questionably useful process. One citizen objected that the process would be used merely to legitimate decisions and projects already underway by the power bloc now in control of the county. Another attendee outright accused the consultants of being in it just and only for the money. I myself question the competency of the consultants but not their integrity. I had no reason to distrust them until I saw more. I questioned their competency only in the sense that I wanted some evidence that they knew what they were doing, that is, had some knowledge as to how to get antagonistic communities to work together in the interest of a unified whole not yet really even defined other than in name, namely, Niagara County as a “community” of communities. The man to whom I addressed my question, Mr. Walter Kalina an associate with CHA, was rather oddly mute when I asked my question. It was a simple question. I didn’t really get an answer. It seems that an experienced expert could have given me some brief synopsis of his work. But none was forthcoming. Yet I remained enamored if not bemused by anyone who might claim that they could unify such a fragmented geography, one which seems quite self-satisfied with its inability to come together in a unity, balance and harmony of political economy.
Nevertheless I remained hopeful that some good could come of this community process of self-examination and self-determination, or in the parlance of the community planning experts, simply PLANNING. My reason for optimism was that Kalina said possibly the best thing that could come out of this process was an authentic, trusting relationship of communities on the basis of which people might start working together. My idealistc democratic heart began to stir and populist juices began to flow. I was a believer.
I myself have since attended the first public meeting and the second steering committee meeting. I would have been at the first steering meeting but didn’t know that citizens not appointed by their jurisdiction as an official representative of the stakeholder group could attend the Steering meetings. I take full responsibility for that. And yet I excuse others because the Project has not been excessively advertised. I stumbled across an announcement of it in the local paper. I suppose if you are an avid reader of the county website you might also have seen a link to the subject of the Comprehensive Plan there. I don’t know how many attended the first steering meeting. I do know that at most about 20 or 25 people in a county of 240,000 or so were in attendance for the first Public meeting at the NCCC Fine Arts Auditorium. It seats about 500 or 600. Somebody had high hopes.
The second steering committee meeting had about 50-60 in attendance. I think there are @ 150 stakeholder representatives. I may be wrong about that. I do know that my own representative from North Tonawanda, Chuck Bell, was not in attendance at the second steering meeting although I understand he was at the first meeting.
At the second steering meeting it was promised that complete notes of the discussions would be circulated to all at the meeting by way of the internet. As of today, Saturday, April 19, no such notes have been forthcoming. I’ve sent several e-mails of inquiry to CHA, contacted Jason Murgia, Niagara County Legislator, and searched desperately on the hopelessly inadequate Niagara County website for some way to request the information.
Today however finally I received an e-mail from Mr. Kalina that the notes would be posted on the Niagara County site “early next week.” If we are lucky, this will give the 100 or so people involved time to review, think about and contact one another about the process. If we are lucky that “time to review” will be about 1 day. Yes, I wax sarcastic if you hadn’t noticed. Why? Because this just will not do. This is embarrassingly inadequate, demeaning and offensive to anyone seriously engaged in this process. Should I raise the question of the competency of CHA at the next meeting again? Or is it just a matter of the process not really being taken seriously?
Maybe as the pessimistic accuser at the first public meeting said, this Project will just be used to legitimate the prior decisions of the powers that be. Maybe it will be used, should it fail and is filed away as a final “REPORT” that no one will ever again read, to say to the people: “Well, we gave you a chance to practice democracy and you blew it. So we the rich and powerful, the conscientious and caring, must take over.” Is this a set-up? Am I paranoid? Is this Comprehensive Plan planned to fail. Will the Lone Ranger and Tonto ride in to save the day?
Well, the point is that not enough people are engaged in this process and too few are paying attention to the ‘process’ of the process. The Diamond here, my friends, is in the process itself. The “result” that matters here will be in the relationships that develop and the experience of seeing that people can come together to think about the whole of the county communities and how it might become One. The Report and Document that get filed away are not the result that will matter.
If we want to get our thousands of dollars of money worth we must participate. CHA must also spend more of that money to advertise this Project. And the naysayers who crapped on the Project such as the Tonawanda News editor’s column and the local blog Niagara Times need to get their collective head out of the sand, then come down from their high horses and smell the democratic process. It’s easy to pretend you can piss on the people when you stand in such high and lofty places.
I suggest you get involved and begin to learn to talk to one another with the unity, integrity and prosperity of the communities of Niagara County in mind.
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