Steering committee formed for comprehensive plan update process

​YORK – A steering committee has been formed to start the process of updating York County’s comprehensive plan.

​The comprehensive plan is a road map, of sorts, for land use, goals, zoning, etc., for the next 10 years in York County.
It is updated every 10 years and the time has come to do it again.
It is a long process – typically taking a year or so.
This week, York County Commissioner Chairman Randy Obermier brought up to the county board how he thinks a steering committee should be appointed in these beginning stages, working with Marvin Planning Consultants.
“I think it would be a good idea to have this,” Obermier said. “Maybe a couple of people from this board, a couple of people from the planning and zoning board, maybe a couple of people from different communities in the county, as well as Nate Heinz (zoning administrator). Having a committee that is too large might be too much so I thought maybe five people would be enough or a few more? I don’t know. I wanted to see how the board feels.”
“I think three from each board would be good,” said Commissioner Andy Bowman. “I like the idea of having people from different communities but then who do you cut off? And we don’t want the committee to be too big because that could get cumbersome.”
It was pointed out that if there are three members from each board present, that would create a quorum for each and all the meetings would have to be put out in legal notices ahead of time, to comply with the open meetings act.
“And there will be plenty, many, public meetings regarding the comprehensive plan as this process moves forward,” said Commissioner Daniel Grotz.
‘I don’t think that’s an issue because we are talking about such huge things,” Bowman said. “I think these should all be public open meetings.”
“If that’s the case, then we can just have it be all the members on both boards, along with Nate (Heinz),” Obermier said.
The other commissioners agreed and the steering committee was formed.