Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee

George Larger proposed two alternative Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee slates at the Nov 2 2022, Maysville-Mason County Joint Planning Commission meeting.

The first he attributed to a collaboration of Maysville Mayor Debra L. Cotterill, Mason County Judge Executive Owen McNeill, Maysville City Manager Matt Wallingford, and Planning & Zoning Administrator George Larger.

Mayor Cotterill said the recommending governmental officials had two goals in making their slate. 1) Avoid candidates with agendas, 2) Get candidates with appropriate expertise.

Their slate has ten candidates whose most recent full-time employment was at a governmental agency. Six currently work full-time, and four are retired from full-time taxpayer-supported careers.

While all ten are fine individuals, is Mason County’s future best served by a comprehensive plan steering committee where 10 of the first 20 members come from the government sector?

A second slate was developed by Maysville-Mason County Joint Planning Commission chairperson David Reed

I was impressed by the balanced slate of candidates proposed by Mr. Reed. Although many on this slate can be accused of having an agenda, the slate’s breadth and expertise would have been a great aid in steering the process of making a comprehensive plan. This slate was equipped to trash out issues. With its high percentage of members from the government sector, will slate one avoid hard decisions and fall back to proposing simplistic “feel good”aspirational goals?

While the depth and balance of Mr. Reed’s slate was its strength, when the discussion of the first slate started JPC commissioner Frame tried to move only two anti-solar names from Mr. Reed’s slate onto slate one.

Here is a recording of the complete discussion

Discussion of the slates begins at approximately 12 minutes 30 sec in to the recording

Actions taken by the JPC

  • Adopt slate one with these changes
    • Drop these two candidates
      • #12 Darrell Williams – not a Mason County resident
      • #18 Holly Kimble – public education represented by other members
    • Add two candidates
      • Xandy Stewart – City member of Maysville-Mason County JPC
      • Kirby Rosser – County member of Maysville-Mason County JPC
  • Ask governmental officials to recommend a slate to represent these areas
    • River and/or rail transportation
    • Rural communities across Mason County
    • Agricultural businesses
    • ??? other areas the JPC may ask for
  • JPC to hold a special meeting
    • when government officials have prepared additional slate
    • Must finalize members of the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee or the process’ timeline will slip
  • Ms. Davis will
    • hold two public meetings to hear suggestions for the focus of the comprehensive plan.
      • Meetings will be on Dec 13, 2022
      • Expect one in the afternoon and the other in the evening
      • Location still to be announced
    • develop an initial “short-format” web-based public survey that allows more public input into the areas the Comprehensive Plan should focus on
  • George Larger stated these topics have a high probability of being the focus of our comprehensive plan
    • Transportation – required by state regulation
    • Landuse – required by state regulation
    • Community facilities – required by state regulation
    • Housing
    • Economic development
    • Ag – rural areas
    • Historic preservation
    • Other focus suggested by public