DUANE SHERRILLEditor

The city is pressing ahead on hearings on the 2045 Comprehensive Plan after the paperwork has set dormant.

Alderman Kurt Glick said he would like to see the comprehensive plan passed this calendar year. Glick’s statements come after fellow Alderman Bobbie Wilson, in the prior city meeting, asked why more isn’t being done to adopt a workable plan for the city’s future.

“I’d like to have it passed this year, otherwise it’ll the 2046 Plan,” Glick quipped, noting the proposed 2045 has been gathering dust for the last year. “I’m just trying to get the process along to get a 20-year comprehensive plan approved.”

Glick pointed out that the original plan, known as the 2040 Comprehensive Plan was rejected by the former board, leading to the formation of a team to come up with a new plan.

“As you know the last board of mayor and aldermen voted down the proposed 2040 plan,” Glick noted. “They put into place the community development committee to review these plans and to come up with a new one.”

The modernized 2011 plan that the city is following now was only supposed to be a stop gap measure, Glick said.

“This committee sent over two years having hundreds of hours of meetings,” he said of the committee which has formulated the 2045 plan.

“They used the 2040 plan, they used the 2011 plan and then they used plans they located throughout the state and the country to come up with the 2045 plan,” Glick said.

The alderman said the next step is for the plan to be presented to the planning commission and then to the entire board of mayor and aldermen.

Mayor Lynn Sebourn said that he and other members of the board had questions about the 2045 plan and that there is still tweaking that needs to be done before the plan can be accepted.

“We may be starting there but they’ll be adjustments,” the mayor said. “This isn’t going to be a rubber stamp process by any means.”

Alderman Wilson said she fears that if the city doesn’t start now, then a comprehensive plan may never happen.

“We need to come together and whittle it down,” she said.

Glick agreed, noting a joint study session is what is needed. “I think we can come up with something we all agree on,” he said.

The board voted unanimously to set up a planning session within a month concerning the 2045 plan.