I'm so glad to see all the passion on this issue. Here's a perfect opportunity for folks to get to know their county commissioners, speak up, write letters, and have their voices heard and responded to. Patience and persistence are essential.
I share the puzzlement as to why we keep having to reinvent the wheel, and as one who's served on a number of quasi-legislative boards writing some of these ordinances, I cannot begin to suggest an explanation. I have tried and generally got nowhere.
But I must say, consultants aren't all bad. Part of why we keep reinventing the wheel is because the powers that be seem to have a strong distaste for paying to bring in folks who craft municipal ordinances for a living and know how to write them so that they can be understood, followed and enforced effectively and withuot expensive lawsuits. Instead, TPTB put well intentioned laypeople (citizens apointed to the boards and task forces) and equally well intentioned county staff in the impossible position of coming up with codes out of the blue. The result is ultimately, I believe, far more expensive in terms of lawsuits and county staff time/$$ than it would be to pay an expert facilitator/code writer to assist in getting rules on the books that we can all live with.
I am certain the roots of this must be political, but I am so far from being a natural born politician that that entire realm leaves me reeling with confusion.
I'm all behind any effort that brings about positive change in the process whereby Walton County addresses these univeral community issues -- issues that no doubt will continue painfully and expensively for us all unless we make the needed changes.
I share the puzzlement as to why we keep having to reinvent the wheel, and as one who's served on a number of quasi-legislative boards writing some of these ordinances, I cannot begin to suggest an explanation. I have tried and generally got nowhere.
But I must say, consultants aren't all bad. Part of why we keep reinventing the wheel is because the powers that be seem to have a strong distaste for paying to bring in folks who craft municipal ordinances for a living and know how to write them so that they can be understood, followed and enforced effectively and withuot expensive lawsuits. Instead, TPTB put well intentioned laypeople (citizens apointed to the boards and task forces) and equally well intentioned county staff in the impossible position of coming up with codes out of the blue. The result is ultimately, I believe, far more expensive in terms of lawsuits and county staff time/$$ than it would be to pay an expert facilitator/code writer to assist in getting rules on the books that we can all live with.
I am certain the roots of this must be political, but I am so far from being a natural born politician that that entire realm leaves me reeling with confusion.
I'm all behind any effort that brings about positive change in the process whereby Walton County addresses these univeral community issues -- issues that no doubt will continue painfully and expensively for us all unless we make the needed changes.