No plan is their idea of a best plan

     It appears that the new Carroll County Commissioners not only hated the proposed Pathways plan for managing growth, but they didn't like the 2000 master plan, either.
     In fact, it was clear from the recent exchange with staff over the current planning commission's recommendations that the only thing that will make the ultra conservative commissioners happy is essentially no plan at all. Or as little as law allows.
     To their consternation, the law requires more planning than they thought when they came into office.
     Richard Rothschild in District Four is a strict constitutionalist. He doesn't even like the words used by those who would make a master plan. He says their proposals contain "code words," and "sneaky Pete" terms that have a way of becoming law and taking away the rights of people to do what they want. He dislikes, apparently, words like global, collaborative, cooperative, jointly, preservation, environmental zone, wildlife protection area.
     Robin Frazier, too, made comments showing that she would prefer to allow businesses and developers to do what they will with the laws already on the books, and let the future take care of itself.
     Two citizens, expressing appreciation for the apparent rejection of the planning and zoning commission's recommendations for managing growth, spoke for the property rights advocates  and constitutionalists constituencies.  One man said there are two schools of thought about master planning. One is that you try to see what's coming and prepare for it, and the other is deciding what the future should be like and make it happen. The latter, he said, is socialism.
     A woman said she came here from Boulder, CO., and had seen the future of Carroll County. Boulder, she said, has been ruined by planning; we don't want a Boulder here.
     There was no one in the room who stood up and pointed out that Boulder, a vibrant university town near Denver, has been considered by many to be one of the more desirable communities in America, but there you have it; those who like progressive communities with adequate facilities and managed growth and protected environments did not show up for the meeting.
Maybe they didn't show up for the election, either.
     But everyone knows that politics is a pendulum, swinging right and left and never really pausing in the middle. Eight years ago, people who might like Boulder showed up to vote. They voted Frazier and others who expressed views like Rothschild's out of office. They may be back in 2014.