Guest opinion: County Face Challenges of Fragmentation and Connectivity

By Walt Corbin

Where is this County going? Does the Council have a road map for the future? Who is doing the planning? Is the Vision Statement of the Comprehensive Plan being implemented?

While attending a recent meeting of the San Juan Initiative, I was  rewarded by a guest ecologist with two words that puts in a nutshell my take on the state of our County government. These words, fragmentation and connectivity, have great impact on our environment and as it turns out on the citizens of San Juan County.

I figured it would take a couple of years to iron out the usual  problems that occur when going from a politically based commissioner form of government to that of a nonpartisan council form that provides a professional county manager.

Yes, we have taken the politicos out of County management with 6 council members to determine policy. They handle no legal land use issues or day to day management of County employees. I believe, they have a lack of understanding of how a Charter form of government functions. And because of that they have inadvertently Balkanized our archipelago. They have lost their connectivity with the citizens and only include them in times of crisis.

I believe that they are presently operating without a road map. They are not implementing the Vision of our mandated Comprehensive Plan. Though I am sure each of the Council members has their own opinion of that vision, they have failed to act by implementing the necessary parts of  the vision.

In fact, it is my belief that the Council has no road map for our  future. How can you get to a destination without a road map? What happens without a map is that you get tangled up in side roads or issues that delay and impede. In fact you become so distracted or mired down, you can never reach you real destination. No business can succeed unless it has a well considered business plan. It up to our board, the Council, see that such a plan is devised and then implemented.

I have been told that the Council has no time nor money to do the necessary planning. I find that hard to understand as they meet twice as much as other Charter Councils and are paid 50% more than councils having constituencies of over 175,000 citizens. However, if they cannot provide policy to plan and implement our vision, then they should at least appointment county-wide committees to deal with these matters. What buildings will the County need in 20 years? How are we going to deal with build-out and the densities that will occur. How will transportation, solid waste, communications and other infrastructure be accommodated? How will we manage to keep our County rural and sustainable? Please tell me!