Ranking county

priorities, plans
By Scott Nicholson
nicholson@wataugademocrat.com

The seventh in a series of community meetings was held in Boone Tuesday night, allowing local residents to help build a platform for Watauga County’s next long-range plan.

Jac Whatley, consultant with the engineering firm Martin-McGill that is helping develop the plan, led a seven-citizen oversight committee that was leading the meetings to gather input from each community, as well as how people felt about issues across the whole county.

“We all have realized is that Boone will continue to grow and Watauga County will continue to grow, and we need to plan ahead and make the best use of our limited resources,” said Shelton Wilder, who is a member of the oversight committee.

“The last county plan was in 1992, so certainly it’s time for an update.” Wilder also said the direction of the plan was far from being decided.

“There is no established hidden agenda, as some people speak of at times,” he said. “We’re here to gather ideas.”

About 230 surveys have been filled out, half of them coming through the county’s Web site at www.wataugacounty.org.

According to those surveys, public safety is ranked as the most important issue. That’s followed by water, traffic, protection of natural resources, ecological problems and solutions, community input on land use, employment opportunities, educational opportunities and the quality of county services.

At the bottom of the list were social interaction, aesthetic design and cultural events.

Whatley said the data collection phase could last a year and said the data list was “generic.”

The real mission is in getting input from the communities through the elementary school districts, he said.

Reported concerns had varied a great deal, from keeping open elementary schools to providing an urgent care center to hazardous household waste disposal.

He noted some issues were state issues while the county was limited in the issues it could address or regulate.

Comments made at the meeting covered recycling countywide; linking countywide water-and-sewer expansion to zoning; quarries for road construction; land-use planning; traffic, particularly for children’s school access; road improvements for secondary roads used as shortcuts; affordable housing; hazardous waste disposal days and more convenient recycling; greenway expansion; improve zero-waste ideas; corridor planning; clarity of restrictions and regulations; parks and athletic-fields enhancement; and a recreation center, possibly with integrated health elements.

Participants then ranked the issues by placing dots next to the issues they felt were most important, with affordable housing, water-sewer-zoning, land-use planning, corridor planning and transportation being rated most important.

County commissioners John Cooper and Winston Kinsey and Boone Town Council members Liz Aycock, Lynne Mason and Stephen Phillips were among the 25 people in attendance.

The final meetings are at Mabel Elementary next Tuesday and Valle Crucis Elementary on Jan. 25. A make-up date will also be scheduled at Green Park Elementary.

The data will then be compiled and the oversight committee will develop recommendations on how to use the information in a planning document.

The county will provide other public-input opportunities throughout the process.