Let Butler's vision take life

Brent Butler resigned last week as head of the county's Growth and Development Office, after just four months on the job.

His eventual replacement, expected to be selected soon, will thus become the third director of the county's crucial planning and zoning operations in less than half a year. Butler's resignation couldn't have come at a worse time for the county, wrestling with major comprehensive plan issues regarding the nuclear power plant proposal and facing applications for a huge planned community (if fully developed a town larger than Mountain Home) in the Mayfield area. And with his leaving, the office is down not just a director, but one planner position and an inspector, positions that opened after Bonnie Sharp left the job Butler took and which haven't been filled yet.

Butler left not because the job was overwhelming, he'd quickly moved to bring himself up to speed, but due to personal matters involving the ill health of family members that he felt required that he relocate to their vicinity to help take care of them.

But the county lost a good one when he left. It was one of the best hires the commissioners had ever made.

Butler is extremely intelligent and has an impressive background that was perfect for the issues that will be coming before the county soon -- especially with regards to the Mayfield development proposals. Perhaps more importantly, he had a strong belief that he worked for the people of this county, not just the commissioners, and that it was vital to listen to what they wanted and develop plans that would meet their concerns. That's actually a rare attitude among bureaucrats, who have a tendency to see themselves sitting on their own little thrones.

But the thing that impressed me most about Brent was his sense of vision, the need to look ahead and do some serious "out of the box" long-range planning for the county.

All too often, planning and zoning operations wind up dealing with the crisis of the moment, and rarely get a chance, or even think seriously about, how the county should grow and develop over the long term.

Butler was in the initial stages of developing a long-range planning process to create a "vision" for the county that would look at least 20 years into the future, when he resigned.

But I am firmly convinced that the process and structure he was proposing are vitally needed and should be continued by his successor, hopefully with the same sense of purpose and open-minded approach that Butler brought to the table.

The recent flap over the nuclear power plant pointed out serious flaws in the county's comprehensive plan, which theoretically guides the growth and development of the county.

But the 2005 review of the document made only minor changes to the original plan. Essentially, it is the same plan developed 15 years ago, when it was first adopted. But the county has changed a lot in those 15 years, and potentially could change even more in the next 15 years.

A much better "look ahead" to create a plan that represents what people want the county to look like at the end of that time is needed, and massive review of growth for such items as industrial development, CAFOs, transportation needs and energy development are desperately required.

A comprehensive plan also guides the development of county ordinances, which implement that plan.

The county just got through with a major revision of its ordinances, and overall, it was a good piece of work, one that will serve as a good base for whatever changes a new comprehensive plan would require.

Technically, the county doesn't have to review its comp plan until 2015. But Butler believed, and I think he was 100 percent correct, that the county should immediately begin a 2- to 3-year process to rewrite it's comprehensive plan, and make an extensive effort to get the citizens of the county heavily involved in the planning process.

I can't encourage the county enough, and the Butler's replacement, whoever he or she is, to follow through with his vision of what needs to be done. If they do, then his brief tenure in office would not have been wasted time.