Editorial

Lots of questions, no easy answers for county

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

How should Elmore County grow over the next 30 to 50 years?

Does it need more factories and other industries, and what types are suitable for a high desert environment where water is considered more precious than gold?

What types of retail businesses would offer the most benefit, and can communities across this county draw them here?

How many additional people and homes can the county handle without ruining the rural lifestyle that draws folks here? More importantly, how much money and additional resources do the school district, county hospital and law enforcement agencies need if the population here doubles or triples in size?

Truth be told, there's no easy way to answer these questions. Depending on who you ask and how you phrase the question, expect to get a different response. There's just no quick-and-easy solution to any of them.

However, those are just some of the questions facing county officials as they debate whether to allow developers to turn thousands of acres of agricultural land into a pair of planned communities in western Elmore County. The Mayfield Springs and significantly larger Mayfield Townsite projects represent the most rapid, monumental growth in the county's history.

If both gain approval by the county's planning and zoning commission and the board of county commissioners, both could completely reshape the political, economic and social landscape of this region. In addition to tripling the county's population over the course of 50 years, they would dwarf Mountain Home and every other community in the county.

However, if you were to listen in on the series of meetings held to date, you'd wonder if anybody in the county is really paying attention.

Public hearings on the smaller Mayfield Springs project received the testimony of just two private individuals in recent months. Meanwhile, the much-larger townsite project has, to date, just 22 residents and representatives from various organizations signed up to testify. If you exclude the comments expected from those state and county representatives, those that remain represent less than one-one thousandth of the county's total population.

But what do you think? How should the county respond to anticipated growth over the next half century?

Right now, that decision rests on the shoulders of just three commissioners and seven planning and zoning representatives. How they vote is based on official reports and comments and the input of less than two dozen citizens.

To a point, our elected officials are working in a vacuum -- a void of public opinion. They're not entirely sure if most folks want the county to maintain the status quo and the lifestyle people currently enjoy or if they're open to allowing significant urban growth to bring in needed tax revenue to improve our standard of living.

Far too often, people tend to remain content with the way things are going until the die is cast -- then someone votes on something and a decision gets made to change the status quo. By then, it's usually too late for anyone to raise their voice.

At 7 p.m. Feb. 16 at War Memorial Hall in Mountain Home, the planning and zoning commission plans to take the first public comments regarding the Mayfield Townsite project. Those comments get added to the hundreds of pages of official reports and comments regarding this planned community.

This meeting represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to share your thoughts and opinions on a development that has the potential to reshape the future of Elmore County. If you want this project to go through, let the commission know. If you're against this development, they need to know that, too. If you can't be there in person, you can submit your thoughts in writing.

It would be a shame if the final decision on both of these monumental projects came down to the words of just two dozen people.