Citizen involvement supposed to be included in Yachats’ comprehensive land use plan

To the editor:

This letter is in response to the May 19 YachatsNews story: “Yachats Council says ‘not now’ to forming a Citizens Involvement Committee.”

I could easily write a thousand words on this subject, but I think it better to just boil it down to the facts.

The city wasn’t asked to create a citizens involvement committee. The city was ask to acknowledged and implement an existing land-use policy. Not a state policy, but a Yachats policy.  A policy that has been dormant for the past 30 years. 

Goal K, policy No. 1 says: “The city shall institute a program that enables the community to identify and comprehend relevant issues, obtain public information and participate in public hearings and other forums on issues related to the growth and development of the city.”

This citizens involvement program is intended to address and formalize communication between citizens and decision-makers. We hear over and over again, that “something” must be done to improve communication, and the City Council routinely slow-walks issues, wanting more input from the public.

And yet the actual policy that, if implemented, would improve communication – the “something” City Council has found so evasive — sits dormant in our own Comprehensive Land Use Plan.  

I don’t think citizens should have to go hat-in-hand to the City Council and beg them to follow policy. The land use authority is supposed to be an advocate for our land use policies, not a gatekeeper.

The Comprehensive Land Use Plan includes a fundamental principal that is the mainspring of the plan. But it requires a land use authority with the discipline to abide by the principle.

Here is the principle: “The goals and policies contained within the plan have the force of law, and the city is obligated to adhere to them in implementing the plan.”

    — Doug Conner/Yachats