On the last week of March the second in a series of three Community Plan meetings was held. The intention of this meeting was to 1.) review the first meeting results and 2.) to solicit other information for the implementation of the overall plan. Glen Thompson attended the Lake Arrowhead meeting, along with Dennis Cobb, Jane St. Johns, Hugh Bialecki and Lori Semeniuk. Here’s what he observed and later submitted to the County.
The second Community Plan Meeting held by the Board of Supervisors was on Monday, March 28th and was held at the Senior Center in Twin Peaks.
I sat at the “Cedar Glen” table with Gail Fry, Dennis Cobb and Duane and Carol Banner. We had a good time, and because we were so few, got to exchange some really good ideas with our facilitator, Enessa.
There were two ‘stand up’ activities – one involved deciding which of the main points from the last meeting needed more work – and if so, what specific work is needed. The other involved a large map of the area and sticky notes that focused attention on physical areas that needed work.
Then to the lists . . . we were to determine goals . . . either long range or fairly distant . . . that would help our locale.
These are the ones we came up with:
Change the image of our community from “resort” to “recreation” to avoid the negative exclusivity of the first term.
Attract full time owners to our community rather than “cabin owners”
Add more tourist activities, including parking and public parks and spaces.
Bring village to full occupancy.
Encourage new home-based businesses
Crowd fund new businesses and projects
Locate government jobs relating to our community IN our community.
Some objectives (or interim goals)
Create and coordinate a public relations effort
County offer financial incentives for local development
County offer commuter job incentives or at least promote them
Improve first time homebuyer incentives
Improve permitting and currently conflicting project approval systems
Complete the alternative transportation plan
Encourage rehabilitation over replacement for unused buildings and businesses.
The Hilltop Communities was cancelled due to the weather warning that evening, and will be held at a later date to be determined. Scott Markovich attended the Crest Communities meeting and returned the following:
The Crest Forest Communities meeting was attended by member Scott Markovich (who is a candidate for the California Assembly from the 33rd AD and a school board member). It was held at the San Moritz senior building and was also attended by about 24 other people. The facilitators from the County and their consulting firm broke us up into three groups and reviewed what was done at the last meeting. A single large sheet of results from the first meeting was available, and attendees were asked to add colored dots to an “agree” and “disagree” column.
Discussion groups were led by a consultant firm leader who got our input on more ideals and thoughts. Scott felt it was kind of a kindergarten mentality with lots of control, but it was civil. They had three topics of discussion which were all kind of redundant but they pushed us along. The major issues in Crestline were: parking, education, the local economy, economic feasibility, the need to enhance visitor attraction, use of our surrounding environment for visitor recreation, and better placement of sex offenders and other criminals in our area.
The tone and feel among everybody at the meeting was that we’ve been down this road many times before. Leadership (County Supervisors) change and so do visions, with economic ups and downs causing these “best laid plans of mice and men” to be modified or shelved. Most felt this was just an exercise in hot air being run by young college grads who need a job but don’t know anything about our community.
Scott brought up the graduation score of Rim High School as a School Board member. Known as the Cohort score, the county master plan records it at 78% (one of the lowest in the county) while Rim Superintendent has it at 91%. Cohort scores are defined as a measure of high school graduation rates or percentages in a standard number of years with a regular diploma. With continuation students and adult ed students being a variable, the scores can be interpreted differently. Whether the County’s method is correct or the new Superintendent who is trying to appear competent has the “right” figure is a matter for discussion, but the disparity shows there is work to be done on the programs delivered outside the traditional classroom.
