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Cheney planning commissioners reorganize comp plan priorities

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Dissatifaction with rocess leads to new program ranking system

c. rrionties are important, tor an individual or an 5 entire city.

Dissatisfied with a public workshop process that ranked future programs in Cheney's new comprehensive plan, the Planning Commission reorganized the plan's priorities at their Oct. 11 meeting.

At their September meeting, the commissioners asked staff to create criteria with which to rank 12 programs put forth by the 2010-2030 comprehensive plan.

Community development director Brian Jennings came to the meeting with five criteria for the commissioners to consider when ranking the importance of each program. They were asked to decide whether each program: benefits the community, increases transportation options, enhances economic competitiveness, supports existing neighborhoods and infrastructure and leverages investment.

Jennings said the criteria were based on those used by the federal government when evaluating grant proposals.

"There's a lot of attention at the federal and state level on the livability of communities," he said.

The commissioners weighted each criterion, giving more importance to transportation options and community benefit, before ranking each program within it.

After much discussion, the commission decided that each commissioner would give a program a number 1-10, with 10 being the most important and highest priority, and the numbers were averaged.

At the end of the process, the commission had ranked a city-wide transportation plan first with nine points. Tied for second with seven points each were a SR-904 corridor plan, Betz Road plan, zoning code update and economic development plan.

The new ranking system changed some of the results of an August public workshop held by the commission and City Council. The Betz Road and transportation plans moved up in priority, while a downtown strategic plan and citizen involvement strategy moved down.

The commissioners approved the new rankings and voted to pass the draft comprehensive plan on to City Council for final approval.

Jennings said public comment would be accepted throughout the approval process. The complete draft plan can be viewed at www.cityofcheney. org/planning.

The meeting was the first for new commissioner Antoinette Burkley, an Eastern Washington University student in the masters of public administration program. Burkley said she was looking forward to learning a lot.

Becky Thomas can be reachedat becku@cheneyfreepress. com.



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