Community Plan Harmed Children?

Third District candidate Bruce Porter doesn’t like community plans, those pesky expressions of local community vision that inform county policy. Weeks ago he said they put “handcuffs on progress.” That certainly hasn’t been our experience in Los Alamos, where our Community Plan simplified the approval process for many development projects.

And in an attempt to justify his position, at the Los Olivos candidate forum last week, Porter falsely implied that community plans harm children!

Porter claimed that the Los Alamos Community Plan had delayed the opening of the newly renovated Los Alamos Public Library. That came as a jaw-dropping surprise to me, and I’m in a unique position to know. I serve as both the treasurer of the Friends of the Los Alamos Library and chair of the committee that co-drafted the Los Alamos Community Plan with county staff over a five-year period.

The Los Alamos Community Plan was never an obstacle to reopening the library.

If progress was sometimes slow it was because three governmental bodies and one local nonprofit group had to get on the same page to solve some complicated issues. The library reopening resulted from a unique collaboration among the Orcutt School District, the City of Santa Maria, the county’s building department, and the Friends of the Library who raised the money. It got done because of the untiring efforts of many community members and staff.

So no, Bruce Porter, no children were harmed by our Community Plan. Seriously?