Commentary on the Macon County Comprehensive Plan

Maconians packed the Commissioners Board Room to listen to the Macon County Commissioners discuss the Macon county Comprehensive Plan.

Commentary

I attended a meeting of the Macon County Commissioners last night where we were told (once again) that nothing in the Macon County Comprehensive Plan was binding, that it was just a list of recommendations for the future development of Macon County. 

The Commissioners spent over three hours going over the recommendations that the Macon County Planning Board had spent two years working on...line by line I might add...and removed entire sections, added new paragraphs emphasizing that the recommendations were only recommendations, even at one point, a preamble to an Introduction. 

I am told a local paper (The Franklin Press) even published an editorial urging the passage of the Comprehensive Plan for the good of the citizens of Macon County.

The Commissioners Board Room was nearly full for a good bit of the meeting. As someone who has attended all but three meetings of that body in the past two years, I can tell you that it is rare that more than three citizens attend, let alone a room full. 

Commissioners mocked some things that were in the plan (like the idea of a Convention Center) and fought cinematic Last Stands to keep some things in it. 

It sure is a funny way for people to be acting over a document that is non-binding, 'just a road map', and a toolbox of options for the future, isn't it? 

I am very tempted to give every member of the Macon County Planning Board a copy of Friedrich von Hayek's "Road to Serfdom" to show them just where all this planning will take us.