Before they took their oath of office, Jeff Haire and John Bradford sat in the audience at Monday night's meeting, listening to the final piece of business by the prior panel which, for that final hour, included farewells for 10-year Commissioner Jim Bensman and 16-year Commissioner Thurman Ross.
Bensman decided to not run for another term and Ross finished two votes short of re-election, eked out by Bradford at the ballot box last month.
What they heard and considered was the framework of the new Community Master Plan, dubbed "Navigate Cornelius," the result of two years of community input and hundreds of pages of documents that will serve as the foundation for shaping the future of the town.
With only 22 percent of the town's undeveloped land mass available and a long-standing need to diversify the property tax base from one that is largely dependent upon homeowners, the town is at a crossroads in how it builds out once development resumes.
"You need to start planning purposefully for what you want to be and how many people you want to have here," said Matt Noonkester, consultant to the Navigate Cornelius project, calling the document a "map of opportunities."
Senior Planner Jason Abernethy, the staff point man in the CMP process, told commissioners the guiding principles of the plan are economic vitality, mobility, "infill" development and redevelopment, town gathering areas, town services, community partnerships, and character and identity. He said after two years of meetings, the framework of the CMP will become an action plan within a month.
Then, Bensman said, the real work begins.
"We need to finish," said Bensman, a member of the steering committee. "This is the hard part. The implementation will be harder than the planning."
Bensman's comments were an extension of a warning he sounded during the town board's breakfast meeting, when he said the trick will be prioritizing the various action items and working them into the volume of work the commissioners and staff already have to balance.
"In order to implement this growth model, that's a huge amount of work and you have three people in the planning department who are actually planners," Bensman said. "The mobility plan is a big project. The economic development part is going to be a big project. How do you work on that when the DDI (diverging diamond interchange at Exit 28) is a big project itself, not to mention the train (Red Line)."
Mayor Jeff Tarte, who in his professional life consults on implementing complex strategies, replied, "Resources are going to be limiting and finite in what we can do and when we can do it. The only way you can keep it from becoming overwhelming is to take it in small bites."
Tarte, who portrayed the CMP framework as mission accomplished for the outgoing board — it was a goal set two years ago — called it a legacy commissioners can look at 20 years from now when they see how it has been implemented. Representing the steering committee, Bob McIntosh said it can only become a legacy if the plan doesn't sit on a shelf in the planning department.
"This community's work isn't done," McIntosh told commissioners. "You've got a lot of information at your fingertips, but it won't do us any good unless you have the mechanism to implement it. There was a lot of work put into this and the town asked the community to put a lot of hours into this and, as stewards of this information, we need to put this plan into action."
That action begins Dec. 23, suggested Abernethy, the deadline for draft details to be finalized. Commissioners will consider prioritizing recommendations and implementation schedules at its one-day planning retreat on Jan. 20, and discussions about allocation of resources for implementation at February's budget retreat.
After the board voted 4-0 to "accept" the CMP framework — Commissioner Chuck Travis was absent — the ceremonial changing of the guard took place as Ross and Bensman stood down, oaths of office were administered, nameplates changed and Haire and Bradford took their seats at the dais. In opening remarks, Bradford said, "As long as I do what makes the most common sense and the most business sense, that will be my guiding principle."
Haire channeled Dwight D. Eisenhower, citing a quote the former military leader and president made when asked if the war plan was the key to his success in northern Africa in World War II. "No, it wasn't the plan, it was the planning," Haire said.
The two, and the rest of the board, will have to plan for many hours of digesting CMP information as well as take a crash course in all things Red Line Regional Rail Project as real discussions at the town level begin simultaneously in both subjects. Commissioners decided to appoint what will likely be 12 citizens to its own Red Line Task Force to digest reams of data and make recommendations related to the possible implementation of the Red Line, and they'll have to do it fast. The decision train arrives at the station by June of 2012.
