A considerable number of people in our society are fairly cynical about government, and suspicious of what is being done while others complain that they feel powerless to have a voice in what govemment is doing.
On the other hand, local govemment officials complain that they go to a great deal of trouble to tell people what they are doing, and to try to find out what the majority of people think of their ideas. And the usual reaction is a polite yawn from the voters.
In Provo, where advance planners are working on a new master plan for the city which is designed to chart the directions and the type of growth that should occur in the next 20 years, both groups have an excellent chance to change the traditional information gap that exists between the voters and their electorate.
City Planner Jerry Howell is pleading for the public to take an interest in the city’s new over-all plan. He said he feels like an architect who has been asked to design a house for a family who will not tell him what kind of house they want and how they want to live.
Thus far, the city’s neighborhood chairmen have shown an interest in the project and they have committed themselves to spend a considerable number of hours studying land use, transportation, community and governmental facilities, parks and open spaces, housing and other neighborhood needs.
They are to be commended for their effort to represent the variety of neighborhood interests, but no one expects them to be able to know about every need, or that they have the wisdom to be able to outline proposals that will solve every problem.
It is not very often that the citizens of a community are invited to make an overall plan for the city’s future, and it is to be hoped that the many talented people of Provo will not sit back and leave it to the other fellow to set out what the city should be like 20 years from now.
Mr. Howell explained that Provo’s general plan needs periodic updating, and it is generally in a continual state of revision, but at the same time he said it is a document that has a great impact on development of every type that is proposed for the city.
All businesses and industry must obtain a variety of city permits, as does every developer of property before he can build. Before these permits are issued, the city checks the general plan to see that the project harmonizes with the objectives for the neighborhood involved.
So year in and year out, thousands of decisions are influenced by the city’s general plan.
A plan with maximum input will have the best chance of being implemented in the city, because the city fathers will have confidence in the goals set for the city.
We are all interested in how the city should grow, and we are all especially interested in what our neighborhoods should be like. So let’s support the neighborhood committees by calling the city’s planning department to ask how we can get involved.