Supervisors take annual retreat

Sometimes one just has to get away. Looking for some fresh perspective on the county’s goals, the Orange County Board of Supervisors took its annual retreat last weekend. Historically, the retreat has been a time of planning and brainstorming for the county, but this year’s approach was somewhat different. With this retreat, the five supervisors developed a draft vision statement for the county, one the board hopes will hold up for the next two decades. The vision highlights three areas of focus for the county: a vibrant economy, effective government and sustainable land use.

In years past, board retreats were used to discuss specific initiatives the supervisors hoped to address in the coming year, but this year the county brought in an independent facilitator to help the board focus on one single goal, a long-term vision for the county. The county hired Tyler St. Clair as the facilitator, who county administrator Julie Jordan first met at senior executive leadership institute over the summer.

“After hearing her speak, I felt like it was something that might be good for our board,” said Jordan. “It’s not something you would do every year on a retreat, but I felt with a new board and a new board member, it would be beneficial.”

The retreat held at the Orange County Airport, stretched over Saturday and Sunday and mostly focused on drafting language for the county’s vision statement.

“I thought it was a really positive retreat,” said Jordan. “The board had lots of productive conversations. There was a lot of open dialogue and brainstorming sessions.”

The language for the vision statement is still in draft form, as the board has not publicly approved it. Through the retreat the board determined that success for Orange County depended on a growing business community, a small but effective local government and a sustainable balance between the preservation of historic resources and the benefits of economic development.

“Orange County is a community that carefully plans for and communicates its desired future in order to protect its historic and natural resources while accommodating the level of business activity and diversity necessary to sustain our quality of life,” said the vision statement on the board’s goal for land use.

District 3 Supervisor and board chairman Teel Goodwin said that the retreat was productive and that the vision statement represents a compromise between the goals of all five supervisors.

“The retreat went extremely well,” he said. “We used a facilitator this year and she helped us develop a long-term vision for the county. This wasn’t something we wanted a 3-2 vote on. We wanted to create something all five of us could say yes to as to what our vision is for the next 20 years.” The board expects to adopt the statement at an upcoming board of supervisors meeting.

At the first planning commission meeting of the year, Goodwin offered a glimpse of what he as board chairman hoped to see the county accomplish in 2012. At that meeting Goodwin asked the commissioners to complete the county’s ongoing overhaul of its comprehensive plan in 90 days. He also said he hoped the planning commission would work up language on the county’s zoning ordinance in 180 days after that, as well as the subdivision ordinance by the end of the year. Goodwin said part of the vision statement’s long-term of the county suggests this type of ordinance clean up.

“We all left the retreat very tired, but when we left, every last one of us felt as if we had really accomplished something,” said Goodwin.  “Now we have a comprehensive vision of what our county is and needs.”

Of his singling out of the ordinances that essentially control the growth in the county, Goodwin, optimistically, said he wanted to do some cleaning up while the economy continued to improve.

“As economic conditions improve, things will begin to show up, businesses and things like that,” said Goodwin. “Everyone that comes like to have a clean set of rules to follow, instead of something that is constantly in flux.”

Goodwin said some other matters the county will likely take up in the coming months is closing the estimated $7 million shortfall going into the budget session and finding a way to stop the county’s annual deferment of capital improvements plan projects.