People should participate in county regulations process

At an afternoon work session Jan. 7 to prepare a questionnaire for Park County residents on their thoughts on potential regulations, new Commissioner Kelly Simone was understandably shocked at the small percentage of residents expected to fill out a survey on potential regulations that, arguably, could affect every one of the roughly 13,000 county residents who live outside city limits.

The other commissioners and Planning and Zoning Director Joy Hill aren’t surprised. They saw this kind of response during previous work on the new Land Use Plan. And, Hill said, the responses they received during that stage were still deemed statistically significant. She said 1,000 responses would be the high end of hopefulness, which brought a quip from Commissioner Scott Steward.

“You've got 1,000 people who do the survey, and then at the end you've got 12,000 pissed off people,” he said.

Now, you could say that’s wildly exaggerated and wonder if a newborn baby will really be upset if they’re not involved, but if in 25 years they live in the area and their view is a sea of solar panels, they may indeed be frustrated their parents and grandparents weren’t involved.

As it happens, this questionnaire is one of the first steps to gather input for Phase 2 of the county’s Development Standards and Regulations amendment process. And it does indeed include a question on how tightly solar panels should be regulated, and if commercial facilities ought to be allowed at all.

The county leaders say they want to know how the community feels about regulations as they embark on this process, and I think we ought to tell them exactly how we feel about regulations by taking part in the process. As a rural county resident myself, I’ll be replacing my editor hat for a county resident one and taking part — it’s a way for me to have a say on what I’d like to see, and what I’d like my children to experience, in Park County years down the road.

The survey will be available sometime later this week at parkcounty-wy.gov/planning-and-zoning/.

While there will also be in-person meetings for people to attend, as a husband of a busy wife and a father of two kids juggling school and sports, I fully understand many people not being able to make those, no matter the time. But this survey is something that can be done at home in a few spare minutes.

If you aren’t able to be involved more than that, at least fill out the survey and give the county a good idea of just what a true majority of county residents think.