No Plans Yet

Apparently yesterday I may have said something that created a bad situation at the city of Warrenton planning department. We got a call from Carol Parker saying that her phones were ringing all day with people saying that I had said the city has the plans for the proposed Walmart store and was refusing to make them available to the public. That's not what I said but, never the less, the impact on Carol's day is regrettable. No plans have been submitted as yet and the city planning commission has yet to consider any formal plans for the new store. ( in a call to the show this morning Parker stated that she did get a conceptual drawing that is used to guide the very preliminary permitting process but it is not a full-blown plan)

On a related matter, in a previous post I posed the perennial question: " Is this what we want to look like?". The response in reader comments is interesting. Many state that this question is coming from Astoria and Astorians who are anti-development and worry over the impact a WalMart might have on downtown business. No. I posed this question as someone who works in Warrenton for a company that took great pains in the design and development of our new facility to ensure the structure would fit and provide value to Warrenton's downtown and surrounding neighborhood. Asking the question in the past has spurred overall visioning processes that were inclusive of the general public. This question is one that must be asked again and again as our collective area undergoes future development. It's not a threat. It's an invitation.