Jackson County is taking advantage of technology to make public comment more relevant and real-time. Following a last-minute deluge of public comment over consideration of loosening steep-slope and ridge-top rules; county planners have decided to set up an online portal where people can keep up-to-the-minute with planning board actions and give the planning board a piece of their minds.
This is good in many ways. It keeps the public informed, reduces rumor, helps eliminate the grandstanding factor in public debate, lets people talk for more than two minutes, reaches out to people who can’t get time off work to attend meetings, and probably much more. Implicit in the change, however, is the notion that opinions of self-proclaimed masters of all they survey count more than the intentions of those who purchase parcels in the first place.
