ABSTRACT
As practicing planners for many years, we have worked with hundreds of planning commissions and thousands of commissioners in towns and counties across the United States. We have seen firsthand how challenging it is for people to come on board as new commission members and struggle with the amount of information they need to digest before meetings. We have seen their eyes go wide as they gradually realize how much new material they are expected to understand and be conversant with. They are exposed to a litany of new terms and concepts-zoning, site plans, lighting levels, level of service, vision, goals, policies, plans-that have little to do with the day-to-day lives of most ordinary citizens. We’ve seen experienced commissioners sitting in the hot seat on controversial development projects with little guidance on how to approach the decision-making process in a fair and balanced way, and we’ve seen many of them struggle to understand the ethical principles of due process and the perils of conflict of interest, either real or perceived.
