Tonight’s Master Plan Meeting: Know Before You Go

Tonight’s will bring together members of the community who want to see the city change for the better — and people who believe their input can help bring about those changes.

We talked with Doug Lane, president of the which has spearheaded this first meeting at the North Canton Civic Center and the two following meetings (Sept. 20 and Nov. 16).

Here’s what Lane had to say regarding what folks should know about tonight’s meeting before they walk through the door.

North Canton Patch: Tell me about the birth of this plan. How long ago was it conceptualized?

Chamber President Doug Lane: This actually goes back to one of my years on City Council, in 2003 or 2004. This has been talked about on council many times and nothing got off the ground. So we got in contact with the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative and put together the framework for what needs to be looked at in the city. It’s become a public/private partnership where the Hoover Foundation and the city is putting up some money. The city support is there; the chamber support is there.

North Canton Patch: Why is it necessary for people to get together and talk about the city’s problems and goals?

Lane: The idea in having the Chamber involved is we don’t want to take over the project, but we’ve been here 52 years. You look at how many city officials who have been in those seats over 52 years and this whole time there’s been one chamber of commerce. So we constantly can reference this Master Plan and stay on City Council and city administration and refer to the Master Plan when ideas come up.

And a lot of time people are not even aware about proposed changes in their community. A lot of times things pop up, whether it be something as huge as Washington Square, or as minor as a gas station. Maybe something comes up and they’re not happy about the end result. So this helps create an informed and engaged public. The public feels like they have a stake in it and can say “I was part of that process.”

North Canton Patch: What do you hope comes of this? Can you say there’s an end result?

Lane: It’s a fluid result. I think what comes out of it is you’re going to energize people to see the process. They should come out of the meeting seeing what’s been done and understand what the next two steps in the process are so they can come to the next two workshops to participate and get their ideas on paper. What I’m going to propose is we would have some sort of Master Plan Commission made up of members of the Chamber to keep it on track and revisit the plan every two years or every three years.

North Canton Patch: How do you feel this is going to go tonight? Does it seem to you now that we’ll have a good community turnout?

Lane: We’ve gotten a number of calls and emails, and the people checking in are people you don’t normally hear from. This one seems to be drawing some people out who don’t normally participate. So many times you get the same people and the same input and after awhile nothing gets done and people get frustrated. Tonight we’ll see newer residents who think it’s a great idea to understand the community and what its future looks like.

North Canton Patch: What should people know before they go? Or keep in mind once they get there?

Lane: I think the important thing we need to stress is that if you look at what we’ve put out, we’ve been very detailed about it: It’s not a town hall meeting. It’s not something for two and a half hours we’ll listen to everyone in the room. It’s going to be structured so they understand what’s been done and what the process is. We’ll break up into separate groups and look at the corridors in the city and have discussion and input at the end.

People will get to see what the city looks like from an outsider. What they’re going to see tonight is what an outsider would see when they come in. I think they will get a much better overview of what’s out there — not only our assets but the potential problems that are there. It’s going to be a real eye-opener.