Help Us Keep Our Counties Great
Do you like what you see when you look out the window? If the answer is yes, you probably live in a great county! It hasn’t yet been obliterated by bulldozers, “developed” to the gills, and polluted by too much industry. In other words, it hasn’t been degraded by too much economic growth, or the “GDP Bulldozer.”
When it’s a great county, we want to keep it that way, rather than trying desperately to “make” it great again. Many counties have gone the way of overgrowth and regretted the loss of local businesses, local culture, freedom, and outdoor recreation. Communities often realize, after it’s too late, that growth-related trade-offs are not worth the supposed benefits pitched at planning meetings.
Las Vegas is a stark example of buyers remorse. Janine Blaeloch, Project Director of the Western Lands Project, explained, “It’s salt in the wound for American taxpayers. Because we’re losing public land that’s being sold off, we’re losing money that’s being funneled into supporting sprawl in Las Vegas, but we also are unwittingly supporting really unsustainable development in the middle of the desert.”
Growth debates are as common as red lights in our counties, townships, and regional municipalities. Especially in rural or exurban counties where natural beauty remains intact, residents desperately fight to hold back the bulldozers, developers, and corporations that would transform their county into a congested, crowded cityscape. The debates are practically non-stop at county planning meetings and in local newspapers.
CASSE assists counties where growth is causing widespread angst to revise their county comprehensive plans. We help them get off the hamster wheel of growth, to support protection of precious natural resources, and develop in truly sustainable ways that improve quality of life, without increasing taxes.
Dave Rollo, CASSE Policy Specialist, leads the Keep Our Counties Great (KOCG) campaign. He advises and educates county leaders and co-develops community-supported plan revisions. CASSE Chapter Directors, local organizations, college professors, and community activists are a key part of many successful KOCG campaigns, aiding the work at the county level.
Counties where we have worked:
- Allamakkee County
- Tomkins County
- Lincoln County
- El Paso County
- Chittenden County
- Rappahannock County
- Bayfield County
- Tippecanoe County
- Okeechobee County
- Sauk County
- Benzie County
What we do depends on the county, but our county engagement often includes:
- Partnering with key stakeholders and conducting outreach to a broad range of local organizations and businesses to get input and buy-in.
- Presentations to and discussions with county commissioners and civic groups.
- Assessments to measure the impact of land use decisions.
- Planning recommendations that balance economic development with conservation and prevent unnecessary taxpayer burdens.
- Scrutiny of comprehensive plans and proposals for amending comprehensive plans.
- Special adjunct assessments of biocapacity, ecological footprint, and growth impact. We perform customized in-house assessments and bring in consults to support additional assessments to support planning recommendations.
Please contact CASSE at [email protected] if you’d like to keep your county great, protect the local environment, and nourish the regional culture for future generations! We greatly appreciate new chapter directors, volunteers, members and donors to support the work.
And remember…