PORT TOWNSEND — Revisiting old issues and analyzing past policies, the City Council looked over its 20-year vision plan Monday night.
During a meeting at the Waterman and Katz Building, council members discussed the level of service standards in the city’s comprehensive plan, a document that guides the city on service standards for water, sewer, streets, library, fire department, police, city administration and other services.
The levels of services date back to the 1996 city Capital Improvement Plan.
The city each year adopts a Six-year Capital Improvement Plan as part of its annual budget process.
City Manager David Timmons opened the workshop, explaining that its purpose is to discuss various standards applied to defining the scope of capital projects.
Clarifying the plan
Councilwoman Freida Fenn said the public makes its judgment from budgetary documents, and that clarifying the comprehensive plan is a major priority.
“I was surprised during the budget process that we might need to go in depth on (capital facilities and utilities),” Fenn said.
“This does not seem to me that there needs to be a major policy revision. We had a significant public input that said, ‘No we don’t need the change in these services.”‘
Councilman Frank Benskin agreed that revision of the comprehensive plan is currently not necessary.
“We could make the text more readable for the future, but as it is now this is not the time to do it,” he said.
