Planning Commission Pokes Holes in Bonney Lake Cultural Plan

Bonney Lake hopes that adding a cultural arts amendment to its comprehensive plan will develop a greater sense of community in town.

Behind the scenes? Ironing out the logistics has put members of the planning commission at odds with city administration.

Bonney Lake city staff developed the 40-page cultural plan given to the commission. It details marketing strategies, local partnership opportunities and cultural events that could bring arts to the Plateau community.

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When asked to analyze the plan and give a recommendation to city council, the planning commission found it too vague and current to belong in a city’s comprehensive plan.

“Our concern with what the staff came up with was that it was not necessarily a plan or vision with goals, but was a list of what already exists in the city – we are a pretty rapidly changing city, and it’s going to be changing all the time,” said planning commissioner Brandon Frederick at the Oct. 19 Planning Commission meeting. “We’re trying to adopt a large document that is just going to have to be reviewed [every year], with certain places being added and taken out. It doesn’t look like part of a comprehensive plan.”

The commission was given the task of examining the cultural plan at the Aug. 30 joint workshop with the Bonney Lake city council. The council hopes to review and make it an action item by Dec. 13, the last council meeting of the year. If approved, the arts and cultural plan will be part of the city’s comprehensive plan in 2012.

At their Oct. 19 meeting, commissioners questioned the prudence of adding a document to the city’s comprehensive plan when they needed more time to examine it.

“I don’t agree with adopting [a plan] just to adopt it and change it later,” said planning commissioner Katrina Minton-Davis. “If it’s not ready, we shouldn’t adopt it.”

This short deadline also leaves little time for public comment and review.

“My personal feeling is, we need more citizen input,” said Minton-Davis.

City staff counter that the document is meant to be vague and can be updated as time goes on and plans get fleshed out. Planning commission chair Grant Sulham agreed.

“Once it’s in place, we can butcher it, reorganize it and make it how we want it,” said Sulham. “If you start from scratch on this, you’re taking a whole year’s worth of time and throwing it out the window.”

Members also questioned the extensive list of businesses in the plan, noting that they should not take a focal point in something that will become city record.

“The current plan is very lengthy and contained a great deal of information in it that should be referenced, rather than included in the comprehensive plan,” said commissioner Winona Jacobsen. She also pointed out that the list included Sports Connection under the “Arts and Cultural Businesses” category and Roach Gymnastics, a Sumner business, listed under potential venues and learning/arts education programs.

Jacobsen said that athletic businesses and sporting goods stores should fall under the Parks Board jurisdiction – not arts.

Bonney Lake City Administrator Don Morrison, who helped create the plan, countered in a staff memo that it was not a huge element to the city’s plan.

“There is little or no reference to sports programs in the draft community culture plan except in the larger context of the City’s special events and activities,” said Morrison.

Because the city council has requested that the commission make a recommendation before the end of the year, a planning subcommittee was created to analyze the report more closely.

A significantly shorter document was created by that group to supplement the city’s idea. At the Oct. 19 meeting, planning commissioners voted 4-1 to include the subcommittee’s document in the packet for the Nov. 2 meeting and public hearing.

The revised document was based on the city of Lynnwood’s cultural plan, which the subcommittee felt was similar and successful enough to compare Bonney Lake to.

The alternative plan focuses on the importance of developing a “sense of place” in town, through more collaborations and designated art facilities. A community center, the document stated, is a significant project the city could take on to help improve the local arts scene and make cultural events accessible to everyone.

It also details plans to create an official historical and arts commission that can review all local resources, keep a pulse on art projects in town and report back to the city council on a regular basis.

Mayor Neil Johnson asked Morrison to assess the differences in the documents, and Morrison laid out shortcomings of the “Jacobsen” plan in his memo: it did not adequately address an inventory of existing resources and sites within the community today, nor did it have a complete vision statement or consider funding opportunities. Historic preservation and culture plans are not mandatory elements of a comprehensive plan, Morrison pointed out, nor are they even optional. There are no laws that prevent other elements from being included in the plan for general planning purposes.

“Staff examined dozens of historic and cultural plans before developing the draft community culture plan for Bonney Lake. It is inappropriate to take a single document such as the City of Lynnwood Washington’s seven page plan, and simply substitute the words Bonney Lake for Lynnwood and delete a few Lynnwood-specific references,” said Morrison.

In a following memo to council, Jacobsen pointed out that it was not the “Jacobsen” plan, but a document created in conjunction with other commissioners.

“These kinds of master plans are done by professional organizations, not just staff, with many months of citizen comment and input,” said Jacobsen. “We just don’t have that.”