President's Message

by Chuck Klingenstein, AICP

Utah APA Chapter President

With this issue, I would like to welcome our new co-editors, Mirinda Gibbons (Salt Lake County Planning) and Peter Matson (Layton City Planning). I have known both of them for a number of years. Mirinda is an energetic person who has decided it is time to get more involved. Peter was a treasurer for the Utah Chapter years ago and he wanted to get more involved again. They are forming an editorial board with those who had expressed an interest in the editor position. I would encourage many of you to join this group. This is a great way to get involved with a nominal time commitment. Here are some of the ideas they are discussing with the editorial board.

We plan to include some regular features and we have some ideas that we want to incorporate irregularly as well. We also want to be on the look out for opportunities to include items of interest as they come along. At this point, we plan to include the following as monthly features/articles:

• Presidents Message - inspiration and information from our fearless leader
• Executive Committee Message - an article from a member of the committee about their specific area
• Citizen Planner Corner - articles by and for citizen planers, inspiration and education
• Continuing Education - news and information to help those in the trenches stay on top of what’s happening
• Planners are People Too - a spotlight on a different planner each month, who they are and what they do.
• Educational Opportunities - notices of upcoming conferences/classes etc, and re-caps from recent conferences for those who couldn’t make it.
• Funny/Comic- have you seen the one with the NIMBY’s and CAVE’s picketing the lemonade stand?

We also want to include often, if not monthly, the following:

• Planner Partners - Articles from professionals we work with
• Land Use Law - updates, changes, what you need to know
• Letter from Your Legislature - give members of the legislature a chance to be heard (and maybe listen?)
• Shameless APA Plugs - promote membership, the list serve, spring and fall conferences, etc.
• News and Events - what’s happening around the state- new ordinances, new projects, etc.
• Issues- editorials and responses, a chance to exchange ideas on issues that we might not all agree on, but all work with.

At our meeting on March 10^th we finalized the budget. The 2003 budget is a total of $28,430. Treasurer Soren Simonsen (Cooper, Roberts, Simonsen) will be giving you a full report in one of the next issues. An important change has been the addition of a new line item. The budget now has a Small Towns/Rural Areas Outreach. This will have funds available for some form of educational outreach. Nicole Cline, Tooele County our Small Towns/Rural Areas Committee Chair, will be working with her committee to establish guidelines and a program to fund educational opportunities. Further, any revenues made off of the spring conference will fund this category. Last year’s conference made $1000 and the Board is coupling this with an additional $500 to begin this category with $1,500. This year’s conference was a total success and as soon as we finalize the revenues, they too will go towards this new effort.

Speaking of the Spring Conference, my hat’s off to the conference committee! This was one of the best spring conferences ever. St. George held off its inclement weather so we did get some sunshine. The sessions were excellent. Jeff Winston of Winston Associates gave us an excellent demonstration using Community Viz that was developed by the Orton Family Foundation. This modeling program ties three dimensional modeling to ERSI’s ArcView program so you can (1) create and analyze alternative land use scenarios, (2) visualize these in 3D, and (3) analyze development policies and their impacts over time. In fact, this modeling can be used for either private or public sector land use and development projects at either a micro or macro scale.

Neil Lindberg (Lindberg and Co) had a panel discussion on Group Homes & Federal Fair Housing. This session always proves to be an eye opener for everyone in attendance. We apparently still have not gotten the laws fully described to our communities in the State of Utah If you ever consider attempting regulating group homes, first get competent legal advice. You essentially cannot regulate these uses any differently then single family homes.

The other session was Roadway Design: Current Issues in Neighborhood Street Design. This session also drew a large group. Having lived in Utah for over 20 years, it has been refreshing to watch the discussion evolve over design of our communities, especially streets. A lot of progress has been made in recent years. And of course there was a great mobile session on Trail System Planning plus a “mobile session” on the Green Spring Golf Course. The meeting venues were great. Lunch was suburb and the breaks were plentiful.

My best to all of you. Please contact me if you ever have needs, questions or comments.

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