NEWS STORY ON THIS IN CHEYENNE, WY.
http://m.wyomingnews.com/articles/2014/02/09/news/20local_02-09-14.txt - CHECK OUT BLOG POSTS ON THIS LINK BELOW THE NEWS STORY
CHEYENNE -- Laramie County Commissioner M. Lee Hasenauer is not a fan of PlanCheyenne.
Hasenauer and about 100 supporters, including Rep. Lynn Hutchings, R-Cheyenne, and Republican gubernatorial candidate Taylor Haynes, gathered at the Laramie County Library on Saturday to speak out publicly against PlanCheyenne.
PlanCheyenne is a community master plan designed to provide guidance to the city and county on how to grow in a smart and sustainable way, said Tom Mason.
Mason is the director of the Cheyenne Metropolitan Planning Organization, which is in charge of developing PlanCheyenne.
Hasenauer said, "We don’t want our city to be turned into something that looks like California."
“We are a Western community with a lot of freedoms” and he doesn’t want those freedoms threatened, he said.
Mason, reached by phone after Saturday’s town hall, responded, “Every city in the country produces plans. (Hasenauer) is trying to make (PlanCheyenne) into something it’s not.
“Without a plan, how do we develop? How do we grow? It is nonsense to think you can develop a modern-day city without a plan.”
Hasenauer said, “A good salesman n the MPO n always tells us about the car we are buying. He never tells us there could be a leaking gas tank on it.”
Mason said, “It’s ridiculous. They try to make everything into a conspiracy. It’s just nonsense.”
The town hall’s main speaker was Stacy Lynne, a self-described independent researcher and journalist.
Lynne’s speech was a hodgepodge of ideas, criticisms and theories n some of which had little to do with the specifics of PlanCheyenne.
Lynne jumped from topic to topic, criticizing everything from recycling programs to wind energy, to electric vehicles, to public art projects, to the living wage.
She seemed particularly concerned with the prospect of PlanCheyenne implementing more non-motorized transportation options, like bike lanes.
Lynne said bike lanes would “create congestion” on the city’s streets.
She added, “I don’t want to see senior citizens having to ride their bikes from their house to the grocery store.”
Lynne said organizations like the MPO, by advocating need for city plan for mixed residential areas with single and multi-family housing options, are “designing ghettos.”
Mason took exception to that characterization, saying that type of rhetoric is discriminatory to the residents of the city that live in multi-family housing.
“Things that (Lynne) has said are so off-base,” Mason said. “It’s so incorrect and made up. It’s fear-mongering. They are just trying to get people in a frenzy.”
According to federal funding guidelines, community master plans must be updated every five years. The last update to PlanCheyenne took place in 2011.
Hasenauer said he would like to see the voters given the chance to decide whether they want an updated PlanCheyenne implemented.
The updated plan will go in front the Laramie County Planning Commission next week for recommendation. Then the plan will go to the Laramie County Commission and the Cheyenne City Council for approval next month.
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