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Letter: Sussex Alliance for Responsible Growth seeks input

February 1, 2019

The Sussex Alliance for Responsible Growth is a community-based, nonpartisan citizens alliance whose focus is to inform, educate and engage the residents of Sussex County in the critical importance in the implementation of the 2018 Sussex County Comprehensive Plan.

As you hopefully are aware, since our formation in early 2017, SARG has monitored and participated in the drafting of the 2018 Sussex County Comprehensive Plan. SARG has established a reputation as a positive contributor, providing information and credible, fact-based points of view in a civil, thoughtful manner.  Our greatest contribution has been getting residents informed, engaged and participating in what turned out to be a long process.  It was SARG that originally compiled and analyzed county-solicited citizen comments that determined the top concerns of the residents.

Now that the comprehensive plan has been officially adopted, the next phase begins.  Sussex County Council must prioritize which plan elements, goals and strategies need immediate, mid-term or long-term attention. In order to be put into effect, the 10 elements and their goals and strategies require that the council draft and adopt specific implementing ordinances.  The scope of the new comp plan is large, and in reality, only a small number of elements and their objectives and strategies will be able to be addressed each year.  It is critical that the county council hears and acts on residents’ concerns as they set priorities for council action.  That is the purpose of this effort.

SARG wants to help determine which elements of the new comprehensive plan most need the county council’s attention in 2019-20. To that end, we have prepared a short three-question survey to initiate the process.  This is the first of a series of surveys that will drill down into the details of the elements determined by the public to require attention in 2019-20.  SARG recognizes that people’s time is valuable so each survey will be very brief and not require more than a few minutes to complete. Each will be objective, based only on the information contained in the comprehensive plan and the findings of prior surveys.  As has been our practice, the results of each survey will be presented to county council at their public meetings and reported back to the public by email.

In order to assure the broadest possible response universe, we are seeking your help.  One of the issues the council faced was the relative lack of participation in the drafting process by residents in the western areas of the county. 

This was also evident in our previous survey efforts.  The 10 elements of the new plan address all major concerns across the county, but the priority for implementing them could vary significantly from east to west in Sussex. 

It is critical that all geographic areas of the ounty have their voice heard as to their needs and concerns. 

SARG is asking your help to publicize the availability of this survey to your audience.  We invite you to review the survey itself, the link is below.  Please feel free to fill it out if you wish; it is completely anonymous.  No personally identifiable information is collected and all responses are used only in the aggregate.  Also, please note, it is not a fundraising vehicle. There are no “sponsors” and no solicitation of funds in this survey.  

Take the survey:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Tell_the_County_Council_what_the_Sussex_County_Comprehensive_Plan_Priorities

Rich Borrasso
Sussex Alliance for Responsible Growth
Lewes

 

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