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What is The Community Planner?

The Community Planner is the result of a "what if" conversation started nearly a decade ago. At the time, we were both working with smaller, primarily rural, jurisdictions where, despite need, planning took a second seat to other more pressing matters. We started with a series of questions:

• What if we teach citizens how to plan rather than creating plans for them?What if we encourage partnerships and collaboration ? What if we create a mechanism for empowering citizens, public officials, and planners through knowledge and hands on education?What if we teach people to be active partners in the planning process rather than bystander?
• What if we create a planning version of Popular Mechanics?

We had noticed that while there was a lot of planning information available, especially online, little or none of it actually said "put tab A into slot B." During New Year's Eve dinner, we returned to the topic of the possibility of a publication, only this past year's conversation moved from "we should think about..." to "let's do it." The Community Planner was born.

It has taken nearly 10 months to settle the issues of tone and content, depth and strategy, but the first issue "went to press" on November 1, 2010.

The Community Planner, an electronic (cd-rom based) how-to journal for citizens, elected and appointed officials, staff, and professional planners, is published quarterly (November, February, May, and August).

The mission of The Community Planner is to provide nuts and bolts instructions for planning processes and planning tasks to citizens and professional planners. Whether you are creating a new comprehensive plan, developing an indicators program, revising your ordinances, or garnering public input, The Community Planner is for you.

Each issue includes a variety of hands-on materials, instructions, case studies, examples, and a wealth of other information in a range of formats, including pdfs, powerpoints, spreadsheets, audio and video files, and GIS materials. Our hope is to expand the number of voices found in the "pages" of The Community Planner.

The Community Planner is edited by Meghan Dorsett, AICP and Dr. Diane Zahm, AICP and published by Dorsett Publications, a publishing company specializing in instructional and hands-on materials.

Meet the Editors

Meghan H. Dorsett, AICP. Meghan was a latecomer to planning, having started her professional planning career as an alternative to buying a red sports car for her 40th birthday. Since switching fields, Meghan has worked as a county planner (comprehensive planner) in Virginia and as a planning consultant in Montana, Virginia, and West Virginia, specializing in long range planning, ordinance development, and planning for karst terrains. Before shifting course into environmental and long range planning, Meghan taught English at Southwest Missouri State University (now Missouri State).

In addition to a graduate degree in English from Virginia Tech, Meghan has a masters in Environmental Resource Planning from Southwest Missouri State University. Although she originally planned on going to law school to specialize in Constitutional Land Use Law, she discovered that planning was a good fit and allowed her to do what she loves best...write.

Meghan is a member of the American Institute of Planners and the American Planning Association, as well as an associate member of the American Bar Association. She has served on the Board of Directors of the National Association of County Planners, and currently serves on her local planning commission, which she says gives her a much different understanding of planning and the role of planning in creating healthy and thriving communities.

A Montana native, Meghan she spends her time romping with dogs, playing in the garden, reading, and maintaining a 143 year old train station, which doubles as the corporate headquarters of Dorsett Publications and her house.

Dr. Diane Zahm, AICP. Diane is currently on the faculty in the Urban Affairs and Planning Department at Virginia Tech, where she teaches the Land Use Studio courses and works with students to tackle Planning projects and practicums. Diane specializes in crime prevention through planning, safe neighborhood design, and long range planning and innovative planning techniques for rural jurisdictions.

Before coming to Virginia Tech, Diane worked as an Associate in Research for the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University, as the Director of the Florida Statistical Analysis Center at the Florida Criminal Justice Executive Institute (Florida Department of Law Enforcement), and as an Instructor at the National Crime Prevention Institute (University of Louisville, KY). In addition, Diane has served on the faculty of Florida State University and University of Louisville, and as a staff planner for public agencies and private firms in Charlottesville, Virginia and Syracuse, New York).

A New York native, when she is not working or taking long walks with Layla (her dog), Diane enjoys cooking, playing piano, working on projects, seeing family, and travelling.

Meet the Contributors (thus far)

Karen Drake, AICP, is known for her innovative approaches to comprehensive planning and the use of technology. The Comprehensive Planner for the Town of Blacksburg, Virginia, started her professional career not in planning but on cruise ships that frequented places like Antarctica. She has a BA in Communications from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and an MA in Environment Planning/Geography from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Prior to wandering up into the mountains of western Virginia, Karen was a senior planner with James City County, Virginia (the county surrounding Colonial Williamsburg). In addition to traipsing around exotic places like Tasmania (see left), she also has a fondness for tasmanian devils (a result of her experiences in Tasmania) and drive-in theaters (or at least the local variation). She is less fond of some of her current activities, most notably helping to dry out family homes following a couple of bouts with hurricanes.

Milton Herd, AICP, is a planning consultant based in Leesburg, Virginia, specializing in the preparation of comprehensive plans and zoning regulations. He founded Herd Planning & Design, Ltd. in 1991, and since then has carried out more than 130 planning projects in over 70 local communities in Virginia. During his consulting career, he has responded to well over 100 RFPs for planning services. Prior to founding his firm, he spent 13 years as a local government planner and planning director, during which time he was involved in several RFP processes to procure consulting assistance. The author thanks Vlad Gavrilovic of Renaissance Planning Group for his editorial review of this article.

Niki King is a professional journalist, and currently works as a reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal. In addition to working in Louisville, Ms. King has also worked as a reporter at the Roanoke Times (Virginia) and the Kitsap Sun (Washington) Niki has a BA in Journalism from the University of Memphis and is working on her Masters in Community and Leadership Development at the University of Kentucky, which gives her a unique understanding of the relationship between government and the press. We welcome Niki to the pages of the Community Planner and look forward to her future contributions on politics, planning, and press relations.

Carol Lindstrom is a community activist and blogger. In 2009, Carol won the Virginia Coalition for Open Government's Lawrence E. Richardson Award Freedom of Information Award. When she is not blogging about open government and volunteering with the League of Women Voters, Carol, a Louisiana native, works with local citizen groups and local governments to establish open government programs and assesses local government websites for openness. Carol can be reached through her DepotDazed blog and website.

Melissa Shelton Scott has worked for 15 years in various technical and administrative positions in regional and local governments in Michigan, West Virginia, and Virginia. Five of those years were spent working as a consultant to government agencies, and the last six years of her career has been spent braving the planning and technology frontier in the West Virginia local government arena. Melissa is currently the GIS Coordinator for Greenbrier County, West Virginia.

Valerie Tweedie is a CPA Certified Public Accountant; CFE Certified Fraud Examiner; and a CGFM Certifed Governmental Financial Manager . She is the Director of Finance for the Town of Christiansburg, VA. She has 30 years experience in the accounting profession working in the area of tax, performing independent audits for various types of governments, and workng as the CFO, Chief Financial Officer, for two Tribal governments in Michigan.

The Community Planner Photographers

Jessica Ulm Anderson is the owner of Whetstone Studios and one of the new crop of remarkable Appalachian photographers. Jess has an eye for detail and irony. As Jess often says of her work, "I do landscape photography because the world is beautiful. I do street photography because people can be ugly. I get much more attention for the landscape work." We are appreciative of her willingness to allow us to use her photographs in The Community Planner.

Paul Nason is a computer specialist and an avid photographer in Denham Springs, Louisiana. His photographs capture the flavor of small town mainstreets, as well as the architectural variations of cities as diverse as Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Houston, Texas. We welcome Paul's work to the pages of The Community Plannner.