What Is a Consultant to Do?

Suppose you hire a consultant to tell you how to achieve specific goals. Then you tell the consultant what your goals are. Then the consultant tells you what to do, based on the consultant's apparent assumptions that growth is both good and inevitable. Do you accept the advice?

One hundred twenty Cedar Key citizens spent two days in May of 2004 telling newly hired consultants that we have three primary goals when planning the future of Cedar Key. The consensus at the meeting was that we want to keep the fishing village character of our town, that we want to protect the natural environment and that we want to encourage aquaculture. In response, the consultants say in a draft Comprehensive Plan that we should plan to grow to the very limit of space available on the island. In essence we are being told that growth is inevitable and that we will reach the limit in about ten years.

In addressing the need for affordable housing, the consultants suggest expanding public housing from eighteen to fifty units. Will this help maintain the fishing village character or encourage aquaculture? No, but it would justify further growth using low cost housing as a sop.

The proposed Comprehensive Plan overlooks the existence of mangrove trees in our marshes. Trees that characterize marshlands and define a natural area that is critical to marine fisheries. Will this plan help protect the environment?

On June 29 the Local Planning Agency (LPA) heard four petitions asking for changes of currently designated conservation lands to residential zoning. The consultant who is the author of the draft Comprehensive Plan recommended approval of the petitions to change conservation land into residential land. However, the LPA rejected two requests and deadlocked on two others. The LPA acts as an advisory group for the City Commission. That puts the ball back in the Commission's court regarding what the current Comprehensive Plan says about conservation zone boundaries. What is a Consultant to do?