NEW PALESTINE — New Palestine’s town council kicked off the new year electing new council leadership and discussing a new town comprehensive plan during the first meeting of 2024 in early January.
The five person council composed of Teri Reed, Bill Niemier, Chad Molinder, Ethan Maple and Ryan Hartley selected Reed as the council’s president, Niemier as the council’s vice president and Molinder as the council’s secretary.
In addition to selecting council leadership for the current year, the group discussed getting several proposals from consultants for the creation of a new comprehensive plan for the town.
The idea of creating a new comprehensive plan came at the suggestion of town manager Jim Robinson who told the council much has changed in the town since leadership last had an update to the comprehensive plan back in 2016.
Robinson asked the council for permission to get together a letter with a request for a proposal for a new plan to send out sometime in February. That he noted will start the process of getting together a new comprehensive plan.
“That tool will be essential for the next four years,” Robinson said. “I want to get the public involved and the county highway department involved in this as well as the schools and fire department.”
Robinson noted during the meeting that it will be good for the town to work with county officials to see if there are any areas they can work on together such as roads, trails and other developments.
A town’s comprehensive plan is a long-term vision for how a town or city should grow and develop as a healthy, inclusive, resilient and competitive place to live. It is not a single plan, but instead is comprised of dozens of related plans organized into several distinct elements.
Comprehensive plans basically provides a vision for the future of a community along with the steps needed to make that vision a reality.
Niemier noted it would be a good idea to get several different consultants involved, ask them to come in and speak to the council before the town’s leadership makes a decision on who to go with to help develop the comprehensive plan.
“We’d like to hear, let them explain what they think the process will be,” Niemier said. “This is something we’re not going to be able to do without a consultant.”
While hiring a consultant or group to work with a town the size of New Palestine can be costly, town officials say they hope to get with a consultant group who can utilize some of their current plan coupled with the county’s newer comprehensive plan.
“We’re not looking to start from scratch,” Robinson said, following the meeting. “There’s a lot of good information, plans and goals in our current plan, but there has been a lot of growth and change in this area since our last comprehensive plan was put together.”
The council agreed with Robinson and gave him permission to get the letter together so they can start the process as soon as possible. The town’s council will make the final decision on who they will hire once Robinson gets some interest from consultants.
