County council discusses funding updated comprehensive plan

Further discussion on funding a new county comprehensive plan was held at a regular Pulaski County Council meeting on Dec. 8. Pulaski County Community Development Commission Executive Director Nathan Origer requested that the council approve funding for the development of a new Pulaski County Comprehensive Plan. The county's current comprehensive plan is going on 17 years old. He explained that as they see revenues coming in from solar project economic development payments, he believes that the council would benefit from having a new comprehensive plan as it would further help develop a framework for allocating those funds. Earlier this year, President Mike Tiede, Vice President Sheila Hazemi, Commissioner Jenny Knebel, Building Inspector Karla Redweik and Nathan Origer interviewed two firms for this project. Origer explained that in the brief window in between that point and when the commissioners had to select the preferred firm, they had some unexpected issues related to the anticipated project cost as compared to the local match amount that had been authorized by the commissioners in their resolution and the maximum grant amount. The comprehensive plan project had to be dropped at the time for reasons ultimately related to the needed new fire station in Medaryville. The county is currently unable to apply for grant funding for this, so this is a project that will have to be self-funded if they wish to proceed. Origer said the county would most likely fund it with either solar project funds, with money from his budget, or a combination of the two.