Sultan Comprehensive Plan makes the grade
After years of legal challenges, the meltdown of the planning commission in 2004, more than a year of remedial work and $800,000 in costs, the City of Sultan has succeeded in a last-ditch effort to complete a comprehensive plan that met the standards of the state.
The effort to create a comprehensive plan has confounded the city for years. Early efforts were haphazard, city officials have said, and as a result, did not survive legal challenges mounted by two former members of the Sultan Planning Commission.
In all, commissioners Josie Falgatter and Jeff Kirkman challenged the document, required by law to guide growth through 2025, nine times, winning their cases eight of those times.
According to the Growth Mangement Hearing Board, which reviewed the cases, the document prepared by Sultan was insufficient in several areas, including inadequate transportation planning. Frustrated, many planning commissioners resigned and the body was eventually dissolved, to be replaced by an advisory planning board.
One of the first tasks facing incoming Mayor Carolyn Eslick in 2007 was the immediate completion of the comp plan. The state was out of patience with the city and was threatening to revoke the city’s charter and return it to unincorporated status.
Eslick managed in February to beg a stay of execution for the city and set to work to beat the clock. The town had until Sept. 20 to finish the job.
Tuesday, Sept. 9, the city council put its final stamp of approval on the hefty document, and fingers crossed, shipped it to the Growth Management Hearings Board. That body was to deliver a decision by Dec. 6. Wednesday, Nov. 12, the decision came in.
“It’s a great day for the City of Sultan,” said Economic Development Director Bob Martin at a noon meeting of the Monroe Rotary Club.
It’s good to finally have it behind the city, said councilman Ron Weideger, who served on the council throughout the city’s efforts.
“It's relieving that it’s over with,” he said. “We’ve been above and beyond the call of duty on that one. They were very happy with it.”
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