April 20, 2010

Meet Planning Commissioners Journal Contributing Writer Dave Stauffer

From PCJ Editor Wayne Senville:

We've already introduced you to Beth Humstone and Gwendolyn Hallsmith, who are joining the Planning Commissioners Journal as contributing writers. This week I'm pleased to introduce Dave Stauffer, another planner who will be regularly writing for the PCJ. 

Dave's from Red Lodge, Montana, where he's worn several different hats: planning commissioner, city councilor, city planner, planning consultant, and writer. He's also currently chairman of the Yellowstone Business Partnership. Some of you may recall two articles Dave previously wrote for the PCJ: "Emerging Water Shortages Are No Mirage" (in PCJ #54, Spring 2004)  and "Smart Messages" (in PCJ #64, Fall 2006).

-- Dave's just published article in our Spring issue, "Stop, Look, Loiter," can be ordered & downloaded. 

Wayne: Dave, do you recall what first got you interested in planning and land use issues?

Dave: Vividly. I was in 9th grade civics class, where we got a weekly newsletter that focused each Friday on a possible profession. One day that focus was on city planning. The article said you should like lots of different subjects to like this job -- history, geography, geometry, sociology, psychology, etc. That was me.

Wayne: You live and work in Red Lodge, Montana. Can you tell us a little about Red Lodge and the kind of land use issues you're dealing with there?

Dave: We are a very typical small mountain town in the Rockies, which is to say we started in the late 19th century as a mining town, reached a population nadir in the 1930s, and gradually reemerged as a tourist town and early retirement destination of so-called amenity migrants. 

Almost all of our land use issues arise from the seeming clash of cultures between multi-generation residents who want the town to be what they remember it was in their youth and those johnny-come-latelies who are most concerned about the environment, educational opportunities, and the sorts of city services they had in the East or Midwest.

Wayne: You served for four years as a planning commissioner in Red Lodge and then went on to be appointed City Planner in the same community. What was it like to switch roles like that? Were there any insights you feel you gained by first serving as a commissioner?

Dave: I think it was a great progression that would benefit many professional planners. The biggest plus is being aware as city planner of the general lack of planning knowledge and expertise on the part of most commissioners. This was most instructive for me as city planner in trying to make my staff reports simple, trying to explain complex concepts, and providing lots of examples of how other communities acted on issues that came before my commission.

Wayne: From your experience, what can planning commissions and commissioners do to position themselves to take a productive leadership role in their community?

Dave: Hammer away unceasingly, in all media and every available public forum, at educating the public on who their planners are, what they do, and how they're attempting to improve the community through their planning decisions. 

Have a table at every community gathering. Speak before every club and organization that will have you. Write editorials and letters for the local media outlets. Progress is slow and usually so glacial that you'd swear no one's hearing you -- but someone always is. And if you don't already have a very thick skin, develop one fast or don't take the job!

Wayne: You also currently serve as chairman of the Yellowstone Business Partnership. What type of organization is that and what does it focus on?

Dave: We are a regional business alliance of companies that believe our firms do well by doing good. That means pursuing the greater long-term profitability that can be gained through attention to the triple bottom line: building social and natural capital as well as financial capital. 

Our current program most directly connected with land use is developing quantitative regional standards under our Greater Yellowstone Framework for Sustainable Development -- the first-ever regional standards designed to complement LEED, under auspices of the U.S. Green Building Council.

One of our other projects involves the formation of the "Linx" Regional Transportation Cooperative, which will bring together private and public transit providers throughout the Yellowstone-Teton region who will align their vehicles, systems, and routes to work as a technologically-enabled seamless transit system. It is essentially a multi-state, multi-government metropolitan transit system -- except that for the first time we're aware of anywhere in the U.S., we have no metro area and no core city, but rather two national parks occupying 4 million acres at our center. 

All of our programs are described and updated at www.yellowstonebusiness.org.

Wayne: What's the most interesting project you've been handling in your private land use consulting practice?

Dave: For about five years I've been working with the largest private landowner in my community to dispose of an incredible 1,000 riparian acres he owns in a way that best preserves its natural values (it's a byway for bears, wolves, mountain lions and a home for threatened sage grouse and bald eagles), while giving the owner a fair return for having been a good steward of the land for many years.

Wayne: For the upcoming Spring issue of the Planning Commissioners Journal, you've written a short piece titled, "Stop, Look, and Loiter." In it you speak about the "benefits to taking the time to slow down and observe for yourself whether people living and working in your community are enjoying or having problems with their surroundings." Do you think that's something most planning commissioners fail to do? 

Dave: Well, I've seen that it's something the commissioners in my region fail to do. And in reading the planning press, the popularity of articles connected with close, relaxed observation tells me it must be something commissioners around the country fail to do -- though clearly the authors of these articles aren't among them. Why? I think in 99% of cases we believe we're too busy to slow down and observe.

Wayne: I’ve found that many planning commissioners also enjoy reading in their free time. So let me close by asking if there's a book you've read in the past year or so that you'd particularly recommend to planning commissioners? 

Dave: Yes, Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals. Besides being the best Lincoln biography of recent decades, it brilliantly and in detail shows how Lincoln excelled at interpersonal relations, refused to dislike or dismiss anyone who crossed him, and forged lasting, effective alliances among people who had no natural reason to get along with each other. All are indispensable traits in today's planning.