Resort Improvement District Planning

By Willard R. "Roger" Boedecker

There has been no extensive formal planning in the Resort Improvement District (RID). The RID Board has approved a 10-year Capital Improvement Program, but little else. A planning process could be initiated by the RID Board adopting a mission statement and a set of long-term goals for the District.

What is lacking is any semblance of explicit long-term planning. Achievement of a long-term plan would provide a framework into which the annual budgets would fit. In the absence of stated, Board approved goals, the RID's resources are allocated to the solution of problems as they arise rather than toward moving the District in a previously determined direction. Rather than drifting in a passive-reactive mode, the District would take the initiative to move in a direction determined by the Board and supported by the community.

It might be argued that a District designed long range plan is irrelevant since the orginal subdividers laid out the parameters for the development of the community, and that regulations imposed by external agencies, county, state, and federal, are beyond the RID's control. My resonse to these contentions is that the original subdivision represented, at the most, an incomplete plan as demonstrated by the inadequate development of infra-structure as the lack of capacity for the treatment of wastewater, an incomplete and underpowered electrical system, and the failure to identify and obtain an adequate water supply. Regarding the impact of the authority of county, state, and federal agencies, these would represent factors to be incorporated into a long range plan.

I would urge the RID Board to take the first step in the development of a comprehensive planning process for the District by developing and adopting a mission statement and set of goals for the RID. When this has been accomplished the community and future Board members will know where the Board expects it to be in the future. Annual budgets could then be developed with specific objectives intended to move the District in the direction set by the goals. Future Boards would review and revise the District's goals as necessary.