Box Butte County Zoning Administrator Mike Johnson is on a mission to help ensure the future growth and prosperity of Box Butte County, putting in the leg work to gather input from Box Butte County residents to be compiled into a comprehensive plan to steer the county in making future decisions.
Citizens have the opportunity to make their voices heard by either filling out a survey, or by attending meetings that have been planned in Alliance and Hemingford. The Alliance meeting is planned for Jan. 27 at 7 p.m. at the Knight Museum, and the Hemingford meeting is slated for Jan. 28 at 7 p.m. at Mobius Communications.
The survey may be located on Box Butte County’s website, www.boxbuttecountyne.gov. For those who do not have access to a computer, Johnson encourages them to contact him at 308-763-8348, and he will deliver a physical copy of the survey for them to fill out.
Johnson explained that the comprehensive plan is a policy document that represent’s the community’s views on the future of development in Box Butte County.
“It serves as a blueprint for growth and development,” said Johnson. “The last time we did this was in 2000. Things have had major changes since 2000. We’ve had some decent growth. We don’t have increase in population, but we’ve had some good businesses move in. Things are going correctly. What this view does is say, ‘Where are we going to go in the future and how do we want to see Box Butte County 20 to 30 years from now.’”
The survey covers a range of topics from economic development, community facilities, land use, housing, water and other natural resources and even energy generation.
“Energy is going to be a big topic for the next 20 years,” Johnson said. “Do we want wind generation, solar? How do we want to address the future of energy in Box Butte County? All of these things need to be addressed in this 30 year plan.”
Johnson said that so far there has been a broad amount of participation in the survey from Box Butte County’s younger citizens, but the participation from other generations has been lagging behind in comparison.
“We’ve gotten about 65 adults, but about 165 kids,” Johnson said. “The kids jumped on early, and we’ve gotten some good feedback from the kids on what they see in Box Butte County.”
Another factor in the survey Johnson mentioned was tourism and highlighting the attractions that already exist, and finding ways to encourage people to stop and see Box Butte County as they travel through the region.
The upcoming meetings, Johnson explained will provide a chance for even more public input and engagement on these topics.
“It’s important for this comprehensive plan to have this major public input,” said Johnson. “What we do in the future is based on what we hear from the people. We want Box Butte County, a safe and healthy place to live, in the future, with resiliency to be prosperous and provide opportunity to our youth going into the future. I think the youth is a big thing that we need to include.”
Once all of the input is gathered, the Box Butte County Planning and Zoning Board and the Box Butte County Commissioners will combine it with the existing information to create the plan that will guide policy makers and elected officials in Box Butte County as they make decisions that impact the future of the county.