THE PUBLIC MIND: COUNTY ZONING IMPORTANT FOR THE FUTURE

SHALL COUNTY PLANNING AND ZONING BE CONTINUED?

Cape Girardeau County voters will confront that question on Nov. 3. We believe their answer should be "Yes."

The question before us is not a referendum on the proposed zoning order. It is not a decision about whether county planning should become county planning and zoning by the adoption of the ordinance presently before the County Commission. On that question reasonable men and women might differ, and the "Yes" or "No" is not nearly as important as the one we will cast Nov. 3.

Those who ask us to vote "No" have brought forward an initiative which would repeal and revoke the authority for any and all county planning or zoning. They ask us to destroy the framework within which the economic development of Cape Girardeau County has taken place over the last 20 years. They ask us to repeal the County Master Plan, the Land Subdivision and Mobile Home Park Regulations, the Building Setback Regulations, the Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance, etc. of Cape Girardeau County. They ask us to undo all that we have done to promote the orderly, efficient, and economical development of our county.

In the past the writers have been critical of Planning Commission decisions, but we believe that, on the whole, planning and zoning served our county well. If we look around and attempt to imagine the growth of the last two decades taking place uninfluenced by county planning and zoning, perhaps we should say it has served us very well. The voters of 1972 looked around and decided that they needed a means of expressing the public interest in an orderly development of our county, that they needed a local public means of managing, resolving, or mitigating the conflicts of interest which inevitably arise from private decisions during economic growth in an area of mixed land-use. They were correct, and Cape Girardeau County is a better place because of their decision.

We will be mistaken if we do not discover within ourselves the same concern for the public interest, the same urge toward an amicable resolution of conflicts of interest, the "Yes" for the future of Cape Girardeau County.

David and Donna F. McDowell

Jackson Route 1