Article submitted by Jamie Fleury, The Pilot News Staff Writer
PLYMOUTH — City of Plymouth Attorney Sean Surrisi discussed the Michiana Area Council of Governments (MACOG) Comprehensive Plan Proposal with the City of Plymouth Common Council noting that the current plan is nine years old. “General guidance is that it should be reviewed for updates every five years and totally redone every ten years.”
A committee met last year to solicit proposals from private consultants and reviewed presentations; many of which were costly leading to a pause by leadership on that discussion.
Recently the committee opened discussions with MACOG who has adequate planning staff within their organization and sufficient experience including planning done for Lapaz, Bourbon, Argos and Culver; though this would be their first comprehensive plan for a city.
MACOG presented a proposal in the amount of $41,000 for a one year process starting in the fall.
Ralph Booker, former Plan Director and a member of the former planning committee as a representative of the county spoke. He said the alternative to hiring MACOG would be that a steering committee go through the current comprehensive plan page-by-page and update it. “It wouldn’t be as professional as what MACOG could do. They are actually suggesting a different kind of format.”
Booker had distributed copies of that template. “You can see the example of the quality of work that they have done. They know Marshall County very well.”
Booker noted that $41,000 is about half the price as what other professional firms bid. He recommended outsourcing to MACOG as they are a local firm that is familiar with the community as opposed to tackling the task in-house.
Surrisi was given the approval to pursue a billing contract and project timeline from MACOG for full consideration of the council moving forward.
