Buena Park Seeks Advice on Its Future

Hundreds of citizens will be asked to help shape the future of Buena Park as part of a citywide planning project called Vision 2010 that gets under way this month.

“We wanted to find a way to know what the citizens of Buena Park wanted us to work on,” Mayor Don Bone said.

Vision 2010 is an elaborate scheme designed to let residents in on the governing process.

During the coming months, hundreds of citizens will be asked to become involved in government by addressing issues that concern them. Participation will range from spending a few minutes filling out a questionnaire to spending several days serving on a task force. Eventually the conclusions will be brought back to the City Council for action.

“It is what is called bottoms-up planning,” Bone said.

The idea for the planning process began more than a year ago when the council sat down to set goals for the future. They wanted some type of “report card” which would tell them the things the public was concerned about, Bone said. Instead of guessing, they decided to go out and ask.

The project will officially get off the ground during the next few weeks when the City Council appoints a core committee of 12 residents to oversee the plan. When the committee is formed, its members will begin collecting the data from residents detailing the issues of concern. From this list, the task forces consisting of at least 20 residents will be formed.

Residents will be asked to address current and future issues, said consultant Bob Kuznik, who was hired by the city to guide the planning procedure.

“Citizens will look at not only the current needs, but the needs over the next 20 years,” he said.

Once ideas on how to address the concerns have been formed, the council will take the decisions under advisement and decide whether or not to act on them. But just because a year is spent formulating ideas, this doesn’t mean the council is going to start passing measures automatically, Kuznik said.

A few other cities in Orange County have turned to the strategic planning process in the last few years, including Brea and Anaheim. Brea is in the process of implementing a plan on a much smaller scale to address some vacant property in the city, Senior Planner Jay Trevino said. The citizens’ input will be taken into consideration when the city undergoes a general plan update, Trevino said.

The Buena Park project is expected to be completed in 13 months, culminating at the beginning of the next budget season so that pressing issues may be included if necessary, Kuznik said.