Michael Polan was appointed on January 26, 2021 by the nine member planning commission.



Upon review and analysis of the county building, zoning, and planning department, I have developed a three year plan to modernize all aspects of this department.



I have found most government agencies to be in-efficient, slow, clunky, smothered in bureaucracy and politics. I see many complaints involving barely functional building and planning departments around the country, mostly in California, and have identified wasteful spending, fragmented communication, lengthy delays in processing plan reviews and permits on larger developments. We can tackle these issues by improving communication, education, establishing priority levels, cross training, upgrading hardware, software, web and cloud based public access to services and processes. This is a busy department, with a wide range and broad scope of duties, in the second biggest county in the state. It will be a challenge to implement the improvement strategies while concurrently maintaining daily operations, which will be even more satisfying than doing this with the smaller department I came from. This department will become a model for others to follow as we update to a more mobile / tech friendly, solar, EV, energy storage, modern regulatory approach to newer emerging developments occurring around the globe. Storm Water and Grid System Management should be a priority for all communities relative to future planning. Now is the time we move from the Flinstones to the Jetsons if we want to set the pace in our field. I will periodically issue public addresses to announce our progress in this endeavor. I will do my best to keep politics out of our operations, while implementing logical, common sense governing in our public service.

polanmichael@hotmail.com