Blair County Planning Commission members are mulling over a strategic plan study recently completed by Denny Puko, Planning Consultant LLC.

The Planning Commission was considering restructuring the organization to improve board and staff roles and relationships, so it paid Puko, a recognized authority on the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code and intermunicipal planning, $5,000 to do the work.

The Blair County Planning Commission is an independent organization that serves as the planning agency for Blair County and represents all municipalities in the county on planning matters.

It has two bodies: Blair County Planning Commission, which performs a variety of community planning activities; and Blair Metropolitan Planning Organization, which specifically performs planning and programming for federally funded transportation projects in the county.

According to the study summary, Blair Planning should follow through and address important organizational strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

The study identified important matters needing attention, such as capitalizing on the county’s outstanding comprehensive plan and making Blair Planning’s purpose and authority more clear to municipal officials.

“A number of the municipalities and people don’t understand what we are and what we do. Most of our communication with municipalities is through staff people, not the elected officials,” Planning Director David McFarland said.

“People don’t know who we are and what we do. We need to educate the people,” board member Patrick Baechle said.

The study suggests Blair Planning should consider a restructuring proposal and change from having a separate planning commission and government advisory committee to having one planning agency body.

The study also suggests Blair Planning should make meetings more worthwhile for municipalities, take steps to encourage greater participation and provide clearer and more informative communications to members.

“How can we make the meetings meatier in terms of what are the needs throughout the county on municipal issues that impact planning? We need to work through that,” McFarland said. “The meetings could be meatier if we talk about issues people have. We are trying to move things forward from a planning standpoint.”

Meetings don’t have to be lengthy.

“My biggest goal is to have a meeting done in an hour. We’ve never got to that point. We need to try to make it as efficient as we can. I hope we can do that,” member Randy Isenberg said.

Members are looking at the way board members are appointed.

Presently three members represent the City of Altoona, three represent the boroughs in the county and three represent the townships in the county. There is a vacancy for the boroughs’ representation. Members are appointed by the Blair County Commissioners.

“We could regionalize the current members with one representing the county as a whole. We don’t have anyone from the Claysburg area; we could seek someone to fill that vacant spot. I can’t remember anyone from that area in at least 20 years,” McFarland said.

Commission members will take their time mulling over the study.

“Whatever happens, won’t happen immediately. This is not something that happens quickly. We are not exactly sure what we want to do,” Chairman William Hall said. “There are still things that need to be done legally to do any of this. It is a work in progress.”

Mirror Staff Writer Walt Frank is at 814-946-7467.