CARRSVILLE
No participants showed for either session of Isle of Wight County’s first public forum concerning its 2018 Comprehensive Plan. The county had scheduled two blocks of time on Thursday at Carrsville Elementary School to solicit input, one from 3:30 to 5 p.m. and the other from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

The only attendees at either session were employees of the county or members of the Planning Commission. Ed Easter, a resident of Isle of Wight’s Newport District, also came to the afternoon session just as an observer.

Had more people attended, they would have viewed a brief presentation on the purpose of a comprehensive plan and participated in the same exercise that the members of the county’s Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission conducted during a joint work session in early June.

That exercise involved five posters, each of which asked a different, open-ended question concerning the current and potential future states of Isle of Wight County. Questions asked on each poster included, “Growth and development in Isle of Wight should…,” “The best thing about Isle of Wight is…,” “The worst thing about Isle of Wight is…,” “In the future, I want Isle of Wight to…,” and “What comes to mind when you look at a map of Isle of Wight? Which locations are important and need to be preserved/need to be changed?”

“We don’t know why people did not show up, but we are hopeful they will come to one of the future sessions, or at a minimum, go online and complete the survey to ensure that their perspectives are considered,” said Assistant County Administrator Don Robertson.

The survey is live at a special website devoted to the 2018 Comprehensive Plan. It can be accessed by going to iwus.net/plan. The site is also intended to be county residents’ main source of information concerning the county’s progress on the plan.

The next public forum on the Comprehensive Plan will be on Thursday, June 29, in Windsor High School, and will again include two separate sessions, one from 3:30 to 5 p.m. and the other from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

Participants at either of the WHS sessions will have the opportunity to go through the same exercise that was scheduled for Carrsville Elementary.