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Carbon County open-space staff to expand municipal outreach after pilot workshops
Summary
Staff reported on regional open-space workshops tied to the county’s comprehensive and Greenway plans, said turnout was small but productive, and outlined upcoming sessions and scheduling plans for July/August.
CARBON COUNTY — Staff for the Carbon County Open Space Advisory Board reported on a series of municipal outreach workshops tied to the county comprehensive plan and Greenway trails and open-space plan, saying the sessions produced useful dialogue with municipal officials despite modest attendance.
Don, a staff member, and Dave, the county’s Planning Director, told the board the Northwest Region workshop included a large printed map and attracted several municipal officials who discussed potential projects and local development pressures. Dave said pairing the county open-space presentation with planning and economic-development context — including a brief presentation from Jared, an economic development staffer — made the sessions more relevant to municipal decision-makers.
Staff described that the workshops used a county parcel viewer and mapping layers to show forest tracts, parcel zoning, and potential conservation targets. Maggie from Wildlands produced the GIS map used in the Northwest workshop, staff said. The presenters said they plan to shorten future workshops to about an hour (the first ran about 90 minutes) and to schedule remaining regional meetings in July and August; staff will send doodle polls and reach out to Eastside, Kidder, Penn Forest and other municipalities to find times that improve attendance.
Staff also said they may stream regional meetings for broader access and that they plan to offer short joint meetings that combine a board session with the regional outreach content to increase participation. The outreach schedule will include the Kittatinny branch region (workshop planned to finish July 1), and additional sessions for Lehigh-region municipalities later in July and August.
Why it matters: staff said the workshops are intended to inform municipal officials about county open-space acquisition processes and to encourage well-prepared project applications; mapping and planning context, staff said, produced the most interaction with municipal supervisors present at the first workshop.
The board discussed logistics for future meetings and asked staff to circulate schedules so commissioners and advisory board members can attend as local representatives.
