County staff presents draft Marathon County comprehensive plan; comments due Feb. 11

County planning staff presented a draft of the Marathon County 2026 comprehensive plan to the Infrastructure Committee on Jan. 8 and asked for committee feedback by Feb. 11.

The presenter said the full draft is "about 262 pages" and that the packet included a summary of goals and objectives so members could review them without reading every chapter. The executive committee has approved circulating the draft for comment and plans to post a resolution that would start a 30-day public comment and hearing period before the plan returns to the county board for possible adoption in March.

Administrator Leonard and planning staff discussed a question raised by Health and Human Services about whether the plan explicitly addresses the unhoused population. Leonard pointed to chapter 13, saying there is "a very clear strategy under 1 of the more broad objectives relating to housing that specifically mentions, addressing the homelessness population and also addressing a lot of the ancillary challenges that that population frequently has." He encouraged committee members to review strategies in chapter 13 if they believe a specific objective is missing.

Committee members also asked whether broadband objectives should remain given the broadband task force will sunset and some responsibilities will move to other committees. Planning staff said the broadband objective is written broadly and that it is a policy choice for the county board how prominently to feature broadband in the strategic plan.

Staff next steps: committees are asked to submit comments by Feb. 11 so that the executive committee can post a resolution, open the 30-day public hearing period and return the plan to the county board for consideration.