Several Amador County community organizations have joined together to form a new organization called the Amador County Business Council. The new council, headed up by marketing director Jim Conklin, could ultimately address any issues facing the County, the first of which will be Amador County’s general plan update. The council has been circulating a draft letter among local groups that will eventually go to the Amador County Board of Supervisors. In the letter, the group expresses concern over the upcoming public workshops scheduled for October 14th through the 16th, at which Draft General Plan Maps will be discussed. The council feels that the county should hold public hearings, not just workshops, in order to “achieve a more community driven and legally supportable process.” Back in July, the Board of Supervisors voted to hold the public workshops, which are more of an information-dissemination forum. According to County Planning Director Susan Grijalva, “at public hearings, you receive public input, and take action.” At the scheduled public meetings in October, no decisions will be made, “just direction to staff” says Grijalva, who also noted that the three-day meeting was “only the beginning” in a series of meetings, and that “we’ve got a long way to go.” Grijalva says that the meeting (in October) is to “begin development of the county’s preferred alternative.” As it stands now, there are four alternatives for the General Plan. No one alternative has yet been chosen, but once it has, that selected alternative will be the focus of an Environmental Impact Report. So far, a number of local organizations have supported the content of the draft letter, including the Amador County Chamber of Commerce, the Amador County Association of Realtors and Amador Citizens for Responsible Government. Al Bozzo (BOT-ZO), Vice President the Association of Realtors, said “we support the intent of the letter,” and added that before the County’s EIR is finished, “we want to make sure everything is aired out.” Bozzo also stressed that the most important aspect of that letter is that the scheduled workshops should instead be public hearings, a point that was also stressed by Jackie Lucido, Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce. The council board was scheduled to meet at noon today to finalize the content of the letter and to make the decision to send it to the Board of Supervisors. We’ll have more on this as details develop.