Another $76,000 — Groundhog Day in Worthington
This will be short, but it needs to be said.
At tonight’s meeting, City Manager Stewart is going to ask City Council to approve an additional $76,000, on top of the original contract of $460,000, to be paid to the consulting firm PlanningNEXT. This is the firm, led by Jamie Greene, that has been asked to manage our city’s Comprehensive Plan update process. If approved, this brings total fees, to-date, to $536,000.
If you have attended either of the two public meetings that were supposedly gaining valid and valuable information about public viewpoints, or if you have tried to complete one or more of the surveys online, or have attended any of the planning committee meetings, you may share my assessment that rather than giving Mr. Greene a bonus, the City of Worthington ought to be asking for a refund. It is that bad. Here’s a thumbnail sketch:
- Unoriginal, boiler-plate process (as an indicator of pervasive mediocrity, even the self-designated name, Worthington Together, is copy-cat; Mr. Greene, who has been in the business for decades, had the planning committee labor over the name as their first assignment; he could have saved us all time and money)*
- No data control (in addition to the confusing and exclusionary questionnaire designs and color-coded stickies for the maps, the online surveys had zero controls over who was filling them out. Did the respondents live in Worthington? Were multiple responses submitted by a single person? We don’t know.)
- Lack of real public dialog (Mr. Greene never takes questions at the public meetings; table discussions are also controlled—just ask people who attended; even the planning committee meetings are largely steered)
- Refusal to include significant development ideas in the range of options to even be discussed (specifically related to UMCH, and in spite of multiple direct requests from community groups beforehand; and this is supposed to be a community-derived Plan?)
- This is a short-list. More to come in the future.
The staff memo that has been written to justify this request for more money of course deflects any sense of responsibility, or acknowledgement of incompetence, for either PlanningNEXT or the City. Instead we are told that “work has expanded in response to requests from the community and dynamics that have emerged.” Really? And is the $536,000 a firm and final number? Do you have that in writing?
Groundhog Day in Worthington.
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* A quick Google search yielded this:
South Bend Indiana
https://together.southbendin.gov/
Lagrange County Together
https://lagrangecountytogether.org/
Together DM (Delaware-Muncie)
https://www.co.delaware.in.us/department/division.php?structureid=157
Jefferson County Forward Together
Frankfort/Franklin County Kentucky – Distilled Together
https://distilledtogether.com/
All Together Altoona
https://www.altoonapa.gov/departments/community-development/compplan
Kent (WA) Building Our Future Together
https://engage.kentwa.gov/futurekent
Charlottesville Plans Together
https://cvilleplanstogether.com/
Wilson Growing Together
Philadelphia 2050: Planning Together
https://www.phila.gov/2025-05-13-planning-together-update-the-citys-comprehensive-plan-with-us/
Shenandoah 2045: A Future Together
https://www.shenandoahcountyva.gov/181/Shenandoah-County-2045-A-Future-Together
