The Covington Digital News Digital Edition April 10, 2015 | Page 7
Friday, March 6, 2015
Friday, April 10,
IN DEPTH
Newton Tomorrow
Board of Directors
Click on each name to see their
thoughts on collaboration
KEITH ELLIS
RONNIE
JOHNSTON
How is this different
from the 2050 plan?
Newton County Board
of Commissioners
Chairman
Covington Mayor
ARLINE
CHAPMAN
JERRY
ROSEBERRY
The Newton County Tomorrow group is ready to embark on planning for the county’s future, setting a path
for the tremendous growth that is expected here.
This isn’t the first time a group has gathered to prepare for Newton’s growth 20 or 30 years down the
road. Around a year ago, Newton County was a buzz
in the ill-fated 2050 Plan. A comprehensive plan for
the future of the county, facilitated by The Center, was
released to the public in 2014, including controversial
baseline ordinances.
Some of those ordinances aside however, many on the
Newton County Tomorrow board feel a lot of the plan
and collaboration was positive.
“I think the plan needed some scalpel work,” Frank Turner
said. “It needed somebody to take a scalpel to it and dig out
some of the stuff and do a little operation. And what ended
up happening was they used a guillotine on it.”
Newton County Tomorrow will be operating more like a
think tank, driven by a large board of directors including
elected officials and citizens.
“At some point we have to decide through collaboration what will be best,” Avis Williams said. “We’re getting
more input from us as just regular community citizens.“
This time around, any plan will not only be communicated to citizens, but helped devised by citizens, the
group said.
“There were people vocally opposed just to be opposed,”
Phil Johnson said. “There were people that hand legitimate concerns about provisions of the 2050 Plan. Those
people who had legitimate concerns were urging the
entire time that we not stop. We needed to go back and
evaluate concerns that were raised. But there were great
things in the 2050 Plan.”
Porterdale Mayor
Oxford Mayor
GREGG
ELLWANGER
JEFFERSON
RILEY
Newborn Mayor
Mansfield Mayor
RALPH
STAFFINS
SAMANTHA
FUHREY
Chamber of
Commerce President
NCSS Superintendent
ERIC LEE
STEPHANIE
LINDSEY
Springfield Baptist
Church Pastor
AARON BROOKS
local politician
Attorney at the
Lindsey Firm
RODRICK
BAKER
television engineer
PHILLIP
JOHNSON
NORBERT
THOMPSON
lawyer
Technical Products
president
FRANK TURNER
DAVID WALLER
retired Covington City
Manager
retired Wildlife
Resources Division
director
AVIS WILLIAMS
MIKE HOPKINS
community minister
Newton County
Water and Sewerage
Authority Executive
Director