I promised to respond to the “Concerned Geneva Taxpayers” front-page series of complaints with an opinion-page series of solutions I am jokingly calling “The Frustrated Finger Lakes Mom’s Guide to Paying Attention and Finally Getting Things Done.” Remember, my frustration is not that people in positions of power don’t listen to me (how arrogant would that be?); instead, it is that they haven’t listened to people with actual expertise.

Why recruit national experts, pay them good money to study and diagnose our community development woes, watch their recommendations find great success in other communities that implement them, and then ignore it all? Geneva can’t armchair-quarterback its way out of serious issues, yet time and time again that’s what the “powers that be” do.

The point of the housing and comprehensive plans was to figure out what would be healthy for Geneva, not just what was typical, popular, or serving special interests. It is guided by five overarching values, because all sound policy must have a strong underlying “why.” Two of these values are that Geneva can and should be “prosperous” and “equitable.” This means, in part, that Geneva must be the kind of community that can provide a........

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