Grasping confusion out of the jaws of clarity.

I find Briggs frequently disappointing.

Those people suck. I'll let it be muddy as to which people.

I'm writing it, but it's still going to be a mess. Not to blame deadlines or space requirements, but that was one big cluster-F.

Essentially, they approved the Briggs' Plan. The same as they were expected to vote on with the added paragraph that at this point is still up to debate as to what it really means. Is it as innocuous as Briggs claims or is it the Trojan Horse that Tony Norman believes it to be?

I don't know. I think it just confuses things more personally. (And no matter what - it can still wind up and court.)

This plan and the principals, objectives, policies and guidelines included herein are advisory in nature and constitute non-binding recommendations for consideration in connection with development of steeply sloped areas.

Any comparable provisions of the Knoxville-Knox County General Plan 2033 or any Sector Plan which relate to hillside and ridgetop protection shall also be considered advisory consistent with this plan.

Ok, that first sentence is fine. The second - "not a part of the official general plan" - isn't. Anything in the general plan means that the legislative body can't pass ordinances contrary to the plan w/o amending the plan first. So this would mean that Commission can pass anything it wants w/o even referring to the objectives of the plan.

And I don't even know exactly what the third one does, but it sounds like they are amending sector plans w/o actually voting on them, and I don't see how that's legal.

If I were still on MPC, I know the first call I'd make would be to the MPC attorney.

On a lighter note, my favorite comments from the audience during the meeting:

One developer repeatedly telling Commission that if they didn't pass the amendment they would have been LYING to "us" all along. I'm not sure just how to take that.

One guy comparing the plan to Obamacare. (Had to happen.)

And the best of all - the guy yammering about our in-a-lien-able rights (pronounced as in "put a lien" on this property). He said it twice.

There seems no doubt that Briggs' "while" was not used in the temporal sense. "Although" might have been too jarring, but that's what Briggs intended.

LVG

of this whole process has been a confirmation of the total lack of trust that citizens have in their representatives in postmodern times. In order to keep from getting screwed over (as we now EXPECT since we just naturally assume that our representatives will only cater to a sliver of the population - usually the wealthy elite), we are forced to follow their every single move, such as on this forum where we are parsing and re-parsing detailed last-minute amendments to determine the meaning of "while." And while we are wringing our hands over whether it was a Trojan Horse or not, they are busy considering some other way (yet unbeknownst to us) to appease this tiny group of people who truly believe that "the market dictates everything".

Briggs' clearly stated intent was to bring clarity, so we must assume he chose his words carefully and would have selected 'although' had he meant 'although.' Instead he chose the temporal 'while.' He did this to be clear that the second and third sentences have a duration, namely the period of time between now and the final vote to adopt this plan.

If we start changing his words for him to conform to our worst expectations, we are left with a statement that boils down to this: 'Although this plan is being adopted as an amendment to the general plan, it is not intended to be an amendment to the general plan.' That is utterly nonsensical and the polar opposite of his intended aim of clarity.

Taking him at his word, the only possible interpretation of his amendment is that he is merely clarifying the status of the plan as winds its way through the approval process. Obviously he is not intending to create an entirely new category of planning document that lives in some transitory world between the general plan and nowhere, or he would have said so while carefully stating his intent.

Furthermore, creating some sort of alternate universe for this one planning document is probably something the state legislature would have to do, not county commission. Likewise, using this plan as a vehicle to alter the legal status of the general and sector plans seems contradictory to state law. That means a likely lawsuit against the Commission, which Briggs surely does not want, as it would embarrass him and incur significant legal costs for the taxpayers. Neither Briggs nor the Chamber would be so crass as to slip a taxpayer-funded payday for a few elite attorneys into a public document.

We simply have no choice but to interpret the Briggs amendment as a temporary companion to the plan, ushering it through to its final approval.

We simply have no choice but to interpret the Briggs amendment as a temporary companion to the plan, ushering it through to its final approval.

Rikki, pardon me, but bullshit.

Go ask Briggs what he meant. Go ask Garrett Wagley or Mike Edwards. Go ask Tom McAdams, who no doubt actually wrote the damn thing.

[UPDATE: I just spoke to Mark Donaldson and he reads that sentence the same way I do.]

Obviously he is not intending to create an entirely new category of planning document that lives in some transitory world between the general plan and nowhere,

That's EXACTLY what he intended. Or rather, the Chamber intended.