County Legislator Fred Larson asked a good question last week – what exactly is the county Planning Department planning if it isn’t worried about dealing with two of the most pressing issues facing Chautauqua County?

We’re talking, of course, about job creation and boosting the county economy. Larson took issue with a 40-minute presentation by county Planning Department officials that was long on what the department did in 2024. The list is fairly long — completion of four plans and studies; administration of 12 mandatory projects, boards, and committees; and 13 community outreach initiatives in planning, economic development, and watershed throughout the county. In addition, the county Department of Planning was awarded five grants totaling more than $3.38 million to assist with funding targeted projects.

Larson’s question — what’s the payoff? For all that work, how do we know anything got done besides busywork? Larson, a former judge and longtime attorney, has long had a laser focus on two statistics for Chautauqua County — population and jobs. The county’s population is down 24,000 from 2000 to 2020 while employment is down about 14,000 people in the last 15 years. It’s not unreasonable, in our opinion, to question the county Planning Department how its year’s worth of work helped reverse those two trends.

“The Economic Development Division under the Planning Department, their mission really isn’t to create jobs directly. That can be an outcome of some of the other planning work,” Geise said.

For those who remember the 1987 Mel Brooks film Spaceballs, there are times when listening to government economic development officials sounds an awful lot like Col. Sandurz, who was hilariously criticized for constantly preparing for action but rarely ever doing anything.

Larson’s criticism, at its heart, is pointed at the constant cycle of planning and the less used cycle of doing. The Jamestown Democrat isn’t wrong for wanting to see concrete results that the county is dealing with its population and job losses or simply preparing to at some point, maybe, in the future, some day, possibly take action. And, are we taking action on the right things?

All too often it feels like life in Chautauqua County is a mess for far too many of its residents. The county Planning Department is trying to plan for the county to have nice things. A lot of county residents are working too hard to ever be able to enjoy those nice things because our economy doesn’t allow them to pick their heads up from working the multiple jobs necessary to eke out a living here. Big murals are nice, but they don’t pay the bills or help county families put food on their table. Good-paying jobs do.