The City of Ozark has adopted its first new strategic plan since 2016. It came up for a vote at Monday’s Board of Aldermen meeting. It passed unanimously, with one abstention.
Alderman David Snider sat out the planning process and the vote. He said he owed voters an explanation and voiced his opposition to the planning process during Monday’s meeting. Snider said, “we went outside our city to discuss this with a third-party entity. We paid several thousand dollars to a third-party entity and spent money outside of our city to another vendor to host this.” Snider said he didn’t feel that was the appropriate thing to do.
Alderman Bruce Galloway defended the process. Alderman Galloway said leaving the city’s office helped staff focus, and third-party facilitators allowed for a more balanced and productive conversation. He said the results will “pay back the city every penny.”
The city worked with Habitat Communication and Culture to develop the plan, which provides more short-term vision-oriented priorities. It will complement the detailed comprehensive plan the city last updated in 2019.
Those priorities include demonstrated responsible stewardship of the Transportation Sales Tax, with hopes to ask the public for an extension of that tax. The plan also calls for the city to seek a dedicated revenue source to support the city’s police department.
The City of Ozark also approved several rezoning resolutions at Monday’s meeting, with one notable exception.
A rare bit of applause filled Ozark’s city hall as the Board of Aldermen struck down a resolution rezoning just over three acres of property on State Highway NN near the Rivers subdivision.
At its first hearing in January, over a half dozen neighbors to the property spoke against it. The Aldermen echoed those concerns from the public. Alderman Bruce Galloway said the development project planned for the property would fundamentally change the character of the area. Alderman Galloway said he sympathized with a “developer or owner who wants to profit from their land.” But, he explained, a case had not been made that this rezoning would result in appropriate use of the land.
The rezoning request would have changed the property from general commercial to medium density residential. Aldermen Galloway noted that Ozark’s Comprehensive Plan recommends the area be zoned as single-family.