Community Spotlight: Planning Committee

The Planning Committee’s role is to steer the PCA toward future projects and current goals. It can be considered the visionary committee, but, in reality, I consider most of our work to be short term or seasonal.

The PCA really works as a team, and I don’t think the Planning Committee can take credit for a sole accomplishment. If the Planning Committee decides to apply for a grant and that money goes to planting trees, really the Ecology Committee is doing quite a bit of work and probably deserves significantly more credit. However, the Planning Committee has a small thumb print on that particular project. That same analogy applies with the garage expansion project that was finished last year. Committees often meet separately, but we all share our information at monthly board meetings and complete the tasks accordingly.

Our goal for 2023 is to continue progress on the endowment bridge and land acquisition for more green space. Long term, we would like to use GIS (Geographic Information System) to create maps that digitally identify the various locations and features in the Arboretum.

Our Planning Committee, consisting of myself (Joe Jacquinot), Brian Laufenberg and Gene Weber, is very dynamic. We are the committee that works with other committees to plan and accomplish tasks. Our goals change as other committee goals change. I can say we are a motivated group and although we have big plans, we believe all of our goals are attainable in the near future.

The PCA is always looking for help. This community organization relies almost exclusively on local public support. You can get involved by volunteering, helping with monetary donations, or just using the trail. Our website is a great starting point.