Editor, Suffolk News-Herald:

I came across a rebroadcast of the joint meeting held between Suffolk City Council and the planning commission on the municipal access channel recently, the purpose of such meeting being to begin the review of the 2018 comprehensive plan.

Over all, the city received good marks for managing and controlling growth allowing the city to grow by choice, not by chance. Stay the course.

However, after hearing their same old mantra repeated by council members Milteer, Brown and Johnson, I would urge citizens to make their wishes known before personal issues, agenda, and self serving economic issues are allowed to undermine the planning and progress of the last years. Management and control of growth was the most important problem when the comprehensive plan was first presented, and it remains so today. Stay the course.

Desires for immediate development in the southern part of the city and rooftops for the sake of rooftops do not seem to fit logical controlled growth plans which have worked so well to this point. Stay the course.

What would it take for this group to put aside personal issues, and just do what is right for the city and stay the course?

Please, folks, just preserve what makes Suffolk unique in the region. Try to be more receptive to the needs of existing citizens and businesses, and don’t let new growth guide investment strategy. What’s wrong with the status quo?

Carol Lynne Shotton

Suffolk