Planning commission meetings are usually not well attended.

But perhaps that would change if more planning commisssions listened to Danny Puko, a planning consultant who spent 15 years with the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development and who met recently with Warren County, city of Warren and Youngsville Borough planning commission members.

“Planning is not needed to maintain the status quo. Promote change. Do different things,” Puko said.

Puko is right, of course. It takes no planning to continue on the same course. And discussion of new, exciting directions and ideas is much more likely to generate attendance and enthusiasm from the community than listening to the same old conversations month after month.

We would add, though, that a comprehensive plan is only as good its follow-through. If the community doesn’t voice its support for the comprehensive plan when it comes time to create local budgets, it is easy for the plan’s bright, shiny baubles everyone wants to see constructed to remain only words on paper, no closer to reality than the characters in a Mother Goose rhyme.

A good comprehensive plan is important, but it is up to the public to ensure the items in the plan become reality.