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Help forge a county's future

STAFFORD is a county at the edge of a cliff. It still is largely the comfortable, family-friendly place that residents love, but if planners aren't careful, it could easily plummet into the abyss of ugly suburban sprawl that has claimed so many of our neighbors to the north. Fairfax, anyone?

Stafford ballooned to more than 116,000 people in 2005, reports the Census Bureau--a growth explosion of 25.9 percent from 2000. While Stafford didn't quite match the jaw-dropping growth rate of, say, much smaller King George County (6.7 percent in a single year), its population is flourishing faster than many longtime residents could ever have predicted, with all of such dizzying growth's attendant issues. Staffordians can recite a long litany of those, from what to do about Crow's Nest, to who's wearing the director's hat in the ongoing public-school drama, to how to get home without being a victim of road rage.

With so much to consider, it behooves all county residents to voice their concerns and contribute ideas to the Stafford Comprehensive Plan that county officials are now hammering together. Meetings welcoming precisely that kind of public comment will take place tonight and tomorrow night. Residents of northern Stafford can do their civic duty tonight at Rodney Thompson Middle School at 7 p.m.; southern Stafford folk can go to Ferry Farm Elementary at the same time tomorrow night.

The county's Steering Committee wants residents to think hard about where Stafford is, and, more important, where it's going. Does the county need more roads, more schools, more Wawas? Should preservation of open space be at the top of the priority list--or how to accommodate the human influx that will come with new jobs at Quantico and Fort Belvoir? In short, what kind of place will Staffordians call home 10 or 20 years down the line? Prudently, officials see that the time to plan for that is right now.

America grows best when caring citizens help government steer the ship. Ronald Reagan famously said: Trust--but verify. That maxim applies in no small measure to Stafford County. Let the call of good citizenship be heard.