Welcome to our new Building Place Notebook readers from Planetizen.com!

We at Building Place are celebrating a couple of milestones that made us smile this week, thanks to our readers:  Our Building Place Notebook online newsletter received its…
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A Friday Funny! cartoon courtesy of Paul Zucker, FAICP of Zucker Systems, an excellent public sector management consulting organization based in California:

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The following case summary was adapted from one prepared by Kurt Schindler at MSU-Extension; excerpts reprinted with permission from the author. The Zoning Guru chose this case because it answers the $Million question elected officials face when confronted with a development-related lawsuit:

“Do we defend our master plan?“

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Earlier this year President Obama’s federal “stimulus program” swept across the country offering federal funding to jump start “shovel-ready” capital improvement projects.

This highlighted the ongoing need for local governments to be more nimble and able to respond without delay to new economic development and community building opportunities. For long-term success, local governments must do more than simply respond and react.

An up-to-date capital improvements program (CIP) is a tool local governments can use to plan for major expenditures, to ensure that public funds are used wisely and as efficiently as possible, and most importantly - to be prepared with “shovel-ready” projects when unexpected sources of funding appear!

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From the Planning and Zoning Center at Michigan State University:

Registration for the Fall 2009 Michigan Zoning Administrator Certificate Program offered by the Planning and Zoning Center at MSU is now open.  There are eight modules included in each training program leading to a certificate of completion for those that pass an exam associated with each module. Each module is about three hours of instruction (24 hours total).

Dates and locations:

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