GET INVOLVED

Message to our Community

What matters to you?  Is it our children and schools?  Traffic and safety?  A healthy environment with sustainable growth and jobs?  Our rural, small-town and agricultural heritage?  The beautiful oaks, rivers, reservoirs, and rolling hills surrounding our community, with wildlife, fishing and recreation? 

Most of us believe all these things are important.  They are part of our community values.  They are worth your care and concern and are worth preserving.  How can you help?  Pay attention.  Inform yourself.  Get involved.

What can you do? 

Find your cause and show your support.  Contact MyValleySprings.com.  Join our email list.  Donate to support our work (MVS.com is a volunteer non-profit organization that depends on your charitable contributions to continue going forward). Check out Volunteer Opportunities with MyValleySprings.com.  Attend community and planning meetings to learn more.  Form an opinion, and let it be heard.

What’s going on locally?

A lot!  We’re in the middle of a Valley Springs Community Plan update and a Calaveras County General Plan update.  The time for your voice to be heard is NOW!

Watch planning meetings on your computer

Click here for MVS summary ‘Community Planning’

Click here for CCOG website info on the Valley Springs Community Plan update

Click here for MVS summary ‘County Planning’

Click here for Calaveras County website info on the General Plan Update

Click here for regularly scheduled planning, county, and agency meetings and agendas

Click here for Special Meetings & Events

How to participate...

1. Pay attention! Talk about your community with friends and neighbors. Attend county-sponsored community workshops and participate in public forums and meetings presented by MyValleySprings.com and others! These sessions will provide information about sound land use planning, the General Plan process, the Valley Springs Community Plan, and the various agencies and regulations that impact future development

2. Join our email list to receive our newsletter and the latest planning information and updates. Check out Volunteer Opportunities with MyValleySprings.com.

3. Learn about Smart Growth and other strategies to improve planning and development.  Visit our ‘Opportunities for Improvement’ page.  Do your own research on our Research & Info page, our Recommended Reading page, or by doing a Google search for “Smart Growth.” The resources available are endless.

4. Become more involved.  Follow growth and development issues in the press and other sources; write letters to local newspapers, supervisors, planning commissioners and planning staff; talk to neighbors and people in your community about growth issues; watch Supervisors and Planning Commission meetings on public access TV, or on the internet on the CAP website (Community Action Project) or ThePineTree.net.

5. Attend meetings of the County Planning Commission, the County Board of Supervisors, the Calaveras Council of Governments (CCOG), water boards, and the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO). Commend them whenever their decisions support Smart Growth principles.

6. Keep in mind that changing the way a community grows is a gradual process. It requires vision, long-term planning, and persistence! That’s what a General Plan is all about--using the latest community design ideas to create a blueprint for how the community should evolve over the next ten to twenty years.

7. With MyValleySprings.com, become part of a vocal and visible constituency that supports development and implementation of a Smart Growth-oriented General Plan and Community Plan.

The more the decision-makers are aware that the community is paying attention, the less likely they are to approve exceptions and variances to the General Plan. Your letters and your presence at meetings can make a difference.

Effective Commenting on Environmental Documents
For guidelines, click here.