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Council or affected adjacent communities of major changes in the comprehensive plan. However, we did feel that notices of most local plan amendments could be distributed after action had been taken. The creation of the ad hoc committee to review the guidelines was a significant step toward improving relations of the Council and local governments. It allowed for an important exchange of ideas and positions taken by all parties concerned. If this was a precedent in establishing Council policy, it should continue. The combined efforts to establish new guidelines have not been completed, but do appear to be successful and seem to restore confidence between the staff members involved. It is hoped that the new public hearing document will be one that receives far fewer objections than its predecessor. BLAIR TREMERE, DIRECTOR OF PLANNING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CITY OF PLYMOUTH The Metropolitan Land Planning Act's purpose is to accomplish comprehensive local planning with land use controls consistent with planned, orderly and staged development and the metropolitan system plans. The law also provides that amend- ments to adopted plans shall be prepared, submitted and adopted in the same manner as the original plan. This involves submitting amendments to adjacent governmental units and affected school districts, as well as to the Metropolitan Council, for review and comment prior to adoption by the local governing body. The review period for the plans is nine months. The concern of many municipalities is to reduce the review period and simplify the procedures followed. The basis for the concern is that imple- mentation of comprehensive plans, particularly in response to actual development proposals, includes amendment of the plan. An extensive review time of proposed amendments represents undue delay in the development approval process. While a planning response to this concern could be that comprehensive plans should be "broad brush" guides of development goals and objectives, not subject to frequent detail amendment, the more realistic view is that if the document is to be a viable development tool, it should be capable of periodic updating and refinement. This is accentuated in the present case by the fact that municipalities have prepared plan elements of substantial detail, often in response to the urging of the Metropolitan Council; and that each community has designed the plan to best serve its planning and development needs. The numerous plans prepared under the Act generally follow the content format of the statute and Systems Statement/Plan Content Guidelines; but each is reflective of the individual community's definition of a useable plan. Thus, to provide for an environment conducive to use of the adopted plans by the communities as well as by the Metropolitan Council planners, a realistic, practical approach to amending and modifying the plans is necessary. The purpose of the review opportunity by other governmental uni~ and by the Metropolitan Council is twofold: 1) to provide information and keep distributed plans current; and 2) to allow other units the opportunity to evaluate potential and actual impact, as well as to allow the Metro- politan Council the opportunity to determine consistency with the Development Guide and whether there is substantial departure from metropolitan system plans. Current efforts to establish a more practical, expeditious and meaningful amendment review process, within the intent of the law, suggest this is feasible. The Metropolitan Council staff and Physical Development Committee, as well as representatives of several communities and the Association of Metropolitan Muneipalities, have maintained productive dialogue on the issues. While full concensus among those participants or among all metropolitan municipalities may not be realized, the mutual efforts to develop procedures and policies governing amendment review and adoption are significant and encouraging. This is important, not just as a matter of develop- ing a workable and more palatable procedure, but also as a way to set the foundation for a nec- essary final step, namely, seeking legislation which would revise the statute to clarify and better define the amendment process. The law could become problematical, without a distinction between types of amendments (ones of form and clarification versus ones of substance and change), and without a distinction between the degrees of impact of amendments (ones of sub- stantial impact on or departure from metropolitan systems versus ones of no or little impact or of local impact only). Literal interpretation of the present statute would subject any amendments to challenge if they weren't processed in the same precise manner as the plan itself. Establishment of a practicable and more expeditious amendment review procedure, through participation by representatives of all parties involved, should serve as a sound basis for clarify- ing legislation. It should also assure that the comprehensive plans generated at considerable cost will be used as viable development guides, and not as dormant shelf fillers. VERN PETERSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ASSOCIATION OF METROPOLITAN MUNICIPALITIES At a recent meeting in Apple Valley attended by local officials and representatives of the Metro- politan Council, the mayor of Apple Valley intro- duced himself as mayor "Alternative 3" Garrison. That self introduction pretty much sums up the feeling of local officials with respect to the identified alternatives for developing an acceptable