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Video Girdwood
2020 |
Change: our
fundamental challenge Girdwood
residents have done a particularly good job
recently of living up to our community's
well-deserved reputation for spirited public
debate. To an unprecedented and alarming extent,
Girdwood today is polarized on important issues. We
have become a house divided. The corrosive
effect of this polarization on our community is
particularly disheartening because, with a little
thoughtful insight, it could be avoided. Our public
debate could, and should, be conducted from the
much healthier perspective of our under-recognized
common ground. Contrary to a
commonly held opinion, our polarization is not the
result of the controversies over issues like the
rail spur and golf course. Rather, these
controversies are ramifications of a more
fundamental weakness that has increasingly
characterized our public process since adoption of
the Girdwood Area Plan in 1995. This fundamental
weakness is our failure as a community to
forthrightly address the central challenge facing
us: we have not come to grips with the
inevitability of change. As a community, we have
not clearly identified the forces of change that
are focused on us. We have not realistically
evaluated our options for responding to change, and
we have not charted a course for the
future. By disregarding
the valuable insights gained through the three year
process that produced the Girdwood Area Plan, many
of us have lost sight of the fact that our best
option for maximizing the environmental and
socioeconomic values we all share, our common
ground, is by continuing our evolution into a
viable mountain resort community. With feet firmly
planted on this common ground, we need to find the
wisdom and courage to meet our obligation to the
future by realistically responding to the challenge
of inevitable change. Together, we can build a
better tomorrow. |
