Who cares?

Who cares about Grand Marais?
I was so disappointed to read in the latest News-Herald web poll that 83 percent of respondents do not plan to participate in Grand Marais visioning, Phase 2. Compare this with half of Tofte’s adult population and some of its children taking part in their town design.
In Grand Marais, the visioning project led by Community Growth Institute has welcomed Grand Marais residents as well as county-wide and part-year residents and even visitors, creating a pool of 5,000 or more possible paraticipants.
In talk around town, letters to the papers, and press coverage it appears that many of those people have strong opinions about what Grand Marais ought to be in the future.
So, why not participate? If you can’t come to one or more of the meetings on July 25 and 26, you can email the design team with your thoughts at cginstitute@communitygrowth.com.
Or, check out the web site at http://www.grandmaraisvision.info; look at the draft visions to date, and then fire off your thoughts.
Why not? What are you thinking about, you 83 percent? Perhaps some of you have taken part in past planning efforts; perhaps you feel that your work is being overlooked and set aside. This is not true. The design team has carefully studied all of the earlier planning efforts including the comprehensive plan, as well as the script of the Town Hall meeting last year. Most people who took part in Phase 1 were excited about how open the CGI team of Rudy, DL and Chuck were to their input.
It’s not a time to sit back or complain; if this process fails you will have the rest of your lives to do that. Come on, people, smile on your brother, everybody get together right now.
True