Jane fears for visioning results

Dear True,

There has been some good work done on the Grand Marais visioning process. My big fear, however, remains. The city council will make any final decision and that decision has already been made. It is to let the private property owners who support and employ them do whatever they want. The fundamental problem I have is that we are a community of diverse interests, people and economic needs and interests. The same people who favor the big marina are those that want no-controls-what-so-ever on development. Individual property owner rights, in their world, trumps the best interest of the community, no matter the cost.
Two of my favorite towns – Hals, Denmark and Depoe, Oregon are harbor towns that gave up their harbors entirely to boats. These are wonderful villages in beautiful settings that have, in effect, paved their harbors with boats.
The issue in Grand Marais is that those who favor the large marina consistently say that the harbor should be just for boats, after all, that is what a harbor is all about.

As for visioning and redevelopment, some of the key proponents of unbridled development in Grand Marais have expressed that Wisconsin Dells is what we should aspire to. Their fall back is Bayfield, Wisconsin or Door County. Any of these could be a poster child for tackiness, surpassed perhaps only by Niagara Falls. The driver for their attitude is not community, but profit. This means that the fundamental issue is one of core values, not of taste. There is no sense of what is best for the community; no sense of legacy; no sense of stewardship; no sense of responsibility to others. On the one side you have an unholy combination of those in favor of crass commercialism and weekend housing for the wealthy and on the other you those with a genuine sense of love for their community and a deep feeling of obligation to preserve what is worthy, to redress what needs to be corrected and to leave Grand Marais as genuine expression of good stewardship. My vision is one of continued strife because I do not see how these diametrically opposing positions can be reconciled.

Yours,
Jane Marple
"I find, in a village, the worst gossip is so often true."