vision2020@moscow.com: Re: Swimming Pool Debate -- response to Mark Miller

Re: Swimming Pool Debate -- response to Mark Miller

Kathleen Warren (warren@wsu.edu)
Tue, 31 Mar 1998 00:10:42 -0500

It is fascinating to me how an e-mail discussion can evoke such a range of
perceptions. I'm really sorry, Mark, but based on the discussion I have
been following on this list, I have to disagree with nearly every statement
you make in your message (left in tact below) except the indisputable fact
that your wife was on the pool committee. You may also be right about
"college-age University of Idaho students" not participating on the list.
I have no way of checking that, but probably the listserv manager can do
that for us.
Yet I'm sure we could all have a very civil and accommodating discussion
if we met (for a long time) face to face. I feel this group of thoughtful
citizens, who may not always meet the definition of perfect visionaries,
but who certainly CARE about providing and nurturing vision, has generated
some extremely creative, doable ideas. Any plan presented to a community
as diverse as ours is bound to generate expressions of misgiving,
questions, and alternate suggestions. We have been sifting through these
as a group and have come up with a number of ways to broaden the appeal of
the bond issue and meet longer-term needs of more segments of the
community. Granted, more questions need to be answered, and all these need
to be resifted for practicality as well as creativity. I thought we were
really getting somewhere -- On Line, no less. But then your message came
through, and I see that you and probably others have concluded just the
opposite. Isn't this new age of computer-mediated communication going to
offer some interesting challenges for us all?

Kathleen Warren

At 06:59 PM 3/30/98 -0800, Mark Miller wrote:
>I have stayed out of this debate until now for the following reasons:
>1) my wife was on the pool committee
>2) I think the design, cost and location come up with by the committee are
>the best available at the present time
>3) we don't have time to waste--two summers without a pool are two too many
>
>Now, on with my diatribe.
>
>As "visionaries", I don't think that most of the discussion up to this
>point has been done with much vision at all. It seems to me that it has
>all been done as individuals with their own best interests at heart. This
>particular group, first of all and in my opinion, does not even come close
>to representing an accurate cross section of this community. We haven't
>heard, to my knowledge, from any college age University of Idaho students
>and, like it or not, if these folks register, they can vote in a bond
>election. Most of the comments that I have read here I would have thought
>had come from politicians, not private citizens (I don't really look at the
>school board as being a real political body). If these discussions had
>anything to do with the official process on getting a new pool, we could
>kiss it goodbye until the new millennium.
>
>It is about time that we come together and start looking at this project as
>a community, not as individuals. The design for our proposed new pool was
>conceptualized by a group of Moscow citizens that represented a pretty good
>cross section of our community. And, contrary to the beliefs of some
>"visionaries", their decision was unanimous in favor of this design.
>
>I'll go now, but with one further comment. People, don't think that this
>proposal is already in danger. I, for one, think that if it went to a vote
>among us "visionaries", that it might be close, but I think that when it is
>voted on by all voters that they will see that this is the best available
>option -- and it is good! If you all want a new pool, it is time to
>support the proposal and work towards getting the public as a whole behind
>it, too!
>
>Mark Miller
>
>
>
>
>
()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()
Kathleen Kuehn Warren
Assistant Director, Corporate Relations
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Washington State University
509-335-6456; warren@wsu.edu

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