Alturas

[Nancy Holmes <ncmholmes@moscow.com>]

The following is respectfully submitted by Evan Holmes.

We elect government officials to be decision makers and managers and then
hope they will be leaders. The effectiveness of decision-making can be
judged by results and content whereas the effectiveness of leading is also
based on tone and method.

Doing the right thing is not the same as merely avoiding that which is
disallowed.

I offer these points as commentary to the Alturas discussion. Regardless of
the perceived success or failure of the individual businesses and of the
technology park per se, the story of the Alturas development is emblematic
of the simultaneous success and failure of the prevalent local government
process.

The original planners of the project are to be congratulated on their
cleverness - they incrementally avoided that which was disallowed all along
the way. The Walker-Anderson Law business and the non-conforming
architecture of the structure that will house it are now entering the
technology park by incrementally avoiding that which would disallow them.
Same process. This double incongruity is therefore a perfect symbol for the
irony of the whole project. In this regard the Walker-Anderson Law business
and its antebellum mansion are a fitting addition to the park.

The V2020 discussion so far has left some greater questions dangling. The
very nature of what is good and what is bad for the community is being
intermixed with what allows for success and what prevents success for
individual businesses and for business sectors. It is the separation of
these ideas that underlies the major controversy - Alturas is just an
example.

Perhaps the technology park is in itself the perfect symbol for recent
trends in local government. Some see it as the fruition of careful
management and timely decision-making. Others find it to be a bleak
reminder of narrow minded and shortsighted processes that a true leader
would never entertain. Have we somehow achieved the theoretically
unattainable, which is, the good, the bad and the ugly - all in one package?