Re: Moscow school district cuts

[Ken Medlin <dev-plan@moscow.com>]

> this community doesn't have the air or the
>feel of a place that's in decline.
No it doesn't, Priscilla. But neither does it exhibit signs and airs of 
creativity and internal movement -- all the while being a "nice place to 
be, live, raise children, access culture, etc.".  What's lacking is 
dynamic leadership capable of pulling the many community assets together 
to provide a forward-looking and self-fulfilling image. America 
desperately needs a new model for urban living (I just returned from a 
week in the Bay Area, where I grew up, and it's an unholy mess -- people 
cramming the freeways from 5 AM to drive 30-40-50 miles or more to work; 
crowding and congestion everywhere, over-taxed and poor services, et al). 
 The economic base here is "abnormal", with a university community 
surrounded by a rural economy, with very few exceptions. A much stronger 
gown-and-town relationship, calling on prof'l resources and several 
dynamic community organizastions to nourish new cultural and social 
concepts, could well help. I don't know what the main impediments to a 
different set of relationships might be, since no major industry outside 
agriculture is around to manipulate professional orientations and careers 
as happens in many other university settings. And we are not a "satellite 
city" like many other smaller, often suburban, communities. I just wonder 
how many parents in Littleton commute into Denver to work? What does that 
do to the family? I'm beginning to ramble here, but one can raise all 
kinds of questions about what we should be about. Cheers, Ken M.

------------------------
William K. Medlin
Dev-plan associates
930 Kenneth Street
Moscow ID 83843
208/892-0148
dev-plan@moscow.com