Last Tuesday it was a pleasure to walk into a room bustling with over 100 people gathered under the banner of Sustain Blaine. I would like to thank the Sustain Blaine steering committee for providing such an open avenue for the residents of this community to express their opinions and also for their commitment to crafting these opinions into a concrete plan of action for the valley.
In tough economic times it might seem more apt to talk about survivability than sustainability. If there is one thing this current situation is telling us, it is, "no more short term solutions." I like how the conversation on Tuesday was about ideas that would provide for long-term viability. Proposals for small-business incubators, higher education facilities and sustainable agriculture point toward a community's seeing the bigger vision. We are realizing that these actions have the potential to pull us out of a hole now and set us on firm ground in the future.
I hope that TIP, the independent economic development strategists hired by Sustain Blaine, can use these suggestions to come up with a dynamic plan for economic development for Blaine County. In order to get a plan that actually works for us we have to keep being involved. In that, I also thank all of those who joined me last Tuesday at the meeting and who will continue to talk about what it means to have a sustainable economy here in Blaine County.
Mike Gordon
Ketchum
