Small town economies and environment among key concerns
More than 100 Adirondack citizens, including small business owners, local, state and federal officials, and non-profit leaders are expected to participate in a Long Lake forum to discuss the future of Adirondack Park communities and how to improve their economies and environment.
The interactive forum is to be held Wednesday, July 20, and will focus on future Park scenarios.
It is being hosted by the Common Ground Alliance of the Adirondacks.
Local businessmen and scenario experts Dave Mason and Jim Herman will present six possible scenarios for the future of the Park.
Mason and Herman are the entrepreneurial team that brought affordable broadband telecommunications to Keene and Keene Valley. “We hope to stimulate people to think more strategically about the difficult and complex issues facing the Park,” Mason said. “We want people to think hard about what they want the Park to become in the future.”
Participants in this year’s forum will rank the scenarios and discuss how Adirondackers can work towards, or away from, these possible future outcomes.
Each participant will also have the opportunity to sign up and be part of a team that will continue this process of scenario planning to help drive the process into the future of the Park.
Kate Fish, executive director of the Adirondack North Country Association, said the scenario approach has proven to be constructive in many applications.
“Scenarios are powerful tools that the private sector has used for decades to plan, anticipate and help drive toward desired outcomes,” she said. “We are extremely fortunate to have Dave Mason and Jim Herman bring their extensive experience in managing scenario planning to the Adirondacks to help us collectively determine our own desired future and to work toward achieving it,” she said.
Lani Ulrich, founding member of CAP-21, said the forum should help Adirondackers communities pull together with a stronger voice. “There are too few people in the Adirondacks for us to be sending mixed messages to our officials,” she said. “We need to determine what our strongest mutual concerns are, get them down on paper and work together to get attention for them.
Brian Houseal, executive director of the Adirondack Council, agrees. “The Adirondack Park has only about 150,000 residents, spread over 12 counties, covering more than 9,000 square miles. It is larger than Massachusetts, but has barely 1/40th of its population. So it’s easy for lawmakers and policymakers to write-off the region as politically insignificant,” he said.
But the Park is not without its stengths, Houseal said.“[We have] a strong supply of dedicated leaders and well-run organizations that can help bring the needs of the Park and its residents to the forefront. By working together on our common problems, we can send a stronger and clearer message to Albany and Washington, D.C. than any of us could manage on our own.”
The Common Ground Alliance Forum will be held from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Mt. Sabattis Pavilion, Long Lake. Participants may register on-line at http://tinyurl.com/6be9pdr.
