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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Bruce, It's clear from your post that you do not
feel that the MCA is a "no growth" organization. But it's equally clear that
it's a long way from being pro growth. What it appears to me to be is a growth
by strangling committee group. A here is our vision of how property that is not
ours should look and be used club. If you stand in the way of the kinds of
development that developer's actually are willing to put their money on the line
for, can you honestly say you're in favor of growth? To proclaim yourselves as
"smart growth" advocates is to say that you're in favor of a set of confused and
contradictory goals design to leave everyone dissatisfied. It would seem to
me that pro growth is to let the people with a real vested interest in any given
project move ahead under a straight forward and not overly restrictive set
of guidelines and let the community vote with its patronage. In a society
where failure is seldom rewarded, mistakes will likely not be repeated. To try
and make everybody happy on the front end of every project is to create needless
road blocks and stagnation.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Gary Crabtree</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=jeanlivingston@turbonet.com
href="mailto:jeanlivingston@turbonet.com">Bruce and Jean Livingston</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=mattd2107@hotmail.com
href="mailto:mattd2107@hotmail.com">Matt Decker</A> ; <A
title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision2020@moscow.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, May 23, 2006 12:45
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> RE: [Vision2020] RE: Tribune
uncovers new Moscowpro-growth gro</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Whoa Nellie!</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Matt, I think you need to stop buying what certain "growth at all costs"
types are selling in their inaccurate smear of the MCA as an organization
favoring no-growth. We are by no means a "no-growth"-seeking
organization. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>We seek to bring open public discussion and planning -- long range
planning especially -- back into the process. We seek to
incorporate into our City better pedestrian and bicycle corridors, sidewalks,
mixed uses and cluster developments that use forward thinking combinations of
higher densities, and more shared, open space. We seek
sustainable community development, not stagnation. There is a
continuum of positions on the growth spectrum, from no growth on the one hand
to unregulated, absolute power to develop one's land without regard to the
effect on one's neighbors on the other. MCA is not for the former;
I would hazard a guess that GMA is not for the latter. Time will
tell.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Up until recently, this City has operated on a basis that had relegated
the zoning code to an advisory document, spot-zoning and re-zoning property
willy-nilly at the request of any developer -- regardless of the conflict
any particular proposal may have had with the Comprehensive
Plan. Evidence of that sad pattern can be found with the prior
council's frittering away of the West A street commercial property that has
been turned into one apartment complex after another. The "pro-growth at
all costs" crowd decries the current "lack" of motor business land in the City
and uses that alleged "lack" as a basis for asserting the necessity of
re-zoning the Thompson property. Those same "pro-growth regardless of
the costs" folks include those who spent much of our best motor business
land on short term, short-sighted, frenzies of granting every request to
turn A Street into apartments -- in an area that has no
adequate pedestrian crossing of the largest road in our City for the numerous
pedestrian students who were locating in those apartments. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Smart Growth we advocate, not "no growth." <A
href="http://www.idahosmartgrowth.org/">http://www.idahosmartgrowth.org/</A></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The best place for heavy commercial growth was always along the Pullman
Highway and behind Third Street on A, as was set forth in the Comprehensive
Plan. The recently annexed university-owned land north of the Palouse
Mall is an obvious motor business area, and it serves far wiser planning and
strategic needs by its location as close to Pullman as we can place it, while
retaining a Latah County location. The good folks of Troy will
drive through Moscow and past our downtown to get to the Moscow motor business
developments near the state line. The Pullmanites and WSU students,
particularly those using the bus, seem much less likely to drive or hitch a
ride to the far side of eastern Moscow, especially as their choices expand in
Whitman County. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Being opposed to a misguided and ill-conceived, 77 acre motor
business re-zone on the east side of town does not make one anti-growth.
It makes one opposed to that particular development.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Likewise, as evidenced by prior discussion on this list, expressing
concern and seeking solutions about water usage on the Palouse is not
anti-growth. In fact, it is pro-growth. The Seattle model,
referenced by Nils Peterson and Mark Solomon on V2020 discussions, is worthy
of pursuit here. Seattle was able to grow -- substantially
-- while actually cutting its water usage through thoughtful, long-term
conservation policies. We, too, can do the same. Given our scarce
and declining water supply, why not seek to implement water conserving
policies that will enable future growth, rather than blindly play a game of
chicken with an aquifer of unknown size and dimensions? Preserving our
water through thoughtful and proven conservation methods preserves our ability
to grow for the long term. Our County Commissioners, two of whom are
Republicans, have listened and learned from Diane French, Mark Solomon and
others on the water issue, so don't be so quick to dismiss Diane and Mark as
having ideas that take root only on the left, when the evidence is to the
contrary and their hard work on water management benefits us all.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Personally, I also welcome discussion of a reservoir. I oppose
injection of the pristine waters of the Grand Ronde aquifer with relatively
filthy runoff from muddy fields laden with various herbicides,
pesticides, fertilizers, and assorted other pollutants. But
opposing injection of the Grand Ronde does not make me anti-growth, Matt, it
makes me opposed to that particular water management option among a myriad of
choices that enhance the possibility of and favor long-term
growth.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I am pro-growth. Most in the MCA are as well. Several years
ago the MCA Board took a position favoring growth. We accepted the
Smart Growth model, and rejected a no growth alternative. That
position has not changed.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>We in the MCA welcome the GMA to the discussion; undoubtedly the
community at large does, too. Informed and open discussion is
enlightening and useful to all. Overall, my sense is that the Moscow
community is glad that the MCA arrived and changed the discussion from private
conversations of a few policymakers, movers and shakers to a much larger group
of people throughout the community who are all engaged in the
discussion. The GMA will undoubtedly add its voice to the discussion,
which can only be a good thing. Let the marketplace of ideas percolate
and see what happens. But don't mis-apprehend the MCA as being
anti-growth, for we are not.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Bruce Livingston</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Matt Decker said:</DIV></DIV>| Remember this(GMA) group was established
because of the Mark Solomans, Diane <BR>| Frenchs, and the MCA groups that
back up their no growth attitudes. Smart <BR>| Growth, Please. Disguise it
however you like, but it just adds up to little <BR>| or nil growth. The
attitudes of these people are just to aggressive for <BR>| Moscow. Yes some of
the people in the group have lives outside of the <BR>| computer, that depend
on growth, including myself.<BR>| <BR>| See what we can do first before
belittling us to a bunch of money crazed <BR>| good ol boy. This group also
wants what is best for Moscow.<BR>| <BR>| MD<BR>| <BR>| Matt<BR>
<P>
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