Six counties look ahead to "The Grand Vision Decision" in October

(Traverse City, Michigan) - "We've seen more people turn out for The Grand Vision in northern Michigan than in other areas of the country that have ten times the population," said John Fregonese, the nationally-recognized Scenario Planning Specialist based in Oregon whose firm conducted the public workshops on behalf of The Grand Vision.

Robert Grow, a Strategic Visioning Consultant from Utah who helped lead several of the workshops added, "Not only has the turnout been extraordinary, the quality of future planning ideas from local residents has also been exemplary. We have an impressive array of citizen-generated concepts and themes to test in scenarios of the region's future."

The comments from Fregonese and Grow came as the group of local civic, business, and government leaders promoting the citizen-based planning process known as The Grand Vision (www.thegrandvision.org) announced that attendance at workshops has exceeded 3,000 people. This includes both public and school workshops in the six counties (Antrim, Benzie, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Leelanau, Wexford) that will be affected with the expanded scope of the land-use and transportation study.

"On a per capita basis," Fregonese added, "I've never experienced this level of enthusiasm and participation. And I think it bodes really well, with this kind of involvement and commitment, to be able to come up with something that's going to really make a difference for the people in this region."

According to The Grand Vision leaders, several alternative growth strategies, along with detailed information about the costs and benefits of each, will be presented to the public on October 7, 2008. This will mark the beginning of a concentrated three-week long process where residents will be asked to fill out a scorecard, rating each of the growth strategies. It will be called, "The Grand Vision Decision."

Between now and "The Grand Vision Decision," residents throughout Antrim, Benzie, Grand Traverse, Leelanau, Kalkaska and Wexford counties are encouraged to visit the project's new website (www.thegrandvision.org) to learn details about the characteristics of the scenarios that will be scrutinized in the fall.

The website also offers an email signup list, an online survey, a forum, pictures of participants and marked-up maps from previous workshops, and much more information about the unique, wide-open, citizen-based regional planning project.