Mount
Desert Island Tomorrow---
Draft Vision Statement--- 11/16/02
As we move toward the future, we want to shape growth in
ways that continue to revitalize and replenish these shared resources, so that
our children and grandchildren will enjoy a good living and a sense of
community, this sense of place that we so value.
We want communities that come from and respond to the
people who live and work here. We
want each community to develop in it’s own distinctive way, even as we
continue to cooperate on those matters where it makes sense to work together.
We want each person (younger and older, native and
new-comer, women and men, no matter our means or formal education) to feel
valued and welcome in the process of shaping our future-- in our own families
and businesses, in community organizations, in town government and in new
partnerships yet to emerge.
We are concerned about many issues, and we see and feel,
daily, their connections.
We want prosperous year-round communities. We want more
people to have good year-round work with livable wages, shopping in our stores
and volunteering in new and traditional ways.
We want vibrant communities, where people feel good about raising
families and growing old, where community pride and spirit are alive, made real
through projects and activities that feel good and do good.
We want more homes affordable and available to people we
depend on to provide essential community services and to work in our year-round
businesses. We want more homes in walking distance to village centers, connected
to water and sewer services. And as
more homes are built outside of village centers, we want also to conserve open
space, groundwater, farmland and habitat for the enjoyment and well-being of
future generations. In short, we
want village centers that are attractive, pleasant and affordable places to
live, work and shop, and at the same time we want rural areas to retain rural
character; both arise from good New England tradition.
We want more year-round people to benefit from an
expanded Island Explorer Bus service, connecting towns and shops, workplaces,
schools and recreation. We also want a greater percentage of visitors to arrive
here without automobiles. Together,
these improvements will make our air healthier to breathe and reduce traffic
congestion for all. At the same time, we want roadways safer for autos and for
those who bike and walk to work or for their health.
We want people to live healthier lives, both by taking
more responsibility for their own well-being, and by having better access to
affordable, quality preventive care, in our hospital, through emergency and
home-health services, and to the full range of providers who work together in
complementary ways to attend to our physical, emotional and spiritual wellness.
We want our children to grow safely into healthy,
successful, caring, contributing and ever-learning members of our communities.
We want to build on the assets they rely on: caring families and adults,
teachers and others who provide opportunities and incentives to learn, and to
develop skills, community organizations that provide experiences that support,
challenge and motivate them. We
recognize that many will leave us for wider experience, but it is our fondest
hope these, and those who stay, may find their place here among us.
We want to share the benefits and responsibilities of
citizenship in the fairest ways possible among year-round residents. We also want to assure that visitors and second-home owners
contribute in significant ways to the vitality of the community and to
protecting the natural beauty of our island home. Since we must expand our services and facilities to
accommodate these visitors, it seems to us fair that they shoulder a goodly
share of these public investments.
We recognize the many contributions of tourism to the
economy and elsewhere, but we want, somehow, to limit the harmful impacts of
this industry on the quality of family and community life.
We have yet to find ways to limit the numbers of people who visit us even
as we know in our bones that we are near or have already exceeded our capacity
to accommodate ourselves and our visitors, and keep whole our community and
natural resources. It is our most
nagging worry and it is related in significant ways to many of the other issues
we face.
We are an island, and yet we know that ideas, good will
and resources flow like the tides, connecting us to every continent of this blue
and green planet. We have much to
contribute to the wider world, and we also want to take advantage of our
connections to the larger economy, to our state and nation, and to the globe.
We offer these as elements of a shared vision—what we
want for the future. In some cases,
these elements are supported by rationale—why we want them.
In other cases, we need to better describe why we want what we want.
Even as we work to improve this draft, our next step will map out
strategies to bring about more of the future we want.
This step requires important dialogue with, and among, all those who have
both a stake in that future and the capacities to carry out those strategies.
We offer this draft as a starting point. We want to find words and ideas that bring us together, not separate us. We believe that we have missed some things, not stated others as clearly as we might. We invite your thoughtful reflection and comments to improve this draft, so that we may use it as a beacon, lighting our shared vision --- the future we want, together, as an island community.