Imagine & McEnvironmental Summit

I just realized why I haven't posted anything in two weeks. Every time I would open up the blog to start a new post, I would see the cute picture of the tiny toad, and think "how cute!" - then whatever I was going to write about would mysteriously evaporate from my brain!

We had a committee meeting outside on a picnic bench last night - it was very pleasant. We heard a couple of different frogs in the pond, or maybe it was a toad and a frog. The mosquitoes weren't bad until the sun set - which was when we promptly ended the meeting!

The committee - our Outreach Committee - had a couple of important issues to discuss:
1. what is the status of the Imagine McHenry County project, and
2. what is the purpose of our Outreach Committee! (The second item was resolved quickly, while the first prompted quite a bit of discussion!)

Imagine McHenry County, for those who do not already know, is a project that was started about four years ago by the McHenry County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC) to bring stakeholders together from the many interest groups in the county for the purpose of developing a shared vision for the county's future. Imagine conducted a communitywide survey in March 2006, followed by a community workshop in May 2006. The results were compiled and circulated, presentations were given to community groups like the County Board and the Council of Governments, and then on May 8, 2007, the Imagine board held a strategic planning session to determine where we go from here.

Now, a little background: I tried for two years to get appointed to the Imagine board. The former director of the MCEDC fought my appointment as the representative for the "Environment" special interest group. She wouldn't even return my phone calls - not even when I offered to take her to lunch to get to know her, and to talk with her about Imagine! Well, in November 2004, I was finally appointed.

So, once the board positions were fille, we had to figure out what we were going to do. We had some meetings with Ron Thomas, former director of NIPC (Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission), who talked with us about a similar effort he had been involved in up in Racine Wisconsin before coming to NIPC. He also had information on other similar programs around the country.

The gist of all the programs was that they included diverse stakeholders in a project to promote quality of life in the community - in terms of affordable housing, environmental quality, open government, good schools, traffic congestion, air quality, etc. A common theme was that the projects sought to involve many people from the community in crafting a vision for where the community wanted to go, and then kept them engaged in working on figuring out how to get the community there. They were all grassroots in that they did not look to the powers that be for approval - rather they sought to reflect the community will, and to engage the community.

Well, this is where Imagine has had a hard time getting traction. While we gathered information through a survey, and held a community workshop, we did a horrible job of following up with the participants to share the results with them, and to keep them engaged. It has been a year since the community workshop, and I feel like the board is no closer to having a shared vision, or in knowing how to move forward.

In the meantime, while Imagine has been spinning its wheels, the McHenry County Environmental Summit has emerged to bring all of the county's environmental groups together. We met in March and May, and came up with an agenda. We even started a blog to help us share information with each other, and have created three subcommittees to work on an environmental scorecard, conservation ordinance development, and communication.

And it isn't like the people working on the Enviro Summit don't have other jobs - it isn't like we aren't squeezing this "one more thing" into already full lives. The big difference is that we have a shared passion - a shared commitment - reflected in the mission and principles that we are developing together. And we all genuinely believe that we can make a difference by working together - that rising waters float all boats, and that the community of enviro organizations is stronger when we unite around the things we can agree on.

Maybe that helps explain why Imagine has had such a hard time. What unites us? Why do we all sit at the table other than because we were asked (or in my case, pushed our way on)? The mission was written before anyone was asked to join the board. The composition of the board was determined by the MCEDC who then sought to control the board membership - to the point where some early appointees actually dropped off before they even had all of the positions (23 spots) filled.

I think there is a lesson to learn here.