Health & Fitness
Dollars & Sense: The Last Word on Woodinville's Future?
Annex and sewers and ziplines, oh my! With contentious issues all around, isn't it time for residents to speak truth to power and describe the future they want for Woodinville?
Annex and sewers and ziplines, oh my. Sure are plenty of contentious issues here in Woo'ville.
Same as it ever was. But do such hillbilly rivalaries arrest our development as a community? When every issue has a vocal proponent and an even more vocal opponent, most of us only see the resulting white noise.
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Reminds me of the graffiti wall at a favorite lunchtime respite from busy business days. Every young artist knows what to create, yet when joined, surrounded, and overlaid with others, the big picture is robust, colorful and dramatic at the same time it's chaotic, contradictory and unclear.
The future is a messy thing. But it is right there for us to see.
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In a 1936 essay, F. Scott Fitzgerald famously noted "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function."
It's time local leaders (and leading residents!) pass the Fitzgerald test - every day on every issue. Vision, priorities and solutions are most often found, not on extreme paths but, in the proven middle road to progress.
One difference between a backwoods town and organized city is the community's ability to create a vision that unites, and then focus their time, energy, passion and money only in that direction. We soon turn 20 as a city, so it's high time for Woodinville to grow up, leave it's teenage years behind, and create a cohesive future vision for ourselves.
What can you do? What part can you play?
Speak truth unto power, as the Quakers used to say. When you have an occasion to meet the mayor, a councilperson, a chamber member or area farmer, a prominent businessperson or local landowner, tell her or him how you see the future of Woodinville. Describe your vision. Be heard.
For better or worse, we get the government and hometown we deserve. Choose the best we can be and let your voice be heard today. Start with a comment to this blog, and look for the next opportunity to speak your truth to local power.