Past
Initiatives

Personal Attitudes about Health

Community Focus Groups

• Community Changes: The fabric of our community is beginning to change;
• Increased Stress on Natural Resources: People are concerned about how our natural resources and infrastructure (electricity, sewage disposal, etc.) will keep up with the pace of community growth and development;
• Changing Economic Base: A great deal of uncertainty exists about how, if and when we will transition from an economy largely dependent on natural resources;
• Need for Information: As a community, we lack information on key environmental and economic indicators;
• Leadership: There is a perceived lack of leadership (at various levels and in different domains) to engage community members in discourse about issues and long-term solutions;
• Process and Product: How our community addresses issues is as important as what we do.

In order to identify community priorities participants were asked to name one economic and one environmental issue our community should focus on. More than half (52%), identified water as the top priority issue. Long-range planning and economic development tied for second place in order of priorities with growth management and transportation coming in fourth and fifth respectively. Participants offered a variety of responses about what they would like to see happen regarding some of the issues.

When asked to identify one priority environmental and economic issue, participants responded with the following answers:

The focus groups highlighted that our community has a lot of questions about water and other environmental issues, as well as the direction our economic growth appears to be headed. Participants expressed that real tension exists between growth and sustainability and they are looking for local leadership on some of these tough issues.

Some of the strongest messages throughout these focus groups were more about how our community should go about making change. Participants felt that our solutions or attempts at solutions need to be visionary, and long-term but with immediate visible action steps. Good solutions necessitate strong community involvement, and our responses must be sustainable. Many participants felt a key element to success is coming up with creative, long-lasting solutions is the involvement of youth.