“The other night, I attended a fabulous community meeting — the kind of gathering that restores your faith in mankind to solve our common problems,” former Michigan Teacher of the Year Nancy Flanagan wrote recently in the Livingston County Press & Argus.
“Part of an initiative called Michigan’s Defining Moment, it was an assembly of community leaders across my county: a local college president, a mayor, business leaders, a district judge, a school superintendent and local government officials. The meeting was facilitated by Rich Perlberg, general manager and executive editor of the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus, who invited me,” Flanagan wrote. “Our task was to help devise action steps in a structured plan toward rebuilding Michigan’s educational system, economy and government — a plan created by input from more than 1,500 Michigan citizens. The evening flew by in rich conversation. It’s exciting to hang out with smart people, and talk about the huge issues and challenges facing a state we all love.”
We’re busily tallying the results from the Round Two statewide Community Conversations and will issue in May the common ground agenda, strategies and action steps arising from those deliberative gatherings of more than 1,500 deeply committed Michigan residents eager for change and transformation in our state.
Then we’ll quickly appeal to all Michigan’s Defining Moment participants to greatly expand the campaign in their own communities and take the citizens’ agenda directly to elected leaders over the summer.
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DETROIT AND THE “UPERS”-I attended the White HOuse lawn reception for Pope Benedict and in the considerable time we all waited in line to
get through security to reach the white house lawn, I had the chance to speak to someone who worked in DC for a Michigan Upper Peninsula
senator. As someone who knows Detroit well and all of its positives, I inquired if this
person ever had been in Detroit. She said:”Yes,
but only at Detroit Metro airport”. We joked about UPERS calling us lower peninsula people-
“Trolls” all in good humor. But I also asked her if she knew of any group in the UP that
helps to arrange fo UPERS to come down and
take a look at Detroit. She said she didn’t know of anyone.
Certainly, this is just one isolated experience of just one person, but it strikes me that all of our senators from the UP and
their Detroit “troll colleagues” should be
having some dialogue about encouraging and
facilitating more UPERS to come down, maybe for the first time, and take a look at Michigan’s largest city. There has to be a way that someone can help package tours into Detroit that would be enriching for everyone.
Michigan photos are great. Since we are a 4-season state, why not post photos for the season we’re in–save the golden tree (a beauty) for autumn and post Spring photos now?
The idea of cross-cultural communication within Michigan is fasinating. Imagine a group from the UP and Detroit meeting 2-3 times a year to figure out ways to communicate about issues of common interest sounds like an outside the box idea.