Cases? - Community Economic Development

[Ric Giardina]

JayWV at aol.com wrote:

> Hello list!
> A colleague and I are helping a Chamber of Commerce in Colorado enter Open
> Space for a community economic summit with about 250 folks over a day and a
> half this summer.
>
> Their recent query to us:
> "Do either of you have any examples of successful applications of Open Space
> Technology to community settings?  Community wide issues with an economic
> development or growth component would be most helpful."
>
> I've scoured my e-files from the list and found surprisingly little on this
> specific subject.  Any body have a case/contact that we could pass along?

Jay,

It's not directly on point, but it is relevant:  In January, I did a one-day
Open Space for the Town of Los Gatos Chamber of Commerce (LGCC) board of
directors.  It was the board's annual retreat and the executive committee had
several major considerations including the fact that the chamber was just coming
back from a bankruptcy with little infrastructure, that it was involved in
significant (and divisive) community issues including downtown parking, land
use, "natural" urbanization in the rest of Silicon Valley, skyrocketing housing
costs (that same week a 1 bedroom/1 bath cottage near the downtown was listed
for $409,000 and SOLD for $559,000 in a day!).

Frankly, there were more controls than I would like in a "legitimate" Open Space
(the Chairman, for example, had specific results she wanted to achieve), but I
was able to defer most of those to a post-meeting in which we collectively
reviewed and discussed the proceedings that resulted.  We did meet the
Chairman's requirement for an executable Year 2000 action plan.

By the way, the consensus "result" was for the LGCC to spend the year working on
its own infrastructure and until solid, pull back on some of its community
involvement.  (The next thing I knew the Town Council and Parking Commission got
me involved in reaching a consensus among all the parking crisis
constituents--business owners, residents, in-town employees, etc.-- but that's
another story.

If I can be of any help, let me know.  Feel free to give my number to anyone at
your CC contact who might want to talk about the experience.  If they would like
to talk to one of their counterparts at the LGCC, let me know, and I'll see if I
can arrange that.  Of course, call me yourself if you just want to talk about
it.

Blessings,

Ric Giardina
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