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Three civic leaders from the Grand Traverse region have released a brief video that invites area residents to become "stakeholders" in The Grand Vision, the area’s citizen-based planning project that gets underway in mid-October.

The 12-minute video also presents clips from a recent presentation by the two principals leading the The Grand Vision project. In it, the two explain how the project works and repeatedly emphasize that it depends on strong citizen involvement to succeed.

The three area leaders—Grand Traverse Bay Keeper John Nelson; Traverse City Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Doug Luciani, and Michigan Land Use Institute Executive Director Hans Voss—open the 12-minute presentation with an invitation to attend the kickoff workshop, scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 17, 2007, at the Park Place Hotel, in downtown Traverse City.

Then the two principals—Robert Grow, the founder of Envision Utah, and John Fregonese, widely regarded as one of the nation’s top experts in community-based design—explain how their approach works. They demonstrate some of the computer graphics that "stakeholders" who come to the workshops will use, and remind the audience that, by partnering with other people in the region, they can design a community that facilitates a healthy, successful future for local residents’ children and grandchildren.

The video concludes with "man on the street" interviews featuring four people that attended the presentations by Mr. Grow and Mr. Fregonese, and contact information for residents interested in becoming stakeholders in The Grand Vision.

The video is posted on the Michigan Land Use Institute’s Web site, at http://www.mlui.org/, and at The Grand Vision site, http://www.thegrandvision.org/, where visitors can register to become stakeholders and make a reservation for the kickoff workshop.

Jim Dulzo is the Michigan Land Use Institute’s managing editor. Reach him at jimdulzo@mlui.org