Civic Sustainability
Library at Warren Alvarado Oslo School
10:45am Breakout Session
Moderator: Cam Fanfulik (NW Regional Development Commission)
Panelists: Liane Stout (Buffalo, ND), Michael Moore (City of Thief Rivre Falls, Minn.),
Nikki Zinke (The Independent), and Chris May (Minn. GreenStep Cities)
Forum purpose: Help communities and friends and students to learn from each other and
learn/look at different ways we can address community issues that affect all of us
- this is regional, not just about Warren
What we would like to get:
- civic sustainability
- models of smart governments
- what works in various towns
- 5th “leg”, health and happiness are emerging as bigger factors on why one would
live in a community, first panelist argued 4th “leg” is education
Sustainability: Making use of resources without damaging resources for future
generations
Civic Leadership: Puts their time, efforts and skills and knowledge together for the good
of the community
What’s happening in their communities?
Liane:
-
1st participated in Rugby.
She chose to return to Buffalo after 40 years away,
she had to decide where to volunteer her precious time,
wrote grants for the community of Buffalo,
“everybody has a gift to offer their community”,
o you have to step back and look at the community and find out what that
gift is, you need to learn of everyone’s idiosyncrasies,
o people love a personal invitation to come and help and be part of
something bigger.
o “Shuffle Off to Buffalo” event: what are you willing to do this year?,
o needed new blood, a successful business now, no one asked if he could
come and be part of a meeting and help
Chris:
- Born and raised in LA for 20 years, straight from “LA to Uffda”,
- lived in Northern MN for 30 years,
-
-
been involved with CERTS and involved with Green City Works program-likened
it to a Gardenget enough through winter or don’t get much, “not a spectator sport” and is best
when the community gets involved,
needs citizenry to get behind it-that’s when it’s most effective,
Crookston in Motion: every 2 weeks, they are having a block party in a different
part of the city, a variety of activities from dance to other kinds of entertainment
to farmer’s markets“your community gets to know each other”-this is what green steps program does,
it’s a blueprint to follow to improve and change conditions in your city, make it
healthier, people-friendly and efficient
Nikki:
- Less than 100 people living in Fingle,
- her experience of professional observer of communities, a reporter, editor and
publisher in MN and ND at community, state and national level,
- develop a perspective that all the other players don’t get- her observation: we have insiders vs. outsiders whether it’s church, city hall,
government, newspaper, people that make things happen vs. everybody else,
- as a reporter, a storyteller, take a look at where the decisions, activities and events
are and what they look like “on the ground”,
- challenge to everyone to think like a leader- Example: She moved to Fingle and no one talked to her,
o why does she drive a BMW-is she a drug dealer?,
o she was a traveling reporter, she was gone often, she was willing to
explain and educate, but her desire was not easily reciprocated
o she couldn’t find out what the clubs were-she wanted to get involved, but
could not find the leaders who knew all the information,
- she’s been in the community for a long time, she launched a newspaper called the
Independento her paper connects various communities, a large neighborhood,
communities (that plan events and things for the future)
o forget that people in Fingle do travel 20 miles away to the next community
if they know what’s going ono only market to people they know,
o medias aren’t talking to one another, they aren’t sharing resources or
promoting opportunities,
o new people are not aware of the grand things that you have, if they don’t
know how to do it-they won’t do ito she’ll highlight challenges that she’s experienced
Cam: Rivalry within communities
Mike:
- Lived in Fertile, heavily involved in community,
- Grafton is exactly 90 miles from Fertile,
-
-
NW MN Foundation-tried to unite 4 communities (Winger, Erskine, Mentor and
Fertile),
Agassiz Environmental Learning Center,
he left for a job in TRFs and people were worried about who was going to look
out for their small little towns,
he identifies sustainability with longevity,
when he left, the communities went back to rivalry concepts, they weren’t united
under a similar mission,
114th Polk County Fair, similar in Marshall County where Warren in located-they
don’t normally come to Warren-the residents of Marshall county come to the
county fair-“it’s something you just do”,
sustainability is the benchmark,
that Scandinavian heritage is the basis of the RRV, an interesting conundrumo they have old money, no significant economic downturn-underlying
conservative yet civic nature ** Cut off.
How do your communities promote that engagement? What do you do when you have a
problem like what Nikki had? Reach out or getting people to reach out to her?
Mike: Lived in community for 30 years, but still “not native”, you’ll really never be from
Fingle
Participant 1:
- Found helpful, Crookston has Crookston Leadership Programo targets new professionals with what resources areo they can connect with each other to learn,
o done through the Chamber, self-funded, a registration fee,
o goes for 6-8 weeks to meet biweekly,
o they recruited her because they knew she was a new person in town
Participant 2: Can anyone explain why they don’t talk? What is it about the Scandinavian
perspective that makes people not want to engage? That’s part of the problem.
Liane: It’s a defective gene.
Nikki:
-
A hindrance for all leaders, had a hard time keeping new hires in Valley City,
they couldn’t find information for the clubsthere was no conversationnewspaper would have to dig like crazy, so that her new hires could make
connections, but 75% don’t last more than 15 months
Participant 2: Grow to reach diversity, small town, provincial, maybe it’s just a smalltown thing rather than a Scandinavian person, hard to feel like you’re part of a
community
Participant 3: In the defense of small towns, lived in Baltimore for 40 years, her friends
weren’t from Baltimore,
- ND is an egalitarian place, if you say anything about yourself, you’re bragging,
- one of the factors-you don’t brag about yourself, your kids, “if you do,
something’s wrong with you”
Participant 4:
- Just moved from Phoenix, returned home to ND/MN
- in the return, the things that bothered her now don’t exist,
- coming from a large metro, it’s just as anonymous,
- more people be more welcoming upon my return,
- a shift-culturally, she knows her friends electronically, less-isolationish as it used
to be,
- was at job fair, some people wouldn’t even look at her- insider-it’s a concept apparent to all of us
Chris: Chamber reached out-that is what the Chamber should do-that’s a big part of
connecting and getting involved in the community, the chamber of commerce should be
the key facilitator
Participant 1:
- Scandinavian side, enforced my sense of civic responsibility,
- wait and see attitude comes from a strong sense of we don’t want to offend you,
- but at the same time, if you are going to be here, what are you bringing to the
community,
- walk the talk expectation,
- scandic gene isn’t defunked
Cam:
- 54 communities-which ones are friendly and invest in communities and which
don’t,
- what’s the difference that makes one progressive and one not?
- People are afraid of change, attitude and people that want their communities to be
great, if you don’t like change, you’re not going to like being irrelevant either
because that’s what you’re going to be
Participant 5: Old folks at a meeting and it was recorded, an older lady in Buffalo, she
says well you’re still a newbie-it takes the leaders-welcome wagon
Liane: There is no chamber. Not sure how you can step forward and be that welcoming.
Mike: In the towns he worked with, it’s the business communities and volunteers, bring
them back year after year, you have to have something to do, you have to have some sort
of event that is going to draw the excitement-involve the churches and food.
Nikki: Every Monday, she asks someone how their weekend was,
-
a lot of community groups do-they make a flyer, they hang it up at gas station and
grocery store,
challenge the effectiveness the leaders of the communities to talk to one another,
use the websites, make a newsletter, make a 10 town website, start thinking about
the bulletin in the grocery store
Participant 5: I’m getting Independent and mark events down in his calendar.
Participant 6: From NY and moved to Plymouth and goes to UND.
- Neighborhood in Brooklyn wasn’t social, it’s a worldwide thing,
- social media, has a youtube channel, it’s a worldwide aversion,
- in Plymouth-she didn’t want to meet to somebody and go through her resume- you need a big thing to bring people together, when somebody else puts in the
effort,
- it’s not a gene thing, I don’t think it’s a stereotype, it’s we’re getting lazy
Participant 7: In HS, what groups did we hang with?
- We self select into socio-cultural groups and we naturally select into those groups
for different reasons, we find people that are similar to us
o it’s a challenge for us to find others that are different
- Couldn’t have clichés-everyone was involved with everything
Nikki: Chose to live in Fingle purposively
- small towns do have the challenge to getting people like her to thrive in Fingle
- it is a challenge a severe one because it’s noticeable when someone moves out
Mike:
- Communities are getting older, youth are embracing significance of small-town
living,
- farms are getting huge-less employees,
- some other entity that provide a job and keep that family in the communitybecoming more difficult to do that,
- if you don’t get engaged, you are going to be behind while other communities are
moving forward,
- most of it was centered around food,
- at one time all the leadership of Fertile were non-native people, now that’s
changing,
- we need to understand who people are, study clubs: still getting together, talking
and directing traffic
Lack of jobs when she first left UND
- smaller communities need to see that people can not only live but work in small
communities
- amazon in GF, reinvesting back in the community, attract, keep and retain
- GF is very community based when I dream of places, home is where I lived when
I lived in GF
Mike: The internet is expanding the opportunity for more jobs
Leadership seems to be, always 2 or 3 that take the lead who seem to drive the ship-point
it out
- it’s important, maybe you should try to be one of those leaders, having incentive
for the state to bring in large corporations
- it’s antithetical to “keep the riff-raft out”
- communities are at risk if they are really small or are really big
- what is it about those people that make it different
Cam: Block party is instigation of 2 people, they don’t take no for an answer, without 2
key individuals this event would not happen
- Reattracting alumni
- Keeping our youth here?
- Sustainability is having secession. How can we do that better?
From Arthur attracted to Warren
- “she’ll just leave anyway”, so that’s why it’s hard to make those relationships off
the bat
Liane: As soon as someone comes to town, what’s their connection, just move to buy a
house-why? That must be addressed?
Nikki: Please move here, these are our assets but then when they do, we can’t believe
they came here
- “maybe we don’t believe our own stories”
- question your sanity
- Eager for ND/MN workers
- this region needs to brag
Mike: Need to have a well-rounded community, recruited physicians- “ski North Dakota”
- have to have a job and must have longevity, sustainability, something that will
last,
- cool things about small towns-you can buy a beautiful home inexpensively
- -In urban places, they expect a fluidity, if you are here for 3 years, we want it to
be a great 3 years or 35 years
“It’s not about where you go, it’s about what you do with where you are.”