Culver

Culver Comprehensive Plan – Vision Workshop

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Vision Workshop

Join us at the Community Vision Workshop where residents, business owners, elected and appointed officials, members of the consultant team and other stakeholders will work together to create a vision for the Town of Culver. Attendees will participate in an interactive workshop format to map out their concerns, the things they like best about the community, and the changes they would like to see made in both the near and long-term. The vision workshop will be a fun and engaging way to provide your thoughts about the future of Culver. 

Why is the Vision Workshop important?
The purpose of the workshop will be to establish an overall “vision” for the future of the Town of Culver that can provide focus and direction for subsequent planning activities, serve as the “cornerstone” of the consensus building process, and identify a path for growth. Based on the Vision Workshop and previous steps in the planning process, preliminary planning goals and objectives will be prepared.

 

SAVE THE DATE: 
June 24th, 2013
6:30 pm
Culver Community High School Cafeteria
701 School St.

 All community members are encouraged to attend.

For any questions or comments related to the Town of Culver Comprehensive Plan, please contact David Schoeff, Town Manager at (574)842-3140 or townmanager@townofculver.org.

Who should lead?

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I was invited to attend a work session of the Culver Town Council last night.  The work session was the result of the efforts of MCEDC to energize Marshall County communities to plan and prepare for growth.  Unfortunately last night’s meeting degenerated into random complaints from various attendees about some Culver boards and commissions with very little positive discussion or resolution.  I had invited Jay Bahr, MCEDC‘s new Executive Director, to attend this meeting and was somewhat embarrassed.  It wasn’t exactly what I would have liked him to see with his first introduction to Culver’s leaders.

Image borrowed from Aliexpress.comIn February, MCEDC held our first County-wide economic development summit with attendees representing all of the communities in Marshall County.  As a result of that meeting I had met with several Culver Town Council Members to see what action steps could be taken. My thoughts on this involved encouraging the Town Council to be the pointy head of the spear.  In other words, set an agenda for growth and improvement and pass that mandate down to the boards and commissions that serve beneath them.  Theoretically, the Town Council is the elected body that represents the people and through them the citizen’s will should be enacted by the appointed boards and commissions.  Without a cohesive plan of action to implement, the boards and commissions either proceed on their own agendas or in some cases are rudderless and accomplish no agenda.

There has been some progress.  Retention meetings have been held with Elkay and discussions have been had regarding how to make Culver more accessible to business.  All positive steps, but ones without a cohesive goal.

Image borrowed from Granitegrok.comThe Comprehensive Plan will fill part of this need, but it needs the will of the citizens and their elected officials, the Town Council, to be reflected in that.  Even though completion of the Comprehensive Plan is as much as a year away, the Town Council needs to be gearing up towards implementation and as I’ve tried to express to them, the Comprehensive Plan process can’t be an excuse for doing nothing now.

Last night’s meeting showed a lack of respect for the Town Council’s position of authority in the Town.  It was a good step towards leadership, but it’s clear that they are going to need to TAKE their leadership back.  There will be no shortage of complaints, but complaints don’t fill the leadership void.  Culver’s unofficial motto has always been “Change is bad even when it’s change for the better”.  The Town Council needs to ignore that and be the instigator of change.  Change for the better…

A Community of Second Homes

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Winters quoteAs previously discussed here I attended the Comprehensive Plan Breakout Session for businesses on Tuesday, April 23, 2013.  Mr. Ralph Winters was also at that meeting and made a statement I thought was somewhat profound.  I jotted it down so that I could get it right.  “We are not so much a resort community as a community of second homes.”    That idea resonated with me…  While we do have lots of “rentals”, we do not have any hotel space to speak of.  The Cove has mostly gone private, to the point that I don’t remember the last time I saw a conference there.  This suggests a different kind of resort community.

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Comprehensive Plan Update

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The work on the new comprehensive plan has begun and I attended three meetings in this week.  On Monday evening there was a Steering Committee meeting with Houseal Lavigne where we were given information regarding doing small group outreach.  This was for the Steering Committee to make presentations to groups that are unable to attend the regular community meetings or groups that have special interest.  I honestly do not know how effective this will be since everyone on the Steering Committee is already active in the community as well as their individual businesses but it was an interesting exercise.   I told the Town Manager, Dave Schoeff, that I would be willing to help with one of these, if approached, but I do see that I would go out looking for groups to give presentations.

image borrowed from www.coastalhawaii.com
The Dream of “Affordable Housing”

In conjunction with and immediately following that meeting was the first community meeting.  While participation was less than stellar (only about 25 people were in attendance) there were some consistent themes  that came out of the meeting.  It did not take long for affordable housing to bubble to the top.  Unfortunately affordable housing is a hard one for people to get their arms around and everyone’s definition seems to be somewhat different.  Probably the second most discussed issue which was  touched on several times  was “identity” of Culver, i.e. are we or do we want to be a resort community.  (More on that later.) 

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AHS Lunch

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Image borrowed from www.waymarking.com
I hope it won’t include a big “V” like Warsaw!

The Antiquarian and Historical Society of Culver (AHS) bought lunch for me and a few other Culver citizens on Tuesday to solicit our opinions.  They should know how opinionated I am by now…  Lunch was appreciated, but not necessary!

AHS is floating the idea that Culver needs a Visitor’s Center and that this would be a good combination with a new History Museum.  An opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.  I heard most of this presentation once before at the Culver Chamber of Commerce meeting in February.  Both times I had to agree that a visitor’s center would be nice, but wondered if our tourist season is long enough to justify it.

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