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Time to move to higher ground

George ShermanChairman, Citizens Against Home Depot

Thanks, a thousand thanks, to all those Frisco voters and citizens of Summit County generally who shared our vision of Frisco and brought us to victory in the election last Tuesday. And a special heart-felt thank-you goes to the dedicated core of CAHD supporters and our allies in the Frisco business community. Space does not permit naming you individually; anyway, you know who you are and what you did – from writing a thousand personal postcards, to telephoning, to waving signs in freezing wind and snow before Frisco Town Hall on Tuesday. This hard work on so many fronts day in and day out over the past two months produced the team effort at the root of success. It was a tough campaign, fought with tough words on both sides, and our triumph proves conclusively that grass-roots democracy is alive and well in Summit County. I hope also that we do not forget this election was about far more than bringing another Big Box to our mountain community. At base it was about process – the process of involving the people of Frisco in decision-making about their future. Just as with the proposed golf course on the peninsua earlier, so now with the project to plant Home Depot on that prized 9.4-acre parcel at the entrance to town, Frisco town government had to be reminded that we the people look at our community in far more than the dollars-and-cents terms of new development. The election campaign is over, but the issues which produced it are still out there. Frisco voters have said what they do not want; now the Frisco Town Council must listen in deciding what they do want. We need to re-open the master plan for future Frisco; we need to go back to square one in deciding the use of the 9.4 acres and land around it; we need to revisit the whole question of where the Community Mountain College can be placed in Frisco and what we can spend on that transaction. And what amenities do we want and can we afford on the peninsula? The election provided us the beachhead for re-examination of all these issues; we intend to be active in pursuing genuine dialogue and debate in deciding them. They undoubtedly will be alive when the next elections to the town council come in April. In taking up all these tasks in the months ahead, we hope we can put behind us the bitterness generated in the past campaign. No one wants perpetual combat in our town. In moving on to higher ground, however, we should not kid ourselves into forgetting the conflicting visions which spawned divisiveness in the first place. Let’s listen!


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