Responding to Anya Mac: $ CV2050 CVSS

I'm a pretty loose-lips kind of guy around some things – things that I make assumptions about, or think should be common knowledge. This give me lots of opportunity to pull my foot out of my mouth. Or, as I prefer to think about it, to create conversations that get a little deeper (and sometimes more uncomfortable) than I'd intended. Good stuff in my books.

So, thanks for your email Anya Mac: you made the point that there are some questions about $, CV2050, the Comox Valley Sustainability Strategy, and the #3x2x8 "convos about sustainability in the Comox Valley" project. Questions raised by my loose references to "cash" related to the CVSS.

Here's how it looks to me: I saw an opportunity to do what I do (stimulate convos about sustainability in my town) because there was a sustainability project happening; with some collaborators a small proposal was put to the CVSS consultant, HBLanarc – and they liked it.

In the end, it turns out they liked it so much they were willing to go into their own pockets (not the CVSS budget) and give us some seed $. Most of the energy for CV2050 and the #3x2x8 convos comes from the commitment of the folks – like me – who've been working on this "conversation about sustainability in the Comox Valley" for lotsa years, and others – like you – who are relative newcomers but already appreciate what a special place this is.

This kind of bits-and-pieces approach, with official processes providing a context for interesting and experimental convos, isn't new. I've been here before: cobbling together volunteer passion and diverse bits of $ to make convos happen. It's very much like what I did in the 90s, when I and a different crew of collabs initiated the Communities Institute (it died a premature death several years before things like today's SmartGrowthBC and the Communities in Transition program institutionalized and stabilized some of the kinds of things we were doing on a shoestring).

I was reminded of the cool things we did through CI just this morning when I replied to a CV2050 post by Alison Mewett. I met her in '94 at my first taste of what a "design charette" might look like. Very fun. (I wish I had the drawings from that day. Eight different, exciting visions of what Courtenay could look like if it embraced density, mixed-uses, walkability. Way ahead of its time.) AM was part of that. Within a couple of years, she and Judy Walker had become the brains behind something we called the "Land Use Café." Today's #3x2x8 convos, and the whole CV2050 experiment owes its genesis to what JW & AM helped cook up in the mid-90s, and to Judy's comment this past summer that, "We need another Land Use Café, but this time online."

Thanks Judy. Here it is. Only we're calling it CV2050. Just like that earlier effort at stimulating and informing the "convo about sustainability in the Comox Valley," this takes advantage of opportunities and challenges (ie. CVSS), engages a bunch of diverse folks (see the list of folks who've participated in the #3x2x8 convos so far), and draws on bits of $ and volunteer energy wherever they are to be found.

So, thanks to all who are playing along. And thanks to HBLanarc for seeding the convo outside of or alongside of the CVSS process. I laud their contribution (and not just because it'll keep my cats in kibbles and kitty litter for a few months), because the "convo about sustainability in the Comox Valley" doesn't end with the adoption of the CVSS. The CVSS sets targets. It tells us where we think we need to be in 2015 and 2050. Ultimately, it's up to us – the citizens and taxpayers in this place I love – to make choices for sustainability. This includes who we elect, the way we travel, where we buy, how we deal with garbage, what we eat, etc etc etc. Big choices. Little choices. All of them adding up ways to ensure that in 10, 20, and 40 years the Comox Valley still is a beautiful (in all senses of the word) place to call home. We're hoping that the #3x2x8 convos sustain thinking action to meet this goal.

Thanks Anya for sparking this. Yes, I do have other things to do than tend to CV2050, the #3x2x8 convos, and pulling my foot out of my mouth. But you've given me yet another opportunity to perhaps clarify something that wasn't clear, and to write about something I'm passionate about: a thriving, sustainability Comox Valley.

hpm

Related articles

• Thrivability, Sustainability, Comox Valley = #CV2050 = Lottsa fun! (hanspetermeyer.com)
• #3x2x8 - Kick starting the "sustainability convo" in the Comox Valley #CV2050 (development-issues.com)