Planners gave a presentation to about 30 residents and interested parties at the Greater Kalkaska Area Chamber of Commerce last Wednesday, Feb. 27, and invited residents to participate in the land use and transportation study that will help drive decisions during the next 50 years.

"This is an opportunity for us to talk about everything that we hold dear, what we want to protect and how we want to grow and integrate with the Grand Traverse region,"ÊJack Kelly, Kalkaska County zoning administrator, planner, and soil erosion control officer, said.

The population of the region is projected to grow, with an additional 90,000 people living and working here, by the year 2030.

The workshop will mirror events held in Traverse City, Interlochen, and Acme, with room for eight people at each of about 50 round tables that will be covered with a map of Kalkaska County. "This is the coolest thing I've ever been involved with," Kelly said. "I would like to see at least 300 Kalkaska County residents of all ages attend the upcoming April workshop, and I believe that's achievable.

"The workshop will be led by world-class consultants who said they have been Ôblown away' by the level of enthusiasm and participation, here Ð and they have done this sort of thing in regions 10 times our size."

The project is being funded with a combination of federal transportation grant money, local matching funds, foundation support, business and individual donations.

Organizers plan to mail a postcard to every mail box and post office box in the county and invite all Kalkaska County residents to the April workshop.

"In order to bring people of this caliber to Kalkaska for this type of event - if Kalkaska County were to do this on its own - would cost $150,000," Kelly said. "We are getting it for a $6,000 investment.

"This is an opportunity that will never come again."

Matt McCauley, associate director for regional planning and community Development the Northwest Michigan Council of Governments, told the group assembled at the chamber office that Kalkaska County residents have an opportunity to piggyback on the $1.3 million (w/ the contiguous counties this number will grow to $1.55M) land use and transportation study that began as the result of the Hartman/Hammond bridge controversy in Grand Traverse County.

"Grand Traverse County took a look at their growth. They were feeling tremendous traffic strains," McCauley said. "The Hartman/Hammond bridge proposal met a lot of opposition. Here was a transportation solution that had little community input. It was a top down approach. People want to have a voice. As a result, the road commission is now pausing that project."

McCauley said that The Grand Vision is the result of successful lobbying efforts to start a planning project that involved a high-level of citizen participation.

"Grand Traverse County is not an island in northern Michigan," he said. "We are so related, through trade, schools and hospitals. We don't have a true, dense population. Not to include neighbors just does not work."

The portion of The Grand Vision project that is federally funded did not include the surrounding counties. An amendment to include those counties (Kalkaska, Antrim, Benzie, Leelanau and Wexford) still is in the federal process. So, Grand Vision supporters began working on self-funding through the Michigan Department of Transportation, the Grand Traverse band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, each of the counties involved and private foundations.

"Of the $241,000 needed, we have raised $200,000," McCauley said. "It is enough to move forward in the contiguous counties.

"Growth is not something we can hide from. As Governor Milliken said, Ôwe have 37 million acres in Michigan and that is all we'll ever have.' "How to best mitigate and manage it is on the shoulders of the people." McCauley said organizers are working toward bussing people to the Kalkaska event, in order to remove as many barriers to participation as possible.

"We do not want 300 like-minded people there," he said. "We want the whole prism of opinions and attitudes, as it relates to this issue

"The reason plans sit on the shelf is because they are created from the top, down. There is not community support. When there is community support, the plans are implemented."

On Thursday, March 20, there will be a regional transportation meeting at the Howe Arena in Traverse City. The map at that event will include the entire Grand Traverse Region, including Kalkaska County.Ê Kalkaska County resident are urged to attend this event as well.

"We are all users of M-72 and US-131," McCauley said. "This is an opportunity to look at transportation and how we can move ourselves throughout the region and state."

To register for either the March 20 event in Traverse City, or to learn more about the upcoming Kalkaska workshop, visit thegrandvision.org or call 866-441-5214.