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CONTACT THE ENTERPRISE Jocelyn Robinson, News editor jrobinson@heraldnet.com

Forward Shoreline hosts community meeting

•Meeting will be first in a series to plan for the future of Shoreline

By Amy Daybert
Enterprise editor

A contentious atmosphere can be a common thing for residents living in a young city to experience, according to Forward Shoreline chairman Don Sands.

But once it is recognized, he added, there are also ways to eventually impact change.

"I think the city of Shoreline is in the best position to actually do something about (the contentiousness)," Sands said. "I think in the past few years there has been a lot of gridlock and a lack of focus on what would be best for the community … however, I think that's already changing."

Sands and Forward Shoreline executive director David Endicott are hopeful that a community meeting on April 16 will be the first in a series of successful meetings to plan for the city's future.

King County Councilman Bob Ferguson and state Rep. Ruth Kagi, D-Lake Forest Park, will facilitate a discussion titled "Building Community Cooperation" at 7 p.m. in the Schirmer Auditorium on the CRISTA campus.

"There's just unfortunately too much contentiousness here now and this is a good time for us to try and get beyond that for the benefit of our community," Endicott said.

"Ruth and Bob's roles are just terrific because I think people look to them as people who are able to work with all different kinds of people."

Endicott and Sands are hopeful that residents who are interested in discussing and shaping a community vision will attend the meeting and participate in building rules for civil discourse.

Ideas from the meeting will be applied over the course of 12 to 18 months as the community group Forward Shoreline helps to facilitate a communitywide visioning process that will be formally introduced near the end of the April 16 meeting.

Also facilitating a long-term visioning process will be independent consultant Art Frohwerk of Clearpath, LLC.

"I call it energy management sometimes, because contentiousness is often the result of someone having high energy about a topic and not knowing how to get it resolved and someone else's energy might be in perceptibly the other direction," Frohwerk said "What I find is as people articulate their issues and energy better, they find there is a way to actually achieve what they mean to and it all can fit together."

The meeting is the first step in a discovery process, according to Frohwerk. Community members will have the opportunity to ask questions on a variety of topics including housing, transportation, economic opportunity, environmental enhancement, education, social, safety and cultural aspects.

"We really want to hear what the community believes is important and Ruth and Bob will be the first major contributors to that and we'll see how the community reacts," Frohwerk said.

The purpose of Forward Shoreline is to promote and enhance the residential and business community that is will be passed on to future generations.

"It's a wonderful community today, we want to make it better and turn over something to our kids and grand kids so they can do something meaningful with it as well," Endicott said.