MADELINE ISLAND

NEWS AND INFORMATION

FROM THE CANDIDATES

When my Great-Great-Great Grandfather arrived here, I’m sure that it was a very different place.  He built his house near the location of the present Beach Club back in 1820.  It had small doors, one of which still exists.  My Great-Great Grandmother’s kneeler is in the Museum.  It was an object of mystery and veneration when I was a child while the house still stood.  I don’t usually talk about my family history here, but now I feel I must, for the sake of continuity of progress in the development of the Island.

There has always been a way to make a hardscrabble living here on the Island.  Family influence has fluctuated, but there has always been a way to live, the hardest scrabbler succeeding the best.  This Island Way is on cusp of becoming extinct.  We need to rely on our history while we move forward.

There is danger in the idea that development will save us. The Comprehensive Plan encourages a limitation on tourism and encouragement of cottage industries.  We need some farming; perhaps a small dairy, in the way that egg production is now becoming somewhat viable, perhaps some locally grown produce, community gardens, and a local farmers market.

The more the Island sells its natural resources for development and tourism, the more these resources are destroyed. It is a losing game.

The extreme focus on tourism is dangerous and self-defeating.   Once we have sold all of our beauty, it is gone forever.  Hotels, entertainment centers, condos, etc. are the final crop, salting the earth behind us.  We need to encourage new people of modest means to settle here, even encourage the children of Islanders staying here to live and raise families.  These are all at stake in this election.  Tourism will always be a part of our lifestyle and community.  Let’s keep it in its proper place, an addition to the community, not a bellwether.

I want to protect the future, in concert with the past.  My grandparents would have been prevented from settling here with this new zoning ordinance, and many of the Familiar Island families would not be here now.

If you want the Island to be a good place to live and work, our government needs a sea change, and a movement toward openness and accountability to the public.

Vote for a change in government, and clarity.

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