Crossing the Divide

by Bob Kellum

Illustration by Eric Sloane, from Our Vanishing Landscape

The defeat this past November of Washtenaw County’s Proposal I, the “Comprehensive Land Preservation Strategy,” has mercifully quieted the mind numbing rhetoric and permits area residents to reformulate the issues and rethink their strategies. As Lenawee County and other Michigan communities turn away from what became a public spectacle, they can use the experience to their own advantage.

The recent campaign highlighted a philosophical divide that is inherent to politics and which so often serves as an obstacle to progress. One philosophy grows out of a concern for individual freedom (property rights, economic opportunity, unjust taxation, etc.) while another grows out of a belief in serving the greater community good (quality of life, environmental health, just taxation, etc.).

Nowhere is the divide more visible than when it is applied to land use issues. Unbridled growth and zealous preservation are the two opposing banks of a single divide that is incessantly eroded by mistrust and intolerance. Each side justifies its own excesses by those of the other, in a self sustaining cycle where each is, ironically, its own worst enemy.

Any hope of breaking the cycle and crossing the divide, will be found where understandings widen or where our values project prominently from the opposing banks. When we cross the divide, we soften its ideological topography by engendering it with trust and tolerance.

Personal opinion and political platform, regardless of their merit, are effectively vested interests. If they are not tempered by the likes of humility, deference and respect, their overbearance and inherent desire to control the outcome are likely to polarize dialogue, discourage creative inquiry and preclude consensus understanding. Without consensus, a coalition has little strength and its political will is weak.

In a nut shell, a lack of political will explains why Washtenaw County’s Proposal I failed. As one political observer recently noted, our politics builds platforms first and then looks madly for constituencies to support them. The election proposal, coming when it did, indicated a loss of faith in an ongoing consensus process that had yet to mature into a broader understanding. The unspoken, but universally understood agenda of its proponents was the desire to seize the initiative, and hence to control the issue. Without a coalition sufficient to protect it, the proposal was easy prey in a hostile political environment.

The Washtenaw election resulted in a resounding NO vote for an additional property tax to fund preservation activities. In hindsight we can see that questions remain about the county purchase of development rights and even its involvement in any local land use issues. However, the long suffering heart of the County (Agricultural Lands and Open Space) Task Force Report; to build consensus and seek community support for preserving agricultural land and open space, grows cold on the table.

The lessons gleaned from the Washtenaw experience can forewarn its neighboring counties. Lenawee County, with its rich farmland, unique recreation areas and relatively lower growth rate, is ahead of the regional growth curve and has a timely opportunity to establish, monitor and refine a model public process. Lenawee’s proposed new County Land Use Plan coincides with planning for the proposed I-73 expressway. The specter of greater access from Toledo, Jackson and beyond and continuing encroachment from Washtenaw and Monroe, suggests the likelihood that, given the chance, Michigan’s land rush will continue its push into this new frontier.

Lenawee’s proposed county planning process is minimally funded and promises only standard planning fare. A separate I-73 planning process by the Michigan Department of Transportation is heavily burdened with expectations from out of county as well as out of state interests.

I propose that now is Lenawee’s time, before politics degenerate to their self serving base, to set the standards for a political process that will require the attention and command the respect of all the stake holders. The county can not afford to simply go through the motions of good political process if it is to realize this opportunity.

I wish to go on the record as an unabashed advocate for excellence in the political process. The widespread and understandable desire to control our destiny is in fact a breach in consensus protocol and a signal that dark and eroding forces are about their work. True consensus on land use issues is a tall order, but I suggest that until we recognize its value to the political life of the community, we will continue to be divided against ourselves and helpless to affect the course of our history. Consensus is not the means to an end, it is itself the end, the only end capable of gracefully crossing the divide between the instinct for freedom and the necessity for servitude.

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