Envision Polson under Foundation umbrella
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POLSON — Is Envision Polson the same as the Greater Polson Community Foundation? How does the $100,000 Orton Family Foundation Heart and Soul Community Development Grant fit in with GPCF and Envision Polson? Can anyone in Polson get involved?
These are questions community members may be looking for answers to, since the Orton grant has recently drawn lots of public attention.
“Envision Polson is a grassroots movement of neighbors working together under the direction of the GPCF and a steering committee of community and civic leaders,” according to information on the Heart and Soul Grant.
Action committees are the guts of Envision Polson, and they are the beautification, year-round recreation, youth, tourism, economy/standard of living, leadership, health and wellbeing and unique features committees.
Polson’s Heart and Soul grant was developed to directly benefit Envision Polson and its need to understand the community. The Heart and Soul project partners are the GPCF, City of Polson, Salish Kootenai College and the Polson School District, with GPCF providing the matching funds required by the grant, according to Penny Jarecki, president of the GPCF.
“We want to engage the people in our community and collaborate on how we want Polson’s future to go,” Darlis Smith said.
Smith and her husband Daniel are coordinators of the Heart and Soul Community Development grant and also wrote the grant application. Frank Tyro from Salish Kootenai College produced the videos with the Smith.
They plan to use storytelling and block parties as a means of bringing the community together. Already identified are 20 neighborhoods in Polson, and there are probably more, Darlis said. The Smiths will go to the neighborhoods and have a potluck or some other community activity.
Both Jarecki and the Smiths hope to tap into a new group of volunteers since there are many jobs for anyone in Polson, no matter how much time they have to give.
Both the GPCF and the Heart and Soul Grant have been criticized by John Swenson and Mike Gale as proponents of Agenda 21 although Jarecki and the Smiths do not believe this.
Gale said the ultimate policy for Agenda 21 is to put people into high rises and get out of the rural areas, leaving that for the wolves and bears.
“What we see happening is an incursion,” Gale said, “with policies to move everybody into Polson and Ronan.”
Swenson said he feels both the GPCF and the Orton Family Heart and Soul Grant circumvent the traditional planning process by creating value sets based on popular opinion.
“It creates a democracy instead of a republic.” Swenson said, since relying on popular opinion, or a majority, instead of the Constitution, results in a democracy.
An example, Swenson explained, was Lake County’s property-division rule, which he feels is a civil rights violation since landowners can’t divide their property as they see fit.
