Sandpoint is growing. Sometimes this is a good thing. Jobs are created and new vibrancy is brought to our Downtown. But, sadly, just as often new developments reduce our quality of life and harm the qualities we care most about.

We need to move beyond the false choice of economic development versus livable, traditional neighborhoods. We can have both. Our waterfront parks, walkable streets, urban forest and Historic Downtown are all key reasons why businesses choose to come and stay here. They are simultaneously economic and community assets.

Our City's new Comprehensive Plan, created out of extensive community input and unanimously passed by City Council, offers a vision to keep Sandpoint, Sandpoint. It suggests a more nuanced approach to growth - neither welcoming it with open arms nor demonizing it.

Growth in Sandpoint is inevitable; our stunning natural surroundings are just too attractive. But that inevitably is a gift. The high demand to come here gives us choices about what kind of community we want to become.

We can become a retirement or resort community. We could be a college town. We can maintain our Historic Downtown or shift the economic center of our town to sprawl along the Hwy. 2 corridor. We can fill our neighborhoods with huge McMansions or maintain their economic diversity. We get to decide and largely our new Comprehensive Plan expresses the decisions we have made.

What we have chosen in this new vision for our future is to maintain what we love about our City and restore what, in the past decade or so, we've lost. We have chosen to recreate a vibrant Downtown filled with local businesses geared to people who live here. To have neighborhoods with a diversity of housing types and people. To continue and expand upon our legacy as "a walking town." To make decisions that are sustainable for both our taxpayers and our environment. To preserve our historic buildings and access to our waterfront.

We have chosen to actively determine our community's future. Now it's time for us to work together and accomplish the work we have laid out for ourselves.

John T. Reuter