What is KEA Doing?

“We are working well when we use ourselves as the fellow creatures of the plants, animals, materials, and other people we are working with.  Such work is unifying, healing.  It brings us home from pride and from despair, and places us responsibly within the human estate.  It defines us as we are: not too good to work with our bodies, but too good to work poorly or joylessly or selfishly or alone.”  --Wendell Berry

Over the past three years Kootenai Environmental Alliance had sponsored a program entitled From Dialogue to Action.  It has three goals:

• To create working partnerships among community, business and corporate leaders, private landowners, government agencies, elected officials, universities, and the public to plan for economic development, environmental protection, and the preservation of existing communities.
• To develop a shared planning vision and adopt a course of action.
• To implement this action plan.

In 2005, KEA jointly sponsored a growth-focused workshop—Got Growth?--with the League of Women Voters.  Representatives from government agencies met with concerned citizens to discuss development and how it is regulated.

In 2006, KEA promoted the creation of neighborhood land use groups and helped put them in contact with each other.

In 2007, KEA put on Community Planning Workshops at which neighborhood groups from around the county devised community land use plans and submitted them to the county planning commission for possible inclusion in the comprehensive plan revision.

In 2008, KEA was instrumental in creating the proposal that sent a local team of people to the Sonoran Institute’s Western Leadership Conference.  This team’s intention is to help the county adopt a new, balanced comprehensive plan and related ordinances by bringing together normally adversarial groups.

KEA members have attended many of the planning commission’s comprehensive plan workshops and provided valuable input.

KEA members have also been involved in discussions with the developers and suggested ways they can work cooperatively with the community and government planners.

In the future, KEA plans to put on workshops to teach citizens how to become effectively involved in the planning process and bring together neighborhood groups, developers, and government officials to discuss and devise ways to create enduring, reliable, balanced, and attractive land use planning in Kootenai County.

Kootenai Environmental Alliance is actively engaged with other community organizations and leaders to promote better land use practices in order to maintain the quality of life enjoyed in Kootenai County.