By Piper Foster
The Sopris Foundation
for Headwaters News
Oct. 4, 2007

Out on a limb, The Sopris Foundation accepted an invitation to hold its annual conference outside of Aspen this year.

So to Missoula, Mont, we went, where we were joined by 200 attendees and 30 speakers for three days of invigorating discussion that created an atmosphere of inquiry and mobilization.

And those ideas put in the ground at the July conference have enjoyed several months of germination.

And those questions the Sopris Foundation has about conferences:

• What good do they do?

• Are they mere entertainment?

• Just snacks and schwag?

• Of course, what is the job of us audience members?

• Do we conferees have a job to do?

We have some answers now. Yes, conferees have certain tasks: Listen actively. Remember statistics that portray a problem. Recall the details. Teach ourselves to recite what we learned. If this task is done well, things might just happen.

And, things are happening.

We at Sopris Foundation are learning that conferences can be more than entertaining — they can produce outcomes.

And some of the outcomes from our July conference are:

• For our part, Sopris Foundation audits the energy of the buildings at the office park that John McBride developed. Energy audits catch inefficiencies in buildings.

• We are entering into discussions with high-profile locals and property-management companies to green their large homes. (It was revealed that one family spends $30,000 a year on utilities!)

Our blueprint is to start with the banal, and build to the grand.

Other grander endeavors:

MOAB

• Moab Mayor Dave Sakrison and City Council member Kyle Bailey were motivated by Jim Kunstler’s predictions.
  
  “He inspired us to start a dialogue within our community. We formed the ‘Post Carbon Grand County’ working group. The purpose is to think and hopefully plan for the eventuality of limited petroleum in the economy. I believe all tourist/destination resort communities will need to be thinking about this scenario,” Sakrison says.

• The Moab Farmers Market is exploring posting availability of produce on a web site. Consumers would order online two days prior to the Market, and pick up their order the day of the market. This affords growers the chance to maximize sales, eliminate waste and provide the consumer with a very fresh product. Moab is also talking up Josh Slotnick’s idea of Local Grown vs Organic Certified labeling.

 MISSOULA

• The Missoula Office of Planning and Grants is in the initial phases of a program for addressing growth on the fringe of town. In recent years the City and County have been too busy responding to a wave of development applications to take a proactive approach to growth. Now a staff working group is being formed to review policy and infrastructure issues in high growth areas and develop mechanisms for responding consistently to development proposals.
  
  While these plans were in place prior to the Sopris conference, the conference informed attentiveness to the working farms issue. “We realized we don’t have an accurate map of working ag lands, “ said Roger Millar of the OPG. “Knowing exactly which parcels of land are being farmed today is something we are looking to understand. We need to be sure we are making conscious decisions about those properties.”

• Don MacArthur, MMW Architects, responded that he is “thinking about how to make my designs embody the concerns we heard at the conference, in an architectural form.” He notes that not only is Missoula using more land per person, “but we are developing more square footage per person than in decades past. How sustainable is that? Within a property rights state like Montana, how do we regulate this concern?” he says. MMW Architects underwrote a documentary on the conference, to premier this winter.

• Jeffrey Crouch, of Kibo Group Architecture wrote that he has "joined with a few other progressive-minded developers to form a roundtable of sorts. Our goal is to inspire each other to make our own projects as sustainable as possible, and to work to promote responsible, aggressively progressive, sustainable development and planning in the community. We are involved in the city's zoning re-write effort and would like to see the city and county work more cooperatively so that their actions are in tandem and are cohesive."
  
  Crouch added that, “ It seems that a private sector developer who weighs in on the side of progressive growth issues could possibly have a serious impact on the direction of things.”

COEUR D’ALENE

• Troy Merrill, environmental planner, for the Coeur d’Alene Tribe in Idaho relates that his community is grappling with an increase in the amount of high-end development around the lake in their area – slated to become “the next Lake Tahoe.”
  
  A presentation was made to the Tribal Council on development issues that incorporated many of the ideas discussed at the conference.  In response the Tribal government has agreed to take the lead in developing a regional approach to the growth pressure. Time is sensitive though as several active proposals for gated golf course communities with between 300 to 2000 housing units are on the table. 

BOZEMAN

• Candace Mastel, Assistant Planner at Montana State University notes that, “I’ve been lucky to be involved with the Town’s Harvest CSA.” It is a joint venture with MSU Horticulture Farm, the College of Agriculture, the College of Health and Human Development and community volunteers and shareholders. “It’s a small farm but it produces enough harvest for 42 shares of veggies, herbs, etc.”
  
  After the conference, Candace decided to volunteer to pick harvest in preparation. The University is currently pursuing efforts to improve the farm’s layout, efficiency and use by developing a master plan. It is likely that the exploration of using sustainable building methods and materials will be discussed in the planning sessions. These methods may include passive solar heating, photovoltaic energy, composting toilets, and the collection of rainwater for reuse.

• Steve Kirchhoff, Bozeman City Commissioner, wrote of his interest — inspired by the conference — in exploring collaboration between the local food co-op board, city and growers on providing urban tracts of land for local production. “This idea was in my mind before the conference but got stronger after hearing Josh Slotnik and others talk about their experiences.”

EAGLE/VAIL

• Roger Brown and George Breed began discussions to design a solar community “made from scratch” that would incorporate workforce housing, a multi-use center and thus create an intentional community with sustainable building and living as its thesis. “We want to become a model for this kind of sustainable development for the county, the state, the nation … although we are inventing nothing new, only bringing existing technologies together in one place.”

COLORADO SPRINGS

• Walt Hecox, the professor who led the Colorado College State of the Rockies students to the conference noted that his group came away with ideas for possible broadening of the base of the conference, especially towards college age students. Chris Jackson and he joined us in Aspen for further planning and discussion.

• Notable: perhaps the sole audience member who understood the debate on cellulosic ethanol was from Colorado College: Simon Cataldo,  who found the debate, “illuminating.”

• Melissa Foster, who teaches third grade, launched a self-written curriculum on sustainability. Last week, each child wore the trash they produced that day to visually and viscerally quantify consumption. Students separated their trash from recyclables, committed to bringing snacks in reusable containers, and drip dried their hands as part of the lesson. She and her husband purchased a Prius, and she is researching locally grown vegetables to bring to her school cafeteria program.

I’ll close with the kind words of Jan Metzmeaker, director of the Whitefish Convention and Visitor’s Bureau: “I have been to many, many conferences over the years, and yours rates at the top.”

We are humbled, and wish to thank the participants who now venture forward putting in place the innovative ideas presented.