West Michigan Challenge Initiative
Senator Patty Birkholz's Speech at the West Michigan Strategic Alliance's State of the Regions
Click here to listen (mp3)
Transcript:
I’m here today to share with you something that I think is really exciting. Some of you know about the Citizen Planner Program. I imagine some of you here in this room have taken the Citizen Planner Program. Well, thanks to Michigan State University and some partners, it is now available online.
So I am here today to announce “The Birkholz Challenge.” We are partnering with the help of Greg [Northrup], MSU, and several other people, Michigan State University’s Land Policy Institute and the West Michigan Strategic Alliance are coming together to, with a combination of new state and regional resources, to create a new model for prioritized, targeted changes in land use, starting at the grassroots level in West Michigan.
So we’re developing a collaborative template for land use and adoption by other regions in Michigan. And we’re excited to announce “The Birkholz Challenge,” which will challenge every elected official to take the program, online, in their own home, at their own kitchen table, at their own kitchen counter, to take the land use planner program and become certified and therefore become be better decision makers in the future.
