365 Ways to Save South Haven
How’s your list coming along for inventing 365 ways to save the Earth? If you read yesterday’s blog, you’ll get the idea of what to do, simply make a one line statement on how to improve the state of environmental safety each day, then try to do it, and you will be on your way to enacting 365 steps to a healthier space for everyone.
Another idea to feed into this format is for us to start a little book called “365 Ways to Save South Haven.”
This could be a great project for you and your kids and grandchildren. It could be a great project to share with others, to hear their ideas, and then to put it out into the community. First on the list would be to save the natural wetland of Celery Pond from a marina development and channel cut.
Second on the list would be to keep the public lands in public hands on Dunkley Avenue. The floodplains in this area should stay as open and porous as possible so they can do their environmental balancing. That would mean that if we kept the Dunkley lands in public hands, we could leave the open spaces for something like a unique community park, which the blog, in the past, has discussed.
To make these two things happen, we need continued public support and demonstration of it. For instance, the best way to keep the public lands in public hands is to start a referendary or initiatory petition.
(A petition that calls for a referendum needs to collect signatures of at least 10 % of the registered electors of the City, as of the date of the last City Election which was 3363 voters. If 10% can be obtained within 21 days (ie. 363 signatures), these would be delivered to the City Clerk who would verify the signees. Once verification is completed (another 2 weeks), the petition would be forwarded to City Council for their consideration. If 25% of the registered electors of the city (841) signed a petition, the plan would be suspended.
More on this in the next entry. We can make changes that help save the earth if we think and act now. For the new year of 2007, let’s pool our ideas. Let’s try to gather together more and more plans of action that will give us “365 Ways to Save South Haven and the Earth.” Send yours proposals on ways to help the environment to the blog, just click on “Comments” and leave a message.
