TLA would like to share the following communication with its friends and members:

Antrim County’s community has changed over the past few decades. How well have Antrim County’s recreation and conservation programs responded to that change? Are they meeting the challenge to support a growing tourism and recreation based economy? Does the County have the right policies and administrative structure in place to meet the challenges in the 21st Century?

These are the questions Mark Stone set out to answer in February. Overwhelmingly, stakeholders both inside and outside of Antrim County government expressed to him the need for change.

Mark’s presentation will explore what the actual recreation/conservation community in Antrim County looks like today, assess the County’s current recreation and conservation programs, and propose some significant changes.

Mark has now been involved in Antrim County government since 1990 in a variety of capacities, most of which was spent in recreation and conservation programs, including twenty years holding elected office. He’s also the owner of Michigan Maps, (publisher of maps for recreational users), and the former publisher of the Lake Country Gazette, bringing to this study a unique perspective that straddles the worlds of public policy and private business in a tourism-based economy. Mark’s been working on this study since February of this year and his presentation is the result of many conversations and interviews with a wide spectrum of stakeholders, research and analysis of budgets, and draws from his years of experience of what has worked and what has failed to work.

Join us on Thursday, November 5, 2015 at 6:30 p.m. at the Commission on Aging Senior Center, 308 E. Cayuga St. in Bellaire, for what promises to be a thought-provoking presentation and discussion. (See attached flyer – feel free to forward to any interested party.)

Let’s think outside the box!

Janet Koch
Assoc. Planner, Antrim County
P.O. Box 187, Bellaire, MI  49615
tel:231-533-6265
http://www.antrimcounty.org