I'm wondering how happy each one of us are? How peaceful and content with the quality of our life? Do we have time with our loved ones the way we would like to? The future does start now. Do we want to continue on the same way? Perhaps there is a way of looking at growth in more ways than dollars or a linear fashion. Perhaps we have an opportunity tonight to recreate a future, using parts of the past that have worked and building a future potential of a deeper vision. I'm in art, I'm not in politics, but I'm still thinking that there are ways that we can unite in ways that we haven't thought of before, ways that we can really develop a new idea here. I've been here in this town for four years. When I moved here there was a rainbow over my street and I said," there's something special about this town". The banks are going in crisis, families are in crisis, everybody knows that the social breakdown is now begging for an evaluation of what we as a community can do for each other. So let's increase the kindness and creativity. I'm a designer, we're designing communities,maybe we can approach the community panning with a new focus? I trust in a creative process. We can create something that is way beyond what we could possibly imagine. As we listen to each other and to our elders, reinvent together, listen to the children. Let's not follow what we've already done, let's not just think tax dollars and think other things. What we need to do is start to depend on each other. Its time to listen to each other, time to rely on making our own food, goods, and unite in ways that might make our town an example to a hurting, warring world. Making technology be in balance with nature and the individual voice. What if the majority of the residents just stopped doing what they hate to do and tried to change their liVes to do things that won't deplete them. What if we collectively decided not to feed the fear? Started listening to our own wisdom and develop with beauty and respect and harmony? If we continue in the old ways, we will really not have much to grow and develop in the future! If we develop with nature, with our hearts, with our happiness, maybe we'll invent Mission as this cultural destination and people will wonder what did that little town do? I think that if we put our brains together in a really inventive way we're going to come up with some amazing solutions.