Einstein said it long ago: “One can’t hope to solve a problem by using the same kind of thinking that produced it!”

While I’m in favor of anything that will break up the non-citizen committed power block of this administration, I see a much larger issue here than merely a choice of form of government.

I believe it is useful to note that the history of COBI’s nonvoter-approved and highly opposed Winslow Tomorrow (by many names) growth agenda includes a number of council members who clearly supported it. Indeed, some still sit on BI’s existing council, often described as a 4-3 split still in favor of further spending on capital projects supporting deliberate (spec-marketed) growth.

What is “critical” here is that this community reaches a consensus on the underlying “context” for its future?

Will it respond in kind to the sweeping hope for change in how we practice commerce, education, environmental protections and government administration now inspiring humanity around the world?

Are we going to commit to greater honesty, balance and true whole well-being of the whole?

Or are we going to continue the practice of “predatory individualism” by which the profits of the few govern the decisions made by government?

Vote or no vote on whether to retain the office of mayor, it would seem that little will change in the long run unless this community – including its citizenry, council, city manager/mayor and entire planning department – becomes more informed of the principles of true sustainability and commits to these all the way to a review of BI’s growth-marketing-era comprehensive plan.

A Bainbridge Graduate Institute faculty member, ecological economist Mark Aneilski, author of “The Economics of Happiness” and a “Genuine Health Mode,” asked in his presentation at Seattle’s 2008 Greenfestival this year, “What has happened to the ‘community’ in our communities?”

This seems a most critical question for us to ask at this time – locally to globally. In that query, the discussion at some point might raise another question that invites a new context for ourselves: “What is our greater soulful purpose in being here together?”

And this is not a theological question. It has to do with who we really wish to be as a community.

Larry Koss

Winslow