Return to Community Conversation
Present: Marilyn Overcast, Fluency Center for Spiritual Evolution and Transformation; Carol Dahl, LFP Stewardship Foundation; Mary Lynn Thompson, Group Health Cooperative; Deb. W. Butler, Northwest Hospital; Karen True, Friends of Third Place Commons; Roger Olstad, LFP City Council; Jeff Altman, LFP Transportation Commission; Sally Renn, Rotary; Roger Bouck, Rotary; and notetaker: Anne Stadler, Friends of Third Place Commons
We had a GREAT conversation AND INVITE ALL of you! to please mark your calendars for Jan. 5th at 1:00 in the Friends Room at the back of Third Place Commons!
We focused on the Question:
What is it you dearly love about Lake Forest Park which you consider essential to a healthy** LFP community?
Carol Dahl: My passion is a clean healthy environment: My focus is stewardship, preserving nature, setting aside land so people can be present with nature. I’ve learned two things from working with my passion in our community: (1) to believe it (2) to involve others. A healthy community has a healthy stewardship relationship with nature.
Marilyn Overcast: My passion is Spirit. I reach Fluent Communication. It calls us to be together as One Voice, even as we express ourselves in our many voices. We do have a common vision in creating paradise. I am grateful we live in this really rich area of LFP where there is beauty of nature and restorative presence of healthy loving friends.
Mary Lynn Thompson: I grew up on the Lake and loved it. Then came the mall. I watched the Mall struggle and decline. With Third Place Commons, the community took on new life, renewed the old grassroots. Like the old mansion I used to see as I looked from across the lake: first it was beautiful, then, in decline, now renewed and beautiful again. LFP is an important crossroads: lake, travel, bike trail.
Deb. W. Butler: I love that we’re not “typical”! The other night we had “Good Neighbor” Awards. One of them went to two girls who trapped feral cats, had them neutered, and found homes for them. It was wonderful to see how many ways “community” expresses itself. NW Hospital is very invested in THIS place—Third Place Commons—not just because we’re nearby, but the quality of people and relationship we have here. Third Place Commons is the primary provider of human services in Lake Forest Park!
Karen True: I love the connections, the collaborations! The community spirit is really important!
Roger Olstad: We’ve been here since l964, but I didn’t really LIVE in Lake Forest Park. It wasn’t until the Commons opened up that people identified with a REAL Lake Forest Park community. Third Place Commons is so important to the HEALTH of Lake Forest Park—as a gathering place, a place of connection, a whole new life shows up here. It doesn’t happen automatically. Friends has made a community from a suburban town. We need to help the people and government of LFP appreciate this.
Jeff Altman: (responding to earlier conversation notes posted on wall of room) Collaboration and connection between people, woods and water. Reciprocal, reciprocity, collaborating, networking. No barriers. Answering unspoken needs, giving assistance to persons who haven’t even asked. Need evidence based zoning. What is community? It’s people like Karen True, Mayor Dave, Sarah Phillips. Good health dovetails with community!
Roger Bouck: Community spirit and pride in place are really important. One way to tell if there IS pride and community spirit is how many citizens put Lake Forest Park as their address instead of Seattle. I’m also passionate about service above self. That’s why I continue to be part of Lake Forest Park Rotary, even though I’ve moved to Mill Valley. I’m very involved in RotoCare, setting up a free clinic in Lake City which will serve people all along Bothell Way. We’ve just gotten organized and I want help getting the word out!
Also, if you value a place like Third Place Commons you’ve got to show up for what happens here and let the City Council know how important it is! Ron Sher is making a great gift to Lake Forest Park community.
Sally Renn: Agree with much of what is said here. LFP is a cross roads, connected to other places in the region. I’m passionate about our being able to help each other in case of a natural disaster or some kind of crisis by establishing the networks of community right now. Want to be sure that we enact a legacy in how we live right now.
Anne Stadler: I love being part of a real community—a gift-exchanging connection with people, lake, woods, streams, birds, animals—the whole thing! I feel we have something very special here. My grandchildren and their parents live here—and I want to be part of living right NOW a healthy vibrant legacy they will experience, and give to their children and grandchildren.
We all agreed that WE will take responsibility for continuing the conversation:
focusing next conversation on Articulating the Vision of Lake Forest Park as a Healthy Community.
and then asking how do we want to engage the community in this Vision?
**Roger Olstad asked: Is there an adjective other than “healthy”?
“LFP as a ??? Community?” Anne Stadler is offering a prize for the optimal word!!!
