I really enjoyed this conversation about Planning Ithaca. During this meeting, we had in-depth Conversations with two Cornell Alumni and Rose House fellows who have extensive involvement with Cornell University and the city of Ithaca.
Gary is a member of the City of Ithaca Planning board. He’s been in Ithaca for 20 years and is mostly involved in the development of the city’s future or the Comprehensive Plan which is a very important plan for open spaces, natural resources, and buildings.
Andy’s has had a major role in Nature Conservancy, the largest environmental non-profit worldwide, and in the Land Trust in Washington DC.
Their combined experiences created a very interesting dialogue that resonated with me.
My father is a local residential home builder. I frequently hear him attend Planning Board Meetings, Conservation Commission meetings, and town hall meetings. I never considered the importance of these meetings to the general public until I heard this podcast. My biggest take away is to get involved:
- Volunteer on Ithaca nature reserves.
- Read: Ithaca Voice online newspaper has great content in conservation and upcoming development projects in Ithaca.
- Attend Meetings, open planning board meetings, write letters, form an opinion.
- Go to Andy’s Website for more info. FingerLakesLandTrust.org fllt.org
Students are transient, we are undergraduate students here for 4 years only, but our voices should be heard, and we need to make our opinions known. You never know where the future leads you. Both Andy and Gary had very diverse career paths that led them around the world and back to Ithaca.