On the evening of August 17th, the Midway City Council voted 3 to 2 to reject a ballot Resolution which would have given Midway voters the right to choose if they wanted to authorize a sum of money for the city to use to help preserve Midway’s rural character and open space.

Pure Midway understands some of the concerns voiced by the council – we also shared some of them. But after a year of research and learning we felt that the pros outweighed the cons. Bond money can be stretched in many ways. We learned that once a city bonds, other entities are more likely to match funds through grants and donations that they will not do until a city shows they are committed. Bonding is just one possible approach to preserving open space, one that we felt could be a valuable component of the overall strategy but would require citizen support. Our research and efforts to get your feedback indicated that YOU, the public wanted to vote on the matter, and we regret that you were not given that opportunity at this time. Regardless of this outcome, Pure Midway will continue to seek public input and work diligently to understand the options that Midway has to preserve Open Space, including pros and cons of those options to the best of our ability. We are all aware of the very fast pace of growth and change around Midway. We hope we have not lost significant ground (pun intended) with the council’s decision but only time will tell.

For those of you who were not able to attend the August 17th meeting, we have obtained a copy of the audio, and we encourage you to listen to the discussion.

In a separate post we will later detail the previous council meeting on August 9th, including a presentation that detailed citizen petition and survey results which were shared with the council.