WASHINGTON PLANNING BOARD
Master Plan Update Subcommittee
– Working meeting Minutes
March 25, 2014
Committee members present: Lolly Gilbert, Carolyn
Bullock, Jean Kluk, Bob Williams, Steve Terani, and Nan
Schwartz.
Visitor: Dan Reidy
1.0 The
meeting was called to order by Jean Kluk at 2:00 PM, in the Town Hall.
2.0 Kluk opened the meeting and said
our major goal for this afternoon is to discuss the workshop focus group
discussion topics. She reviewed the five topics that were identified at our
December 10th, 2013, meeting: zoning districts, historic preservation, town
facilities, preservation of rural character, and economic development. She said
that the workshop will be a listening opportunity where we can do some
educating but no advocacy and it is all based on messages we got from the
survey. She thought that zoning districts were warranted because a high number
of people thought that businesses should be in certain areas. With historic
preservation Gilbert felt we could discuss historic districts and village
districts. We all felt that it was appropriate to discuss town facilities.
Preservation of rural character was something everyone wanted to keep on the
list, we felt that we could discuss land use here and try to define rural
character for the town. Bullock commented that Economic development is more
than just stores, she asked what kind of economic
development we should discuss. Kluk mentioned that what we donŐt have here is
general visioning. She read the vision statement from the existing Master Plan
to the group. She asked Reidy whether he had seen a
lot of vision statements from other Master Plans. He said he had seen a few and
ours sounded strong. He asked about village centers in Washington and how many
there were. Schwartz said there are two village centers;
Washington and East Washington. Reidy will visit East
Washington center when the roads are better. He asked about any restrictions on
industry. Kluk mentioned the restrictions in the LUO. Kluk asked if we want to
have a vision group at the workshop? Everyone thought that we wouldnŐt have a
specific group for this as long as we cover all the subject matter in the other
groups. Reidy asked if we want our vision statement
to be something easy to repeat to the public or do we want something longer?
Kluk felt we could cover the vision statement later.
Reidy asked if he had given us material from the Brookline
workshop that he had lead, previously. He hadnŐt, so he shared with us the
lists of topics and questions that were asked. They were for a community
profile and covered either 11 or 6 topics that they covered. He felt we could
take some ideas from this and we could craft from this list for our workshop.
Williams asked about the community profile and he felt it assumed you were
starting from scratch and hadnŐt already done a survey. We have already done
our survey so we would need to tweak this a lot to do ours. He felt we should
just craft ours from scratch. All agreed. Kluk got out our Master Plan chapter
list to review. She stated that the Vision section and Land Use sections are
the only two chapters that are required. Reidy asked
about our demographic and whether the town is aging. Williams said there is not
a lot of younger population. Bullock said it is a challenge for young families
to make a home here. Kluk got out her census data and said that 20-30 year olds
are 7% of the population, 30 to 60 year olds are 42% and over 60 is 28% of the
town. Reidy said we should look at the trends and
compare to statewide and similar towns.
We discussed our small
group topics list; Land Use and Zoning, Economic Development, Community
Facilities and Services, Historic Resources and Preservation and Preservation
of Rural Character. We decided to include Sense of Community with Rural
Character and add Recreation as a topic making a total of 6 groups. Terani felt that we spend lots of money on Camp Morgan and
recreation should be discussed. Parks and Rec can be involved with writing the
chapter for recreation.
Kluk asked Reidy how long the breakout sessions would be and we
decided 45 minutes or longer. Bullock felt that with 45 minutes you would get
lots of ideas thrown out. We decided that the previously mentioned topics would
be our focus groups for the workshop.
3.0 Discuss student facilitator prospects:
Jean/Lolly spoke with conversation with Noah Denslow who is a high school teacher at H-D high school and
he validated ReidyŐs though that using students as
facilitators will help keep things on track and aid in participation by adults.
He had some specific students to recommend to us. We made a list of possible local
students who are juniors or recent grads to contact. Reidy
said we will need one for each group and also a
recorder. We thought that committee members could act as recorders with the
students acting as facilitators.
4.0 Determine potential dates for
training and for the workshop. We all listed any lake association meeting
dates, town committee and board meetings and town special events that we knew
of. We decided that in order to get summer residentŐs participation we should
pick a weekend date in late June. We looked at the school schedule to consider
high school student facilitatorsŐ schedules (athletics, prom, exams) and
avoided anything on that schedule. We decided on June 21st,
Saturday. Schwartz coordinated with Michelle to get Camp Morgan Lodge reserved
for that date.
5.0 Discuss and determine ŇmagnetsÓ
for attendance: We discussed food for the workshop. It was suggested that we
have coffee, water, fruit and pastries for the morning. Gilbert offered to cook
if needed. Williams asked about a potluck, ask people to bring something to
share. Schwartz suggested we could have Auxiliary do something as a fundraiser.
We decided to discuss this more later.
Kluk suggested having the
WES students do artwork and writing about their favorite thing about living in
Washington, we could then display their work, which might bring parents out to
participate.
We decided we would hold drawings
for unclaimed prizes we still have and give out raffle tickets as people
arrive.
Bullock feels communication
is key to getting people to attend. We will need to reach out to people to ask
for their help and get them to come to the workshop. Schwartz asked if sending a
postcard would suffice for printed notice and what kind of other publicity we
need. We will discuss this at our next meeting.
6.0 Discuss and determine
preparation tasks for workshop: Kluk said we need to determine the materials needed for our 6 focus
group topics. She feels we need to educate ourselves and do the homework needed
to come up with our bullet points for each workshop topic. We decided to break
up the topics and each take two to research. Crandall will do Zoning and Rural
Character/ Sense of Community, Gilbert will do Zoning and Community Facilities
and Services, Terani will do Recreation and Economic
Development, Bullock will do Recreation and Economic Development, Schwartz will
do Rural Character/Sense of Community and Community Facilities and Services,
Williams will do Community Facilities and Services and Rural Character/Sense of
Community, Kluk will cover Demographics and Trends, Bissonette
will do Historic Resources and Preservation. We will all bring our research to
the next meeting in April.
We discussed the facilitator
training and Reidy said that he likes to do training
a week to 10 days out from the workshop. We looked at dates for training and
settled on tentative dates of June 10th, 12th or the 17th
in the early evening 5-5:30PM, depending on the students schedules. Reidy said one meeting of 2 to 2.5 hours is needed. We will
have pizza dinner available for the students and committee members. Kluk will
contact the school to see if we could use it for the training and workshop.
Reidy said it is helpful to have separate spaces for
the breakout groups. Kluk will contact the principal and check on availability.
We will hang on to CML until we know if we can use the school.
7.0 Review Memorandum of Understanding
from UNH Cooperative Extension for
facilitating
the workshop. We looked over the MOU that Reidy
supplied us. Bullock asked if we were confident we can
supply all the things Reidy was asking of us. We all
felt we could. After discussion we all agreed to have Kluk and Schwartz bring
the contract to the Planning Board for approval at the April 1st
meeting and then to the Selectmen on the following Thursday for their signature
if PB approval is gained. The Subcommittee is invited to come to the PB meeting
on the 1st at 6:30PM.
8.0 Discuss and determine approaches
for increasing visibility/support of MPUC efforts/plans. Schwartz and Kluk said
they met briefly with 2 selectmen last Thursday and asked for their opinion
about the timing of soliciting input from town boards and committees. We
originally had planned to do it before the workshop after discussion we decided
to push it until after the workshop, to September in Phase 2. Kluk will make
the change to the schedule of tasks. We discussed how we could increase our
visibility by regularly providing the Selectmen with updates that will appear
in their minutes.
9.0 Determine Next Meeting Date and Goals:
We decided that our next meeting would be April 15th at 2 PM in the
Town Hall. We will bring our research and findings to help determine the bullet
points for the workshop focus groups. We would also bring ideas for community
awareness and outreach. Williams suggested an alternate date in case things
donŐt go smoothly with the PB and Selectmen. If we donŐt gain approval of the
contract we will meet on April 8th at 6:30PM.
Meeting
adjourned at 3:40 PM.
Respectfully
submitted,
Nan
Schwartz
Planning
Board Secretary