WASHINGTON PLANNING BOARD

Master Plan Subcommittee – Working meeting

Minutes

August 9, 2013

Committee members present: Jean Kluk, Jim Crandall, Nan Schwartz, Annie Bissonnette, Lolly Gilbert, Carolyn Bullock, Bob Williams.

1.0 The meeting was called to order by Jean Kluk at 8:00 AM, in the multipurpose room of the Elementary School.

2.0 Kluk welcomed everyone to the working meeting. We corrected Annie Bissonnette’s email address on our member list.

3.0 Approval of Minutes: We looked at the minutes of the previous meeting held on July 29, 2013. Crandall had an issue with the minutes where he felt it stated that the committee’s responsibility was to prioritize projects in town. Williams asked if we set strategy or policy or vision. We all decided we are looking for a vision for the town. Kluk said that if the community gives us clear priorities we have to acknowledge that. Bissonnette asked what facts do we need to know, there might be insights or cautions in those facts. We are not going to drive projects and guidance is our priority. Bullock said this committee is not giving a prioritized list but guidance. We decided to amend 8.0 to say that it is not the responsibility of this committee to prioritize the suggestions given by the survey takers, but to inform the town. Kluk said there should be no advocacy, we should remove the word “projects”. We will approve the minutes at our next meeting after changes are made and we go over them again.

4.0 We reviewed and discussed the responses from the boards and committees. Williams said some of the responses are statements and not questions, do we need them to be questions? We felt that they did not because some of the charts will ask if one agrees or disagrees with what is stated. We decided we will send the questionnaire back out to the departments and committees once it is done for their thoughts.

5.0 We then moved on to the questionnaire and went through each question on the 2003 Washington survey. We had all made notes on and classified the questions for the separate sections of the new survey. Everyone had listed things they liked about the other town’s surveys and made suggestions for the new survey. We added and deleted categories and questions as we felt was appropriate. Schwartz and Kluk made notes during the extensive discussion and brainstorming session.

6.0 The group discussed the next step, which is to compile all the information into Kluk’s template document. Kluk and Schwartz will work on getting this done and then send out a draft to the committee members to proof, as soon as possible. We are trying to get the finished document done before the next Planning Board meeting on September 3^rd, so the board can approve it before it is sent out. We set two follow up meeting dates, where we will go over and edit the draft document. The first meeting will be August 20^th at 6:30PM at the Town Hall. We will discuss the incentives for getting the community to participate and the possibility of doing an electronic version. Everyone felt that doing an online version of the survey, as well as a printed one, was worth pursuing. Williams will do a test of Survey Monkey to see how it might work. We discussed how long we will give people to do the survey and return it to us. We agreed that probably 2 months was plenty of time. Williams asked if there was wifi in the Town Hall. Schwartz said that there is but it is password protected, she will get in touch with Michelle so we will be able to use it when we need to that evening. Our second meeting will be on August 27 at 6:30PM at the Town Hall and we will have a last back up meeting set for August 30^th in the morning, if needed.

Meeting adjourned at 12:05 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Nan Schwartz

Planning Board Secretary