WASHINGTON PLANNING BOARD

Master Plan Subcommittee – Working meeting

Minutes

August 27, 2013

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

1.0 The meeting was called to order by Jean Kluk at 6:30 PM, in the Town Hall.

2.0 Approval of Minutes: We looked at the minutes of the meeting held on August 20, 2013 and there were no requested changes. Bullock made a motion to approve, Gilbert seconded the motion, all voted in favor.

3.0 We reviewed the latest version of the community survey with all the changes requested at our last meeting. Crandall commented that he did a count of the 2003 community survey and there were 84 questions asked, the new survey has 132 questions, by his count, which is 60% more. He wondered if people would object to having more questions to answer. Bullock said that the last survey didn’t cover enough. Schwartz commented that people won’t remember the previous survey and compare them. Gilbert said that the new survey really has 22 questions, with multiple parts. Bissonnette commented she didn’t go through and time taking the survey, but it seems like it will go quickly. Kluk commented that page 7 got longer because we added the questions about Town Meeting and that put the last comment page onto page 8. This will make a four-page document if we print double sided.

Gilbert wanted to look at question 4-A and reword it to “What kind of housing do you own in Washington? (Check all that apply)”. Everyone agreed with this change. Kluk mentioned that Terani had a concern with question 6-C #1 and wanted to change the wording to “with buffers” as opposed to “and their buffers”. We decided we had discussed this issue at a previous meeting and want to keep it the way it is. Bissonnette had an issue with question 7-A #3, she felt we should lose the line after the sentence and leave room to specify below. Kluk asked about the wording of 7-B and everyone was OK with it as is. Gilbert suggested a change of wording for question 8-C to “What do you feel will be the town’s biggest challenge in the future?”, everyone agreed. Everyone commented that the survey looks great. Jean asked for a motion to approve with the stated changes. Bullock made a motion to accept the survey with the stated changes as the version we will bring to the Planning Board, Bissonnette seconded the motion and all voted in favor. Kluk will make the changes and send to the Planning Board tomorrow so they have time to review before the meeting on September 3^rd. Kluk reminded the committee members of the PB meeting on the 3^rd and requested that everyone who can come, attend this meeting where we will present the survey and answer questions. Schwartz commented that there is a public hearing at 6:30PM, so if everyone planned to be there at 7PM she would put us on the PB agenda for that time.

4.0 We reviewed and discussed the first draft of the cover letter. Bissonnette drafted a preliminary version and Kluk and Schwartz added some thoughts to it. Gilbert asked about using commas before “and” in a list. We decided to be consistent and not have the comma. We discussed the wording for the passage about the raffle prizes and made changes to it. Bissonette asked whether people will try to fill out multiple surveys and do we need to say that they can’t. The key code should take care of this and we don’t need to state it, all agreed. We discussed the possible need to change the dates on the letter if needed. Gilberts name needs to be added to the member list at the bottom of the letter, as it was inadvertently left off. We will add a thanks to our local retailers and artisans for donating to the raffle.

Kluk spoke about the incentives she envisioned for filling out the survey. She wants to approach local businesses to donate items or gift certificates for raffle prizes. She thinks the raffle prizes will increase awareness of local businesses and increases awareness of the community that these businesses are in town. Kluk and Gilbert talked to several vendors at the Farmer’s Market and they were interested and willing to participate by donating to the raffle. Bissonnette commented that she did a raffle for the Meetinghouse and people got really excited about participating, she thinks this is a great idea. We discussed a list of possible businesses and who would speak to them about donating. We came up with a few others to approach. Kluk will talk to Lemon Tree Pastries, Lovell Mountain Gardens, Becky’s Fine Preserves and Pastries and will donate a watercolor, Gilbert will speak to Sage Knoll, Bobby Crane and Shawn Atkins (syrup), Schwartz will speak to Eccardt Farm Store, Ed Thayer and Lionel Chute (syrup) and Peter France, Bullock will speak to Wandering Bull and Paint your own Pottery, Crandall will speak to Historical Society, and the General Store. We will aim for a $10 to $20 value for the donated items.

5.0 We discussed the security and anonymity of the survey. Bissonnette asked about how the key code would work. Kluk explained that she used a random key code generator to make a list of 1100 key codes. We will either print them out on sticky labels (in sets of 2, to be placed on the survey and the cover letter) or we will speak to Barbara Gaskell about doing a mail merge to add the numbers during printing. We talked about printing and folding using Premier Printing and Kluk will speak to Barbara about what we need and what she can do for us. We want to send the survey in a “Town of Washington” envelope and keep a professional approach to the mailing. The Assessors will print out the mailing labels for us from the property tax list. Schwartz said that the town has return postage paid envelopes that will only be charged to the town if they are used. She will speak with Dagesse further about mailing options. Bullock suggested using a #9 envelope for the return envelope, as it will fit in a #10 envelope without having to be folded. If all goes well we will have an envelope stuffing and labeling get together the week of September 15^th.

The committee will plan to go visit the Selectmen at their Thursday, September 12^th meeting, either in the daytime or evening, to be decided. Bissonnette suggested we update our schedule and list of processes to give to the Selectmen when we meet with them. It will give them a good idea of the process we are going through and what has been accomplished so far.

6.0 We talked a little more about Survey Monkey capabilities and how we will merge the paper surveys with the online surveys. Bissonette thinks they may be able to take scans of the paper surveys and input them. We will have Williams find out if it can be done and how much it would cost. Schwartz suggested that we could input them by going online in teams of 2 and manually entering the responses from the completed paper surveys, if we have to.

7.0 Kluk suggested we send replies back to the Departments and Committees who sent us questions and other input for our survey. Some questions were not used and we felt they will be better handled at the community workshops that will take place after this phase. She will work on crafting replies.

8.0 We discussed briefly asking the Planning Board to budget next year for workshop facilitators and other needs for the Master Plan update. We will discuss with the full Planning Board. We talked about possibly piggybacking the workshops onto other meetings already taking place in town, ie; annual meetings of Millen Pond Association, Washington Lake Association, Ashuelot Pond Association, other lake organizations, senior lunch and other town groups. We will discuss this more in the future.

Meeting adjourned at 7:55 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Nan Schwartz

Planning Board Secretary