WASHINGTON PLANNING BOARD
Master Plan Subcommittee
– Working meeting
Minutes
November 19, 2013
Committee
members present: Lolly Gilbert, Carolyn Bullock, Jean Kluk, Annie Bissonnette, Bob
Williams, Steve Terani and Nan Schwartz.
1.0 The meeting was called to order by Jean Kluk at 3:30 PM, in the Town Hall.
2.0 Kluk opened
the meeting and said we received 4 surveys with postmarks after the cutoff date
of October 31st. We decided we will not count the data. We discussed
opening the envelopes but decided after discussion that we wouldnÕt since we
werenÕt going to count the data. Kluk will keep the unopened envelopes archived
with the other surveys we received.
3.0 We reviewed the
draft survey reports and comparison reports that Kluk sent by email for our
review. She wanted to know which reports we wanted to release to the public.
She feels that some of the comparison reports are mainly for the Planning Board
and SelectmenÕs use. We looked at the Comprehensive report, which is 77 pages
long. Bissonnette had a few observations; the charts overwhelmed her. She
wanted to know if it is sensible to make a comprehensive copy to have on file
in the SelectmenÕs office and Library for transparency. Williams thought there
is too much information and the report is too long with too many comments. He
said that GoshenÕs report is just the data and much shorter. Bullock commented
that she hadnÕt looked at other townÕs surveys but maybe we should do a version
with data and graphs but no comments. She also thought we could ask the
regional planning commission what other towns do. Terani asked what is our
objective? How are we going to use this? Kluk said that if we filled out the
survey wouldnÕt we be curious and want to see what was said. Terani said that
his problem with the town is communication. Kluk said that there is nothing
incriminating in the survey comments and if people are curious enough to read
it they can. Williams is worried that there are some targeted comments that
might make people upset or open issues to discussion. Gilbert said if people
want to see the whole thing they should be able to. Bissonnette asked what we
are doing with the information. Kluk said the Planning Board will use the
information to figure out how to move forward. Bullock thought we could lose
the comment pages and just give the data. Williams felt we could summarize the
comments and give the themes that come out. Kluk felt that the comments lose
impact when they are summarized. It is best to read them as they were written.
Kluk suggested we make
the full report available on the PB website and make a few printed full reports
available around town. It was suggested to split the comprehensive report into
2 parts. The data report would be 46 pages and the vision report (comments) would
be 31 pages. Everyone liked this idea. Bullock asked if we could get rid of the
dates in the right hand column since they donÕt have any relevance. Everyone
agreed and Schwartz will do that. We discussed we could also get rid of the
ÒotherÓ category on page two by filtering out the notation of ÒpaperÓ. Kluk
will rerun that chart and Schwartz will add it to the pdf. Bullock wanted to
add a coversheet to the two reports, this was agreed to. Kluk asked if everyone
thought the bar graphs were OK and everyone thought they were. The colors also
work well in a black and white copy. We will print a few in color, but the rest
will be printed in B&W.
Kluk asked if we want to
run any more comparison reports before we shut down the Survey Monkey site. She
had run 4 demographic and 2 vision reports. When reviewing them there wasnÕt a
lot of difference but it is good to see. Williams thought we ought to run age
and ownership on the data and we all agreed this was a good idea. Kluk will run
the reports and email them out.
4.0 We discussed
and decided to have a complete set of reports stored on a flash drive and have
the two comprehensive reports available on the Planning Board website. We will
present the 2 comprehensive reports to the Planning Board at their next
meeting. When the work is done to split it into 2 reports it will be emailed to
the Planning Board members so they can review it prior to the meeting. It is
our hope that the Planning Board will bless the reports and then we can release
them to the public. We will share the list of comparison reports we have run
with the Planning Board. Everyone is invited to come to the PB meeting on
December 3rd at 6:30PM to present the reports. We will do a
presentation of the survey reports to the Selectmen and bring them up to date
on where we are in the process after the Planning Board approves the reports,
if the PB would like us to.
5.0 We conducted the drawing for the incentive prizes. The winning numbers are: gs9x9 cd1g9 pt4j1 kc6r1 wm9n9 um1t7 hc9q9 bs3c5 ec8d6 nz1a9 qa4d5 66u2s ab5e9
We assigned each number a prize as it was drawn. Kluk showed us a poster she will put up around town to let people know the winning numbers and who to contact about getting their prize. We decided that any unclaimed prizes would be held to use for the workshops.
6.0 Kluk said
our next meeting will be on Tuesday, December 10th at 6:30PM. She
contacted Dan Reidy from UNH Cooperative Extension about possibly conducting
our workshops and he agreed to meet with us to talk about what services he can
provide and costs involved. She has also spoken with Christine Frost at UVLSRPC
about doing this and we will set up a meeting with her in the future. We
decided to meet at 4PM to talk about workshop ideas and other thoughts, before
Dan Reidy comes, on the 10th.
Williams thought we
should try to come up with workshop dates before Town Meeting so we can have
them available at that time. We will work on this.
Williams brought up the
clear message that the town meeting question brought up, and wanted to know if we
should bring that issue to the Selectmen? It was agreed that we will bring it
up at the Planning Board meeting.
Meeting
adjourned at 5:30 PM.
Respectfully
submitted,
Nan
Schwartz
Planning
Board Secretary