WASHINGTON PLANNING BOARD

Town Center Vision Subcommittee – Working meeting Minutes

October 10, 2018

Members present: Lolly Gilbert, Jean Kluk, Ron Jager and Nan Schwartz.

Visitors: None

Schwartz mentioned to Gilbert that the UVLSRPC sent a letter asking for submittals for inclusion in the DOT 10-year Transportation Improvement Plan, which is being updated. She thought that perhaps the road improvements/walkways/crosswalk might be something we would like to submit. Gilbert thought it was appropriate and Schwartz will look into it further.

We discussed Jager’s “Town Pound” presentation at the Historical Society meeting and how informative it was as well as talking about the useful resource that the Town Archives provide.

1.0 Call to Order - The meeting was called to order by Co-Chair Lolly Gilbert at 9:30 AM in the Town Hall.

2.0 Gilbert opened the meeting and asked Kluk about the traffic study we talked about with Chief Ryan Murdough. Kluk said she talked to Steve Marshall about it and he is going to talk to Ryan about it. The hitch was that we were borrowing the sign equipment from Sunapee and it needed repair before it could be borrowed.

Gilbert said she thinks we need to prioritize where we are going. We talked about the Old Schoolhouse (OSH) and the parking/access/landscaping around the town buildings as priorities and we talked about using leftover funds from the Fire-EMS project. She asked if we have a public meeting in mind to talk about these priorities/issues, in the near future. Jager said he was in favor of the parking/access/landscaping project but he thought the OSH project took precedent over it. Gilbert asked if we should hold a meeting with the public to bring our ideas to them. Jager thinks we need to bring the public concrete plans not just ideas. Kluk sees this as a mini Master Plan committee; she thinks we need to solicit the public and community for thoughts and ideas on the Town Center and OSH. She doesn’t want this to come off as our ideas or the ideas of a special interest committee but let ideas come from the community. Schwartz thinks we can do both; bring concrete ideas about the OSH and parking/access/landscaping projects and ask for ideas from the public on the Town Center Vision. Jager asked about the use of the OSH. Kluk said that the use could be a point that the public can have input into; we are talking about stabilizing the building structurally. Gilbert thinks we need to know what people think. Jager thinks planning will take a lot of time and he is concerned that the plans for parking and DPW are just going to push ahead without input. Kluk said the public doesn’t know what is going on and they need to know. Gilbert thinks we should get a report from Penny Whitman on Town Center Vision priorities based on our tour booklets to focus on and bring it to the public. Jager is concerned that we stay in front of any plans being made. Schwartz said we should talk to Ed Thayer.

Gilbert mentioned suggestion boxes/suggestion posters and asked if we could pull that off in the next month. Kluk thought we could have materials at the special Town Meeting that people could pick up. It won’t be a venue for discussion but we could have something available. Jager wants our next meeting to focus on these materials and brainstorming a community outreach event. He suggested our envisioning the event as presenting the two projects (OSH and parking/access/ landscaping) and also the Town Center Visioning project need for ideas. He wants our next meeting to plan for this public event. Gilbert is bringing our booklets to Penny Whitman tomorrow and she will talk with her and ask her to have some input for us from them for this planning meeting. Jager wants to come up with a handout for the event and he will do a rough draft on the two large projects for the next meeting so we have something to work with. Schwartz said that input from Penny will be the basis for the Town Center Visioning section. Kluk said that in terms of a handout less is better, and we should use bullet points and keep it simple. Schwartz said we should also look back at our guiding document and use some of those points as a basis. We discussed a few ideas we could present such as a historic walking tour with signage and a guide. Kluk said a Moose Grant could help cover the cost of something like that. We discussed the NH Preservation Alliance event that is taking place in town next Tuesday, October 16^th starting at 3:30pm. Kluk and Jager will be doing tours of the upstairs of the Town Hall and TH fundraising. We will all attend this event.

3.0 Next meeting – Wednesday, October 24^th at 9:30AM in the Town Hall and will be a working meeting to come up with materials for a public outreach event in December.

Meeting adjourned at 10:30am.

Respectfully submitted,

Nan Schwartz

Planning Board Secretary