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02/18/2019 11:00 PMOver the course of a few months, stakeholders have weighed in on the town’s effort to build a 10-year strategic plan. The Board of Selectmen (BOS) now has a rough draft of the plan, but has agreed the plan needs more work before it goes to the public.
The plan is an initiative of the Board of Selectmen (BOS), but the Board of Finance (BOF) and Board of Education (BOE), along with town department heads and key community stakeholders, were involved in the process. The BOS will present the proposal to the public for feedback.
The BOS began the process in early 2018 when it put out a request for proposals to companies that would help guide the town through development of the plan.
Three proposals came in and then on a selection subcommittee selected Management Partners; the contract was awarded in late June.
Representatives from Management Partners held two public input sessions on Nov. 27. (The sessions were originally supposed to be a week apart, but a freak snowstorm in mid-November canceled the first workshop.) Just a handful of residents joined the many elected officials attending the sessions, which sparked significant debate among elected officials.
At the BOS meeting on Feb. 11, selectmen received a draft of the plan that included resident comments and comments from stakeholders to consider. Town Executive Assistant Lauren Rhines said the draft from the consultant is complete but still needs some work.
“My concern with this working draft is that it is very much you can tell written by several different people, not really a cohesive plan that seems to be wordsmithed by the same person, so obviously this in no way is ready to be taken to the public,’ she said.
Rhines suggested the board look to a smaller group to do a more comprehensive review of the draft before it goes to the public.
“My suggestion to you as a board is that we need to take this draft and either go back to the big working group and have one or two more workshops or—and the consultant agreed with this—to create a subcommittee of that big working group and have maybe less cooks in the kitchen and really go over it and workshop a more comprehensive draft to bring back to all of you and then bring back to the public,” she said.
Selectmen agreed to a smaller group, but Selectman Bruce Wilson offered a more specific suggestion.
“My preference is that we have a workshop together, the five of us, and come up with what we think the next step is,” he said. “Ultimately it is our responsibility to bring this to the community. We have worked with all of the stakeholders that are within the elected, volunteer, and employee base. I think it is time for this to start to become our document again.”
Selectmen all agreed with Wilson’s suggestion and future workshops for the board are to be determined.