Chichester Town Organization Committee
Meeting Minutes
Meeting Date: October 12, 2006
Minutes Prepared By: Bruce Dyke
In Attendance: Paul Adams, Lou Barker, Lisa Drouse, Bruce Dyke, Norm Larachelle, Allen
Mayville & Paul Twomey
Location: Selectmen’s Office Conference Room
Minutes Approved: October 19, 2006
- The meeting started at 7:15pm
- Draft minutes of the 9/28/06 meeting were reviewed and approved without change.
- The Committee welcomed Lisa Drouse who was attending her first meeting since
volunteering to join the group. Lisa provided a brief summary of her background as a
Planner at Catholic Medical Center.
- The status of potential, external resources that may be available to the Committee during
their research process was reviewed.
- Local Government Center: Paul owes them a return call.
- Fire Chief’s Association: Paul owes them a return call and will provide them
with Norm’s contact info. once he does speak with them.
- Road Agent’s Association: Paul owes them a return call.
- Office of Energy and Planning: Lou still needs to contact them.
- Dept of Revenue Admin: Bruce still needs to contact them.
- T2 Technology Transfer: Bruce still needs to contact them.
- "Hard Road to Travel": Continues to be circulated among Committee members
for review.
- Municipal Administrators Listserv Group: Feedback was consolidated by
Bruce and distributed to group.
- Southern NH Regional Planning: New resource identified by Lisa, who will be
contacting them.
- Municipal Resources: Paul Adams is obtaining information from them
regarding their services.
- It was noted that one of the feedback items received from the Municipal Admin Listserv Group discussed the existence of a town organization study report recently completed in Northwood. Paul Adams is going to attempt to obtain a copy of the document prior to our next meeting.
- Bruce obtained copies of the current Chichester Master Plan for the Committee's review.
- With two additional Committee members now added, the current workgroup assignments were reviewed. Paul Adams will be working with Paul Twomey specific to the Highway Dept. review. Lisa Drouse will be working with Lou Barker specific to the Police Dept. review. Bruce Dyke will continue to focus on the Library and Cable Franchise Agreement reviews. Norm Larachelle and Allen Mayville will be working on the Fire Department review.
- Bruce circulated copies of a letter he drafted on behalf of the Selectmen that could be sent to surrounding towns advising them of the Committee's existence and requesting permission to contact departments within those towns during our data gathering process. Aside from a couple minor changes in wording and the addition of the Committee members to the "cc" list, the letter was approved. Bruce noted that he will be meeting with the Selectmen during their next weekly meeting (October 17th) to finalize the letter and request that it be sent to our neighboring towns as soon as possible.
- Bruce also circulated a draft template that could be used for the purpose of data collection and summarization. Key areas of the template included metric comparisons with other towns, existing and potential areas of collaboration as well as Master Plan and CIP assumptions. It was noted that some metrics gathered may be applicable to each sub-teams assigned areas, but in most cases, metrics specific to each review area would need to be identified. The group felt the template was a good start and further review/refinement will likely occur over the next few weeks. Bruce will distribute an electronic copy of the template to anyone who requests it. Both Lisa and Bruce offered their assistance to the other group members
in developing their templates in terms of setting them up in MS Word or Excel, etc.
- Paul Twomey suggested that updated projections for population and household growth be obtained as part of this process. It was unclear as to whether the Selectmen's Office might have any such statistics, but Bruce was going to check. It was suggested that the school district may have those types of stats. It was also noted that certain State departments maintain those statistics (Lou was going to follow-up on those sources). Lisa also had some potential sources of population data she was going to pursue as well.
- Paul Twomey noted that a lot of data we will likely want to include in our reports regarding surrounding towns operations and budgets could be obtained from each town's annual reports. It was believed that most town's have their Annual Reports on-line. Lisa was going to investigate that.
- Paul Adams suggested that information be collected on the availability and efficiency of obtaining grant money within the various areas we plan to review.
- Bruce encouraged the group to follow-through on any open tasks they had assigned to them and to start identifying data points to be researched for their assigned areas. He also advised the group to start scheduling time with Department Heads for their assigned areas, but to hold-off on any contact with surrounding towns until the Selectmen had sent the letter advising them of the Committee.
- The next meeting will be Thursday, October 19, 2006 at 7:15pm. It will be held in the Selectmen's Office Conference Room.
- The meeting adjourned at 8:45pm.
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