MINUTES OF AD HOC LONG RANGE STRATEGIC PLANNING – April 28, 2007
Attendance: Anna Wiedemann, Kathy Fetchick, Geoff Dent, Gerard Robilotti, Peter Marshall
Absent: Julia Wasserman, Michael Floros
Public: none
Meeting called to order at 7:40pm
Public Comments: None
Acceptance of Minutes: Motion to accept minutes made by Geoff, 2nd by Peter, passed unanimously
Discussion of draft – report will be sent to BOS asking for a date for just our committee to meet with all the BOS so that we can have a discussion.
Kathy spoke to Barbara Brymer from Planning and Zoning and talked about the Plan of Conservation and Development. Police, fire and education were included but weren’t involved in coming up with goals. Liz Stocker’s duties come out of the Plan of Conservation. The police department came up with a Long Range plan through SWOT analysis. There appears to be no one in charge with any authority to dictate the charge or follow up. The first selectmen needs to meet with each department for the plan to work. It needs to come from the top, someone with authority, someone to measure and process, follow up for continuous evaluation for a 5 or 10-year plan.
Town is growing enough to hire someone to manage a long- range plan, tie it to the budget, salaries, metrics for evaluation of performance. Plan of Conservation was a great plan, but without anyone to facilitate the plan it was difficult to make any progress. It is not a living document, no timeline, no financial support to carry out and implement ideas. Plan of Conservation was mandated by the state. A report is submitted to the state but then there is no follow up.
We propose testing the process and use the Plan of Conservation as a model. It has vision, goals, steps. It was last updated in 2004. We would like to see an annual report given to the citizens of Newtown. Someone needs to be assigned to check with each department. We need a plan that is vibrant, coordinated with town budget, metrics, structure and discipline and have the ability to connect each department. Need to use an outside-unbiased source. It will be difficult to get the process going with getting lots of stakeholders involved.
Two options:
1. Concentrate on one pilot project; possibly create a permanent or temporary position. Involve citizens, larger study, broad vision.
2. Have both going on simultaneously – pilot program as well as defining a long-range plan. Work on concepts; look at macro first, broad concepts of what people in town want. Use outside facilitator.
Make sure all 19 departments fit – all 19 numbers add up. Stakeholders have understanding of vision.
Gerry felt this process has two phases. Generic phase that would have the primary responsibility of facilitating the development template for all 19 departments and one department might then be selected as an experiment/pilot to see if it is an effective model.
Our suggestion would be to test process in one area. Selectman may decide to broaden the scope. We see that this can take one of two approaches – dip our toe in or jump in with both feet and begin macro. Let each area accomplish one thing so that no one is left out. May entail doing things differently in each department. Need more people involved in creating a long- range plan for town as well as money.
Next Steps: require decision of BOS on how to proceed. Give draft report to BOS and wait for date to meet with them.
Meeting adjourned: 8:40
Respectfully submitted: Anna Wiedemann
| 