Comprehensive Planner Jon Vogl told the Planning Board the Town has received “a pretty healthy response” after it notified members of the former Master Plan Steering Committee about plans for a Master Plan Implementation Committee.
The new committee would be strictly advisory, he said.
Vogl said responses have come in both from people who had served on the original committee as well as others who want to be involved.
“I think that as we look at what the implementation committee would do, what I would suggest is that it would be a strictly advisory sub-committee of the Planning Board, similar to the steering committee, and the principle goal would be to review the items recommended by the steering committee, prioritize them and report to the Planning Board as to how implementation is proceeding,” Vogl said.
Vogl told the Planning Board at its Wednesday, Dec. 11 meeting that the Lebanon city planner adopted what is called a SCIMP (Steering Committee for the Implementation of the Master Plan) and has had good success with it.
“The steering committee on their end has been a vetting tool for ideas and processes through the SCIMP, and then they pass on recommendations to their city council and planning board,” he said. “The membership represents members of the city council, planning board, conservation members, and it has been a pretty good tool that fosters communication between the two boards.”
Vogl said he had a “decent outline of what a charge (to the group) would look like,” and suggested turning it in at the board’s next meeting.
Town Planner Cynthia May said the Lebanon meetings were structured to last a specified time – one hour before the planning board meeting – which made the meetings more specific and productive.
Planning Board Chairman Art Rugg said quarterly meetings would prevent members from getting burned out. He said the plan outlined by staff of quarterly meetings taking place an hour before the Planning Board meetings was acceptable to the board. It was altered to read that the meetings could be held as often as the committee wished but no less than quarterly.
Board member Chris Davies said he would like to sit on the board and board member Mary Wing Soares said she would like to be an alternate.
Also on the list of potential members are Town Councilor Joe Green, Deb Paul (publisher of the Londonderry Times), Barbara Mee, Mike Speltz and Mary Tetreault, who were all members of the Master Plan Steering Committee. Other committee hopefuls are Ann Chiampa, Tammy Seikmann, Tim Seikmann and Ted Combes.
The Board voted unanimously to include Davies as a member and Soares as an alternate, and to include Town Manager Kevin Smith as a member as well.