Over the past few months, members of the Town Council have been brainstorming ideas for what they want to accomplish in the town of Londonderry and as a council themselves for a legacy to leave behind.
So, during the Monday night Town Council meeting, members started to share some of their thoughts for the future.
The first goal for Councilor Tom Dolan was to ask Town Manager Kevin Smith to focus on 1-3 new enterprises for the Pettengill Road development and bring in new businesses to Londonderry.
The other council members agreed this was a good idea to look into. Smith said that when a new business is looking to expand, he always recommends Pettengill Road and the land is going for a premium at the moment. “There are still a few large parcels of land available in town, which are not as expensive as Pettengill Road, but nonetheless we have directed developers to the other sites as well,” Smith said. Dolan made the amendment to his goal to focus on 1-3 new enterprises in town (not just Pettengill).
The newest Councilor, Ted Combes said his goal would be to work with neighboring towns, such as Manchester to see if they would like to expand their bus access to Pettengill Road. Especially if a fair amount of their workers are working in Pettengill who live within the Manchester borders. “This could entice other businesses to come to Pettengill as well,” Combes said. Chairman John Farrell made the recommendation for a meeting with the mayor of Manchester to further the idea of expanding bus access.
Vice-Chairman Joe Green’s goal is to continue working on a HUD (Housing Urban Development) sponsored senior housing project. Kevin Smith gave an update on how things are going with the project currently. “It’s all taking longer than we had hoped it would and it’s not through any fault of the developer. It’s the final remediation of the site. We think we have a final plan approved through DES, but until that site is fully remediated, only until then can the developer take over the site and start moving forward.” Smith said. According to Smith, the developer is hoping to get in there sometime this summer, but must wait until the site is remediated.
Chairman Farrell and Councilor Jim Butler shared the same goal in that they would like to bring back the program of “Londonderry Leadership” in which taxpayers can learn about how the town government works and how the various committees in town work.
“This may build our succession plan to be even stronger,” Farrell said. The idea behind bringing this program back is so residents and businesses can understand the “why” of the decisions the council makes. The Town Council was happy with their goals going forward and looks to future to get citizens more involved in town/local government.