Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Just about 6 o'clock. Time to commence our meeting. Welcome, everybody. This is the Comprehensive Planning Committee meeting to work on the comp plan this evening. Communications from Riley Bergeron and Bruce Rio and Paul Schuch that they're away and they're not able to be here this evening, so I can note that they're of their absences. We'll start with the roll call so we can record who is here this evening. Rex, would you start us off tonight? Rex,

Dennis Bergeron.

Rick Whiting. Kelly Butler.

Jeff Harmon. John Cleveland, Chair.

Dana Staples.

Bilal Hussain.

Jane Koslow. Becky Conrad.

Decarla Brown.

Lauren Caffey. Carrie Willett. Allie Tobey.

OK. Next item is the minutes. This is the minutes of June 10th 2026 Look to see if there any Additions or errors in the minutes. I'll stop. And just a typo and I'll just note it will take on one page 3 of the minutes under residential and other adjustments 1, 2, 3, on the 4th bullet. Inadvertently duplicated some words. So what needs to be done. It says a proposal. And we should eliminate was proposed. That's a duplication So that would read a proposal was introduced by Paul shock. Just a typo that needs to be corrected is there any other additions or errors If not, I'll entertain a motion to accept The minutes with that one adjustment for the typo so moved second moved and seconded All those in favor, raise your hand. Oh, you're abstaining. Your absence there, okay. No, all in favor with one abstention from Jane. As usual we have an opportunity for public comment So this is our public comments section. I will open it up to any member of the public that would like to speak to the Comprehensive Planning Committee in regards to comprehensive planning items Seeing none we'll close the public comment section So this evening, my plan, you've gotten a packet of course, so my plan in proceeding this evening is we have four sections that we didn't get to at our last meeting. specifically transportation parks and recreation community and infrastructure. So I'd like to begin with those that we can go through those will take a look at annotations and notes that are in the packet that you have for others comments that you may have in each one of those sections. You'll notice in the packet that you got a copy of the policy statement that the city has in regards to equity procedures. Within this review, particularly in the community area, likely to provide the opportunity for discussion of that DEI issue. And then time permitting, hopefully there will be some time, we'll go back to the policies that we went through last time. And you'll note it in a packet that there was very good annotation there by Lauren in regards to discussion and edits and how those were directed. We'll just, time permitting, look at that quickly to see if that addresses those comments that we had or if you have further comments. So with that, we'll go to the transportation section, which is the next policy area. Give me a second to scroll down here.

Page 46 on the agenda. I'm sorry?

Page 46. 46, thank you, sir. I'm getting closer. Here it is. Transportation. So the first policy section is to provide a network of intercity and intercity public transportation that meets the community's needs. And there are a number of comments there. Jane, you had some comments there. Belial, you did as well. You can see the comments and you can see primarily Laurel's annotations there. The first one talked about sort of understanding how some of this intermodal, multimodal finds its way here when some of its trails and things. And Lauren, I guess I'll give you the opportunity to quickly note your response to that.

Yeah, if we're talking about Jane's comment that says, given that this is about multimodal and recreational as well as commuting and shopping, transportation, is that the comment you're referring to, John?

No.

OK. So Jane is wondering, do you want to speak to your comment a bit, Jane, here?

Yeah, I mean, I just think here and in a couple of these sections, it just seemed that there were pretty obvious to me connections to other parts of this policy statement. And maybe that comes at a later moment, although there aren't a lot of later moments left, maybe. Sort of how do you kind of make these little connections from one to the other. And this was just because we heard a lot from the public about trails and rideability and pedestrian friendliness and getting from one place to another. So it seemed to make a natural connection to the housing issues. So in a way, it's really just about maybe how this finally, how you make those connections in a document like this.

I can start with that and kind of what we've been thinking that you're going to notice in this workbook there's a blank related objectives piece just as we're going through this process as things are added and deleted final numbers aren't there but that'll be a place where we'll add in if there is related housing pieces here and others and then for the community engagement tie-in for each policy section having You know, what we heard from the community, and then the policy's objectives below that in the final document, and then in the introduction to all of that, the committee has taken a systems thinking approach to a lot of these topics, and they are interrelated, so explaining that thoroughly and having some graphics that show kind of where those nets and ties are.

I mean, I guess another way to put it might be, is there a place in the housing section that, do we say anything about expectations for transportation in the housing section?

That could be a good addition to the narrative is making sure that we're linking up or placing housing or there's transportation options. On this comment specifically, you mentioned contributing something to an ongoing fund. So that was the question that I had for the committee. And DeCarlo will speak to this a little bit in terms of contributing to building and maintaining and connecting people to these trails. And so planning has been thinking about this a bit. So I'll let DeCarlo. that specific point about a fund that developers would contribute to trail maintenance.

Yeah. So this is a, it's a really big overlap on, um, provisions that we're writing right now, um, where interconnection within, between within and between sites is going to be required. It's a, it's a, um, It's a normal requirement. So AKA, if you are in a shopping area, you right next to another parcel, which is also a shopping area, there should at least be an entered sidewalk between those two areas. And so you're not going out on the street and then going back just for the walkability of those things. Um, and for, for any, um, subdivision you still have open space standards technically and so when you're paying a fee in lieu that could go towards the maintenance or the the building of those interconnections between those sites um and that in that way it is that interconnection that you're talking about between the retail and services and housing areas is making a more interconnected, just neighborhoods and city. And so that's been a huge priority since day one, I've seen in the document, but getting a little bit more explicit can always help.

Yeah, I was actually just at the parks and rec advisory board meeting before this and they were they were talking about the payment in lieu of there's there's an ordinance out there right now that That exists for that and and I think the parks and rec advisory board is is working on something To enhance it one way or the other I don't know exactly what the work is that they're doing but they were talking about it tonight Jim

Yes, I have some concerns in this area that I think we need to think about. So I don't disagree with what's been said, but I think you need to be very careful about this funding idea. So I think the concept As DeCarlo's talked about, if you're in a retail or commercial area and you've got to have connectivity to the lot next to you, I think that's fine because you can regulate that on their lot with their expectations. I think if you're doing housing and if you're in a subdivision, it's fine to say you've got to have an accommodation for a pedestrian, multimodal in the subdivision, and you may require for lack of a better term, the front of that lot, to have that in the front to connect to something. I think you've got to be very careful if you're talking about requiring developers to do things off their lot. The last legislature radically changed the impact fee Standard we don't have impact fees but in the past communities have used this type of approach to do exactly what we're talking about say, okay, you've got a You know, it could be for this. It could be water through or whatever. There's lots of different things now you have less than a year to collect and it not only do the work but liquidate the funds that you've now gathered and So that's one. The second thing is this gets in very complicated TIF districts and credit enhancement agreements. So I think it's fine if we want to set expectations about what we think should happen on the development site and we want to talk about, from a city perspective, prioritizing the connectivity between these. I think there's lots of factors that go into making a policy decision about, in effect, taxing people and putting that money in a fund for some use. Personally, I don't think that's within the scope of a comp plan. I think you can set the expectations that you would like to see this connectivity without saying how it's funded, because it's going to get very complicated.

Yeah, to add on to the mayor's comments is you would want to have some type of consolidated, this is the portion that you're saying these are your wants of having interconnection between sites and things like that. And so then when we're writing standards, we can require that of the developer on their site to connect those sites but what what the mayor is saying is that the legislative body is becoming a more and more strict on taking fee in lieu and and how you can use those funds and and the timing of using those funds to be aware of that. I believe they tried to go even stricter, but that failed. But we do have some strict requirements now on taking in funds, a fee in lieu on how to use those. But in that same sense, there are tools that we can use if you put them into this section of your wants of having interconnection and how that's a high priority for things like creating access roads. And so if you are on a primary arterial and you want a secondary access roads because you're doing retail on those roads, you can then mandate that. And then when they're going to the redevelopment process, they would have to create something like that. And so it's better for the pedestrian having on-street parking on those, and then the arterial still work as intended. Or having separated trails and sidewalks, and so it's a distance away from where the road is, and so you have a hiker-biker trail that's interconnecting this whole entire area that's completely separated from those five-foot sidewalks that are going to be right next to the road, and so it's safe for the pedestrian. And so you can all do that, and this is the section where you say your wants of those, and so we can actually make sure that they become a reality.

I think just a clarification because it can get a little confusing. I'll talk to the issue of trails because there was, if I remember correctly, some discussion on a distinction between what is the role of the parks and recreation with trails and what's the role of public works in regards to trails and I think the distinction that attempting to be made here that if it's a trail that connects into a into a system that takes you further along either within the city or outside and you can use it to get from point A to point B, that that's more of a public works aspect requirement, whereas the use of the trail or maintenance of the trail, it might be more of a parks and recreational responsibility. And then there are some trails which are neighborhood trails where people can just go out for a nice walk on a nice day and use it and get out in the public doesn't necessarily get you from point A to B, get you out in the environment and enjoying it. And I think that's a distinction we're trying to be clear about in here. I see the comments there, but I don't I don't see that Other than minor word changes, I don't see them changing what we've had here substantially I'm correct with that. We have this just primarily for discussion Well, I'll you had some comments here too, do you want to speak to your comments or I

Yeah, I mean, they're pretty straightforward. And Lauren, shout out, answered a couple of them. My first one with the transportation director was just, I found it confusing that, you know, some areas of transportation in the document would be under the transportation director, whereas, like, the airport, railroad, for example, but other areas relating to active transportation were under planning, public services, and so... I thought it made sense to have it under one. I don't know if there was a reason for that, but that was my general question for that. And in terms of, so I guess, is there an answer?

Yeah, let's start with that one. Lauren speaks to that in her comments.

Yeah, so I called Jonathan Labonte, who's our airport intermodal and the transportation person in my mind in that realm of the world. And so for the, I think it's policy four that we talk about the airport intermodal, I changed the responsible party to city manager because that made more sense in terms of their long-term planning on that. And in terms of it's public services public services is a broad umbrella in the city that's planning permitting engineering code and so on and so in conversations with phil when we were talking about who when does it make sense to just list public services when does it make sense to list out all responsible groups And so we decided that if it was more than one department that was housed under public services to include public services in that and then list out the different departments, engineering is going to be involved with almost all of the transportation and public works as well, planning to some extent. So that's why you'll see kind of interchange between public services, engineering, planning, city manager, public works.

Thank you.

I think that speaks to your question. You had your second part dealt with sort of incentives.

Yeah, related to transit, public transit. So I think like without a doubt, when we're having the conversation about transit in this community, It has to include CityLink, which is the service that connects us to Lewiston and other areas throughout the region. And so that's why I included that language there about CityLink bus stops. And then further with the incentive, so I think when it comes to the transit, we're going to have to have a serious conversation about how we're going to create more transit-oriented development, especially when it comes to our higher density.

This action item in particular, and it can link to Jane's comment too about developers and incentives and so on.

I think conversations have been going on as a transportation committee and they talk about you might look at things as it changes, routes may become more destinations may become more frequented, and you might make adjustments in the future based on that. Phil, did you want to comment further?

Just a couple things.

I think LETC, which is the committee for Lewiston-Arbor Transit, implemented probably 8 months ago the new route. And so this was about taking a look at the roots. Reducing the amount of roots, but expanding the and so so a lot of changes, but we're only 8 months in and so there are other elements of the this is as a result of a study that was done. There's other elements that the committee still needs to work on. One of those is governance. Some of that is taking a look at. connectivity. I think, Belial, you were talking about access to other regional transportation options. So that's still continually being explored. It's really challenging to change routes because a good portion of the funding that comes in through LATC is federal funding. And you can't just shift a route. There's a process on doing that. It's not that you can't. It's just you have to demonstrate why that's happening. And so, because there's oftentimes we'll get a call that's like, can you just move this route over to this road? Well, not really, but if there's, you know, if we can check the boxes and we can submit for that route change, then we do that, if it makes sense for, you know, a good access point for a lot of people. If the bus stop is in an area that makes it challenging, dangerous, those things, then we'll shift those. And it's easy to get to that through some of our federal sign-offs.

So yeah, I'd say more coming on that.

Like I said, eight months in, and we have a new vendor. So we go out to bid, and RTW received this new bid, so it's not Western Maine Transportation. And so that's a big change. I think Western Maine Transportation has probably been doing it for over 20 years, if not more. And so we have a lot of moving pieces with this new rollout. But we're only eight months in. I think it's going to take some time to really take a look at usage, changing the types of buses that we have so that we can be a little more nimble, I guess you could say, with areas that probably should just have a looping route in areas of the downtown. That's some of the focus that I think the committee's been talking about as we look at ridership. Do we just need a loop that goes New Auburn to Haniford, New Auburn to Haniford, and that just does that loop? And do we need another loop that just does around the mall? right so because we have a lot of people that want to stop at all these places but once you do that you increase your headway on these bus routes so you know it's taking somebody a long time to go from say new auburn to central main community college because they've got all they got the transfer plus they have all those stops central main community college is one of our biggest customers as it pertains to how many bus passes they buy and so that's the college provides that for their students that are housed there and so how can we make some of those shifts and i think that's some of the work that's being done now is taking a look at these inner loops and that makes um more reliable somebody can be able to use it you know a couple years ago we actually had all of the department directors i had them go out and use the bus route i gave them assignments they had to go from different bus stops to different areas just to see the challenge that there is in using our transit and um and that accessibility and so um myself and someone else had to get back from the community college to Barker Arms and we walked. We got there before the bus got there. So it just demonstrated some of the challenges that we have with it and some improvements that we still need to make.

And you're integrating that in with the intercity system as well, the LAP program.

Yeah, some of the timing of when the buses are hitting the downtown transportation center. And so that way people can connect there, be able to get on LAP, and then be able to go to Portland.

Yeah, so I think there's a few other points to be made on the intercity issue. It's not just LAP. That there's buses that go to through Lisbon to Bath ironworks to go to Farmington, whatever There's lots of work that could be done to Try to do better to coordinate those schedules. I think something that's not in here that goes to the inner-city issue is the integration of the technology that's used You can you cannot go from here anyplace else Without using another app. So as an example in the southern part of the state Metro has whatever vendor they use so now Biddeford Saco uses that and Other cities use that so that you could What we should be able to do is I should be able to walk out the door here and if I want to go to Biddeford I shouldn't have to go on multiple apps and buy multiple tickets and use multiple things to find out what the schedules are I should just be able to go on and Third if you use any of the third party transportation apps a lot of people don't use them around here but if you're in a larger city and All the metro stuff's integrated with that. You can't find anything here. So I think big picture, we shouldn't just be focusing on let's do what we want to do here. We need to think about what we're doing here and how it can integrate with a bigger transportation network.

Is that language or is that action kind of incorporated in what we have?

So I'm making adjustments to T1.1.1, looking at, I'm seeing Bilal's comment as two different action steps. So the first, coordinate with CityLink on bus stop amenities. I added in language to T1.1.1, you'll see on your screen. That includes that. So looking at ridership and performance data per Phil's point to identify gaps, inform adjustments to transit routes, bus stop amenities and accessibility amenities, especially at high-use stops, schedules, and then doing something with Jeff's comment about technological integration in the city and in the region. I think that this, that can house NT1.1.1 if the committee agrees with that.

Okay. We adequately incorporate that to provide some direction that we'd like to be in going in that direction.

Yeah. And then if the committee is okay with that, the law's second comment is about incentives for developers that enhance transit, which is another policy question that I'd like the committee to discuss.

So yeah, I could talk about this as well. So for this particular part, I was looking at other municipalities. So for this instance, Portland, where they have a lot of developments that are transit-oriented where if they upgrade a bus stop or something that's near the development where they're actively trying to, a lane that the bus can come and stop, like Scarborough Downs, for example, they've been trying to push Metro to come into Scarborough Downs, which is easily accessible to go onto Westbrook or back into Portland, to provide incentive for these type of developments so that One, if more people are going to be using that transit, logically following, they're not going to have cars and not going to need parking in that development. So that takes away the burden for the developer on that. And second, it also just makes it a more just a seamless experience for the people that are living there right they can get on the bus head into town go do the shopping they want to do and wherever the new stops are you know changing potentially uh bus stops that city link provides or just simply uh you know make it more live more more of a livable experience that we want to see in these high density zones right so i think it also speaks to that and i think that's something that would help push us in that direction

Okay. DeCarlo.

So there's two things I want to say to this one. The first one is that during the last legislative session, there was a discussion on when LD 427 was being passed that they weren't going to have any parking requirements, that if you were a certain walking distance away from bus stops, So the state is moving in towards that direction as far as incentives about more density near those transit stops. And number two is in your housing needs study, it's highlighted that one or two bedrooms for those making less than 30% of AMI is a huge need for the city. And so if you did provide some type of bonuses near transit station, those are the populations that don't necessarily have individual cars because their financial profile, 30% may be mine, and so there is room for encouraging that type of growth near transit-oriented stops that would be able to seamlessly integrate into your labor force and things like that. Just to give a little context from the studies that you've already made.

Okay, thank you, New Column. OK, I'm ready to oh I'm sorry. Yeah, down in the corner.

Thank you.

I'll note for the record that Tim Cowan did come after we had the roll call. Thank you very much and he's here.

Apologize to my colleagues for my tardiness. Well, I really like this suggestion, and I'm wondering if, I was kind of looking at where in the placement it might, if we were gonna put something in or explore language. T1.1.6 talks about prioritizing development near transportation infrastructure, and that's a different, slightly different than what you're suggesting. but it does kind of tie in with what you, DeCarlo, just talked about, and I wonder if there's ways to either integrate it in here, or if it should be a separate thing, but located in proximity to this, because it seems linked to me that we're talking about highlighting the prioritization of where things might be in terms of transportation.

Yeah, I like where the conversation is going. I guess what I'd add to it is that it might make sense to describe other instances that would allow a developer to reduce parking requirements in this language as well. if the developer could arrange an agreement with another parking structure adjacent to the property like I would imagine that would be a situation where reduced parking requirements would make a lot of sense and there's probably other ones but I think it's I think it's really good for the city to just open up their eyes to maybe allowing for um I don't think there's an appetite for that right now, but I think there's probably plenty of special exceptions where that would probably make sense.

Just one follow up. Sorry, Jeff, but. Excuse me. Thinking back to the conversation we had, I think, at the last meeting when we were, you know, trying to balance the burden of whether we're putting this more the. the management of the cost of the city versus on the developer. I wonder if our planning experts here, has there is there ever been ways to how kind of in be able to give a reduction in that requirement over a short period of time if the people that are renting a space if X percentage of the people renting say yes, I'm going to be using the Metro or I don't know if there's a way to try to tie it together with the developer and the and the potential residents who are going to be there.

And so you already do. I'm sorry, state law covers some of this already for affordable housing developments. They're already getting a reduction, two parking spaces per three units. And so those type of reductions are normal, the same as senior housing usually gets a reduction in different municipalities, not through state law, but different municipalities. And so this type of language is pretty regular. The one thing from a best practices planning side is that it's not just any stop, right? It needs to be something in your transportation route that's taking them to a grocery store or to the mall or something like that, something that has direct and Direct and regular easy connection to amenities and if it's an off route or something way way in the distance that's at the corner of Your growth area and your non growth area Giving a bonus from there. It's going to be less useful because they're still going to need the requirement of using their personal vehicles and And so this is a discussion of within your growth area and your regular transportation routes to give those type of bonuses because those are really TODs, transit-oriented developments.

Yeah, so I agree with what DiCarlo just said, and that was some of the point that I was gonna make. I'm assuming from the conversation, we're talking about parking related to housing. We don't say that, but I think that's what people's talking about. So today, it's one per dwelling unit. The legislature changed the law. It's one. And you don't need any, because what Dana's talking about is now the state law. So you don't have to have any parking if you are within, Kyle will remind me, because they changed it.

So they were gonna say none, but that was struck out from the law at the last second because they got a little cold feet on that portion. But you can tell that the state legislator is going that route, yeah.

Yeah, and there's already provisions if you rent, because we just had this in front of the planning board, and they couldn't meet the parking requirements, but they were going to lease spaces from a nearby business that doesn't need all the spaces that they have. So there's ways to do this already, but I agree with what DiCarlo's saying. I think we want to be very careful about two things. One, where we offer these incentives because you might be paying for things that you really don't gain anything on, depending on where it is, and two, that we're not providing an incentive and absorbing the cost. From what Tim said, based on the prior conversations, there's lots of places where we don't have the ability with the current street structure to say there's no parking and then assort the parking that'll still be necessary on the public streets and transfer the cost to provide all that to the city. So I think the concept's great. I think we want to leave this broad enough to be able to say this is the direction we want to go in without getting too detailed so we can work out some of these things as we go along.

Yeah, I would agree with that point of view. And also, second, the fact that there's already state laws that reduce parking requirements substantially or provide, show an alternative. The other point I would make is you can't assume that when you have a new housing facility that the tenants in those facilities are going to have the same needs as the first tenants did. People are going to move. You might have someone who's in there who, let's say, is maybe retired. They're just going to be around town. They don't go and transport themselves to a business. But they may leave that, and somebody else will take it who works out of town. needs of transportation. So what the needs are are not static. They're dynamic. And so having alternatives help, but I don't think we can presume from day one that what you think is going to be the requirement is going to be the same requirement over time. So we need flexibility in being able to address it. And it seems like the language we have here provides that flexibility and consistency with the state law.

so i'll note on that on john's point in blue flu i think it's 2.1.6 we talk about creative parking solutions for development high growth areas so that talks about the parking and then ali if you go oh perfect um to t 1.1.6 i added this sentence oh So we had initially, this is a staff recommendation to prioritize development near existing transportation infrastructure. And then based on this conversation, I said consider incentive programs for developments that reduce vehicle miles traveled. So that's things that you wouldn't need a car for for residents and so it's broad enough where it's like we'll have to report at some point whether we the city's been considering this um and some potential solutions without having to figure it out in this moment or tying us down to a certain program or incentive any thoughts from the committee about that further thoughts on this section

I guess I'll weigh in and just say I like that addition. I think it's a nice compromise. I support that. Thank you, Lauren.

So we'll move on to the next area where we have comments.

Oh, I'm sorry. So sorry about this. This actually came out of a conversation that we had today through another study that's being conducted. You may be aware that MDOT has a policy about road diets and when you can conduct road diets on roads. And I wanted to bring up if you all would consider advocating for road diets for roads with less than 20,000 annual average daily traffic. And this has come up. multiple times and comments that each of you have had in different ways, but this was a linking comment. And unfortunately, this just came out today for me, so I wanted to just provide that for you all's consideration.

Yeah. Yeah. Just so I'm clear, DOT has set a standard that they would approve these for less than 20,000 a day.

They would consider. Well, yeah, so they might, that's always how DOT works.

They might approve it, okay.

Absolutely.

Is it, how are they measuring that?

Is it directional or is it total traffic on the road? It's total traffic on the road and it's measured differently versus if you have a signalized intersection versus a non-signalized intersection. And they actually have a policy, it's like a two-page policy document on exactly how they measure that that I can send you if you'd like.

Yeah, I think that's fine. I think that, I don't think that that's adverse to the conversations we've had before. So just to give a couple examples, a road diet would be awesome on Court Street, right? We had this whole discussion with our transportation engineers. The reality of getting a road diet on Minot Avenue through DOT, even with this, is probably pretty slim because parts of that road are going to be under 20,000, but it's a priority one arterial. So, I mean, I think this is fine. dot is going to stop us when they want to stop us anyways on roads that they have control over but it gives us more of a hook to make our argument to dot about other roads that may be a lesser priority for them that like court street that we would say gee we'd really like to do this here

I think we should add that to do a yearly review of roads with fewer than 20,000 mile daily trips and to say for any road with more than We'll say three lanes. We do a yearly review of what those roads are and provide recommendations to the city council or the new committee that we just created. I can't remember the name. But yes, let's do that and let's make sure we review it yearly.

How would we do that? We're going to put counting mechanisms in the road? Counter traffic or?

Well, I think we have traffic counts, but I guess the question I have, this might be for Phil. We don't have any roads that are three lanes or greater that aren't under the control of DOT, do we?

There might be some sections that are not, especially in the most recent round, but I would say that they're probably all within that. I just know that we've had some sections that just were recently D.O.T. HAD RECOMMENDED THAT THEY CONVERT THESE BACK TO THE CITY, BUT IT MAY NOT HAVE BEEN THE WHOLE ROAD. SO I THINK WE'D HAVE TO TAKE A LOOK AT IT. I DON'T HAVE THAT LIST RIGHT OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD ON WHICH ONES WE JUST ACQUIRED.

AND I REMEMBER THE DISCUSSIONS ABOUT THIS FOR MAINTENANCE. But this isn't a maintenance question, it's about do we have to get DOT approval?

Yeah.

And so the reason I'm raising this is, I understand Dana's point. And if we have roads that are three lanes or more that are completely under the city's control, that makes sense. If they're not, and that's not a criteria in this, it's not going to get us any place with DOT because they're going to stick to their published policy.

But the policy that Carla just described is a policy for DOT to create a procedure to Determine whether they would approve a road diet. So I think that's the idea is to decide if there is a place for The city of Auburn to request that approval to do T And and I think you know, I totally agree they're all of the all of the larger roads are our state roads and that's why we would need to go to do T and

Yeah, so I agree with what Dana said about the 20,000 trips. I think that makes sense. My only point was about the lanes, and if that isn't a criteria, it's not going to trigger anything when we go to DOT. I can't think of any roads that we can change the speed limit, put a signal on or whatever by ourselves that are three lanes or more.

Yeah. I want to make sure we bring engineering in to take a look at that language as well. Because there's, even though it might be a secondary road, it might be a priority road when there is, we only have certain roads in downtown that do not, if if there's a train issue and we've got a divert traffic it's you know i just want to make sure we're mindful of some of those other roads that we we do rely on for events or for an emergency and so having engineering in on that discussion or there's a future build up for that area that we may want to consider as well so just a mechanism in there we'll look at language to determine is there a mechanism for you know, upon staff review to submit to D. O. T. Something along those lines would be helpful.

All right. So you'll obviously make a note. Come back with suggested language.

Uh, just a question probably for the city manager is an annual assessment. Um, a feasible time frame. I love the idea of a very routine regular. I don't not knowing anything about this, is that a feasible thing without a lot more resources?

The annual review?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's doable.

I guess I'll just point out the beauty here of doing a road diet is that you really you could do one pretty cheaply so if you just repaint a road you've got a road diet and so sometimes you need structural things but most the time you don't need to so I just think this is a this is a really cool opportunity to make a real change with some of the things in the city so it's a small thing but it's I think it's meaningful

I'd also add Dana that it's it seems very malleable which I think is an added bonus.

All right. We'll look forward to your language. I think that moves us on to the next area of commerce which I believe is on page 42 under Policy number two. Section 2.11.

So this was another one of mine. And I guess I was just puzzled when I saw, oh, we're talking about trails here. And your explanation is just that it's about the intention here is to make sure that trails are accessible even if people don't drive, right? So partly it was just like, why is this here rather than in recreation? And I'm the one who's been saying we need to connect these different sections, so maybe that's what this is doing. Yeah, so it's a little bit about placement.

yeah so we as staff went back and forth about where to put these um so parks and rec you'll see in that section talks about a parks trails and open space master plan and so we really took the recreation part of parks and rec seriously and so people can use trails to just walk and stroll, but then people can also use trails to get from point A to point B, so that was why we included it, this trail plan here, because it's inner city and then between cities using trails, and so to capture the people that would be using those, not just for recreation, but I thought your point, if it's jarring to you, it's probably jarring to other people who are reading this, and so I added in in purple, Ali, if you move to the left a little bit, for non-vehicular commuters and recreational users and then we can relate objectives to the parks and rec parks trails and open space master plan uh dennis yeah i in this in this whole section is i i

Look for some clarification in what we're talking about when we're talking about trails. Certainly, when you raised parks and the difference between parks and rec and public works earlier, John, and we just touched on it again, THE RIVER TRAIL IS SOMETHING THAT'S CLEARLY A PUBLIC WORKS THING, BUT MOUNT APPETITE, THERE'S A LOT OF TRAILS UP THERE, AND I DON'T KNOW HOW THAT FITS IN THERE OR WHO'S RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MAINTENANCE. YOU KNOW, IT WAS CREATED BY NIMBA. A LOT OF THOSE TRAILS WERE CREATED BY NIMBA YEARS AGO, NEW ENGLAND MOUNTAIN BIKE ASSOCIATION. They've been loved a lot. And they're getting a little rough. So when it says maintain trails, I just worry that we don't create something that comes back to bite us later on. That's all.

I would just add to that. I mean, there's an ongoing issue right now with the Barker Mill Trail, which has been in terrible shape since the storms a couple years ago, and it's a little bit in a limbo place in terms of who is responsible for it.

I think that ongoing is important. You know, NIMBA just met with Public Works this week, actually, to talk about Mount Appetite Trail, so they're still very heavily engaged and involved. But you're right, there's some improvements, and then there's some other areas that, need some more attention. And so Public Works is that department, they're the ones that are doing that as far as it pertains to maintenance. I actually just left the Recreation Board meeting before I came here. And they have in their strategic plan regarding trail, not just trail development, also trail maintenance and recruitment of volunteers for And so I think that gets to the Barker Mills, it gets to some of the other trails that have been neglected and now what's that mechanism to make sure they're still staying accessible and dealt with because Public Works cannot do all of it. Is your mic on, Phil?

I'll bring it closer. Yeah, I think a lot of that is with trail systems, what you see a lot of times is that there's a lot of reliance on the community to maintain them. I think the city needs to have ownership of the land that they own, but I don't know that it's necessarily practical or reasonable for the city to be tasked with going out and sending a crew out to fix a trail every time. But I think what is totally reasonable to do is for the city to keep a list of those community organizations or volunteers or whatever that are available and can lend resources to do some of that maintenance and to maybe be like the project manager for at least the properties it owns. I think that makes a little bit of sense.

Bill? No. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, so I think there's two questions here, right? There's the types of trails, and there's the responsibility for maintenance. So there's been some comments about this already, but how we got into this parks and rec piece and transportation piece is what the primary use of the trail is. So I think one could say every single trail, no matter where it is, could be used for a recreational purpose. But if the primary use is multimodal transportation then it should be in the transportation section and it that should be governmentally maintained either through the city or the state or whomever because it's a mode of transportation whereas recreational trails aren't They may be able to be used for multimodal, but their primary purpose, as John said earlier, isn't to get from one place of interest to another. Lots of those trails in Auburn are on private land. And we should have, we've talked at other places in here about maintaining a GIS layer that shows what the whole trail network is, but A lot of that to Dana's point, somebody else is going to have to maintain that because it's unlikely that the city is going to start taking responsibility for maintaining trail networks that are on land trust land or on some private individual's land. Barker Mills is a great example. That's all on privately held land. It's very unfortunate because they used to have a trail steward who did a great job, but he's unable to do that now. So we might work with people to see how we address that issue, but I think we should be making it clear that if it's in the transportation network, it's no different than a road, and government should be maintaining those.

Generally agreed to.

I think we can play around with this language a little bit and make it more clear. Trails might be a little too misleading in this conversation if we're thinking about what active transportation infrastructure can be. So we'll work on this section to make sure it's more clear.

I just wanted to follow up. I agree a lot. I think your distinction makes good sense, Jeff. The issue of public safety is also at play, and that's in multiple senses, it's at play. And I don't know how that factors in, but it does. And I don't mean to be obscure, it's just that Barker Mill is a place that a lot of unhoused people kind of hang out, and that impacts how the public uses it. It's just with the trail on the other side of the Little Androscoggin that we were talking about last time, I think. The trail that goes back from Bonnie Park.

mean there are these public areas with trails or rights-of-way where there are also some public safety issues going back to Jane's earlier point there's also the narrative components of these plans that can also further elaborate on when we're talking about a larger transportation system These are networks and paths and trails that are connecting to multiple places and that there is overlap between some recreational uses as well as active transportation.

Maybe in the glossary area or something we could- Define active transportation. We could have some of those things that clarify type trail A for recreation, type trail B for more. If it's raising a question here, it's going to raise a question again in the future when we're done with our work. Okay, those are good. Becky.

Just really briefly, and I may get too repetitious with this sentiment, but at the really 30,000 foot level, what the community is expecting from this is probably not at the policy level, right? They're expecting their community to look like something. And I think all of these comments about whose responsibility is it for a community to look like something are really important to get into our narrative. That people want things and they come with some responsibility and personal commitment to having them.

Yeah, I think that's a good point, Becky. Further discussion on this section? Seeing none, we can move to the next one with our comments. Age 44. Sections. 2, 1, 8, 2, 1, 9. Well, you talk about update the capital improvement planning process. Prioritize street safety. Do you want to comment further on that.

Yeah, well, a couple of them got answered. Well, I can start one by one. So for the first one, relating to the CIP, I just suggested language relating to prioritizing specific street safety improvements, providing a clear understanding for elected officials, staff, and the public on the extent and location of these priorities. This is just something I think is a matter of just having that public confidence in the public process to understand to understand what the city's doing to move along the process of all these capital improvements and furthering that process, keeping them updated with it. So that's the first one.

I think the structure we have here provides a lot of opportunity for that below, you know, lots of places is going to be in your own updates this City Council and courses of all see IP process that goes on.

Yeah, so my think about the process currently is that it's quite unclear particularly when it comes to updating not just the public but just you know appropriate boards that is stated in the city charter that they're not looped into the process and so this would provide specific language to make sure that they're looped into the process

Well, Jeff, go ahead.

Yes, I understand the point that Belial's making, but I don't think it would be appropriate to include in this plan a statement that prioritizes SS4A expenditures over all other public improvements. The CIP process, as the councilors and former councilors and the city manager know, is very complicated. There's significant capital needs in many different areas. And it's a complicated process for the council to prioritize that, decide what to spend it on. I don't think as a matter of public policy we should be saying SS4A is the priority. That's adverse to the current political process that's used to determine how the limited funding that we have for capital improvements will get allocated.

Yeah, well, that's always the challenge is far more needs than there are money to pay for all of that. Dana?

I'm not advocating one way or the other here, but I will make the observation that there is a further down, I think, someplace. I was just looking for it. I couldn't find it right off, but there's another note in here for achieving Vision Zero by 2040, and this could potentially be added to that as well i think there's um 20 40 is a little bit aggressive there because i don't think we have necessarily a um a plan on how to do that so i think i think having a mechanism for funding uh for that would probably be important if that's the the goal and desire of the city so one way or the other i i like the idea of having a funding mechanism for improving safe streets and I mean, Mayor Harmon is completely correct that it's not always gonna be the highest priority, but it should be on the list somewhere. Whether or not it gets funded, I don't know.

Let me just, I'll get right to you, Phil, in a minute. Make an observation Having sat on the Charter Commission and helped write that We intentionally for example added in that there would be a presentation to the Planning Board in regards to the capital improvement plan failure usually make the presentation and The concept was at the time, since we have a planning board and the general overall function in addition to specific approval of permits and that kind of thing is planning. I think it's one thing to say we'll get them involved. It's another thing for the committee, whichever one it is, to actually structure it so that they take time to do it. Right now, it's an item on the agenda under a whole list of other things, and time generally runs out for any thorough discussion. So, you know, if there's an interest in getting boards, say like the planning board, there needs to be some time when they're actually talking about planning issues and not permits. And so that they could have, saying, based on what we've seen, here's some of our thoughts on what we think is important for some capital issues. So just my observation is, fine to say that we want them to do it. It's a whole nother question on how they approach it in a way that is thorough and thoughtful to put some input in. I don't mean that as a derogatory comment. It's just observation. They meet once a month, usually. They've got a list, and by the time they get done reviewing permits, they have a heck of a lot of time to spend. Although I have a sense that might be changing with new leadership. Anyway, that's my observation in regards to getting more folks involved. There needs to be some discussion on how they actually engage in it.

Yes, just a comment on that. Your planning board is your municipal reviewing authority, which has the responsibility to review land use policy and land use provisions in your municipality. And the planning board has begun to do that role once again. They have in the past, and they are getting into the rhythm of of discussing these land use topics. And so they will be prepared for next year's CIP discussion.

It's encouraging. Belial?

Yeah. Well, thank you for those comments, Chair. I think I 100% agree with you that the current process doesn't allow for that type of conversation. As somebody who sits on the planning board, I'm familiar with that. My only stipulation was adding this to this particular language is because I understand that the comprehensive plan Earlier I mean earlier in the policies and actions we have like the it mentioned the capital improvement program and it mentioned that over what a majority of the funds for that are going to be in those high growth area zones that we identify in this comprehensive plan and so as part of that process you know not only do we need to have specific updates as it relates to safe streets for all I mean I disagree with the mayor that I mean there are there's a million priorities for the city but I think as safe streets for all has to be if you know if not top two definitely number one priority for people that live here they want to see a community that is accessible they want to see a community that there isn't pedestrian deaths happening every other month as it's happening all across the state and particularly in our region. And so, you know, words are nice. 2040, you know, vision is nice, but how do we get to there? That's where I'm trying to push and those investments need to be made. How we do that is going to be another conversation. The capital improvement is definitely part of that conversation. So so that's just my thoughts there.

Yeah. I feel

So for FY28, we'll be rolling out a 10-year CIP. It'll align perfectly with the comp plan. And I think you're right when it comes to, you know, I have been presenting that to the planning board. I get a very glazed look often when I'm halfway through. But I think we... There does need to be that back and forth. Right now it's just a one-way communication. I go in and say, here's the list. So we'll be working. I know our team just started connecting this week actually to talk about the capital improvement format for FY28. It's first quarter goals for some of my staff to start drafting what that format will look like. You'll be able to drill down into some of the categories, especially when it comes to streets. That's a major portion of what our capital projects involve. You'll be able to drill down and actually see 10 years out, what are these roads being teed up from the state? Because right now, when we talk to the state on roads, we're talking seven, eight years before that even happens. Well, often, when we're building a capital improvement plan for five years, those aren't even being listed because they're eight years out. And so this new plan, you'll actually be able to see the actual streets that are being considered by the state. What's our projected match? What are plans that we have in place that have, within 10 years, what do we hope to accomplish within that plan? Because most of our plans are over the next 20, 30 years, especially when we look at Washington Street Reimagine project. We're looking at decades worth of work there. how we break this into what will we accomplish in the first 10 years. So I think it aligns well. I think it gets to some of the areas that we're discussing. There'll be a lot more detail in the plan because right now if you look at our CIP, historically, pretty heavy on year one, two, and three. Pretty light on four and five because There just hasn't been a lot of planning when it comes to building it out. Now we'll actually have to build that out for 10 years. And what does that look like? But I think when we go to planning board right now, the way that the charter is written, we give everything. Here's a complete review of the CIP. What we should do is here's access to the CIP plan, but here are the ones that we want to talk about. And these are the ones that actually tie to planning, work that they're doing, and be able to get that feedback in advance and work with the planning team. And the development of that CIP will be really critical for us. So we're hoping that you'll see something very different come, you know, we'll have it ready by February for the council. But I think that's... I think this aligns well with what we're doing.

That's a very constructive change, Phil. I think it's going to serve the community well. I just want to make the comment, because I have the privilege to do that, because I've sat on both sides of this table. What I think, I hope this does in the conversation and the way you're looking at the CIP plan, that what it does is engage the decision makers in the process of thinking long term and looking at the needs not in just a two or three year method. It's all well and good to say we're going to have these and these are going to be priorities. the city council says the tax rate is too high i don't want to cut services the easy grab is to say we're not going to do capital improvement plans or we're only going to do a fraction of it that just compounds the problem we've seen it multiple times i won't address it here but the important part is you can't mandate what decisions people are going to make but what you can do is provide the information both for them and the public on what is important about the capital improvement plan and meeting the goals that the community wants to do and not make it just we're making it easy we're just not going to do do it this year so i think i hope This encourages the kind of conversation that should be happening at all levels in the government structure. Let's see. Belial, is there further comments that you wanted to have in this particular section? I see you have another comment about walking, bicycling. I think we, have we talked about that?

No, we haven't, but I think Lauren said that they've already included it in further language. Yeah. Yeah. Right. That one as well as the connectivity to internal and surrounding networks.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, so if you go to T2.1.12, this actually connects to what we were talking about in the previous section. And something that the planning and permitting department is working on now is looking at pedestrian and bike access and mobility. We can fix the wording there. Both internal to the site and the surrounding network connectivity. So that's just reiterating what we were talking about earlier in another action step.

Yeah, just a typo there. I think it's related to point 2, 1, 8, 2, 1, 7. So you're right. It's the language is there. All right, so we have talked about this somewhat, but 2.19, your comment about to require in ball-ball letters, following the typing style of number 47, develop plans to consider and provide for walk and bike access and mobility.

That was the one that was addressed in T2.1.12. Yeah. Is that correct or am I missing?

Yeah, so I think we've spoken to that one in the above one. Okay. We move along to the next section. Section 221. Did you want to comment for the, Jane, you talked about having.

No, that's really, that doesn't need to be discussed.

Just a thought.

Just a suggestion.

Okay, good.

A way to access these maps if you were out on the trail.

Yeah. So one of the new traffic safety and parking committee wayfinding is one of their responsibilities. So we might put some language in here to task them to do what Jane's talking about, which is when they're considering wayfinding within whatever they do to be able to quickly access this data.

Yeah. Could you make a note of that? Moving along. Next comment section little ways down here. 3 3, 3, 1. This is in this the objective increase access and efficiency between key areas of city by maintaining improving city roads and sidewalk structure the most cost efficient way. You have a comment. that when you're improving public facilities, streets, the sidewalks, and meet the, and exceed minimum requirements for accessibility.

Yeah? So Phil, this is already a legal requirement, correct? There's already standards for this and triggers when there's a certain amount of renovation or do a street. You have to meet the accessibility requirements. Yes.

And you see that when they do sidewalks, the drop downs and then the rippled surface for folks that are blind so they know where they are. Those standards have to be met when you do.

It'd be the same thing like the middle school renovation. Almost half of the cost of that isn't the new programming they want. It's a trigger of all these things that you have to do to meet these codes because you're doing a renovation. So I think that's already covered.

Becky? I'll come back to you below too, Becky.

I learned a lot when I did that AARP project with Jonathan, and I do understand that it's required at the outset when things are built, but what is the maintenance plan?

Well, figure the EMS was what put online in 1982, 81, somewhere in there. And now they're just getting to it because of the, it hit that threshold for improvements. So I think that's probably a good picture of what takes place. The public works building, same way. So it does trigger that. So I guess the question would be is, do you make that a priority within capital improvement planning? That's a challenge. We have 24 facilities that we're managing. And so not to mention roads, infrastructure, walks, parks. We're having that conversation just when we redo a playground. We had that conversation just, Dana and I were at the parks department meeting when they were talking about the new playground at Raymond Park. Well, what's accessibility there? What does that look like? Make sure that's incorporated into that. I think the conversation is happening, but there's no trigger unless it does require, as the mayor said, significant investment that then triggers code to require it.

Yeah. would be an example of that. Dennis?

Yeah, I just didn't have any trouble with what I think with what Bilal's suggesting here, but the way it's written is meet and exceed minimum requirements, and there are minimum requirements, but what the code requires, the code is the minimum requirement that you can often go beyond the code and improve things. But meeting and exceeding is something that mandates doing it in every circumstance. And so if the language was meet or exceed, then it would be something that I could swallow. But meet and exceed, I don't know exactly what that means or how far to carry it.

Yeah, that's a good point. Would there be any objection to put or as opposed to am?

WHERE ARE WE PUTTING THIS?

HE'S SUGGESTING ANOTHER 3.X. THIS IS MORE.

MY SUGGESTION WOULD BE NOT TO ADD THAT BECAUSE IT'S CURRENT LAW AND WE HAVE TO DO IT NOW.

WELL, WHAT I'M SAYING IS THE CODE IS THE CODE. BUT YOU CAN EXCEED THE CODE. YOU CAN EXCEED THE BUILDING CODES IF YOU WANT TO. YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THE BUILDING CODES. YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THE the accessibility codes. So if a circumstance arises and you can do it cost effectively, then I see no harm in including that.

It's one of those where we're supposed to do it, so should we include it as a reminder for future? It's also a virtue signaling, because we have things in here that we're required to do that we have in here already. It's just committee preference. We don't have everything that we're required to do by law in here, but we have some things that we're required to do because we want it to be as part of the plan.

These regulations are very, comprehensive. Can someone give me an example of what exceeding it is?

I can't do it with the accessibility codes. I can do it with the building energy codes, but there are beyond code codes.

Sure, but I think the conversation here is about accessibility.

Rick?

There might be developers that are doing development of accessible housing which exceeds the standards. There's a lot of adaptable construction that can be converted to fully accessible. And I think that's where the codes are now. But you might have somebody that comes in and wants to do, you know, like Murphy Homes might want to do a fully accessible exceeding standard. So you could have it.

Sure, but this note is about city facilities, right? And so my question is, we're already required and already meeting the code, and If we're going to add this we would be adding it to say or exceed. What does that mean? What's an example of exceeding?

Well, let me just make a remind us We're in the transportation section here We're talking about transportation We're not we have a whole infrastructure section for facilities So if we're talking about transportation, it seems like we ought to focus on that as opposed to... Yeah, I think staff suggested moving it to the infrastructure. Yeah, I know it's included in the note, but it's actually not consistent with what the section is. If we want to add questions about facilities, that's in another section. Go ahead.

Just to directly answer the question of an example, tip-downs are a 2% grade. So instead of having a 2% grade, you can have a grades crosswalk where the walker continues at the same grade across the street rather than tipping down 2% and crossing the street. So that would be exceeding the accessibility requirements. And that note, but in the other sense, I don't

Yeah, so that's a great example. I appreciate that. I'm not exactly sure what we're saying. We could do that today if we wanted to when they engineered it or not. Are we saying that We're going to set a policy that not only do we have to meet the accessibility codes, and I think this is what Dennis was getting at, we can exceed them now if we want to, but are we going to say if we're doing a street and the engineers are going to look at that and say, well, it's not a 2% grade, we've got to exceed it and we're going to do something extra. I mean, I'm not, I'm having trouble understanding how this is going to work when we implement it.

RICK, DID YOU HAVE YOUR HAND UP?

I WAS JUST GOING TO GIVE AN EXAMPLE. IN PORTLAND, THERE'S A FACILITY FOR THE VISUALLY IMPAIRED DOWN NEAR THE BALLPARK. AND I CAN'T THINK OF THE NAME OF IT, BUT THEY MAY HAVE THE IRIS. YEAH, THEY MAY HAVE SPECIAL SIGNALS OR BEEPING CROSSWALKS, THAT TYPE OF THING, JUST AS AN ACCOMMODATION TO THE NEIGHBORING POPULATION.

BILL?

Yeah, I'm a little concerned with the language as it refers to renovation or reconstruction, because what's that tipping point, right? If we're just replacing some curbing, does that mean we're going to need to now come into compliance on a road that we do not have the full funding for to do a full accessibility for that road, but we do need to replace that curbing that got destroyed or damaged. So that's just if we're talking about roads. If we're talking about infrastructure, which is in their buildings and renovations, we do a lot of renovations that do not meet the requirement for some of our facilities to put an elevator in. So if we're just doing a minor renovation on creating a new office space because we're putting a wall between a larger office so that we're creating a new office in a city building, that language would then trip that we now need to put an elevator in. We won't be able to do that. And so I'm a little concerned with the way the language is currently. Understand what you're saying John regarding the infrastructure piece, but right now it's in this piece when it talks about infrastructure and renovations and reconstruction of facilities Well, I would still reiterate that this would even though in the comment we talked about facilities I

And I understand the sense of that is to do that. But we're really talking about language about roads and transportation here.

John, it's in the draft that they just typed. That's what we're referring to. If you look at the way that it's written right now and scroll back over to the left, wherever that was under.

Go up.

with section are you ensure all city buildings public streets and sidewalks that I understand that that's what the comment was but that's what the current draft looks like yeah

I think we can table this for now. I understand the committee's sentiment around this, and we can work on how to incorporate this or not include it. I just am mindful of time and that we need to move through still many sections. So we could just hold on this. And if we have time at the end, we can meet it.

OK. The other comment I think is self-explanatory the section 3 point section 3 3 2. I think you just add this to make it consistent. Moving on from there. Section 3 3, 7.

That's fine.

I think to explaining, Jane, your question about if it was already included.

Yeah, it's fine. I mean, yeah, it's fine.

Jeff? The question I had about this is we're calling out this one study. We do these studies all the time. We got one going on Minot Ave. We got one going on Court Street. If we're going to have something like this, it should be broader to implement recommendations from approved transportation studies. Because over the next 10 years, there's going to be more of these than just Washington Street.

Yeah, good point.

I would informally second that one.

Any objection to just broadening that to studies, transportation? No objection? All right, why don't you go ahead and make that edit change. Move us on to the next section. Where are we at here? We finished transportation here. Yeah, I think we've I think that's all on the transportation Unless somebody has anything it's not commented on that move is the parks and recreation The first comments are on section 1.4.3.

Yeah, that was just my, I mean, mostly I was just saying this is a great section. I really appreciated everything that you suggested. And then I also just noted that in terms of advocating for recreation in the downtown part of the city, there's just this thorny problem of trash and waste that is, and I don't know whether that even needs to be mentioned here, but it is an impediment to being able to use many of these. I mean it's, I don't know whether it belongs here or not. just wanted to point it out.

Well maybe maybe Phil or someone you can talk I mean there is an effort to try to keep these areas clean. It's part of the work plan for Public Works I believe.

We have crews that go out daily and hit all the parks and so Yeah, I mean, I think that they are accessible. They're usable. So I'm not really sure, Jane. So yeah, I mean, I'm happy to have a sidebar conversation on just what's not.

Yeah, I mean, it's a very long-term issue. I don't think there's an easy fix at all. Yeah.

I'm not sure that we could add more than what we're currently doing. That was the only comments in Parks and Recreation. Is there anything further in Parks and Recreation that wasn't commented on? Okay, let's move on then to the community section where there are a number of comments in the community section. So the first one was a comment by Eugene in regards to objective number three.

It's really just a question about I didn't understand what was meant by the phrase and I think somebody clarified that.

Yeah, I think it. I think Lauren did clarify what that means.

And we can add the word career in front of pathways. So it's, I think it's the correct term to use for that. So it's not just about recreation activity.

Does that clarify it for you, Jen?

Or is it healthy living pathways? Is that what you're, because we also provide like literacy, financial literacy classes at Powell Center for our youth. So life outside of the education piece, but I don't know if it's career specific that needs to be clarified.

I don't know, I just found the phrase pretty.

Or just healthy living.

Mysterious.

Well, if I remember this conversation, the idea was to identify that there are a number of different kinds of students going on after high school for different things. Some of them may be going to further education. Others may not be. They may be looking to get into the workforce or some other kind of activity. And I think that what this is saying is that within that, and I think the schools do it to a degree, is work with students to say, what's your plan after high school? Instead of just saying, here's your diploma, good luck with this. The idea is to say, while they're in school, and I believe a lot of that is happening, is to have them thinking about what is it you want to do, and if that's what you want to do, what are the things you have to achieve to do that? You need a license for something that you want to do, and I think that's the idea, is to say, not only here's your diploma, great to have you here, but to say, we want you prepared to do something further as you go after high school, whatever your direction is in that direction.

That sounds like the sort of thing that career counselors do in a high school, but I guess I'm just not sure why it leapt to this level. I mean, it's a fabulous thing to do, but I don't understand why it's a major objective.

So John is correct that that includes career pathways. That's happening. It's career counseling. It's college counseling. It also, there was a concern brought up that there are students who might not finish, who don't finish high school and are left to figure out how do I get a job? How do I pay rent? How do I do taxes? It's the life skills now that I don't have a high school degree. And so this is an interesting one because it's they've left the school system and how do you prepare them if that happens, and so you'll see in the action item, so that's why it was elevated, we used the word elevated when we made something an objective, to think about not only the students that will graduate and go on to college or a job, but those that don't graduate and what support can the school system offer them in case that happens. You wanna avoid that happening, but there are situations where that does happen.

John, and I, because I think Phil was saying a whole different set of things happening, so if there's this much confusion in the room over that sentence, that phrase, I think we really wanna rewrite that one, and I'd recommend maybe after instead of outside, because that seems to be what's confusing.

I also wondered if it linked down to specific actions in what follows, because what you're saying makes complete sense, but, and if you had, I mean, does it currently connect to one of the specific actions?

Well, this is objective number three, and so if you look at that, oh, well, wait a minute. Well, the number, okay.

Yeah, so you'll see objective three is support youth pathways for life outside of education, and we can amend that language to be more clear. There will also be a narrative associated with this document that, or with this section that talks about the intent behind each objective. Oh, right. And then C1.3, oh, my thing keeps skipping. C1.3.1 is looking at How do you partner with organizations and other city departments to provide additional pathway resources for students? So it has two action items underneath it. The second action item talks about the post-secondary and workforce opportunities. So we can amend that objective language to include, does include post-secondary and if a student leaves before graduating.

Mister chair. I appreciate where you guys are going with this, but one of the thoughts that I come to and I like Becky's suggestion of rewarding slightly, but IT'S NOT JUST THOSE THAT DON'T MAKE IT THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION THAT NEED LIFE SKILLS. I WONDER IF YOU MIGHT THINK ABOUT IN THAT REVISION, THIS IS LIFE SKILLS FOR ANYONE. Bates College students have life skill programs throughout their four years. These are pretty high achieving students, right? So I just think, I would just encourage us to think more broadly about that. I think it could be whether you graduate high school, whether you then go into a job or you go on to college. Most people don't know how to do taxes until they've done them.

I would remind us that in this section, the education department was fully involved in this. They participated in this. This is not something that was made out of whole cloth. This comes from a review and recommendations from the educators themselves, the administrators.

And that's great, and if they wanted to speak to why they don't want to have it broader, I'm okay with that. I'm not suggesting that this group of people shouldn't be a primary focus. My point is just to point out that overall, our society doesn't do a very good job at educating.

No, I understand your point. I just wanted to make it clear that as in a number of these areas, We engaged with the administrative professionals who were overseeing these topic areas and this one was education. Did we decide that we needed to change some language in that objective number three?

Yes, we can work with objective three and consider ways to broaden it and bring it back to the committee to hear their thoughts about how that works.

just to be clear i mean if if as you talk with folks they really want to keep it focused because that's really where the greatest need is and in the time frame we have for the comp plan that that seems more realistic if that's the case then i think it's important to make sure that the default is then to talk about how to make it clearer to becky's very important point that if it wasn't clear to us then it needs to be updated

Okay. You'll take another look at this. All right, so moving past that, brings us to objective number four on page 67. Continue to support the city's elementary schools in Auburn middle school and belong your comment and supporting maintaining neighborhood-based schools close to where people live consider ways to utilize school facilities in a wider range of community and neighborhood functions

so this obviously came from our conversation that we had earlier relating to Walton and East Auburn elementary schools so I think this does a good job of you know making sure that we have those community neighborhood centered schools and in the case that they may not be there anymore that we use it to serve the community and the greater the greater community that uses it

So if I understand this correctly, this comment is in a new section in 124. Is that correct? So I would suggest we strike support neighborhood-based schools. It's a wonderful idea. We've been moving away from this for decades. This is not in alignment with the school committee or the city council's policies. In fact, There's an effort right now with the committee set up by the school committee, a facilities committee, that is reviewing the current school facilities and must close at least one elementary school to self-fund the bond issue for the renovations to the middle school to move the sixth grade there. This is, dramatic change in the city's policy and will have significant impacts in the school department on staffing on transportation on the services they can offer on their capital improvement plan and This It's a great idea. It's completely unrealistic and there's no possible way the city can achieve this and And the assistant superintendent's here and Lauren's looking at him. You could certainly add any comments that he might like to what I said.

Scott and I actually talked about this today. And the way that we saw Bilal's comment, and so maybe I'm not interpreting it the same way, is to use these spaces for civic events to host things like there's a farmer's market, there's clothing drives, and things like that. It's kind of like use the schools more. And there's a system in place to reserve school facilities to do things for outside groups. So I think that's the intent. And I'm not sure the term might be used to be different.

So that's great. I have no problem with the second part of the sentence that starts out, consider ways to utilize school facilities. That's fine, and that goes to that point. But that's not what this says. The first part of this sentence says support neighborhood-based schools. That is not in alignment with any current school committee or city council policies, and it's unachievable. So again, I think we should strike the first part of the sentence if the intent here is better utilization of school facilities for a wider array of community activities. I think that's great and I have no problem including that.

Yeah, I like Jeff's suggestion. It honors the intent of the language here, but the language about supporting neighborhood-based schools, we would have loved that when we were fighting to keep Lake Street School open years and years ago. If that had appeared in the comprehensive plan, we might still have it, and now looking back at it, it would have been a pretty uneconomic thing to do.

I was just going to also say I support that suggestion. To me, removing that first phrase really focuses in on what I think is the intent there from what we've just heard.

Rick?

Yeah, I like the idea of getting people in the schools more. One of the things that we lost were the elections, moving the elections out. People were in the schools, but it was a safety problem, so we got rid of that. But now there are lots of people that never go into a school. People my age have no reason to go into school. If you don't have any grandchildren in school or whatever, there's no interaction or use or entry into these places, which would be a good thing to improve.

I don't think there's any objection to the fact of using these public facilities for wider community activities. There's been two suggestions, two individuals wanted to strike the first part of that centers support neighborhood-based schools and just put consider ways to utilize school facilities. Is there any objection to doing that by anyone?

I guess I have a question. I mean, because you just pointed out, John, how much the section had been developed in conversation with folks in the school department. And my impression, I mean, aren't they in, don't they have control over their buildings? I mean, I'm wondering if we're making a suggestion about buildings. It's just a jurisdiction question, really. Is that a city call or is that a school department call?

Well, it's primarily a school committee call, but ultimately the city council has to approve the budget. I agree, Jane, with your statement that in general this section, I think it's a question to ask because I would be shocked if the school department participated in this and would agree to having support neighborhood-based schools in there. Not that we all wouldn't like that, but it's just unrealistic.

John, I would just say access to the schools today compared to a few years ago, drastically different. It's night and day. We've worked well with the school department. The school department's worked well with us on providing that access so that if there's a... basketball court and one of the schools and we have Community that needs that they go through one of our staff members and they work on scheduling that and so It's it's really seamless and that includes the school fields as well. That's all being scheduled differently than it ever did and so I and i think this builds on you know scott's here but i think it builds on you know scott's support of yeah let's have the farmers market at the high school what a great space and so uh so that gets to rick's point where people are coming into the school that may never have walked in before because now there's a that purpose for them to be in there i think it's a the language that's being proposed now i think it's good language i think it builds off from what's currently happening

Yeah, I think it's great language. I love the intent. I mean, after striking the thing about neighborhood-based schools, I just wondered what the situation was.

And I know and to add to what Phil's saying is I know that certainly the high school, I'm aware of, because we have really a lack of meeting space that's accessible, the high school was allowing individual groups to come when the school is not in session, utilize at no charge rooms for meetings, a variety of different groups. So I think it's online with Phil saying it's working a lot better than used to be. Coming from the old days, I remember trying to say if we could use a room Well, yes, you can. You'll need an insurance policy for $5 million. You're going to need a security guard, and you're going to need a janitor. Well, okay, thanks a lot. You know, we're a nonprofit. We have no money, and that will work out just great for us. So it's much better than it used to be. So my question was, is there any objection to eliminating that first part of the sentence? I don't see any, so you can eliminate it. I think your second comment has been addressed, Belial, about where that is. Moving along to the next section in Objective 4. Well, let me see, yeah, on page 68.

It's Objective 5, I think, John. So it's C1.5.3, if you scroll up, Allie. Go down, sorry, where I'm checked to, there you go. Bilal, do you wanna talk more to this comment?

Which section are we on here?

No, this is page 71.

71, what happened is page 68.

I think what Lauren is suggesting is that she's added, she's responded to those comments below.

Oh, in that section, okay. Yeah. All right.

Yeah, just reading this, most of the education obviously centered around our public schools, which is great. I mean, that's part of the community. But another thing that's also part of the community that I thought was lacking in this section was community college, particularly CMCC. And so I just thought we'd see some language about that process as well.

Well, how does that additional language work to do that?

Well, I'm looking at the draft that Lauren did.

maintain a positive relationship, collaborative relationship with the state that overruns the MCCS, I believe, that runs the community college, and just ensuring that development and investment in the community college is coordinated with the city. and trying to encourage businesses and partnerships whenever possible. We talked earlier about the bus passes and things, so making sure that that's accessible and making sure that they're included in those type of relationship.

I think it seems as though we're doing quite a bit of, whoops, we need movement again. Economic Development is working with Central Maine Community College on programs that both work for businesses and provides pathways for students to gain skills from job improvement.

I think it's OK to keep the Central Maine Community College component, but I would strike the Maine partners. Our access isn't as great as it is with Central Maine. Not that they wouldn't. It's just they would go through the local community college to then have that. discussions with the municipality. So I would keep it at Central Maine Community College. And that's ongoing now. That's part of our work plan. It's part of efforts that are being accomplished. So yeah, I'm good with the language as long as it stays local. Mickey.

Well, and Bilal, I don't know if your second piece was, I don't know if you can ask about it, but As we talked about the mall area regarding development, I mean, I think that's a big boon to a developer to know that there's a built-in population about a half mile down the road, so I see it fitting together. Your second piece that we haven't talked about, but that's how I saw it fitting together.

So we noted that C1.5.4 is good, and I removed the state language. I'd like to go to Bilal's previous comment that addresses support organizations that provide workforce training to prepare residents for available jobs in local economy, including English language instruction.

added in to see one point five point three just a second bullet point that addresses that comment you see that okay below yeah it might including the public libraries because I know in mirrors is because they do a lot of that work and I guess it does make sense that like the comment that you put in Lauren about partners and things like that so

Okay. And then next section down. This is 153. Your comments is to support organization pride workforce training support.

That's the comment that we just addressed.

Okay. All right. All right, we'll move on from there.

So our next one is on page, I would say 80 is our next, or I'm sorry, 79. All right.

I see one on 78. Have we talked about that one already? Yeah, yeah.

That's Jane's comment. Oh, language access plan. Yes.

Page seven. I think Lauren's added a couple of things and she's a page ahead now. Maybe go by the number of the policy.

Yeah, so we can start on page 79.

I think your pages are now slightly different than ours.

Oh, sorry. Policy four. We'll all make a comment on here. And I think our pages are wonky. Sorry, everyone.

We're on 4.1.1. All right.

So, I think this speaks to the diversity, DEI diversity, equality and inclusion. You had in your packet the city policy in regards to that to take a look at. I think this might be the place to have that discussion on about what is the policy or how should the policy be addressed in regards to diversity, equality, inclusion?

After 8 o'clock, we shut down. I'll go at the lights.

So I'll just preface the committee again. So in the previous meeting, Bilal noted that the policy section mentions equity a few times. And the question is, should we increase that amount? How do we discuss DEI in the comprehensive plan? That's why I included the city equity policy in your packet, and I commented below, let's discuss this at the 7-8 meeting on how the committee wants to approach that conversation.

Right, and really, rather, I'll pose one point one. Whatever that policy is should be a policy that applies to all of the sections. You don't need it repeated for every section. But generally, it should be whatever the policy is in regards to that will be the way we address it for the whole comp plan to move forward. So one of the challenges that we have is Hopefully one of the useful purposes of the comprehensive plan is as a adopted com adopted plan by the city that it's used for getting grants and working with state federal particularly federal government getting funding to achieve any number of goals we have here. Under the current administration, they have very particular views in regards to diversity, equity, and inclusion. And in fact, my understanding is that they review applications through AI-type program to look for certain language that they find consistent or inconsistent with federal policy. And so how we want to approach this so that it achieves the goals that I think most of us would like to achieve, treating people fairly, equitably, encouraging inclusion, does not penalize us in achieving those goals by getting federal money to help us do it. I think that's the part of the discussion that we have is how are we going to approach that in a way both for city policy but in particular for this particular comp plan that meets the objectives without inadvertently penalizing ourselves by using language that is not as welcome currently.

I was really delighted that Bilal brought this up. I think I'll get to your point, John. We had this fabulous response from the community in the early stages of this whole process, and I thought that was really exciting. I don't know. We probably do have some demographic data. I mean, to the extent that you can track those things, it can be tricky. But I have found myself occasionally thinking, well, the next time there's a comp plan, I certainly won't be on it, on the committee, and that I hope that the makeup, this is not to diss anybody who's sitting in this room right now, but I really hope that the next comp plan committee will be reflective of the demographics of Auburn. And I think that's probably what anybody would like right now.

But I actually think there are a few more women in Auburn than we have on the committee, right?

In terms of proportionality, to say nothing of diverse ethnic and racial populations, which is part of what makes this such an exciting time to be in Auburn. So my thoughts in looking at this section, and this is a great section to address this issue, is how do we get more people representative of all the different kinds of folks who live in Auburn, to get involved in running their city and just having their voices heard. I think you can say all of that without triggering anybody's AI. And it's really about how do you get people How do you get them to come to meetings? That can be hard. I don't mean to wander on about this, but it seems to me that you could craft a very specific goal that's about, over the next X number of years, trying to have a real push to recruit I mean, people in the community who haven't been involved on, you know, fairly low commitment committees with the intention of bringing more people into the conversation.

Yeah.

Yes, I think there's two issues here. I'll address them separately. Following on to John's comment, I think Bilal's raised an important issue here that to me goes to the implementation section. Because I think we need a paragraph, maybe there isn't a specific implementation section, but we need a paragraph someplace tied to the implementation that makes it clear that the plan's going to be implemented in an equitable way. And we can work on the language around what that says so that Because there's many, many, many places in here you look at and you say, OK, well, if we're going to do this, we want to make sure we do it in an equitable way. So I agree with John. We do need some type, I think, of an overarching statement tied to implementation that makes that point. And I think we'll need to think about it some. I guess I should say the staff and Barry Dunn folks will have to think about this some more about the exact language that we should use that can get past potential hurdles and still have the meaning we want. I think to Jane's point, this is a huge hurdle. Our boards and committees are not filled now. I cannot count the number of hours in the last two and a half years that I've dialed for dollars and called person after person after person and drove around the city and banged on doors of people of all types to try to get people on the boards. And I would say, at the current situation, we're lucky we get the people that we get, whoever they are, because we're having a struggle filling seats. That doesn't mean that we should accept that. So I think we need a statement in here about developing a strategy to recruit, for lack of a better word, we can wordsmith this, but to recruit a more representative cross-section of the community in these various boards and committees. I think we want to be very careful that we're not indicating that somehow we're setting some type of a quota and saying, you know, 56% of the people in Auburn are women, so every committee's got to have 55%. But we do need something to spend some time trying to figure out how we're going to have more success. As Jane said, engaging more people. You know, take young people. They have a lot of, when you run around town and you're talking to them, they have some different thoughts and ideas. It'd be great on some of these committees if we could get them to sign up. Yeah.

I don't know. While Jeff was just talking, I guess it struck me that in lots of places, there's descriptions of what wards people have to be from when we look for people to represent the city on community boards. Maybe the wards aren't as important as a representation of the demographics of the city. I don't know if that's something we can even do, but I wonder if there's ways that we can enshrine this in ordinance. It would be interesting to see what that would look like.

So I think the mayor's point on a statement, an implementation statement, I think is where we need to be at. I think we need to also include the equity policy In our list of policies and plans, we have a three-year work plan that aligns with our equity policy. It gets to the point that you're referring to, not just with committees, but also our workforce. And we have a position that that's that person's job, to assist in recruiting individuals that help us align our city that mirrors our demographics and so a work plan i can sign an affidavit for hud department of justice faa because it's a work plan it's not a policy it's not a it's not a comprehensive plan so there's there are some layers to this that we'll have to vet the statement to ensure that I can sign the affidavit that we're applying for a grant because that's our new requirement on these federal grants. And so I like the statement. I think that gets us where we need to be. If it's peppered all the way through, I have concerns, because it's how are we going to still meet some of those grant requirements? But because we are doing it through our work plan, and so and we can meet that threshold, but not necessarily in a comprehensive plan or in a policy. We have had our policy, equity policy, vetted so that we can still sign off on these affidavits based on the way that our equity policy is written, and it's meeting that standard. So it is something that we've got to navigate, but I really like the kind of a statement of implementation, I think, addresses that for us.

Yeah, I would agree that having an overall statement directs how We want to implement the plan. It covers the whole process for all we try to do for implementation. How you recruit folks is a challenge to do that.

Yeah, so in thinking about this whole process, you know, I'm not unaware of what the federal government is doing. I think we all watch the news, know what's going on. We know the situation with our, particularly our immigrant New Manor community that has been terrorized since January. being part of that community, being someone who's worked with that community and continuing to work, there is definitely a gap that I've seen between municipal government and, you know, supporting particular areas of the city. And so I don't think, you know, I think there's a proverb in my culture that says, you know, talk doesn't cook the rice and so i don't think you know we need a statement we need actionable items that show the community that we're there for them that we support them and that we actively want to engage with them and i don't think frankly a statement of support or anything is going to do that and so that's why i propose these particular changes particularly when it comes to the people of color in our city gender diversity, underrepresented groups that have historically been marginalized and not been part of the conversation to be appointed officials, to run for office. How we do that is gonna be another conversation, but the fact that we are actively going to pursue them and harness that talent is something that we need to make a priority, and that's something that I've Clearly laid out here. And if it's all gonna boil down into a statement, then that's, I think that's all for nothing. And so, and it's just more talk, so.

Becky.

Lyle, I understand what you're saying, and I also, again, I'm gonna be repetitive, this kind of 30,000 foot relationship to this plan for our community is, I think, where our community's gonna spend the most time, and so I do think we have to have some guiding principles about what we mean when we say some words, but I do think there's some actions in here, and you recommended one particular around making sure materials are in languages people can understand. Sometimes actions speak louder than words and it takes a long time for actions to form change. But these are the kinds of things in my experience working in the community that are making real difference. when someone comes in a room and knows they will be able to participate, that's a huge barrier coming down. So I'd focus on the actions and make sure our actions actually equal what our values are and our policies. Navigating the waters we're in now is what we have to do, but at the end of the day, I think there's even more actions we can think. I think the civic engagement handbook is an interesting, If we're not teaching civics in school, how do kids learn what happens at a city council meeting? When do we start with these kids? So I think the actions in this section are where we really can do some really fine work.

Oh, Lauren.

Yeah, I think I've been thinking about this a lot. And the committee and the city and places everywhere in the country are holding a line right now. It's a really fine line between how do we implement. We have these values, and we want to implement them, but we need funding to do so. And so to Becky's point, I think as I've looked through each action item, How it incorporates equitable, how it's thinking about other people aside from our car-centric, wealthy, single-family homeowner is how I've been approaching these action items in the sense of, are we thinking about the other people that previously haven't been thought of in planning decisions over the past decades? I think that there's a way to cook the rice and also talk about cooking the rice in a way that ensures that this plan in the future, people know when they look at it that there's policies and values that we have that we want to follow, and there's a way to do it in the action steps that make sure that happen without being penalized regardless of administrative shifts. think it can be frustrating to work the middle but I feel like in this moment we have to work the middle of it yeah so I like some clarification on 414

And I'll just give an example to see if I understand what this says and I'll use Quebec as an example So if you're in Quebec Every document produced has to be produced in English and in French Every employee has to be able to fluently speak every language both languages every sign in the public has to have both languages and Is that what we're talking about here? When we say implement a language access plan, are we saying all city documents? We have to have interpreters at every single meeting? And we're not talking a bilingual issue like Quebec. The school system, my recollection, when we're going through the budget process is there's 40-some languages spoken by one or more students that are in the school system. I just wanna make sure I understand the scope of what we're saying here. And then if this means, We have to produce documents in every language that someone speaks in Auburn and have interpreters for every language in every meeting. That's a huge hurdle. If it's not that, what's the scope of this?

I mean, I would say that those are great questions so that you could plan to convene a task force or something to grapple with those. It doesn't strike me as, I think it's probably not as heavy a haul as you're imagining. I mean, I have Google Translate on my phone. And I've had wonderful conversations with people in Japan. I don't speak a word of Japanese except sayonara or something. So I think it's far too complicated. I mean, it's a little bit like your point earlier about what level of policy we're trying to mandate. We're not here. So I think we could say that the city needs to develop, maybe implement, you could fudge the language here, but to develop a language access plan to do all of those things Because the, and I get Quebec, but it's actually, it's not a great analogy, and there are probably, because of how deeply embedded just two languages are there, and I don't actually know what Quebec does about other languages that are spoken there, but we have lots of models actually in our own community. I'm sure the hospitals have dealt with this years ago. And so anyhow, I would suggest that what we need is just to say we're going to create a language access plan, but that it ought to be very short term. And that it ought to somehow, that task force ought to be composed of people from within the relevant communities.

Yeah, I agree with that, Jane. And also to identify which languages are spoken in Auburn to begin with. And then, I mean, I know the school department probably has something similar. I worked down in Deering where they use Reach My Teach, where all the information that is in Google Classroom, which is what the teacher uses to communicate with the teacher, they can just click it. And this is like an application called Reach My Teach. And it literally will translate in any language that they can do. And that's just a computer program where all the documents all the communication from the teacher everything is going to be suited to that language and so what i was suggesting with this language access plan was particularly any public facing document from city council meetings to local planning boards uh not planning board but just any board or committee uh That is accessible to the public when it is a public meeting. It makes sense to me to have it in whatever language is being spoken here in the city. So if that means a computer program, then that will, you know, something to add to the municipal website to make it accessible to people. And whatever the task force decides, I mean, I'm all in favor with Jane's idea of a task force to make sure that we identify those gaps. John?

So there is a state statute that we now are working towards regarding accessibility on our website. And not only that, but also our videos that we have, that it's more accessible to the community. We're working through that. They extended the deadline recently. I don't know when it was done. The deadline's been extended, but we have a plan and we're working through that. I don't think it's gonna hit all the areas that Valhalla's talking about, but there is that state mandate that we will be in compliance with, that we're working towards. So it's gonna get to some of what's being referenced. And then we do have plans, or we have policy in place, specifically within the police department, for language access and we've incorporated that and for other general assistance we've incorporated that similar for other public facing services. So we are meeting a lot of the requirements Again, not to the extent that Bilal was talking about, but we are getting to a lot of that. So working on a statement that I think to what Jane said was maybe it's creating a group to review or make recommendations. I think that gets further along and takes a look at and assesses everything that we're currently doing, whether that's within the school department, within the different departments that we have within the city, I think would be beneficial.

Would this be something maybe like an advisory committee of folks who have experience dealing with a variety of different languages and cultures that could make recommendations on how to do this?

You know, I think it gets to now who creates that group and who forms it. And so, I mean, I think that we could probably work on that so that it's something that is has a deadline, they have a responsibility, they gotta create this report back to the council. That makes sense.

Yeah, so I'm completely in favor of impaneling some type of a committee to advise us on this. My questions are around the expectations of what this language means for scope. So we get thousands of FOA requests a year. Are we going to be required to, is every city documented? There's hundreds of thousands of pages of things developed all the time. So I think we want to be careful in here what outcome we think this is saying. I think it'd be great to impanel a group. To change or it was Becky's I can't remember earlier point about what level we add I guess Becky What level we at in the plan and how much detail if we want to? Have a policy action in here To impanel a group to advise us on how to do this over some defined period of time. I think that's great I think I don't think we should be writing this in a way that leaves it open for a scope of meeting these language requirements that couldn't be met.

Yeah, I'm kind of in line with Jeff's comments that, you know, I'm looking at the language in 414, you know, even just tweaking, is there a better word than ensure? Like, there are certain things that are implying that this is all, and it may be that we can strive towards ramping up, right? I'm okay with, you know, changing this to being an advisory board. That said, to Bilal's earlier comment, that gets a little bit further away, potentially, in my mind, to the ultimate action of what we're trying to do. So if there, I would ask if you guys maybe think about, are there some ways we can tweak the use of language access plan, but making it not making it sound so complete that we have to do everything in no time flat.

I would echo that because I think this, Jeff, to your question, I think there's a long space between a definitive policy and understanding what the community wants, and we haven't asked them. So I think a process, to Belial's point, around ensuring that we are a city that has the vision to know that our community members are the ones who know what they need would make me feel good for the next 10 years. You know, I think about a deaf homeowner. Would a deaf homeowner be allowed to have an interpreter here to make a presentation? Those are the kinds of things our folks sitting at home think about, right? And so I feel like if we ask them, we may learn a lot, and I feel like I could be okay with that for the next 10 years, just getting that process started and understanding that we are all impatient, Belial, but I'm not as young as you are, but I hope I'm here for the next plant.

To Becky's point, today, we've just had this recently, If someone tells us they're coming to a meeting and they need interpretive services, we have them here. And it could, we just had a sign language person on a particular ordinance we're working on and there's a resident that's deaf. No problem, we do that. That's not my concern. My concern is do I have to have ready when the city council meeting is convened that I can do this in whatever language someone comes in. So I agree with you completely, Becky. I don't know the answer to this, because I don't have this challenge. But the people in the community that have this challenge, and they may say to us, oh, I get it. The city does all these things. Do these five first, because these are the ones that we want to access more. So I think we need a group to help us Understand the scope and the prioritization. These are things that we should do. We just need more focus on what we should prioritize and over what period of time do we need to get these things done.

I think that would be a huge gesture, to Belial's point, to say to folks, we're not all cut out for this work, but those of you who are, there's a place at the table to get things started and to make it more of a place you feel your ideas will be heard. What does that mean? I think these are valuable questions to ask. I don't think we should concern ourselves whether we know too much or too little. I think the path is the path to get on and just figure out

Well, I think it's a good point to remember that sometimes by being overreaching in what you want to accomplish in a short amount of time that is difficult to achieve, oftentimes lead to the death of what you want to accomplish, as opposed to having a focus on what

community who needs these services what their top priorities are and getting these beginning to get those accomplished so I'm a software engineer by trade this is this is a deeply analytical problem and I just I feel like there's a computer software solution for this that can be implemented in one way or the other through our website and it

is like a it shouldn't be a super long solution it's just a matter of how much money do you want to throw at it uh dana i'm going to put you on the responsible group for this don't do that i think i understand the direction that the committee wants to take in this section and so we'll work on that language to accommodate this conversation um good

And just for the record to point out you can our website you can select a different language. So we have made steps and there's to your point in others. Other ways we can probably apply some of these things to get to those highest priorities for you know technology will be an important part of the solution.

So if you'll let me, John, I'll actually skip over a comment on C421, because it's a general comment by Jane, if that's all right, and then move to objective three. At the last meeting, we had danced around potentially a a light historic building committee similar to Bangor. And so I just wanted some more clarification on if that's a direction that the complaint committee would want to take or if that conversation doesn't need to happen at this level. So just a clear answer on historic preservation committee thoughts.

Okay. Yeah. Why don't we do that? That's an important topic area.

Rick. The reason I brought it up was there's been legislation floated for the last couple of years. I don't know if it's passed. It may not have passed. But the legislation has been geared to smaller homes that aren't necessarily on the National Register but could be considered historically significant that would derive benefits from the state tax code if they pass this legislation. And it's restricted to homeowners of certain income levels. And it's not to help some wealthy person on the coast get subsidy for a coastal mansion. It's to actually improve, you know, two families in New Auburn or whatever that are in need of capital expenditure. So my thought was when I read about the Bangor situation, I don't know the specifics, we have an issue with getting people on committees i'm not a big fan of creating lots of committees adding another committee would be viewed as burdensome i'm sure by the mayor and city council has been in the past but um in the interest of taking advantage of potential funding resources at least if we have this as sort of a placeholder that we could do this and implement this if it makes sense for the city in the future that it would be something worth doing

Allen.

So currently, Maine Historic Preservation has historic tax credits for currently larger multi-family projects and commercial projects for buildings that are on the National Register, but also locally designated historic buildings. And the legislature has been looking at applying that to smaller residential homes as well. So if there are local designations or registered designations, that those homeowners would then be eligible for tax credits for facade improvements.

Okay. The interest of the city that would sort of mitigate some of the issues as far as getting people to be on yet another committee and then adding bureaucracy that could turn people off, developers in particular. There's an advantage to the city in the sense that if you've got properties that are deteriorated and people can afford to you know, renovate them because of this program, then we have a nicer-looking city, maybe better tax revenues, happier people with better-looking neighborhoods. So there's some, you know, long-term benefit to this if it can happen.

Yeah.

They're following up on Ali's comment. So is the gap here... Finding a way to set the local standard and make the local designations Because I think what I heard you fail is it you could be on the historic register there's ways to do that but Bangor is identifying Things of historic significance that I'm on the register there's some mechanism in the city to decide how to designate that and someone who's doing it and

I live in Biddeford and served on the Biddeford Historic Preservation Committee, and they have historic districts within their downtown. So within that district, they're subject to Historic Preservation Commission review to make sure that the buildings are being renovated based on their historic form. And within that designation, there are buildings that aren't on the register that have taken advantage of some of the tax credit programs. I'm not sure the tie between the commission overseeing that and the local designation if they have to be together or not, but that's the best example that I have.

What do we currently have in regards to just for historic identification of historic buildings, a list of historic buildings, that kind of thing? What do we currently have?

So you don't currently have a local historic district. They're double-edged sword. They can preserve very historic buildings and they open them up to tax credits. At the same time, there are certain situations that historic district designations can restrict the use or the redevelopment of a building in certain ways that will actually make it into actual use again by increasing the cost that it takes to renovate building historic districts are not normally they're not opt-in there are a designation that if there's a zoning designation that is it's done by your council or your or your municipal structure they work when they work really well it is in much dense, much denser places and you have one area of the city that is your historic district rather than being scattered throughout the city because it gives character to that area and it actually provides an incentive to develop in a certain way in that geographic space and that spatial space. So I would, it's something to definitely explore to see if there are areas in the city that you would deem to be historic areas And you want it to develop in that way as a part of your overall plan of development for the city. But doing so just for tax purposes as like a floating overlay or something over the entire city is something that is not best practice. And so it's something to start to explore if you want to develop in that way in a certain portion of the city.

Well, it's sort of interesting. We certainly have some historic buildings, particularly more in the urban area. And I recall a gentleman who restored a number of historic buildings. In fact, I had in my office in one of his restored buildings for 20 years. The Ed will little House which is on the corner of buying in main Street. Came across the fact that it was deteriorating in the owner didn't want to deal with it anymore and was prepared to tear down make parking lot. and he went to the bank and said, we don't have money, but we got good ideas, and we don't think we ought to tear down this house that was the founding fathers. Will you lend us some money, and we'll fix it. And the president of the bank said, I like you two guys. I'll take a chance on you. I'll loan you some money. They saved the Edward Little House from becoming destroyed. So where's the public interest here that should be considered in a number of these buildings that at the same time recognizes private property owners Interest but the community interests as well because once you lose the historic buildings, that's it.

They're gone And you know Is that something that's That's something that we should try to address so it definitely can be I want to broaden this conversation up when you're talking about historic and places is that there is the National Historic Register that you can register places of historic significance in. And I'll bring up the huge mill building that is in the entrance of your city, basically coming down. And there was a building that was across the street from it and where they made the shoe boxes for the actual shoes and they tried to get a historic designation, but they were denied. So in that case, if you did have a local designation, you could save a type of building in that way. It works best as an opt in as rather than a zoning district itself that provides restrictions on it. And so there's certain ways you can do it. And I think actually getting a group together to explore those ways to preserve the places that you would like to have that designation if they opt in. rather than going as a historic district overlay that provides restrictions on private homeowners may work best for your situation in this city.

Becky?

Did I hear you correctly at the beginning that we don't even have an inventory at this point?

No, not at this point, no.

I feel like this is another one that we're a little bit short of a policy. We've got some work to do to understand what a policy would do if we don't even know what we have. I do think the Androscoggin Historical Society could give you 85% of the list, but yes. I grew up in a house that was built in 1715. My mother tried to sell it. You could never adapt the kitchen. It was a gorgeous home, but who wants a little tiny galley kitchen that they could never change because it was on the register?

Jeff, yeah.

So it seems like for the purpose of this discussion, we're not going to solve this at this level in the comp plan committee, but it seems like an issue that needs some work. So perhaps what we should be doing is having some language about paneling a group to investigate thus far.

I would specifically add to have a group to investigate an opt-in option for historic district or building or however it is, because I think DeCarlo hit that one right on the head. Very important, especially in our downtown where we need development. We don't want to put extra rules on it.

Yeah, I agree to Carlos hit the nail on the head with that you don't want to you know massive Full city overlay, but like Jane talked about Laurel Hill I've been in buildings over there. There's a building. It's an apartment house I can't remember if it's like a four family or six family has marble fireplaces. You would not even imagine I mean you look at the house and you say this is a beautiful house, but going inside this is like a YOU KNOW, THIS IS WORTH SAVING, AND I'M HOPING WHOEVER OWNS IT NOW HAS DONE A GOOD JOB WITH IT, BECAUSE IT'S JUST PRECIOUS, YOU KNOW? AND SO I THINK, YOU KNOW, HAVING A COMMITTEE THAT WOULD LOOK AT THIS WOULD BE A GOOD WAY TO MOVE FORWARD.

LAURA?

I HAVE HEARD WHAT THE COMMITTEE HAS DISCUSSED AND WILL GO FORTH AND DO SO. I HAVE A REQUEST, JOHN, ACTUALLY, So we're nearing nine o'clock. There's quite a few comments that I have addressed that are not policy questions that I have for the committee. There's one policy question I have left and it's in the infrastructure section. And then I'd like to go over some of the edits in the housing section that were made since last meeting. That might take us over nine o'clock. But if we do that, We can then have a draft plan being pulled together after this meeting for August. So if the committee would be interested, maybe staying a little longer.

Thank you. Go ahead. What's the policy question you want guidance on next?

So the next one. So we're staying a little over nine. Thank you, everyone. So the next question I have, and I actually want to address some edits made in the community section on C441. about the Arts and Culture Committee. I talked with Liz, our Director of Communications and Community Engagement. And it's actually going to be a public art working group. And there's things in place, like the public art plan. Am I calling it the right thing? Let's see. Yeah, the policy has already been implemented, and so the last thing is the public art working group. So that's why you see that language change. It's just the direction that department is heading. The policy question I have is on, let me find it in your page here, is in infrastructure. It's actually, yes. So it's objective three. And Belal made a comment about public restrooms, particularly in high growth areas and public spaces. So I'd like the committee to talk about that policy direction. We are in the infrastructure section, objective, policy one, objective three.

Page 95 on the packet.

Does Auburn have any public restrooms?

In our current building. Sorry. So in this building.

Yeah, and that's it.

Or any other public building that we have along, you know.

Library.

If it's opened. Yeah, absolutely.

But in terms of 24-7, like the ones they've put in in Lewiston, we don't have anything like that.

I was going to say, Edward Little, the new one near the arena, like if people want to go, not arena, but the field, you know, the track and field over there. But, yeah, no, this is based off running around in Lewiston, seeing the new things that they have up there. Obviously, we don't live in silos, so, you know, we observe other towns that are doing it. So in Portland as well. So it's just, you know, I think it goes without saying. Yeah.

Which one are we on? I'm on page 95 here, so what am I looking at at page 95?

Actually, page 80, well, 95 on the packet, but page 88 in the policies, objective number three.

Okay, that's the page I'm on.

So the laws comment just generally. We can figure out a staff where it would fit in, but would the committee like to consider public restrooms in our high growth areas in public spaces?

So during public events like the lobster festival and stuff, you just bring in porta potties?

We do. We recently purchased two portable rest trailers. So one's at Lake Grove Park. The other one will be used in different areas when there's events. There was some interest for us to actually have the conversation regarding this. It was put into a CIP plan and not funded because it's the future maintenance. It's the future... access to this. And so it was removed from that discussion. I believe it was with Festival Plaza is where that was being considered. Because of, you know, what's that use? Is it just because when we have events do we need to make access? But is it needed for everyday use is very different.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think this would be fine if we said we want to consider this. With the language we have now, we're saying this is something we have to do, and I'm not sure the city would agree with that. When you talk to other cities that have this, there are lots of problems associated with public restrooms. There's lots of issues about maintenance. There's lots of issues about emergency response. There's lots of issues about monitoring them. You know, I've talked to some other cities about this, and people can't get into them because a homeless person's in there, locked the door, and they're in there. They're living in there. So this is a complicated issue. I think if the committee wants to say somehow we should evaluate this or consider it, that would be fine. But I don't think this group has the information available to them here tonight to say the city should actually do this.

Dino.

Why don't we add a new line, I don't know what number it is, saying something to the effect of consider gaps in city infrastructure when developing the CIP, something like that. It's broad, but I think it encompasses this if we needed it to. I don't know. We could probably do something else, but there's an idea.

Yeah.

Thanks. I like your suggestion, Dana, in making it a little bit broader. Maybe it's explore is a word. But at the end of the day, I agree with Jeff. I have concerns about the cost and even the safety. I think about some of the reports that we have received as part of the ongoing packets that we received with the Lewiston-Auburn Transit Committee um the challenges that they have within the bus stations and the and the restrooms in the bus stations um and it's uh you know we've we've had to add we've we are now paying for security at a substantial amount of money to make them safer and that there's been a That's been a positive thing. However, it's a cost. And so I think we would not want to do anything beyond encouraging some exploration into something. Because first, we don't know the demand. And second of all, we don't know the costs. And as a you know wearing my city council had there are a lot of other things that I would consider a higher priority for safety. In this city and need for the city this would if I was to look at this in the city in the cap improvement plan right now or even just in some of the resources, the decisions I'm having to make on the budget this would probably not be the top of my list for many many years.

So is there some agreement to have language there. We ask for input or we ask to explore creating public bathrooms, make a recommendation or suggestion.

particularly because we're moving into really want to focus and invest in these high growth areas. So there may be things we really need to be thinking about and so appreciate a lot of you bringing this up. It's one example, but I think just looking at those gaps or potential needs that we as a city haven't necessarily had to haven't thought about it as thoroughly as we need to.

I mean, I think it's driven by, do you hit the tipping point that the demand is there to implement it, right? And when we presented this just a couple years ago, we weren't there yet. The transportation center, I think, is a good example. It's open 12 hours over the 24-hour day, 6 AM to 6 PM. It's a public restroom. It's in our downtown. that's meeting that need. But it did require almost $80,000 in costs just to have security monitoring that as well as the transportation center in Lewiston. So it does come with a cost. So I think, you know, what's the tipping point? Right now, if we know we have activities in the downtown, then we make them available. Tonight was the community band. There was restrooms available through porta potties. And so we're hitting that. If it's an event like the New Year's Eve Auburn, we're hitting that. Day to day, when we hit the tipping point, I think we then, there'll be a desire to say, let's go ahead and make that investment. It just hasn't happened. And so we have the space, we know right where it needs to go, we have the infrastructure already there, but it just has not, hasn't met that priority level. And so, I mean, I think to Dana's point, language regarding gaps in infrastructure is probably a great statement. I think that's a good policy and it's something that we could be monitoring and then identify that and bring that forward.

Okay. Should we? Charge our staff with putting that kind of language together. For this one, okay. We will do that. Never ending work for our staff here. What's the next thing you needed guidance on?

So we'll go to the housing section. To objective three to start. And I wanted to illustrate the language that.

Give me a page number or something.

This would be around page 16 of the PDF. Policy starting at H131. Page 16.

Okay. Okay, page 23. Which one is it?

So it's the entire objective.

Oh, the objective, okay.

with action items. So I addressed the conversation about prevention, and I actually was looking at the Addressing Homelessness in Auburn, Maine framework from February 2025, and that framework uses four pillars, and it's intervention, prevention, treatment, and recovery. And so we had, this original objective had touched on intervention, and so I added this to include, amended this objective to include prevention, treatment, and recovery. And if you'll look at action item H134, this can get to future treatment and recovery options based on a gap analysis that identifies needs. It also looks to findings from that framework in February of 2025, such as the report from the Ad Hoc Committee on Homelessness. So it's just a more holistic look based on conversations with the Homelessness Committee and that report that was conducted.

Yeah.

Yeah, so while I support the concept of supporting treatment and recovery strategies and programming, I don't think that belongs in the housing section. IT MAY BELONG IN THE COMMUNITY SECTION AND I THINK WE HAVE LANGUAGE ALREADY THAT COVERS THAT IN OTHER SECTIONS. AND TO THE I GET THE POINT ABOUT A RISK AND ARE UNSAFE, RIGHT? THIS CAME FROM THE SAFE VOICES REPRESENTATIVE. That this I think this is a way too specific. I think the broader discussion of the homeless. Committee and and Tim can jump in there he was there as well. Beyond the elimination of the chronic homelessness and doing the rehousing I think the prevention. The core prevention issue. with strategies to prevent homelessness, right, related to people that get evicted for some reason or can't have some financial impediment and have to leave their housing. I don't think it should be so specific.

Kim?

Thanks, Jeff. I would agree. I appreciate, Lauren, the intent to keep all those pillars, but the support and treatment I think does fit elsewhere. And yes, I think by keeping it more broad in terms of the prevention of those who may be at risk of becoming unhoused also allows us to, homelessness could keep evolving. And so I think that would be better for the longevity of this plan.

Any other comments? Any objection to the direction by Tim and Jeff? Lauren, we have another to-do task. Oh.

Just one additional comment. Thanks, John. Under H134, second to last column on the right. Can't see the header right now. I LOVE THE REFERENCE TO THE REPORT FROM THE ADDOCT COMMITTEE. THERE'S NOW A CURRENT, YOU KNOW, PERMANENT HOMELESSNESS COMMITTEE AND I THINK, YOU KNOW, TALKS ANNUAL UPDATE TO THE CITY COUNCIL BUT I DON'T KNOW IF WE COULD REFERENCE THAT GROUP AS WELL BECAUSE I THINK THEY'RE KIND OF EVOLVING A LOT OF THE WORK. JUST TO KEEP IT UP TO DATE.

YEAH.

YEAH, FOLLOW ON TO TIM'S COMMENT. This is, referencing this here is a bit limiting because the way it read before, we were broadly going to do this coordination and now we're funneling that into only what it, it says we're gonna utilize this document. So what it's saying is only utilize what that document said. That was a starting point. The current committee has been doing additional work of things that aren't even contained or didn't exist at the time that report was written. So I think this is a document that we could reference in our reference documents, but I don't think we want to funnel our coordination only to what's in that report.

Great point, Jeff. Just didn't even jump out at me. I think perhaps that's the better place is in that first column under actions. It's referencing, I don't know, through guidance of the homelessness committee's activities or something.

Lauren, that help you? Yeah, okay.

Thank you. That is all I, that's the burning.

It's questions I had. If you'd said we'd be open and I think we would have been like who let's go it so we've got to all most of it. You know what you need to start in. Go ahead and start.

This is great news.

So. Next meeting is July twenty eight. In the end of the month we will focus well we can pick up on anything further in the policies that we may need to do that. But we also made a focus to be taking a look at review of map areas that we want to give more guidance and finalization to on what the land use categories are there are a number of things and requests that have been made so put those together hope would be that we could finalize the map revisions on that date In the meantime, the draft will be done and will be available for a second week of August, something like that?

It will likely be the week before the next August meeting, so the week before the 18th.

So we're planning on meeting twice in August to review the draft plan at least and working through our schedule of reviewing the draft and then that process to send it to the planning board and then to council and so on. So we're planning at least two review meetings, potentially three if we need it. And so there'll be two in August. I'll invite you all to the additional August meeting and then the additional September meeting just as a placeholder if we need that. in the meantime sort of parallel be working with the planning board and their process of being able to look at it and comment make recommendations yeah the planning board received just the initial documents as a hey you'll be getting a flood of paper soon so maybe start sifting through the draft that the comp plan committee is working on but we'll meet officially with the planning board once the this committee approves the plan for that process

So the planning board's next meeting is July 30th, I believe, which I don't expect will be necessarily reviewing comp plan stuff, but in August perhaps work on what their schedule would be.

Yes, as you all produce documents, I'm sending those directly to the planning board and getting them prepped on Basically, this is the outline of the document, things like that, so when a draft is ready, they're not seeing all parts of the draft for the first time with brand new eyes, and that's intentional, because you all will have to have, there's a turnaround time for any comments that they have, and this document alone is over 80 pages, and so we're also talking about a narrative section as well, and the map. So it's a lot to go through for a group that hasn't been in these conversations as much as you all have. So I wanted to make sure at least that they get introductions throughout the time that they're working on other things. Good.

All right, we're making progress. And I thank you all for your time that you've been putting into this. I very much appreciate it. And for your very helpful comments. I entertain a motion to adjourn. I'll move.

Second.

All those in favor? Unanimous.