Master Plan Working Group - Regular Meeting

[Music] call this meeting to order. We uh have a quorum of the master working group present. For your information, Roshan has resigned. It's on the it's on the agenda as an action item to sort of recognize it officially. But with his resignation we are left with just 11 members which for which six is a quorum and we have one two three. All right. So I will and also for your information Fiona said that she was expecting to be running a little late. I will proceed to call roll call the the membership. Bob Carol, Victoria Duckworth, Lindseay Fox, and Marie Foley, Deborah George, Brian Hoo here, Shantel Kimble here, Essex Petri, David Robbins is present, Sue Robbins here, and Colleen Roy, I see her. I see. Can you not hear? Can you hear me? Yes, I hear you now. Oh, now I said here. Oh, okay. Here. Great. So, we can proceed. The first action item on our agenda is to approve the minutes of the April 7th meeting, which were distributed for review prior to last week's meeting, but without a core, and we couldn't vote on it. So, so moved second. Moved and seconded that the minutes of April 7th be approved as drafted. Any discussion of the motion? Hearing none. Victoria calling for a vote.

Victoria Brian. Yes. Shantel, yes. Dave votes yes. Sue I. And Colleen, she said I read her lips. You really can't. How about All right. So, I think my my device is not working so good today. I apologize. Right. May maybe we can take hand signals. It's all being recorded on video, right? Yep. All right. And uh Victoria, we're voting on the approval of the meeting minutes. I saw you dropped off momentarily. I'm going to be kind of in and out. I'm just going up Pleasant right now. And there's some dead spots, but I'll be pretty good here in like two minutes. I'm sorry. Will you repeat what you just said? Uh just need a vote on the uh April 7th meeting minutes. Ah, yeah. I Great. Clear that motion. carried unanimously. Um, second action item is to note Roshan Utangi submitted his resignation. Um, and uh, so effective on receipt of his resignation, he's no longer a member of committee, but listed on the agenda as an next item for us to acknowledge receipt of the resignation. And uh, if anybody would care to like make a motion to acknowledge the receipt and So moved. And maybe even send him a letter of thanks for his participation to the extent that he was able to participate. So move with that amendment. Is there a second? Second. All right. So let me call for a vote on that. Victoria, hi. Brian, I

Dave votes I. Sue. Hi. And Colleen. Hi. Excellent. Uh, next item on our agenda as an action item is to a a vote to approve the draft master plan and open the public comment period. I kind of want to that sort of combines with a disc first discussion item on the final draft plan. uh is uh uh for for my perspective and for the committee's benefit, we had uh uh a number of as of last week's meeting, there were a number of comments that had not yet been resolved in the draft that was available to us. Uh Sarah and company um produced an updated draft by they they shared that with us on Friday. There were a couple of items left outstanding or open on that that needed to be resolved. Those have been resolved at least to my satisfaction. So I I think we're at a point where I certainly have no objections to uh uh open the draft up for public review and comment. But uh other thoughts? Sarah, can you you maybe you know give us your your perspective on what the status of that is? Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. I want to note just a admin thing first. Fiona uh sent you a SharePoint link this afternoon. That is because Dropbox was being a little funky for both of us. So, if you're able to get on Dropbox, it is the same information as the SharePoint. The SharePoint is just a temporary folder for tonight. And then that link will expire in a few days. So, you can still count on our usual link. But that was like an emergency. if you have to open the chapters right now. They're available on both. Uh but yes, we were

able to resolve most of the comments since our last meeting. If you don't want to look through the full plan, everything is updated in the comment Excel of what was changed, what wasn't changed, or how things were changed, uh with the page numbers for reference. The one thing that we have outstanding that this committee has wanted to see is the numbers on the South Grafton Water District. So Fiona and I have been in talks about how to get the um annual number of gallons used and permitted number of gallons for some sort of sense of capacity, but that is not yet in the plan. Um so I wanted to be transparent about that. Everything else has been resolved in our Excel sheet. Yep. And for my I'm I'm comfortable with that for the time being. Would we'd like to get that data, but I don't think the lack of that specific bit of data should hold us up any further on getting public comment on the plan as a whole. Yeah. Yeah. I submitted a public records request to mass D and they said they should have it by the end of the week. So, they still got some time, but hopefully they'll get that over. At this point, we're looking at a month or so for a public comment period. And that's that should that should give us ample time to, you know, obtain that data and figure out how best to uh incorporate that into the document. But, you lack noted and noting that there is work to do on it. Is there anything else that anybody thinks we need to do before putting the plan out for public comment? If not, no, I I think we're ready. Um, just a thought on that. Would it be possible to like add a one pager you

noting an amendment that that information had been added to the the area or on the website or wherever where we put the the the review just so that it's obvious that there is that one amendment when it when it's ready? Do you mean like a disclaimer on the website or if we're updating the draft like noting that to the public? Yeah, noting it to the public just because we're we're going to be voting on putting it up for public review as it is now. And if we change anything at that point, then it's technically not what we voted on. But if if there's a public amendment along with it when it when it's added, I think that that would cover it, right? Yep. Yep. my I was thinking that basically the draft as it exists today is what we put out for public review but Victoria's note the idea is that for for for the public's information we note that there's one basically one point that remains to be incorporated into the plan but everything else yeah not quite sure I know how best to put it but Yeah, I think I think the other thing I was starting starting to say and my mind got lost is that we're not really expecting any further updates to the plan until the conclusion of the public comment period where we expect to we expect to get some public comments and we expect to revise the plan in response to those public comments as well as this this one essentially one data item. that we are still waiting to retrieve. Retrieve, not best word necessarily, acquire. But yeah, I think at this point

I'm not I'm not assuming that we are going to be making any updates to the document until such time as the public comments are all in. Would that be a fair assumption? Yes, that was my assumption as well. Great. All right. So, sounds like we're in a position to some for someone to offer up a motion to uh approve the draft for public review and comment. So, moved. Second. Second. Moved and a second. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none. Victoria I Brian I Dave votes I Sue I Colleen I excellent all right motion carried unanimously. We are now ready to launch into our public review and comment period which is kind of the next item on the agenda. Some I'm sorry, Sarah. Go ahead. Um, so the best way to do this might be to confirm our next meeting date because what we can do is have the public comment period end if we're it's on a Monday, the Friday before, or if it's on a Wednesday, the Tuesday before. Um, I'm Colleen. We thought uh the last meeting we talked the public comment was going to be May 15th to June 12th and our next meeting was going to be June 16th. Do we have to make a motion for that? No, I don't think I don't think so.

Okay. Well, that Yeah, that still works for the committee. That's perfect. Um so that will be a one two three four weeks exactly. Um we will plan to open it tomorrow. So I will have um the same graftedmaster plan.com URL with the homepage and I will send that to Fiona as well as a post for Facebook. Um and that will lead you to all of the chapter drafts separately because I think that's easier to review. and the comment um form which will be like a form that people submit and they can submit as many as they'd like. And on the back end we will put them maybe in a new tab of the comment sheet public comment tab just so you could start at row number one again. And um for the little ones we are going to try to get ahead of them throughout the month. So um that don't need to go by committee like typos. Uh and then for bigger recommended changes, we will do um what CRPC thinks should change in the text, but run those by the committee first. So that will be at that June 16th meeting and then we would have another week to make those final changes to the document, but that would u need a vote to approve with recommended changes at that point. Okay. So, I was just wondering when do we anticipate this um document going before the planning board? Uh Fiona and I spoke about June 23rd. June 23rd. Um, I think that's as many of our members possible should probably attend that meeting to

show force, I guess, but to show commitment to the master plan. Would not hurt. Yeah, that's a good idea, Sue. I can post I can post an agenda or I can I can post um that it's um a meeting of the master plan working group cover that base. Okay, Shantel, I was just curious like what format is being used for people to be able to access it. So, for example, I know like Dropbox was being funky tonight. I tried to click the SharePoint that um Fiona sent out just because I like to have it in front of me while we're meeting. Um and I couldn't get into that. It's for like I can't get into either right now. It's forcing me to create a log on and I don't want the public to run into something like that when they try to look at it and give feedback. The SharePoint didn't work. I'm sorry. Uh yeah, great question. Uh the way are it'll be hosted on the CMRPC website. It'll just be under the graft masterasterplan.com. Um, so the way we do that is not through Dropbox. It'll be through just a direct open to PDF. So it'll probably open the chapter in a new tab just on So it'll just be a straight PDF and easy for people to Excellent. Thank you. If you can test it, that would be great. I would be happy to always nervous about that stuff. Okay. So, just to make sure I think I'm all clear on it. Basically, we'll put it up tomorrow for public review with the

ability to collect comments, keep the comment period open till whatever that June 12th. June Yeah. June. Yeah. June June 12th. Yeah. So, four four weeks of public comment through June 12th. We'll meet again on June 16th to uh review the uh substantive comments and discuss any changes. I'm I'm I mean I I I'm quite all right with taking nonsubstantive comments and just as they come in uh update getting the updates that can reasonably be done prior to the end just and anything anything that Sarah you and company are not are not sure is really trivial anything that possibly needs the committee's input. We'll collect those together for the committee to discuss at their June meeting. Perfect. Sue, um, this is probably stated, but just how are we going to communicate to the public that they can make comment and the link they can go to? Yeah, great question. Um, on our end, we'll have a web page um that will be graftedmasterpl.com and a notice that can be reposted onto the Facebook pages. Um, but I think that's also a lot of word of mouth from all of you and whatever methods work best for Grafton. But what we'll give you is the web page with the URL and the Facebook to disperse.

Would would it be useful to have some flyers printed up with like a QR code and the web address on them for posting up in a few you few places around where people are and people maybe not everybody's on Facebook. So, you know, we've acknowledged this before and recognize this before that there are there's no one means of getting the publicity out that reaches everybody we might want to we reach. So, we'll use what whatever means we can come up with to uh you know make the public aware of these this opportunity. Uh Sue, your hand up is again. Um again, um I was just wondering if um the cable station still does announcements or we can make something on the cable station because I know a lot of people plug into that. Yeah, definitely. One, Colleen, um just just more to your point about also like social media and engaging in people with different ways. I I know we don't have to, but would hosting a a public hearing at like the library or something where people can just drop in and and maybe handwrite any comments or share any comments that way. Is that worth it or is that is that a a heavy lift? I can do that. I don't have a problem with it. we've like a like a state maybe like a Q&A like station one evening um where I can just hang out and answer any questions and have paper copies available and whatnot. Yeah, that works. Hang out with you. You don't have to be alone. People come join you. Yeah, I wouldn't mind either. We could do that. Uh would it make any sense to have a

flyer printed up? That would be I'm not quite sure if this would make sense. Uh we got a town election coming up next week, Tuesday at the you for those people go into the polling place to vote. Is it I I don't even know if it was if it would be permissible to distribute something like this when people come to vote. That's a good idea. I I'd hesitate to distribute just because I kind of want to like be kind to the trees, but if it were posted and people could grab a QR code, that might be Yeah. good. That might work. Who do I connect Who um who should I connect with about that? Who kind of runs the That would be town clerk. Oh, okay. I didn't know if it was like a Yeah. Okay, got it. Any other thoughts along these lines? The more we can publicize this, the better. I Well, I'm going to do this. This this is electronic but we have our page our web page as well on the planning department uh web page. Then we do the news flash as well. Um so those are just two other means that we're the news flash on the front page the homepage of the town website. Brian. Yeah. The oldfashioned newspaper um community news. Uh, I don't know if you're It's only a couple of times a month that they do Grafton, so you know, maybe we missed the date, but might be

worth checking. Mhm. For for what it's worth, something in the Grafton news, which is presumably we that that's a weekly and there aren't all that many people that get the Grafton news, but for those who do, having an item in the Grafton news running for however many weeks it would make sense, you just figure out the schedule. But you know, if we can run an item in the Grafton news that people people who do read the Graph News can see it and be the possibility, Colleen and Bob, the select board in their select board announcements and maybe even ask if they could include like the link on the actual agenda so people who might not see the meeting but are checking agendas. It's getting them both ways. Yep. Look at that. Bob, I think I saw you raising your hand a moment ago. Yeah, that was my idea. Okay, I forgot to mention the most important thing we're going to do on our side. We have the email list of everyone that filled out the survey and came to the workshop and they will get a more personalized thank you for contributing to this plan. We want to make sure we we got your input correctly. Yes. for for everybody for whom we have a record of them having expressed an interest in this that's a great idea I'm glad you're doing that because we've had a form up on the website let us know if you want to be involved in the plan so it'll be all those people I think it's a good amount a few hundred yeah it's the way things work these days you have to get the word out in as many different ways as you can think

of. All right, so we're all set on the uh publicity and the public comment period and the followup from that. Yep. What else do we need to do tonight? Reaching the end of this whole process. Yeah. just wanted to make sure that everybody was clear and okay with the timeline which we kind of already discussed. Um so that was kind of the the remainder of the the meeting and just kind of final you know finalizing that timeline but we have a good you know we know when the public comment period is we know when the planning board approval is slated for. We have our June meeting set and then yeah I think we're in a good spot. Yeah Bob. Yeah, I I just maybe I'm pretty sure no one said it and this is not really practical, I don't think, but I wonder what it would cost to paper mail a notice to everybody in town. Like, you know, I just got a a mail that told me about what happened with the George Hill Road permit. uh because I'm part of that uh I'm a resident but u I imagine it's way too expensive and probably will take too long uh finance committee but that does you know if it's an official town communication finance committee had looked into that several times and it is very expensive to get to every household Yeah, I would I would say yeah, we did um we did flyers for the common traffic study and that was just within a 500 foot radius and that was a lot and we

took that out of our kind of regular line item budget. So we we don't have the the funds unfortunately. Okay. But it I mailers are are the most effective means of communication. So I know I I get what you're saying. It's just Yeah, it's tough. Y and I'm I'm I'll mention this, but I'm not entirely sure that it would be considered a really appropriate use, but we've got the uh the code red notification system, which most recently I saw used for letting everybody know that Tom meeting was coming up. So I do not know whether the master plan review and comment is the type of thing that we want to use that notification system for possibly touch base with Evan, see what he thinks. Yeah, I I I'll ask him. Yeah. Yeah. Because the thing is when the time comes uh to get votes on it, like if we go to town meeting for a vote, there's going to be everybody saying, "Where did this come from? I why didn't I know about it?" So covering all as many bases as you can. There's always going to be you can't There's always going to be that somebody's going to say, "I didn't know anything about this." That's a Yeah. Now, I'm sure that some people will say that, some people will say that, but it's a question of is it a lot of people who feel that way? Doing everything we can, doing more than we did 25 years ago. Yes. 27 25 years. But we had the graft of news that everybody read. Yep. Yep. things have changed in 25

years for better or for worse. Anyway, so and if if after this meeting anybody comes up with any additional ideas for how to publicize this, um get in touch with Fiona. Fiona can coordinate that. Fiona needs more work to do. She's just sitting there twiddling her thumbs all the time. or Fiona. It's always easy to say, "Well, Fiona can do that." But she is she is our local point of contact for this work. Yes, please send me ideas. I'm happy to do it. It's an important project. So, I mean, just sort of, you know, thinking in general, and actually this ties into one of our master plan action items is ways to more effectively communicate from the town to the public. already see we're already started on implementation. Okay. At this point, is there anything else that we need to discuss or decide this evening? If not, our next meeting is the it keeps leaving my mind. It's June 16th. June 16th at what time? And I would assume 7 o'clock would be we we did six o'clock tonight because some people had other things scheduled after 7. But yeah, 7 o'clock on June 16 16th. Why? My brain is usually very good at remembering useless numbers, but useful numbers maybe not so much. Okay, with

that I suppose a motion to adjurnn might be in order. So moved. Second. Second. Moved and seconded that this meeting be adjourned. Take a roll call vote. Victoria I. Brian, I have a question. Uh, were we supposed to take a vote on um moving forward the um the date uh the uh the actual plan itself? Uh was there a motion that we we were supposed to make before we we we voted to move the plan forward into public review and comment? Okay. I guess I was here when that happened. You you voted yes on it. Okay. Then I we don't officially vote on the master plan until all the comments are in. Correct. And we've made all the changes and that's when we make an official vote. Yeah. Right now we voted to we voted to say it's good enough for the public to review and comment on it. Good. Thank you. So continuing the vote on the motion to adjurnn. Shantel I. Dave votes I. Sue I and Colleen hi. Motion carried unanimously.