Comprehensive Plan Committee - Regular Meeting

Um, but I have made a note here to go back and determine exactly what minutes we still have to approve. I didn't really take any at the last one except for I was just kind of taking notes on what we were doing so I can submit those as minutes. That'd be great. Okay. And it's not probably looks like I should do it again today. Um, public comment. Uh, the community meeting was awesome. What's up? Sorry. [laughter] [clears throat] All right. The community meeting was overwhelmingly successful, I think. Well, we're going to talk about it. Oh, good. Good. [laughter] Because I couldn't make it. Public meeting review and debrief. Awesome.

Good. Great. Yeah. Well, um, a couple of things on the agenda today. Um, we wanted just to do a little debrief on the public meeting. uh maybe start to draw out some common themes that people had uh from some takeaways from that meeting. Um we did print off um we so we've actually transcribed all of the posters. Oh, really? The post-it notes and and the meeting minutes um and the and the small group discussions that got handed back to us and a bunch of other stuff. So, we're we are actually in the process of like

pulling together a bit more of a of a report, a summary report just to publish um on the website and everything. Um but we wanted to spend some time today talking about that and then we're going to talk about um the vision statement which is a requirement of the comprehensive plan and then we're going to talk about our 2026 outlook. What are we going to be doing for 2026? Um where do we go from here? And basically starting off that the January meeting is actually January 1st. So you guys can meet Suzanne and I won't be here [laughter] yet. So just to throw that back.

So that's what we're going to cover tonight. So why don't we get right into it. Um yeah, what what Suzanne just passed around is basically the these are all of the sticky note comments. Um, and this isn't by way of having you guys have to look through all of it tonight or make any um thoughts on it, but I think it would be interesting to to just sort of write down, you know, overall thoughts first question and then secondly, you know, what what did we take away from that?

And yeah, and we can talk sort of broadly too about, you know, what did people find was successful at the meeting? Um, I'm gonna say the other questions we had talked about as well. Yeah.

Yeah. Did you hear anything that like surprised you? Um, yeah. Um, yeah. Was there anything surprising or unexpected? I don't to me there wasn't anything surprising or unexpected. What I did really enjoy when walking around was listening to the dialogue and the various ways um the different tables were coming at the pretty much the same topics uh or the same themes. Um it was it was very interesting and I thought we had um a great representation of great demographic representation there

and it was to me really exciting having been so involved in town for so long to see lots of new faces. That's great. Yeah, I was personally really excited that the child care worked out. Yes, that made it so good. I think we had like that wonderful kids. Yeah. And I was nervous that like some people might show up who didn't leave which ultimately would have been fine and we would have figured it out. But I like brought my 11-year-old daughter who was like I want to babysit and she mostly just like played. But um my point, you know, [clears throat] child care. I think it was really

Yeah, I think component I think really enabled people to be there that might not normally I would say the way you spaced the tables. Okay. Um there was plenty of room, especially when we attended the um pool thing and they were so close you couldn't hear anything and it just and you know it really I thought it was just really exciting and people were just talking and listening to each other and so it was really positive and I think just having the kids in the background around. Yeah.

Knowing what you're there for in a way for them. Yeah. No, that was really good. I love seeing I love speaking to school. I couldn't we were gone. But I like [clears throat] seeing everything about the school cuz I'm a huge supporter especially after co and two kids at home during school [laughter] um trying to teach whatever. But I I do love this school here. It's actually was the reason we built in the town of Mount Dart like St. school and the high school I'm sure is under that umbrella. But

so Kathy and Tracy just we're debriefing the public meeting. Then I don't know exactly what that is, Alan, but then we're going to talk about the vision statement. Then we're going to talk about the work plan for 2026. Okay. Okay. Mhm. And by the way, we are actually on track with where we said we were going to be when we first started off. So, which is excit [laughter] except for not having a final product for 2026 meeting, which is also fine. Yeah.

And one of the things I understand about the vision statement is there isn't one in the 2009. So, this is a start start new. Yeah. So the question that we asked was um well the question we started on for this discussion was was there anything that surprised you from the discussions at the [clears throat] meeting? So far the answer is not really. I was a little surprised like people got very granular with what they wanted like a had some wish list items which is not what the meeting was about. I think going forward we really need to put the guard rails on The dog park is not part [clears throat and laughter] of the It comes up all the time.

It comes up all the time and they can they can go build their own dog park. It's not part of the plan. So, it's just like our guidance. Like I definitely stepped in at the table. I was hovering around and just okay what well can you change it? You know, is that something in the purview of the town? And that got them back on looking at things that they were capable of influencing. And I think that's something that people I mean it's a small town. We have all our own little pet projects and interest and this is a big picture

project. Sure. One of the maps said a pub in every village which I thought was really interesting [laughter] and it's sort of a similar comment but we are very accustomed to that type of um things being brought up and kind of feel like it's okay as long as it's not like entirely those comments but what I interpret it as is like people want more like points of connection or places to connect with other people closer to their own home.

Yeah. And the other thing I would sort of when you're in so even in this group I think we're going to have be challenged to try to depending on what topic we're thinking about to stay at a certain level versus like trying to go right to the solution for the specific problem that we're talking about when really we're you know depending on where we are in the process. But what you can draw from that conversation is something you know like um

right and so and also like park the idea hey dog parks was important to this group maybe there's a theme here that we need to think about bigger picture and then is there something that we need to recommend in the ordinances you know as a as a revision to the to the ordinance structure that allows for that or is it a was it such a topic that everybody talked about that we that the town currently isn't doing that we might want put some suggestions in as an action that supports whatever kind of goal that we come up with. So it's it's good to like draw them back to the bigger question and then also keep that in your mind like oh yeah I remember when we were you know when they were talking the public was talking about this thing and everybody was like real keed in on it but what does that actually mean for us? Yeah. I was wondering if it's if it's a strategy if you just let people talk and then you extract the information from them instead of trying to

correct. Yeah. That's what you do. them into talking about a topic that Yeah. So sometimes like will let them you know even in a situation like this happens all the time like you let let the conversation go for a little while even though it's like um digressed into something that isn't exactly what it is that you're trying to achieve. you then you use that information to kind of pull it back to the higher level to get to what we need. So we joke too like the you always hear like there needs to be a stop sign at this one corner like we hear in a lot of meetings and like it's so specific but then it's like this bigger picture around like feeling safe and feeling like you can walk or whatever the investment in like physical safety. Yeah.

Yeah. And and I mean we've sort of debriefed on this a little bit too, but like one of the challenges of a meeting like that is that it's a short period of time that you're really trying to tackle like a lot of different things all you know in you know pretty fast sequence. So you don't have a ton of time to really like dive into one topic where you're where you have like questions that are really targeted toward one thing that get you to the idea of where you want to have a dog park for example. Um and and um so the challenge is like you know we just have to let it go a little bit and you guys aren't we we didn't like sit down and do like a facilitator training with everybody and say okay you're going to be facilitators at this group at this table you know here's what you need to do.

Um so but in sometimes in that chaos it's actually kind of interesting just to like hear how the what happens. Yeah. And I'll say too, like those opportunities [clears throat] to make those types of comments sometimes like get somebody hooked on the process or like, "Oh, that was really fun and I got to say my thing about the dog park and like I want to learn more about this process and better understand that like maybe it's not like a dog park study." But [laughter] there might be a way to get that eventually or something. Right now, I can't wait to find pictures of dogs that we have to put in the plan. Yeah. [laughter] I'm sure we can find those long dog park, isn't it?

That's what the complaints were about [laughter] privately owned facilities that require a leash now has a leash line. Well, that's Yeah. Well, what kinds of things I mean, I know we've had the survey out and we've talked about a few things, but what kinds of what kinds of common things did you guys pull from that meeting? I think that the list of post-it note comments might have been different than the conversations at the table because those are sort of focused and you were more careful about what you might be saying here. Yeah. At a table. But you can put whatever you want on a postit and a little bit of No. What's one word for the bill town? Bougie.

You know that kind of thing. [laughter] Yeah. You know, and I think we all know this. Housing is a recurring theme on every page. Yep. My table spoke a lot about what draws people to a town, keep people in the town. That's interesting.

What kind of substance? Well, they they um they thought that uh we talked a they talked a whole lot about needing the people that do all the work to be in the town so that they can work and that their work will draw other people into the town. So, um, they they need a they need a a business or two or three where you can be employed to get sort of the ball rolling. Um, and then that way other people will be interested in coming and living in the town,

economic development. Yeah. And then a little chasing the tail issue there. Do people talk about that with your groups? Yeah. and you know places to eat places to, you know, so that the lights are on, especially in the winter time and which so many of us restaurants would love that, but it's so you can't feed three people and in 24 hours and Yeah. and have a full staff and pay I mean I I totally agree. We could be busier. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't obviously expect it to be summer, right? But something Yeah. and and finding things that fit like businesses that

would work where you'd have people and I think you know you guys did a lot and and you know the CAOA students I mean we had five five of them came every Sunday to St. Mary's. It was wonderful. Yeah. You know, so you had that, you know, you saw the potential and then then the key person graduated and left and went to Minnesota. [laughter] Could she? Right. Are the COA students utilizing the Northeast Harbor campus? Yeah. Aren't they? Yeah. I honestly don't know. I I've been told by COA students that they don't like it. Yeah. Because there's nothing to do. They want to be

where everybody else is. Yeah. But they can they can get there. The this group of five and they were like a band. They have 19 apartments. Well, no, there's space for 15. They have three apartments built for students. Each of them can accommodate five students. Um, and the college was thinking this past year that and I don't know how they resulted this year. Um, that they might actually need it more for staff than students. Yeah, I can understand that. Absolutely.

So they but then they might have to make some changes because it's like a dormatory. It's five single, you know, five small single spaces with a shared kitchen and a couple of bathrooms, etc. So, so can but so the point that we're at isn't necessarily to say why isn't this thing working at COA specifically, but it is to to learn a lesson if we were to pull a lesson from that conversation which is hey younger people want to if they we we want younger people to be here. I'm just paraphrasing what I'm hearing that they want activity. However, me recognized through these other experiences that the challenge is there needs to be more for them to do

and to sort of tie it into the conversation that you two were having about, hey, it would be great to have restaurants open all more restaurants open and hey, it would be better to have more people here in order for the restaurants to be open to make it worth your while. What is the common theme there? Not enough people on a year round basis, but also like yes, not enough people. It's like I know there's a chicken and egg conversation, but we have to like that's [clears throat] what we're getting to. Well, the Nor Easter tried. I mean, and I don't know if that's why definitely they're not there in the winter now, but they tried. They still they would do five years and I mean [snorts] it's hard.

They were [clears throat] losing money. Yeah. And I think that's like the things that we're going to be struggling with are recognizing the reality of economics for businesses, but recognizing the reality of what makes a good community. And then there's some um there's some challenges that need to be overcome in order for that to occur. And um you know what in the comprehensive plan context can the town actually do about it? Yeah.

Right. And so when we get to the vision statement conversation that is that like there are that conversation that you're going to have about the v vision statement and we're not ready to move off the public meeting yet but like is the fundamental question that you need to ask yourself like that sets the table for the whole rest of the comprehensive plan. If you don't know where you want to go then you're not going to go anywhere or whatever other planning thing you want to come up with. So, like that's why it's really important to like, you know,

and we're going to get into this, I'm sure, but like we've got to sort of what we've done now is heard from the public about like what makes the town so cool and what are the things that we want to see in this town that we would even be more excited to be here. That's all the that's like the stuff we've learned through the survey and through the um you know the public meeting. Now, our job is to kind of filter that and come up with a vision for the community that we can then test the waters on at some point. And then through that, we're going to build on the existing comprehensive plan through, you know, the all the topic areas and whatnot. But like it's that's like really a fundamental thing that's actually missing from your existing plan.

And you actually you have to do it number one. And number two, like there's no point to have a plan that you don't actually have a a vision, a consolidated vision around because why are you having a plan to begin with? So, put that aside for a second. Really good feedback on the public meeting. Anything else sort of jump out at you as common themes? So, right now I have housing is a re reoccurring theme. We need things that draw people to town. What else? And I I heard people liked,

you know, it's the the free like at Artemis they may they they have the gallery they've done that space where it's it's very interesting and that just draws a lot of people and so you know could this be more of an art jewelry whatever because um it need and we don't need t-shirts. And we don't need ticky tacky. But we lost some of that's what Yeah. And but we lost remember with the fire you lost a lot of the galleries. Yes, I remember very well. [laughter] Yeah. Yes. We lost two galleries. Two galleries. Yeah. But they were big.

They were big. And then that one gallery Wingspread right left. But wasn't the There was one the Joy building had um somebody in the past year He left her two years ago because I can something star. Oh, the antique gallery. The was the bronze the bronze sculpture. Yes. Oh, Christmas. Yeah. He left a few years ago and that brought in a lot of people and you know the rare book place that was my brother's favorite place. I mean I you know he was in there all the time. I think you're right. What what's interesting is those are unique places and so they are a draw

and that's what we need. Sometimes what I sort of think though is we don't need super high-end expensive things. We need things that are affordable to many more people whether it's food or clothing. And I'll tell you one of the ideas that came out of our Zoom meetings during COVID about what kinds of businesses would you like to have here on Main Street? Two people from very different points of view both said a great consignment store would be great. A clo a used clothing. Well, the there's a woman that started one, but it was behind where the pine tree was. And I just happened to walk in and I said, "Oh my goodness." You know, she had silver and what? Now gone off to Seal Harbor.

Yeah. Now she's It was too expensive over here. She like Well, she didn't get she couldn't get a draw. She couldn't get enough people and um but she had all kinds of interesting things. The summer's lady. Yeah. And but she was only there for part of the summer because it had so much mold and you know it just didn't work. I think it'll be interesting to see what goes in the home store cuz that's such an Oh, we were just That's what Heather and I were just saying. We're like is something going in the home store hopefully or possibly. Is there something? Yes. Good. Good. What about the hardware store? And the hardware store as well.

Are we gonna have another hardware? I've heard little bits of rumors is another or possibly something hardware store or Well, let's again do we have any data on where people came from? Like there's a map. We do have the map. Um and I [clears throat] have a picture of it. I'm not sure it made it into our folder yet. um but it's it does show uh where basically we had people kind of concentrate on the village that you came from and it was pretty well distributed [clears throat] actually. Yep. There were the whole Otter Creek except for [laughter]

it was I think you pointed out to me that's harbor people was well represented. Northeast Harbor obviously well represented. I think the biggest one I saw that was at the void was Hal Corey actually. I was gone but [laughter] the only I didn't I didn't have a sticker so I didn't put that much. I know there were people there from it just always interesting. So I I went to 160 houses. Yeah. In Otter Creek and Seal Harbor. And I something I either knocked on the door and talked to them or left something on their door. Thank you for I think we got

I may have gotten 12 people to show up, but some of those were going to come anyway. So maybe, you know, it's it's I don't know. It's a lot of effort. Yeah. For a turnout of like 5%. Did you have good conversations for those? I did have great conversations. Was it anything different than the meeting, the public meeting? Not particular. I mean, I was trying to just inform them what this game was and um you know, why it was important to show up and like, wow, that is really important and I'm not going to show up for it. Yeah. [laughter] I think that's okay though. Is that what they said? Yeah, pretty much. A lot of them. Yeah. They're like, well, it's football on later, so [laughter]

Well, they'll have another opportunity to read it in the And I think that's okay. And I think you'll find that once we really start writing the goals and action items that is people really react to that because they either really like it or they really don't [clears throat] and they want to come out and [snorts] talk about that. Yeah. You know. Yeah. And I I would also kind of flip the script too and say like whatever happened like that we've done a bunch of public meetings around these parts and [laughter] that was one of the best if not the best that we've been a part of. So I think your effort is it was successful. Yeah. And I I thought there were um for demographically for where we are as a community, it was a pretty good mix of people. Good age range.

Yeah. Yeah. I was I was really surprised that there were as many younger people there as I mean I'm sure a lot of it had to do with the daycare department. Yeah. It was such a good that was you know what I got the um they did an email from the it was the neighborhood house. They did an email flash to every parent. Oh, good. And because I said, "We need these kids." And I went to the daycare and the nursery school and, you know, knocked on the door [laughter] and and so she said she was going to just circulate it. She said, "That's great." So, you know, I just The principal sent it out, too.

Yeah. And and the other one the other thing I did was at SR Tracy at first she the person was just going to you know blow me off and then all of a sudden there must have been something and I don't remember what I said but triggered something and she said oh I'm going to put I'm going to post this and have extra copies made when so when they punch in they'll see it. So I just went now that is really clever. So, you know, so it was well worth me. I kind of did the same thing. You're thinking, "Oh, you know, when am I going to actually see anybody?" But it paid off. It did pay off.

It sounds like from what I'm hearing, a people, [cough] the meeting [clears throat] was wellreceived from what we can appreciate. I we did get um at least one comment. I've I've gotten one comment that just wanted to make sure that some of the report outs at least at one table was more uh the notes that the person who reported out was saying versus like [laughter] so those things we're we're going to record because he this person sent me some other comments as well. [laughter] Um, and I think that's a function of the fact that we had to the way that we did the set the workshop, you know, again, it wasn't like a let's pick a facilitator who who's actually and a notetaker who's specifically going to do it and we we sort of like

kind of quick hit it. And that's okay. Um, that was that was the way that we set it up. Um, and it sounds like um nothing was a surprise based on what we've been out and hearing already. So, that's good. And um a couple of the common themes that you guys are mentioning are housing obviously. Uh we need to do things that draw people to town. We need to start thinking about um year-round businesses in different economic sectors perhaps is what I wrote down with your arts comment.

Um sort of building on stuff that you guys have already been thinking about at MD365 as well. Um, couple of things that that um I think about. Um, obviously like the natural environment is something that was really important to everybody at least on the sticky notes. Um, you know, year-round community um and finding amenities for year-round community is really seems to be a pretty common theme. No, with the sticky notes, what is main street shops being replaced by short-term rentals? Do we have that many What was the question? Shops. This was a postit. Yeah. No, I don't. That was the question at the top of the Oh, it's the the comments about it's on the page report. This is Oh, that's the overflow. Yeah, sorry. This one is biggest challenges. Yeah.

So, one of the challenges that that person is recognizing I think the question is what are some of the biggest challenges? I think they it's happening in Silsville. They are concerned. Oh, is that so? Because I'm thinking Gold Higgins store is now short-term rental. Oh, you're right. Yes. Okay. Also say Stephanie like my husband might have written that. Okay. [laughter] My job isn't necessarily to question like specifically like that's not true with that person. No, I was just curious what Okay. That's a concern. Yes. Okay. Yeah. One of the things that did surprise me was the number of tables that talked about bicycles and bicycle lanes and making it easier to ride bicycles around here.

That was big all summer. A lot of kids on bikes that weren't paying attention and no helmet. There was a lot of that this year. A lot of people talking about it. Yeah, but also just the accessibility of having having space along major roads. How else are they supposed to get from A to B to get to camp down to something? Yeah, exactly. Or people who want to commute to their job from X village to Y village too. Yeah. a bike lane or

um speaking of villages, I think villages was a pretty common theme like everybody is very proud of the village that they live in and this [laughter] seems like one of the characters that we have to continue to foster as a as a community that you know we are one island but we're also one town but we're also several villages. So then we have to six to eight depending on how you count that is and do we need to get into that conversation in the comments [laughter] about um yeah so every table also mentioned zoning every everybody seemed to notice that that was a hurdle. Yep. Uh which is good because then we can change zoning because people know it's a problem. We need to educate people more about what the zoning actually does. But

yeah um um yeah I actually wrote that down. uh adopting zoning and policy to enable the things that we're talking about in zoning. So definitely Otter Creek, everybody I talked to in Otter Creek, yep, was ready to reszone the entire town, commercial, industrial because they are limited to doing nothing, right? can't do anything which again not necessarily true but there's a there's [clears throat] a perception that either needs to get rectified there's a communication there and um I would love to introduce the concept of doing some village plans um

to this process a little bit because uh Otter Creek is like a prime example of one SSville is another Sville is a really interesting on um Sil Harbor like to do some more village specific planning. Yeah. would be really good because there's as you know you know the zoning is um you know consistent throughout the town but that doesn't always make for the best result but then the challenge is let's not create a situation where you have so many unique zoning attributes that it just becomes unbearable right so like bar harbor I think has 28 zones

um but they did it by geographic village so there's the uh biomed research zone around the Jackson Lab. Yep. And then you go across the street and now it's rural residential shorefront and like each Yep. You know, you can see how it got to that point. Yeah. Yeah. So, because everybody [clears throat] needed their own little carveout. Yep. So, so that I I we sort of struggle with this in other contexts as well, but like that's the slippery slope, right? You want to make it like a seal harbor village is its own thing. It shouldn't be it's not going to be necessarily the same as like Northeast Harbor, right? And if you want to have a pub in every village,

you got to have commercial downtown, right? [laughter] And and we lose that. I mean, that is something that hap has happened in Silsville. So, I believe Pat Foster keeps her business going because she wants to make sure that it is commercial because if she stops using it like Hagen's Market, it can't come back. it, you know, sort of grandfathered it. Hectic seafood. Yes. Yeah. They should never have moved. I was going to say just the word. Let's let's transition into unless you had something you wanted to add, but

No, I think you were sort of saying it about that zoning. I was just thinking you don't want to get into different village zones because 10 years from now, 20 years from now, you've created a whole different problem. Yeah, I think that's this slippery. So, we're not necessarily going to get into that level of detail in this process. Um but it would be interesting to think about it at a high level through the future land process and the slippery slope is I mean even Bah Harbor would acknowledge like their their zoning is way too complex

and they're starting to eliminate zones because there's there's reasons to do that but then there's reasons to be more specific to different areas if we're trying to like create some ability to do things in different areas that are more appropriate for those areas. So, Otter Creek, for example. Yeah. I I was just happy to see that people realized that zoning was the problem and that adding more zoning restrictions probably wasn't the solution. It's like, well, maybe we should back off, which Bar Harbor went the other way and said, let's specialize it to this zone and maybe we need to back off and Yep. Yeah.

generalize [clears throat] and should definitely have discussions about that. Sometimes being more general creates more problems, but I believe that there is a balance somewhere.

Anyway, let's talk about vision. So, in the comprehensive plan, you are required to have a vision statement and I think I've already g on vision. I don't know if there's anything you want to add Suzanne to that but like again it's really important next step in this process is to create the vision statement because that is the mechanism by which we're going to then you know take a look at all of the existing goals and strategies that we're going to look at in this plan and there isn't one in your current plan. So I don't know why is that I don't know why it might not have been required. I did too. Oh,

I was actually surprised because I I was actually as we were planning for this meeting, I was went in to like clip it out and send it to everybody. It said in preparation for our meeting, don't forget to read the vision statement. And can you I actually did a word search for it. Can you give a I don't know overview of what three four components that should be a part of the vision plan? Um I don't necessarily want you to give some of the other talents you've worked with because you don't but I think if we can get a little bit of just or I for me get a little understand the length as well are we talking about pages paragraphs are we talking about a sentence three sentences or

it can really vary and there's no like uh exact formula we did bring examples from other communities we've worked with

um and can talk about how the process of doing these Um, but I think sometimes this part of the process people can get really annoyed by because it feels too um like almost like saccharine or false or something because it's really meant to be aspirational, right? You're like this is what we when we think what we envision the town in 10 years um in the future, 15 years in the future, this is what we see. This is what we want to see, right? Um, but it's super important because it really is, if you think of it, like a concentric or like um nesting dolls or something. Um, it's like the vision statement is really that thing that everything else is supposed to point to, right? So, when you're coming up with a goal or a future land use map revision or um an action item or policy, they're all supposed to logically point back to something in the vision statement.

Okay? And so, um, this will be like one of these exercises where we want to be really precise with the wording, right? And it has to mean something and feel sincere. Um, even if it does feel kind of like more sometimes people just like, oh, that's like fluffy stuff, you know, but it's it is important. It's like a it's in that highest level framework, I guess, for the ideas we're going to come up with. So I printed out this um one from Carabasa Valley where we're just um finishing their plan. You can pass that around and then this one from Belfast. And so both of these communities had um vision statements already. Um Carabaset Valleys was like three pages long from their plan that was written in 2003 or approved then.

Wow.

Um it was in our opinion too long, right? Um it [laughter] was like this and their whole plan was kind of like that was very narrative. Um but uh Belfast actually I kind of joined that project maybe in the process um when that was getting written but Belfast I would say was more like an exercise like what we're doing where we had to come up with like what are they had gone through this I know that was rough um but they had gone through this similar exercise of coming up with you know community input survey [clears throat] work, all that to sort of distill out what are those key ideas and um words to characterize like it's it's a feeling, but you have to be able to see it and people have to be able to buy into it, right? And it has to be somewhat you're not going to win everybody over, but it has to be pretty um collectively agreed upon. Um yeah and so these are really different places too right like uh Carvasset Valley is adamant that they are not just like a company town

of you know the Sugarloaf um corporation or boy resorts but um that's a big presence there but they're like their thing is like we want um they're also struggling with like how do we continue to support a year-round community here but they have yearround recreation and recreation, tourism. So, there is that opportunity for them. Housing is a big deal. Um, they need more services and amenities to support your own population. Um, but they like are they're like so happy. They love being outside. I'm convinced they're all just constantly exercising and the endorphins are like, you know, they just like love living there. They love the scenic resources, the natural resources. They love their trails. And so like those are some of the things that you like hear in their vision statement. Um Belfast loves it's like grittier historic artsy culture. Um and you're they're they are really they're historically a year-round community and they really [cough] keep it [clears throat] a year-round community and they're anxious about that. Um

they're anxious about it. Yeah. Yeah. About that changing. Yeah. [clears throat] Um they love their main street. They love their arts community. Um and they really brought theirs back. Yeah. A lot of ways. They did a massive economic development investment. Is that what they Yeah. Wow. Is in a place now. Yeah. Like you year round. Yeah. And they've had some lobster boat races to they building right on their lot going on there. the working waterfront. They have an awesome comp plan. [laughter] Yeah. Um Yeah. And they have really incredible [snorts] leadership. Um and they're um

but you can go there in the winter or the summer and it feels not quite the same, but there's people bustling. Yeah. Definitely. So anyway, um so again, there's no like one right way to do this necessarily, but I do think you want to be um thinking about like what are those key words that you want to make sure are included in there that capture um vibrant and yearround

that. Yeah. So, I think part of our exercise tonight is to literally like start writing those things down based on, you know, obviously what we've heard in the survey, what we've heard at the uh public workshop, and then you are the committee. It's your job to bring your own opinions and also interpret like what you're hearing from the community as well. Um, and then since we if we had an existing statement, we would be bringing it up on the screen and kind of working through it and being like, does this still ring true? you know, but we don't have that. So, it will be an exercise in like writing it from scratch. Can I see that comp? I I read this. I thought I had it on my phone, but I thought there was something in there, but it's like one sentence at the beginning.

I didn't I there was a little section in there like, "Oh, here's the vision statement." And it really isn't. It like goes right into talking about the structure of sort of like in the introduction. Yeah. And I actually did a keyword search for vision. You think it'd be labeled? We can each bring one at the next meeting. So, I think hash them all together.

I have an alternative suggestion, although we're open to ideas, but why don't what we'd like to do tonight is get some key words from from all of you. These are the things that need to be part of a vision statement and our opinions based on everything that you've heard and feel and um whatever. and then we should probably draft it and then send it to you before the next meeting and then we'll come back together and talk [clears throat] it through. Does that work? Yes. That way we're fine. And and I think if people want to sort of absolutely, you know, draft up pack away at it as much as you want after that, but the the challenge that we're going to end up getting into is like this is could be one of those things where

we are just like worksmithing the thing to death. So we just figure figure that part out together. One thing that sticks in my mind is just the trails. You can walk anywhere, you know, and I can remember as a little kid, we would walk from Harbor Side all the way to Jordan Pond House, climb the mountain, and we if we survived, we got pop over. But you know, there's all everywhere and even pretty marsh. So, I we've just explored every little segment because half the time you can't find a place to park

to get onto the trails, but there's lots of nooks and crannies that are just so interesting all over the place, especially around Pretty Marsh, you know, that I you have to dig around to find them, but they're there. And um so that to me is a real asset. That's great. You know, um, yeah, page two of the 2009 starts with the intent of this comprehensive plan is to promote and sustain a diverse year-round community and you know, it's got sort of the closest thing it comes to. Exactly.

Say the words again. to promote and sustain a diverse year-round community by managing change of Mount Dert's principles, resources. They were going for the one-s sentence version. Yeah, they wanted it all done in one. Yeah. It could be one sentence, it could be one to three paragraphs. I think it's important for vision statements to be very accurate relations again. [laughter] What what is the So the state is looking for a vision statement. Does it have any guidelines on No,

not really. Yeah, because every community and I think that's okay. Every community needs to kind of figure out what makes sense for them. So your comment was Carabas Valley went a little too long. Three paragraphs is a basil it down. So this is an acceptable I would think we should be that's what it's going to be. [laughter] It's almost done. One sentence might be a little not enough, but like one to three paragraphs is probably all you need. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Belfast seems similar format. There's bigger. Well, I mean, there's three there's three paragraphs there basically. We're spelling. Yeah. No, no. Yeah. But don't we want to attract and retain?

Yeah. Yractain people, jobs, population, businesses, business. Yeah. Economy. Mhm. I think when I joined the planning board, uh, William asked me, you know, what what do you think about, you know, the town and where you wanted to go? And I said something like, you know, we need to move forward, but remember the past. That's a good

That's good enough. [laughter] But I also like that because you think about, you know, when we first sat down, we would talk about the fisheries and there's a lot that's going away, but that is also part of the history. So I also feel like we have to be really careful about how we, you know, zone that we don't zone these the different fisheries out. Um, so what's an aspirational uh reframing of what you just said? Just that I liked what um Allan has [laughter] PIGGY BACK ON THAT. YEAH. Um I like what Kathy said, too. What was in our statement is is good. I like the history. Remember what? Yeah. History.

Move forward. Remember, that's that's nice. [clears throat] The connection, I guess. The connection between the two. How about the concept of being welcoming to newcomers, to new businesses, to new people? Because there's always that of from away. [laughter] Do we want do we want visitors or not? We don't have a choice. Well, yeah, they come. But they also support the economy. So, right. Yeah. We kind of need some Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think the economy is a big

pillar of this and like fostering a economic opportunity so that people here can be innovative or people from away can choose to move here to be innovative to be part of it. Yeah. Because right now nobody looks at our real estate and says I'm going to start a business and grow it.

It's like where are you going to grow? That's why those lots have been empty for 10 years. A lot of the they kind of were here first in a lot of ways and they do employ a lot of people or I should tell quite a few people. The ripple is very big. It is very big. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So how do we capture that sentiment in a

taking people off? Well, I think what you're suggesting is like acknowledging that the place and role that they play that I could be putting words in your mouth, but No, no, but I mean they were here, you know, right? But that the idea is that in the future you imagine there being a collaboration continued maybe improved. I don't know. I'm not going to, you know, fify it necessarily, but like that there is that still collaboration of finding a balance. A balance. Yeah. summer inherent. Well, cuz for the summer people, it's changed dramatically for them also. How long they're here

how long their kids are here. It's very, very different than the way my children were raised. And um you know, no one comes in June and stays until September cuz school start in August. But then again, there's a lot of people starting to retire that are here June all the way now till 1 of October. There is a growing population in [laughter] summer people in that way. So it's kind of a mix. Yeah. That's an older usually an older population. Maybe not as many young, but age is an interesting thing. So having a broad spectrum of ages in town as you know the oldest state, the oldest county, the oldest town just about.

Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. So would you say that part of this statement or vision in the future is that there's a a younger population. Yeah. You need kids in school. Kids in school. Yeah. A better balance of ages. So do these have to be topics that we can actually act on in the comprehensive plan?

I mean the goals and policies that you come up with should logically point towards this vision, right? So just to like draw those or connect those dots together like let's take the ages one. So, if the um idea is that you need younger families and more children and like what do younger families need in order to either stay or locate here? Affordable housing, right? In good schools. I incented. Right. Yeah. And then I think we got the good school. I think that is a big thing for the we do have a that's what we moved all over the country and

we looked at schools and accessibility for our kids. Can they get to school? Do they ride their bikes? Are we going to have to drive them? How does that work? So, does it continue to work? You know what I mean? Does it continue to be a good school? Yeah. In the future. Well, that's the big question, right? That right. That's a whole another thing going on on the island. Yeah. Consolidation. Yeah. We're talking about aspirational what needs to happen to make sure it continues for continued good schools and education. Yes. So my previous question was do we want to say something about the culture because we can't affect that but we could want it. We should want a culture of 100%.

Okay. We can throw that in there and say you know because community gathering places that came up a lot. Um, and that's why the neighbor house is also such a gem for Yeah. and supporting like people want younger people here, but they don't want to sell their house below market value, right? You can't change that culture. You can't be like, "Why don't you take a couple hundred grand hit and sell it [clears throat] to a local family?" Somebody do that. Yeah. I know a few people that have done that. It's um

what is the culture though when let's unpack that a little bit more. So when we did the village planning workshops we heard like what do you love about the town of dessert and people would be like well we're not barber but the overriding theme all the villages a lot of what we hear in the survey is that like people know each other people um value the quiet you know or value the feeling of a small town. So what is that and is that something that is still desired or imagined in the future? Right. Small town. It's trust. It's neighborhood. Neighborhoods. Safe. Trust safe. Those things those words all did come up in those postits.

Okay. I love when you're talking about exploring. Mhm. Mhm. The other thing, think about the um the nursery school when they like for Halloween and they all paraded around the village and they did I mean there were and see the kids coming up. I would see them um carrying their skates talking to each other and laughing. This is what this is what's perfect. Mayberry. Yes. Mayberry. [laughter] My husband and I call it Arctic [clears throat] Mayberry because he's from North Carolina originally. [laughter] Arctic Mayberry. Yeah.

But there's so many opportunities that and I think parents that's what they want. I've talked to people who do two doctors that they came here. They were fantastically lucky to get um rentals but not here in Northeast. But their daughter said, "I don't ever want you to move away. I love my school. I love my teachers. And I love my friends." And he said, "Who could ask for anything better?" I said, "You're right. We used to be in the thick of it. [laughter] Library was a huge when our kids were little. Library, nursery school." Yeah. [clears throat]

Yeah. So, those are really important sort of um civic public amenities institutions that need to be supported. Yes. They need more. Is there a way that economic economically there can be some kind of support to from the town? We do do that. Yeah, we do. We do third party neighborhood house and the nursery school. Yeah. And the select board. Yeah, we all vote on it. Yeah. I don't think we need to question again what you do and don't do right now. It's the comment was support important civic institutions. That's a vision. That's an aspirational comment.

What else? Anything else? A lot of good good words. I'm going to be fascinated by the statement that's drafted [laughter] at these points. Well, so I heard Stephanie say bustling. Yeah. But then [clears throat] we we have and people are talking about more um yearround economy, right? So I feel like there's a wear component to that which doesn't go into the vision statement per se, but it's like a balance of like having places to find that bustle, but then also places where it does very much not exist, right? Okay. That's village or rural.

I wonder if we should address anything about uh the natural environment around us and and maintaining that as well. What do you how do you envision it in 101 15 years? Yeah, that we try to keep as many trees and streams and natural habitats for animals as possible because that's trails. Even the town hill bear even Yeah. Clean water. Yeah. Mhm. They got my bird feeder. Oh, did they? A bear did. Yeah. Is there any undeveloped property? I mean, there's some kind of in between Stonesville and Eagle Lake Road.

The town owns over there on Beachville Road there. Okay. Yeah. All along Beach Hill Road is town property. Okay. Yeah, I saw that. It's town property. Is that town property? There's town property all over the place. Yeah. [clears throat] [laughter] Oh, I didn't realize. Yeah, we have enough. We'll get into that, too. Yeah. The story. Yeah. All right. Suzanne, do you think that's enough for uh I think that's great. Is there anything I like how Vince was like, "What else, you know, is the plan going to talk about that we should consider?"

Um, so we talked about history, you talked a little bit about the natural environment, economy, housing, civic institutions, and public facilities, the sort of bigger cultural stuff, culture of community. Yeah. Um, you know, we hadn't talked about is sort of the medical facilities. You know, having the nursing association here and having the clinic running is is fabulous. Yes. So, would the institutions include Yeah. medical and housing association? Yeah. And libraries.

That idea of maybe like a making sure it serves all ages. Now, how will this work? Are you guys going to put all of this together to Yeah, we're you don't want us to do any kind of I mean, you are welcome to, but like we like um because there isn't an existing one. We thought uh you know, we would take a stab at writing something based on what we heard and then we would all kind of workshop it together

to have a a starting point. Um, if you are a highly inspired and motivated committee member and you want to write your own, that is fine, too. I think if we all wrote our own, it would be really hard and time consuming to like figure out how to put it together. But I'm not going to we're not going to say yeah I think it would be um more efficient to have you all think about okay these are this is sort of what I'm stewing on for a vision statement but let us draft one and then interject your thoughts into that and again whatever we draft isn't like we can tear it up and start again sometimes I find it's really helpful

just to have something on paper that you can be like ah that captures everything that we just talked about or uh that is not at all reflective of that or if we just did this and this and we can word smmith it a little bit together. Um but I do think it would be very cumbersome to try to have everybody just write your own vision statement and then we have to figure out how to make it all work. I just feeling guilty like you're letting us off too easy. I don't know. [laughter] I think we have plenty that will happen later. We're trying to be like efficiently moving through this process as well. Great. Yeah, but that could that other process could turn into, you know, a nightmare. Very very

Yeah, we definitely don't want to spend like three committee meetings on it, even though it is a very important part of the plan. And it can be like, you know, tweaked and adjusted, too. Yep. As we go. As with everything, we're not putting things out there that have to be accepted either. Like you need to tell us that this is not at all what we want. But like if our job is to just throw stuff out at you and your job is to tell us whether or not we captured it. Well, I I like that idea because it does give us a place to start the dialogue, but I also I think some of um our discussion will be around kind of the the tenor, the tone of it. I mean, Cara Basset and um Belfast have two very different ways of talking about theiru their community. So, you need to tell us.

Yeah. We need to make a different tone. Yeah. But it, you know, again, it should be um short enough that people remember it. It's not a novel about the history of Mount Dert. You know, that's why the therefore the one to three paragraphs and you know, it should capture the things that you're hearing from the rest of the community. Um and and be aspirational. Like the hard part now for us is a lot of the things that we're going to be talking about are aspirational. Mhm. Like we're going to be talking about from this point, we're going to be moving into talking about goals. And goals are aspirational, too. So, they're not problem statements, they're goal statements. We know what the problems are. Now, we're trying to figure out what what where we want to go.

And then we're going to be getting into here's what we want to do to try to achieve our goal. So that I think is a challenge because it's very easy to be like, "Oh my god, you know, you have a lot of problem solvers. Belfast feels very theirs feels very it's what the picture is almost downtown whereas Mount Der is so much more spread out." And yeah, I don't be like you could even get online and read a hundred Yeah. vision statements if you want to get a feel for it. We just put these together to show you like these are two kind of different vision statements that are sort of like

just what a vision statement could look like. But Mount Dessert's vision statement is going to be its own vision statement, not a copy of, you know, either of these. And I will say like with this community, they are very actively thinking about how do we market

this place, right? And that's part of their economy, right? And so it's they're marketing it to new businesses, they're marketing it to new uh community members that they want to like, you know, come and live there. Um but they talk about promotion of um the town in a certain way. And I mean it's so closely tied obviously to the um ski mountain and the cross country skiing and the at and all that but like that's a big part of like the tone, right? [snorts] Yeah. Yeah. I think most people don't want to promote our tone. I was thinking that same thing.

Yeah. I was just thinking, well, Mount Dessert exclusive [laughter] why we've got the problem we have. Yeah. I think that's the one of the issues we're Yeah. now. I'm not suggesting it be like that. I'm just saying like that's part of a big part of like what the energy that they are bringing to it. It's more that we need to sell the future. We have to have an enticing create a picture their carabasa valley is creating identity that's tied to their full season recreational and outdoors and whatever other c cultural things that they're bringing to the table. You are doing the same thing but in different words. It's not about that those things, but it's right this is what we envision our community being in

the long term. We are thinking in 10 or 15 year increments for certain things but like this is our vision of the town of Mount Dert and it you know it is important to get it to think about it because it if I can you can envision a vision statement that is very different in one tone could be very much like yep we envision the town of Mount Dert being um and I've said this before we've kind of talked about it a little bit but um a seasonal uh short-term rental community and um you know catering to summer tourism. that is [laughter] not at all what you wrote down. But if that were the vision that was sort of that's the town's vision and you have put it out there

and then you're going to think about goal your goals to help you achieve that vision and they're different goals than if you come up with all of the things that you just talked about. you know, like uh you know, year- round community opportunities and aspirational things that you're talking about, but like you gota like I put that into that context because it is that important and it's I know it's it is hard for some people to be like think about the the positivity spin of it, but that this is what you want your town to be. So, it's an important part of the plan and it probably needs to be a little more than one sentence, but probably not, you know, six pages. No.

Yeah. Okay. Does that help? Does that make sense? It's a little bit hard to talk like describe. Yeah. And because like Vince was asking like what are the criteria that the state gives you and it's like it's not Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] But I think in that way it's kind of good that it's a little bit flexible. Mhm. But it does set I mean if you visualize now about a comprehensive plan like this is the thing that wraps it together

and then other things that happen underneath that are part of it. So you start to get a real feel for okay I see where you know the organizational structure of a comp plan comes into play. No, I'm sure you know about this, but you know that years ago the town, the ad hoc economic development committee invited the Urban Land Institute in like 2012. And I wonder if there's any value in this committee being familiar with that, looking at their recommendations, etc. Yeah, I think a Northeast Harbor Main Street study though.

Well, Northeast Harbor, not necessarily Main Street. I mean, one of the key things that came out of that was you've got to find ways to connect Main Street with the harbor, with the marina. You know, one thing I will say, this brings it up. So, I'm going to answer the question is sure, we can add that to the comp plan documents and everybody can read it and when we start talking about, you know, future land use, that might be that's a useful tool. Number one. And number two, one of the other comments I thought was really interesting from the public meetings that kind of filtered through was like equal investment in other villages, not just Northeast. And so I think that I mean it is something that we've talked about a lot and when we were going around doing our village meetings, put on the board that I think was [laughter] Yeah,

it's not just Northeast. Right. Right. Yeah. That's my only hesitation. is that it just focuses on this right valuable stuff in there that is applicable beyond that um subset six eight villages whatever people are you have to remember sound village our thing they they want to have the signs and they want to control the um traffic oh yeah well building I have somebody that we don't I have somebody that by neighbor that's what he would want to do. Should we move on to schedule the January meeting and 2026 outlook?

Y [clears throat] let's move on. Um the next thing we were going to talk about is look ahead 2026 and so while we're thinking about that a little bit um the January meeting is I think it's the first so we need to the eth would be move it to the eth. I don't know. The 8th is the next Thursday. Y is the Thursday. There's a community cafe that day. Sweet. Good. Is this the first? Well, it's actually the second day. The first is the first really big one that day then. No, I have it on there as Yep. I mean, the ETH works.

Oh, you know what? It might be that we're sponsoring at that time. Is it the Yeah, ethan. Does January 8th work for everybody? I don't [laughter] think there's my desk.

Did January 8th work for you? Yes. Okay. So, we're doing 5:00 on the 8th. Yep. Let's do it. Um I we can confirm with the town. Yeah. Tomorrow. Not so so as not to put you on the spot. No, it's just my phone is fighting me. What's that? Nothing. My phone is fighting me on a All right. Well, that's pencil in the eighth. Yep. Great. All right. And so now moving forward just again because we always have to follow the bouncing ball on where we are in the process so that people

we all understand where we're going. We've spent a bunch of time updating all the data. people hopefully have read the data and if you have you have some assignments that you're supposed to read over your section of the plan and give us some comments. Some people have, some people haven't, but we still have a little time to like polish that up. Yep.

So, that's sort of ongoing. Now, we're going to be now then we've had this sort of transitional public meeting time. We're going to spend the January meeting working on the vision statement and we're going to jump start jumping into what we'll call the policy discussions. So that is going to be um basically January, February, March, April, May, June with the goal, I think, of trying to have most of that if not all of that wrapped up by the end of the the winter so that we can engage with um the p the public again in the summertime when we can really have conversations with the summer residents that are here and everybody more fully. and it happens to coincide with times where we probably don't want to meet as much as we might. And I do think right now we have monthly meetings. I don't think that we need to have every other week meetings yet, but there will be topics where we will want to have every other week meetings. And I preface all that by saying two every other week meetings sound like a great idea when you're just trying to rush through things, but there's a bunch of stuff that has to happen between each every other week. And in my experience, sometimes that work doesn't and can't happen.

So, we need to just be mindful if we could of the let's let's plan for the once a month meeting. We'll have a topic that we might want to do every other month meetings. Does that structure seem okay? I think it'd be nice if we could try to get this done for the following year warrant. We're trying to get it done for the 27 town meeting. And the only way to do that is by finishing this work by the end of this winter into the early spring and then doing some public engagement and then getting the draft off to the state sort of and end of the summer and then

having a warrant or having the plan ready by January of next year. So a year from basically now we'll be done. Wow. That's the only way to do it because we have a lot to do now. [clears throat] Then we want to then we have to do some more engagement and then there's some time that the state has to Yes, that's what I So, we would have to [cough and clears throat] Never mind. So, I don't think we have to meet every month. I don't think we're going to be able to meet more than once a month all the time. I do think there will be times where we will have to meet up more than once a month. And the benefit of this is that we can kind of frontload the multiple meeting months in the time where we're more able to have those meetings.

So I know you don't want us to all bring vision statements. I'm definitely going to write one because it helps me great like like once you start writing stuff down, it's just clarity, right? You're like, "Wow, that's not how to write that." And you do [laughter] or that was great. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Um, should that be something that we do going forward on goals as homework? Is it better that we spend time? Let's talk about that. That and finish this conversation first. Yeah. Let's sort of answer the structure of the conversation a little bit and then we'll going to jump into like how we're going to break out. Okay. Means a little bit I think.

Okay. Okay. So the goal statements like the idea that we're going to be getting into is the we're doing an update to the plan too. We have to keep that in mind. So there's also a lot of good work that's already been done. We don't want to lose that work. So there's a pretty methodical way that we're going to have to go through each thing. And um Suzanne's pulling it up on the screen. We've already gone through the effort of like taking out [snorts] um each topic area from this comprehensive plan and putting like the goal and then the table underneath it of all the strategies and objectives. Sorry, it's like really small. Yep.

Yeah. So, the idea is like we're not starting from scratch and the best thing to do is revisit what is existing right now and think about, you know, does this still make sense? Does it need to be rewarded? Is it still relevant? Um we don't typically write the plans that we write in this exact like format but um this is the content that we would be starting with to revise. [clears throat] That's kind of how we would approach it, Vince. And um we can talk about like how you know what the difference is between a goal language is really aspirational. Like the goal in this case would be um [clears throat] a year year- round economy and a quality of life for all of them. Um and the policy statement or objective below is usually measurable. So it's like increase, decrease, expand, contract, things like that.

And then the actions are like create a you know task force to collect information on blah blah blah if that makes sense. Sort of the hierarchy of like the goal policy action. So this is what we would start with for each topic and we would um what we've done in the past that's worked well is like leading up to the meeting we would send it out to you guys and say like read this over come prepared with your thoughts

and it could be a matter of rewriting it or not and then we would essentially talk about it in the meeting, make notes um you know make comments on it and then we bring it back to the office and we clean it up based on what the feedback back is that you provide. I can show you like the example of the like this was the economy one in Carabaset Valley. So in this meeting the committee had looked at it in advance and then um came with all of their comments and ideas and I basically was you know typing in everything they had to say. We're doing some actual like

word smithing and then you know making notes um here and then the final version of it and these are all the um actions from the existing plan and so many of their economy actions and uh goals are also recreation actions and goals and some of them are transportation and then there's the state suggested ones too. So the state also provides recommended um goals and action items. So we would like sort of provide you that every meeting to in advance and then we would come and sort of like work through it.

That's where we would come up with like what do you want to keep? What do you want to change? What needs to be added or removed? That would be the time where you would say hey I'm thinking about this and I think we should add a goal under economy something like this. and we did a discussion about that. Okay. Take it easy with the premier recreation destination state. I was going to say I think that ought to be ours, not [laughter] and I would say in your in this in the current plan.

So you might not we probably won't get into this too much. Although I will say like the the goals goal statements are not quite the way that the current plan has them written and we may talk about like, hey, maybe we want to make this a goal statement and then what it goal, objective, action. Like there's there's like a structure to it. And not to keep harping on it, but like it's important to try to get that right. And this isn't 100% always the case, but we we oftenimes think about like the actions are like oftentimes can form the work plan of a certain committee, a certain department within the town, so on so forth. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. And a lot of places that's like, oh, I see, you know, if you're if we're talking to the the town manager like, hey, there's some things that we need to, you know, be on Yeah. on the agenda for certain certain things. All of them, all the actions will also have like a recommended time frame, which um you know, you decide like what does short-term mean to you, what does medium-term mean, longterm, and then the suggested responsibility. And you can't assign it all to Alex. [laughter] that's what they're doing in it shouldn't all be planning board either because I think in the current planning a lot of stuff is just planning board and that's

so you have to be really thoughtful about like who's really the right you know um group of uh committees or whatever it is to tackle this and sometimes um like when we were writing Belfast they actually were deciding during that time to create a new um task force or committee around housing that they didn't So we had to go back in the plan and like reassign a lot of these great ideas to this like formation committee. Yeah. Gave something to do. Yeah. [laughter] Exactly. But a separate entity I'm thinking like the chamber of commerce. Oh yeah.

Would you ever suggest that they're the right entity to carry forward some goal, some objective on the economy? There should be like a conversation with them. they should be like brought in as part of that and say hey we're talking about this topic and we you know would love your input on this or you know is this I think that's a pragmatic [clears throat] way to approach it and at the state level what department is it that you send this to well um and who are those people there's a new organization yeah uh Tom Mirao [laughter] people

yeah um it used to be um the state planning office and then I think Le Page got rid of that and then now they have the uh municipal planning assistance program and their staff there but there's a big sort of reorganization happening at the state level. Um there's a new uh I don't even know if you call it a department. Yeah. Called Mocha, main office of community affairs. And so some of those people are gonna go under that umbrella. But yeah, there's a group of people who their entire job is to review comprehensive plans. And do we ever engage with the Hancock County Planning Office planning? We talk to them like every week just about about different town plans.

Yeah. Do they get to weigh in or would they be helpful? And they don't I wouldn't say not the kind of thing they do. Okay. We may engage with them on the right regional coordination stuff, but that's pretty much it. Yeah. For this plan. Yeah. So structurally, does that make sense?

Yep. But the other thing we forgot to mention is like another big part of this plan is revisiting revising the future land use plan. And so we think it strategically makes sense and is efficient to essentially have that up like printed out as a map the existing um you know land use plan or future land use plan from the existing plan and talk about as we're creating goals and um creating action items and these strategies like the where component, right? So, it's like, is there something on this map that needs to change in order to meet this goal? Thinking about it that way, because one of the things the state wants to see is a um future land use plan and growth areas, which you have now in your plan, but the question is like, do these need to change and if so, how and things like that.

Yeah. So, we would sort of like have that side by side with the flip chart essentially. Yeah. Everybody should become very familiar with the future land use plan and also with new legislative um new legislation the growth areas are really important. So they have a connotations. So you're going to share the new legislative when we get into right the right topic. Yes, we will. Yep. Yeah. So, yes, we'll have that up and we'll be able to talk it all through.

So, given that this is an update, one of the principles that we had started off with is that we don't need to spend tons of time on certain topic areas whereas we may want to spend a lot more time on other topic areas. And I think um one of the questions we had is just to confirm um one of the the the two or three most important topic areas that we've been wrestling with so far are really housing and economy. I don't know that there's a third one, but the other ones sort of sort of trickle in there somewhere. And the s our suggestion is that we pick one of those to start with. And so next month we're going to be talking about the vision statement. Then maybe maybe we'll do a little 101 on here's the future of land use plan just so we're all familiar with it without spending a ton of time like diving into it and then let's hit which one of those topics do you guys want to start with is really the question and then we'll just start to filter in the other ones because I think so some meetings we'll be able to do a couple topic areas maybe like we're going to we're going to do um history and and um recreation in one meeting because we're just going to look stuff and everything will be good and we've got a couple new goals and here's our thing. [snorts] But for the other ones, we might want to spend more time on. So, we'll kind of flip-flop, you know, we'll talk about it one meeting and then we'll get back to it at another meeting. That kind of thing. But we have to like be efficiently working through less in order to meet our timelines.

So, where do we want to start? What topic is calling you between those two between any Yeah. I mean, you can pick it. You could say, you know what, we'd rather start on public facilities. We can gladly housing is the elephant in the room. Yeah. Though I'd say economy may be I was trying to figure below housing. Like if you don't have an economy, there's no reason to have houses. Yeah. If you don't have houses, you're not going to have any economy. Economy.

But I guess what's the lynch pin? If uh if we have zoning issues that prohibit businesses or we have regulations that prohibit businesses, that's something to take care of first. Uh you can always build houses in commercial zones, but you can't have businesses in residential zones. So for me, economy looks like maybe the something to practice because we want to get housing right. [laughter] We want to get it all right. We're going to get it all right. What's the Anybody else thoughts? Doesn't really matter. We're going to get into it. Do you want to like start with a biggie first or do you want to start with a

with a few successes? No, I figured I feel like we should start with a biggie. I mean, it's going to help it's going to help drive our our dialogue throughout and the way we work together. when we were talking about this, it feels like there's a lot of been from the start of this project, like everyone's got good energy to like dive in and, you know, dig into that the big stuff.

Yep. I The reason I like the big ones first is that if we have to make up time later, the other ones, not to short change them, but might be a little bit easier. where whereas if you start with some easier ones and then it starts to lag out a little bit then you're scrambling to actually deal with the things that are most important to the community. So

this is I think like one of the most exciting parts of this process and I think it'll be really interesting. Um but we also have to be like really mindful of our own sort of like fatigue around right as because there's so many topics to go through. So, as we're doing this, we have to always remind ourselves to be like um efficient and um you know, not run out of steam because you don't want to short change the stuff at the end, right? We could have an outline and go through it page by page, whatever. Yep. That's what we're going to do. Stay on track. Yeah. And [clears throat] and

try to give a time limit for each one. I know that's not easy. Mhm. For sure. But none of this is easy. Yep. And I also again we'll continue to challenge you to ident. So when we're talking about ideas like the ideas aren't bad ideas, they're all ideas, right? So we just need to figure out that path. [clears throat] Awesome. What else? We going to go over more than just that, Suzanne, or do we want to start like laying out the order of in which we want to go in or do you want to just sort of take the first couple and see?

I think we'll do that. Okay. Yeah. Start with economy. Sure. Go there. That's the consensus of the group. Sure. Great. All right. Um I don't think we ever dealt with this at the very beginning but it at a certain point if you feel it makes sense for us we can also regroup and come up with some you know ground rules by which we make decisions but I don't think we're quite there yet right that has have had to do that put the swords on the table here's here's what it is this is how we're going to do this no punching kicking biting [laughter] y gets feisty the police have been in this meeting room Yes. [laughter]

Yes, they actually they have. Yes, that's true. That's true. Hopefully not for us. [laughter] Good. Was it first? Hopefully it's last. Anything else you wanted to go over? Good job, everybody. Yeah, [laughter] that's okay. [clears throat] Suzanne, did I send you mine? I did. Okay. Yeah, I don't think I have homework and I haven't done it yet. Okay, I was listening to that. Any public comment after listening to us? Yeah, just thank you. It's um I'm still pretty deep in the lead starting off do some stuff and stuff. So, just good to get a chance to listen in a little bit.

Great. Thank you. All right. Right. Motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjourn. Kathy, how did you guys do? How long did you All in favor? Hi. 15 minutes and it's done. 27.