Comprehensive Plan Committee - Regular Meeting

Here we go. We did we get minutes from the last meeting? I'm not sure. I don't know, but I'll approve them. I didn't I did we did not distribute. Yeah, I don't think we received minutes. Okay. I'm sure somebody All right. We probably did get minutes. We maybe in December we probably need to figure out I think there's several minutes we need to approve. Yeah. Um not seeing any public. We can skip that. And then do you want to dive into the public meeting and presentation part or would you like to wait for Suzanne? Suzanne's just here. Just

sorry to miss you in person. I have a solo parenting for several days.

All right. All right. Well, let's Do you want to dive in? Heather. Uh, yes. Yeah. Should we dive right in? Yep. Let's dive right in. We're we're at the public meeting review and preparation part. Awesome. Um, Suzanne, are you able to share the screen or do you want me to try to do that? I can I can do it. And if I'm not sure on my end, I'll let you know.

Not sure we have anything to share right this second. But, um, yeah, we wanted to spend the majority of the meeting tonight just kind of going over the meeting again. um talking about the agenda, thinking about some of the materials, um outreach, child care, food, some of the logistics. So, um I think maybe we'll just dive in. Um and I might actually take some of this in reverse order if you don't mind on the agenda. Um so, one of the questions that we've talked about as a group before is whether or not we should have some food at the event. Um which is going to be from 5 to 7. Yep. Alan's going to bring some uh peanut M&M's, so that's great.

Halloween candies, leftover Halloween candy. Yeah, that's a good idea. And uh what we um one option that we've considered is we could just call Hannifford and get like a you know cheese plate and a veggie fruit plate and bring that. Um unless anybody here wants to volunteer to do any other logistics for food. Do we have a budget for anything? Um, I mean, I don't think we have a huge budget, but and I don't think it's like a catering budget, Kathy. Um, what were you thinking?

I just wondered how much there might be to spend on anything and that often uh just platters of food from Hanniffords could be good enough. Yeah. Yeah, I think we'll do I think that's what we were planning like u you know the cheese plates or the platter pl do that and buy a few extra like hummus or something for the veggies or whatever. Y might be something a little bit different but yeah. Yeah, when we've done like uh our neighborhood meetings since we brought you know cheese and crackers and some waters and stuff just for people to have. So yep. Okay, I think that's fine.

Great. So we'll take care of that then. I'm um you know I might have a particular interest in the kids and I don't know how many people have RSVPd but if it's helpful I'd be happy to pick up some oranges and popcorn or like some something additional for that room. I'm glad you mentioned that. I did want to think about that too. Or like a pizza. I'm not even sure. Maybe something more robust.

Yeah, right now there are seven um kids or there's four families, seven kids needing child care. Um, I'm guessing we'll have and I know we're going to get to this in the list too. Um, people like more RSVPs trickle in tomorrow and then I'm sure people are going to just show up with their kids which is great and they can participate. Like one mom asked if it was okay if her kid like left the child care arrangement to come participate or be near her in the meeting and I was like absolutely you know. So, um I think it's great and if there are any older kids too who are kind of interested in participating, that's of course welcome, but I think for um the kids, it would be really helpful to have snacks specific to them. Yeah. Yeah. I thought about a pizza, too. I just I don't know like the logistics of um you know, nothing's really open except in Bar Harbor right now. Maybe for a pizza.

I would think like the the Sumsville onetop pizza like getting a couple that might work fine. Um that's true. Yeah, we could like pick up two pizzas and have some My kids love Clementines, but yeah, something like that. Yeah, the Halloween candy in the adult room. Yes, 100%. Not do not give it to the kids, right? Extra sugar drinks too for the kids. That's what we're saying. No. All right. So, we'll circle around. Yeah. Go ahead. That was it. I was just wrapping up that part of it, unless you had something else to add, Suzanne.

Nope. About the food. No. Okay, great. And so, that kind of leads into child care, but we do have um I think you mentioned seven kids signed up or eight kids signed up. Seven kids right now. Yeah. And we have some volunteers from the high school. I think we have two. I reached out to Wendy to see if we could get another one because I think if we have more kids showing up, we need more than two babysitters. Um I'm going to ask my daughter to help out in a sort of unofficial babysitting capacity. She's 11 and a half and eager to take the babysitting course. Likes playing with four-year-olds. So

perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Um maybe I was going to see if Caroline was available, too. So, okay, we'll just get we'll keep that in the pipeline. Okay. But I did Yeah. I asked Wendy today if she can track down at least one other student. But I'm so glad that we're able to offer this because I oftentimes think it's a deal breaker for a lot of people to attend these kinds of things. Right. So, so, uh, so from the high school, you said you have two right now.

I think there are two. Yep. And I mean, I don't know who they are yet. Um, but I'm hoping they definitely show up. So, um, I don't know if any of you know I don't really know Wendy. just her. But if you want to check in with her also or um if you know who like find out who the kids are and you know them personally, be you know supportive of them and say thank you for volunteering. I do. I can check in. And then um Nol and I were just talking. He was going to ask Caroline and my daughter and Caroline are the same age of Oh, great. It's probably worth us asking. Sure. Yeah.

Somethings might be helpful. Yeah. Okay. Caroline looks doesn't look like a 20some, but No. Okay. Okay. Great. Um All right. Well, the other important thing is outreach. So, a lot of the success really depends on how much outreach we can get out between now and then. Um Suzanne and I um figured out the the whole mailing, believe it or not, like trying to deal with the town of Mount Dessert to to get a mailing out to everybody in the town desert is like a nightmare. It's not even I don't even for some reason it's literally almost impossible. So So congratulations. Yeah, it's an order. But what we did

No, that's what we were. like we uh figured out how to use the direct mail system and then we ordered the postcards and did all the things and I think some people have already gotten them. I appreciate people are excited about Oh, good. They liked it. Excellent. And so that actually wasn't I mean at the end of the day not a overly it turned out to be not as complicated as we thought. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. the US Postal Service. I mean, they have that all dialed in because it's really for businesses to advertise, you know, like if you need roofing work or painting work or political mailers and things. So, they once we figured out the system, it was very straightforward. Yeah.

Good. Yeah. That was like, well, me like old person being like, you can't. This is too much. N says he's going to send his holiday cards out that way. We have some extra postcards here. Um, and it would be great if anybody wants some extras to hand out. And there's four people here tonight, but um, if you want to take a couple extras before you leave. U, I I really think it would be helpful though um, if we know people in each of the villages um, you know, to make a phone call or something and just try to encourage like two or three people to show up that we can at least count on to be there. M um

and I just want to make sure everybody sent it out to the email list that we talked about earlier and you know we we sent you the emails but do you need any other information from us to try to get the word but so I think with the agenda for this meeting we included all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. There's there's something that came up on my machine that was just like garbage. It didn't translate for you. No, it didn't translate. So, I wonder what that was. Suzanne, maybe just I'll write a note and you can write a note. We have to follow just follow up with everybody on a We'll resend the PDF. Maybe do it as a PDF. Yeah, it came It was just I've never seen anything quite like it.

Interesting. Okay. Sorry. Of the poster. Is that what you said? Uh, yeah. Or the postcard because I got the I got this and the agenda, but the middle one was Hard to tell what it was. Okay, great.

Great. So, how do you guys think the outreach is going? Have people I mean, I I was we were at a meeting last Thursday and Darlan was there and he hadn't heard anything about it. So, curious what's going on. I've been c I I I've texted it to um several of the younger people that I wanted to get and um and I have um there's some other people in I'm going to say Sound Village who are planning on coming, right? Because they want to have a sign that says Sound Village.

Drive slower. I said, "It's not quite exactly what this is about, but you can voice that on your thing." So, sure. Um, and I'll take some to the medical center and um maybe to the nursing association. Yep. And I'll take them to church. Okay. Anybody else? I don't get out much. Okay. Oh, come on. I mean, I'm just back 36 hours, but I've talked to three different people that have received the postcard and completely were aware of it. I think the presentation of this is so good. Well, yeah,

that's all Suzanne's magic. She's the wiz behind every It looks good coming out of the muscle because because my husband's like, "So, where do we live on this map?" But I do think the next step is for us to be doing our outreach, whether it's an email, a phone call to the people that we know to say, "Hey, you've received this and um you know, we encourage you to, you know, come to the neighbor." And are there any signs at the neighborhood house? I didn't see they had the lunchon today. Nope. I'm not really sure if what happened if there's one there actually.

Yeah, I'm hoping to head over there tomorrow um and could put one up. I want to scout out where the kids will be. hanging out. Just check in with I know at the town office during voting, right, N? Yep, there's one right over here. Yeah, we can um hang one at the libraries also. I bet they would put some of the postcards just a little stack on their counter as well at the library. That's That's great. Yeah. Yeah, I hung one up at the Jessup Library and at the um YMCA. It's great.

Also, how about the elementary school or nursery school? Yeah, it's on my list. It's on my list to check back in with the elementary school to see if they can send it out in their weekly newsletter. Um I am pretty sure it's on their calendar. Okay, perfect. Yeah, the principal whose name is totally escaping me now was great and wrote me right back earlier when I had mentioned it. So, her name is Heather. I did just look at like the most recent newsletter and it's not on there, but I did um I'm not active on the PTO, but I was told that it was shared around through the PTO. Okay, great.

Yeah. So null and I always, you know, try and estimate how many people we think will come and uh yeah, we just don't have a sense of that. We only bought 100 ping pong balls. So people just kidding. That would be that would be spectacular. would be a turnout um more than almost any public meeting that we Yeah, the annual town meeting doesn't even get that. How many people typically come to town meeting? I think there's probably close to 100. Yeah, last year.

The last time we had uh about 80 last year. Yeah. And they tend to start leaving after two hours. Yeah. I think it was I think it was more than 80, but we do bump into quorum issues sometimes during the end of long meetings. Yeah, we need to have uh something robust on the agenda every year to get people at the end. Y something to be mad about. We'll think of something. Raffle off a new car. Uh, you know, I think uh I mean I don't know what you guys think, but one of yours somewhere between 50 and if we get 50 people that'll be great.

That's what I was wondering if you guys have kind of a If we get 75 people that would be spectacular. Okay.

Yeah. So, it's kind of tricky because some of what we've planned are sort of small group like sit around the table activities and so we were sort of thinking it if it's 50, you know, five uh or six tables like it's I don't know. It's hard to it's kind of hard to know. You want that to be a big enough group to generate good discussion but not too big. So we may I don't know we may plan for like 70 and then we t we typically plan for more than a 10.

Yep. Will there be a table for people to check in so we know who's actually there? Yes. Okay. Why don't we go through the agenda? That will answer questions like that. Kathy.

Okay. So yeah, I mean that we have kind of a working agenda which I'm kind of just going to go through with everybody and it's similar to what we talked about at the last meeting but we've made some adjustments but it doesn't hurt to reiterate and then I'd like to just sort of talk about um what the committee's role is in this whole meeting and think about that. So you know again to reiterate the purpose of the meeting it's really to there's a couple of different things that we're trying to achieve here. One of them is just to inform people that there is a comprehensive plan update going on and kind of why it's important to participate and at least pay attention to um you know there's hopefully we'll generate a little bit of buzz around it and some excitement around it. Also making people just sort of talk to each other is is always helpful. Um for our purposes though we're working on trying to get a little more information out of folks so that we can start to generate the vision statement. So it may be looking at the existing vision statement um as a committee after this meeting and then using some of the information that we can glean from this meeting to help us refine the vision statement which is a requirement as part of the comprehensive plan. Um, we hope to get into some goals discussions and we also hope to get into a little bit of um, we'll call it future land use discussions, but it's really like the kind of where are we going? Um, you know, what would what do we want to do and how do we get there kind of conversations. Um, so the meeting logistically um, starting off with the registration and we're going to do this meeting a little bit different than some of the other meetings that you've been to. So, people will kind of come in and register. Um, we're going to give them a little registration packet at the at the registration table, which would include a name tag, um, you know, pen, uh, marker, um, sticky notes, a ping pong ball because there's going to be a bit a

ping pong ball exercise. Um, and then instructions. And so the beginning part of the meeting we basically and and also a little bit we'll say um more than likely what we're going to end up doing is just sort of randomizing name tags by by putting a number you know on it. Maybe if we if we set up seven tables we'll just have one through seven on name tags and then

that's your assigned table when we get to that point. And then the first part of the meeting is really going to be um hey we'd love it if you walk in if you can um you know go to the map over here and put a dot or star on the where you're where you live just so we can kind of get a sense of like who at the end of this like how many you know how well represented was the the town. Um then we are also going to have a ping pong ball exercise which is basically um Suzanne you can jump in um because we've been sort of uh refining it a little bit but um we're we're going to ask people to vote on one of three um for now we'll just call priorities

but uh using some of the information that we've gleaned from the survey we're going to have like a wordcloud poster behind this ping pong ball exercise and so put your dot uh And the thing that you think we should prioritize most of um and and what was the question that we landed on today? I couldn't remember. It was

Yeah, I can't remember if it was like, you know, one of the survey questions is like um either was what are your top concerns or something about that and using the summarized language from that. We have these glass jars. They look like kind of big cookie jars and each one would have be labeled with one of it's a way to get them to kind of engage with that survey material a little bit at first. And so they would each one would be labeled with either a word or a phrase from that question um that stood out. And it's just like an interesting visual way for people to see in the moment uh what they're thinking, what others are thinking. and for us to understand, you know, of the people that are here participating, this thing or these things are really important to them.

So, it helps like how that kicks in later on down the line in the comp plan. And then we're going to do um a vision values exercise. Yes. So, are there only three goals that you're asking about? Yeah, there's not they're not goals. They're like Yeah, it'll be three questions. Three questions. Okay.

Yeah. So like one of the questions is like what are the top three challenges facing the town of Mount Desert? And so in the survey summary uh one of the things was u affordable housing and you know a lot of these things are related but um some of it has to do with sort of like economic development. Um some of it has to do with like year round. We still have to kind of do a little bit of work on our end to figure out how to pick those things that are distinct enough and engaging enough. Okay, thanks.

And so then during the So this will be like a registration and this all of this stuff is sort of like a 45minut process. So, it's kind of then the next step is more like a it's a we'll call it like a flip chart exercise, but it's essentially like a series of six we have six questions that we've developed that we're going to ask people to go around the room and answer, you know, think about the question, write down an answer to the question and put it up on the sticky on the on the flip chart as an answer to the question. So things like um you know what does the future of Mount Desert look like or um you know what's one thing the community could do do to make the town a better place like those kinds of questions and then write it down put it on the sticky note. Um and these are like again ways to sort of get beyond the survey a little bit but also help us develop those vision values um statements that are going to inform the larger conversation around goals that we have. It's somewhat intentionally duplicative with the survey. Not identical, but because there are people coming who won't have taken the survey and that's okay.

Gail, you're muted.

Here I am. Um, in terms of the order in which we do these things, um, doesn't it make sense to explain what the comprehensive plan process is and what first so that we I mean otherwise we're going to get people to say I want to I want a speed limit sign somewhere and and should we be encouraging people to think about what why are we here and what what are we doing? What is this about? This is this is about how we use our community, how we use our land. And um so if people don't have that understanding before they're ticking off what the most important things are, I I'm I'm not quite sure I understand the order of business.

Yeah. So we we uh go back and forth on the on the scale and like you know the traditional way to do kind of a public meeting is everybody comes in and then everybody sits down and then everybody goes back and does an exercise and then we go back get back together. And so we're trying to do a little bit of a different approach here which is um the first part of the meeting which by the way we can also and you are all here understanding what we're trying to accomplish in this time. So your part of your responsibility is to also help people understand why you know and what they're supposed to be doing during this time. So it's kind of a twofold reason to do it. One is like let's just get in the room and provide an opportunity for people to interact with one another around these questions. And we've done it in a few different locations and it actually does work to get people kind of like engaged in the conversations. So what we'd like to do is not do the traditional like let's sit down and listen to you know this first and then get back together once this time is up. We are going to gather people together and we're going to actually use these questions as part of a larger group discussion before we get into some small group work to talk about goals and future land use. Yeah, I'll just add I think some of the strategy too and I think it works both ways and it's like N said it's the traditional approach is to have everyone come in a certain time and sit down and listen. Um and it's very kind of like we're going to reveal this information to you. Um but in this way we thought it's a little bit more informal at first where people can um not everybody will arrive you know right at five and people can kind of engage with this information a little bit at first on their own and interpret it and you know think it through and it's okay if they you know some people are always just going to kind of stand next to their friend and talk a little bit um and that's okay too

but then after that to bring them back together and actually reflect on have people reflect on what they wrote and how they responded. So, the idea was to give them a little bit more I don't know if agency is the right word at first, but a little bit more self-guided time and interactive time at first and then kind of launch into the presentation part. Oh, there it's a good question, Gail, because there's we do kind of go back and forth like it's a little bit uncomfortable just sort of being like, "Hey, let's just go for it at the beginning without some sort of like directive." But we have

the risk.

Yeah, I would just say like the risk is like people are like, "What the heck is happening? Like what's going on? This is so disorganized." And so it's like on us to be really clear when they check in to make an agenda that's really clear. this is what we're doing at first and it's okay that we're standing around for 15 20 minutes you know and getting the committee encouraging people to you know make sure they complete these different tasks. Yeah. Is there a qu uh an opportunity for a statement like one or twoliner on the agenda like at the bottom or the top that might fill what fulfill what you're asking or looking for Gail in like the the most brief way but that would kind of say this is what the comp plan is.

Yeah absolutely.

Yeah. And that reminds me also we could um I keep I always forget when I go to the neighborhood house to ask them to get the mic like a mic set up because it can get pretty loud in there and some of us don't project um as well as we could in that room. Um and and if we're miked up we could also be like you know get people's attention and if things seem a little out of control there's there are ways to kind of facilitate this kind of

early chaos. So, it should be kind of I don't know. I think it'll be an interesting way to just get people going. We'll also have around the room a bunch of a series of posters which I think Suzanne um showed you at our last meeting like the templates for some of those that are basically the data that you know sort of the infographics of what we've learned through our research on you know all of the pump plant topics which is also kind of interesting like by way of like hey go walk around and get a sense of like your place because you're going to need that information a little bit later in the meeting too. Yeah, I can share those. I mean, we're still editing them um with the graphic designer that we work with um to add and adjust some of the way things are organized on the poster, but I can bring those up to you so you can kind of get a sense of those. I think I might have last time.

Yeah, maybe you want to just pull them up, Suzanne, and just this is kind of what they look like. Yes, we're we are words smmithing them now. So, we don't we don't need edits at this point. But I mean, and then again, at some point after this meeting, it will be interesting to bring those back in here and say like, how do we use these posters more and how do we make them? We can always make adjustments to the posters, you know. Yeah. Let's see. You guys see that?

Yeah. Good. Yep. I'm gonna um Oops, that's a little zoomed out. Uh yeah, so we're still kind of moving some things around and changing some of the um headings to be consistent, but the idea is like there's for some of them there's quite a bit of information on there to look at. And so during this time, this initial period of the meeting, they check in, they get their sticky notes, and they answer their questions on the flip chart. they, you know, put their ping pong ball in the cookie jar and then people are looking at these as well and also talking to each other. Um, and this is just meant to be a more engaging and accessible way to digest some of the information that's in the um in the Whoops, sorry, in the um inventories because the inventories are really dense. Um, yeah. So, those will be up around the room, too. And then on the table on the tables, we'll have 11 by 17 copies of these also for the groups to work with.

Can we can we have access to those to read them beforehand so that we Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'm hoping to send the remainder of our edits to the graphic designer tomorrow morning and then um we'll send them out to you. She turns stuff around really fast, so we'll send those out to you right away. That's some interesting stuff on there.

Yeah, it's like I know you you probably observe we've tried a lot of different ways to kind of synthesize this information, right? like we made those like couple slides and we were going through it as a um committee at each meeting and obviously the inventory chapter like I was saying has got all of the information. This is the version that we think is um better for the public to kind of get engaged with.

Yeah. And so I would just put the plug in like not for the public meeting because we will not have time to turn that around at that point, but even as you're thinking about those posters and the im the corresponding like inventory piece like you know as we get into this a little bit more if there's some feedback on hey it would have been really interesting to see this um stat you know. Yeah. particular topic and you know that would be helpful at some point too because we're we're kind of like just pulling it together based on what's what works for us but you know it would be great for you guys to take a look at it. All right.

I have a quick quick clarifying question. Is the vision and values that the sticky note chart activity is contributing towards is that to guide the comprehensive plan process or is that for the comprehensive plan document to guide the movement forward with is that a weird do you understand the word? Yes. The second part. Okay. That's

so one of the things the state requires is that the committee, the town write a vision statement for the future. It's very aspirational. It's can be broad. Um but you know some communities they use language like um the town of Mount Dessert of the future will have a balance of this and that and um or you can just sort of talk about like these are the things that like are the core values of the community. Yes, it's meant to inform that statement that like we'll use the survey as well, you know, the information from the survey. It's just like another way to get additional information, but I mean if people do want to talk about the process, like that's fine, too. I know we've talked about that in a lot of our meetings.

Yeah. I don't I think uh for these questions like it doesn't matter if somebody's like I think the town should have more um you know fix more potholes like if that that ends up being like a comment like all of that information that we're getting right now is going to be really valuable. Um, so anything that comes out of that, we can sort of start to glean stuff out. It's sort of the way I think about part part of this is um, and I think we've talked about this before, but again, we have to have sort of a vision of our community and then we have a series of topic areas that we're looking at in terms of establishing goals related to those topics. So those, you know, goals are supposed to be, you know, aspir aspirational statements and then there's some objectives to try to help you meet those goals and then there's actions that you do to help get to the things that you want to get. So those are all things we're going to be developing. So sometimes the vision values exercise can help help you formulate more goal statements, better goal statements. And I also think um the way that we look at it too is um over over I call them overarching principles but there's like things that it doesn't matter what your goal is like you have you always think about these things. So like you're you're thinking about um I think about resiliency as as one of a as a topic that's you know something that when you're dealing with transportation you're also thinking about resiliency. There's you don't have to have necessarily have a resiliency section in your comp plan because you're thinking about it all the time and all of these other topics. So there's um like some of this work will help us think about what some of those overarching principles are. These are the things that we have thought about as we're developing all of our, you know, more specific goals.

I'm just sharing an example. I feel like I've shared this before too maybe, but when we did this with Career Basset Valley, so this is kind of like what this ends up looking like. Can you guys see that one? Yes.

It says, "What does Care Basset Value Valley value?" And then, um, I think I had another one up. Excuse me. um what would make one thing could uh the community do to make it a better place? Um you know, it's just kind of interesting. So people, some of the comments are a little bit more, you know, oneoff about a stop center pole, but some of them are a little bit more um in-depth. Um yeah, it's interesting to kind of just see how people respond. It's a little bit like you know, it's interactive and it's kind of like a art installation, I guess, in a sense at the end when you're kind of seeing it all spread out.

All right. So then moving on to the next part of the meeting. It's kind of like a threeact play. So act one is the vision values. act two is going to be more of a you know welcome and discussion as a group about some of these things. So, in this part of the meeting, the basically the intention is to um I think it was Vince who said this at one of the meetings a while ago, like it would be be interesting to add a little bit of a civics lesson um to some of this. And so, we'll prepare, you know, a short presentation about, you know, comprehensive plans, why they're important, you know, how they relate to the to the community, um you know, what what it is that we're going through, and then um we'll have a facilitated discussion about answer. So basically, you all walked around the room and you you answered some questions. So let's share what some of those things are and see if we can have a bit of a conversation about that. So that's like act two. Um,

right. And that's that time that Gail you were talking about where it's more like a presentation. Yeah. What role does the comp plan play? Let's review the rest of the agenda for the night. That kind of stuff. My question is, Heather, as the chair, we were thinking about this earlier today, like in some situations like Suzanne and I would just sort of get everybody together and just sort of jump right in, but does it make sense for you to be that person and then turn it over to us or

how do you guys want to handle that? Like sometimes it's nice to have, you know, although this is an interesting scenario because we're fairly familiar with the town having worked here for a long time, but sometimes it's nice to have the committee chair just be like, "Hey, welcome." And everybody on the committee stand up and wave and that kind of thing. I think that's important.

I agree. and and also explaining because not everybody there's a lot of new people to the town and they have no idea that um there's all these villages that belong to the town of Mount Dessert because it's very different than if you lived in Connecticut or Wyomi or wherever. You have no idea. It's like, you know, what are these people talking about really? You know, it's just it's the government structure is different. And what's a warrant? What's a warrant for God's sakes? You know, everybody's never heard of that. Have you never had warrants?

I think that's really, really, really important. Thank you. I don't think it's really important. I think it's really important. I don't think it's really important at this meeting. First of all, I've got to ask what percentage of the people who attend are going to be just off the boat from Wyoming. And I I would suggest that there's a time and place and we should encourage people to learn about that sort of thing.

But people can drive around and see that there's different communities and different neighborhoods and and I I don't know. I don't think we should spend too much time on that. I think we don't want to lose the audience, most of whom are going to know that. Yeah, we won't spend too much time, but I I wrote down maybe we can plot a villages map. Like we have a great, you know, like it's probably in the room with you guys right now that are the town meeting room, but like you know, we have the map of the villages and we can provide that. That's just a reminder. Actually, we're already putting stars on where everybody lives. So,

but as Judy was talking, what I was reflecting on is again, and it's another opportunity to say this is a really important thing. look at all the people here who are representative representing the different villages from blah blah blah and you can take the opportunity to do that. I mean this isn't like a speech uh and a and a 45minute class on you know the the ins and outs of government. This is like a you know the this is our first public meeting

and part of the goal here is to get people a little bit energized as to why this is important. And so what I think is important for having somebody like Heather stand up is to say and to give a little bit of background on like I'm a citizen here and I'm the chair and this is why I wanted to be a part of this comprehensive plan committee and now we're going to you know turn it over to Susanna Null and you know this is what we're going to do tonight and just talk about why this isn't important and we can help add some bullet points to that but I would like sort of combine you know what Judy's saying the outcome of what you were going to say, Heather, into something like that.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I I I I think it's important. I don't think this is the place to go into a deep explan explanation, but I do like the idea of of identifying like, oh, there's people from the various villages and we can even say, yeah, go from there. So, yep, something like that. So again, we're um this is the trick, you know, we're not going to this isn't a the intention of any of our of this point is not to have it's we're not lecturing the the audience. We're energizing them energizing them to move on to uh you know to the next part, but to also explain to them like this is why what we're doing has meaning and thank you for taking two hours out of your busy life to actually be here. Great. Yep.

Yeah. And just to also connect the dots that like comprehensive plans can be platforms for big great big ideas for the future and then you know some of the things that come out of this process will turn into warrant articles right and can be voted on by the town and just making sure those dots are connected. All right.

So then act three is sort of the the um we're calling it sort of the guiding what's next question or exercise. And this will be like a combination of small group work and large group report out. So more of a traditional um everybody get on your table and we're going to talk about a couple of different things. So we're going to um at every table we'll have maps. We'll have um post-it notes and and markers and sticky notes and really sort of two pieces to this. One is sort of a goals goals related questions. um a couple of them not not serious but what we're trying to get at is can you brainstorm some ideas um a couple of goals like let's brainstorm some goal statements and I we're sort of struggling with how to phrase the question at this point um because when we say goals as planners like there's a actual way to do it and then when you're at a public meeting we just want ideas so let's not get too hung up on like the ins and outs of goals what they're how they should be worded or not but let's talk about um some of that stuff so that we can then come back as a group and then refine that into goals. And then the next part is more of a future land use exercise where we'd love for you to get get on a map and look at different areas of town and let's start to think about um you know some of the stuff that we need to think about when it comes to future land use. So so you just said you want um better uh walkability. So where where do you think there are problems with walkability or you know where are the gathering places in your in your villages or you just said you wanted to sign for you know sound village so let's like you know circle sound village and make sure we know

what sound where it is you know that kind of stuff come with post it's a lot of that and that will start to help us figure out like there are some big discussions that we're going to have to have about u future land use as it pertains ains to some of the goals that we want to achieve,

right? And it'll sort of start start to plant those seeds for like when the committee starts to work on that. They can care which we keep referencing because we're just about to be done with them. They in this part they um start they don't have like one single town center. they have sort of a couple different places, but like they started to identify these additional areas where they're like, "Oh, this could be a future like small village or this area that's currently in um rural residential like we actually think maybe it could transition into something that would accommodate more housing, whatever." So, um it's very high level, very general, but it's like a way to start to generate some of those, um thoughts and get them out.

Yeah. And my cautionary tale here is that some of us are actually in the weeds on like current um

that are like going to be applicable to the community. And we this is not the time to necessarily get into the weeds. like we're here like we're going to bring all that information and knowledge to a discussion that we're having as a group but we just want to like facilitate as much sort of input as we can you know by by that I mean um the state has a lot of there's new meaning to the word growth area in this in state law so we need we are going to pay attention to that but we need to think about how we reflect that based on the comments that we're getting from this kind of meeting

at this point of the meeting, null, we're going to be in say seven different tables and we're having conversations at each table. Are there going to be like a a a notetaker or recordkeeper of some of those conversations? Yes. So this is where you guys come in and I would say yeah I would I think we've talked about this before but typically the role the comp plan committee members you're not participants in the discussion as much as you are observers of the discussion. So what we could do is assign each of you a table

and you could be notetakers at the table. But I would also say that um typically what we'll do is say to the to the table, here's your flip chart. You need to pick somebody who's going to write notes and then talk and then pick somebody who's actually going to like report out to their larger group. And it's doesn't necessarily need to be the committee member, but it could be like you could we could do it in a couple of different ways. I thought we already assigned the tables up. No, we haven't assigned you guys a table yet. Well, we we will randomize them. We will like put a number on each everybody's name tag one through seven. We'll just say and so when you guys when friends walk in together theoretically they're not we don't want them to sit together, right?

Had to break up some Mount Deser people at our League of Towns meeting the other night so they wouldn't all sit together. So yeah, but it but it was um so that might be a piece like under your introduction an explanation that you know you're going to have a representative there that is you know might not be participating in the dialogue but they're taking the notes and yeah so but we could also do it I guess this is a question um and Suzanne can weigh in as as needed but like a question to everybody like do you think you could um be the notetaker and the reporter out at the meet at the table. I think it would be better to be two different positions.

Committee member as a notetaker, somebody else from the table being the one to report out. I feel like a member of the public should be the report out. I mean, it it's, you know, they're the ones doing the talking and they might have, you know, even just a voice behind what they're saying that one of us might not have because we've been talking about this. Yep. Yeah. And I don't think that um we're not going to have the time to like go through, you know, a good facilitator, you know, training for each of you. So the the job is not to be the facilitator. Although if you're paying attention, it would be nice if we have a series of questions like, hey, let's move on to the next question.

But then Suzanne and Matt and I will be walking around the room to try to help that too. And then is there um well at that table we have so many minutes to cover you know however many topics or yeah I mean I think what we're going to do is probably break it out a little bit. Hey take the next 10 minutes and let's talk about goals and then why don't we take uh all right now you guys should all be moving on to the future land use discussion and now we're going to be you know take 15 minutes and we'll we'll explain that before we jump in.

But we haven't I haven't Susan and I haven't broken up the time yet. and then we're going to want to get back together because this time is really only, you know, 40 minutes. So, let's take the last, you know, 10 minutes of this time to um hear from the groups and you're just going to fire through and then don't, you know, again, we'll facilitate this too, but we don't need everybody like uh at table one saying exactly the same thing for five minutes at table, you know, four just said or whatever or the other way around. So table four doesn't need just repeat, but if there's anything new like right, you know, let's hear it. Yeah,

that's kind of the way it goes. It should be interesting. I'm actually kind of curious how how many people show up and what what we talk about. We got seven kids. Yep. Yeah, that's helpful. What did I miss, Suzanne? Sorry, I had to step away for a moment. I have like in-person Zoom small in-person Zoom bombers headed this way. So, um, but no, it sounds great. You're doing a great job, null.

Thanks. No, I think that's pretty much it. So, we have like a working agenda which is a lot more facilitative than what the participants are going to see, but once we polish that up too, I'm happy to share it with everybody. Okay. But I so I think your roles are going to be um at the at act one making sure that everybody knows what they're supposed to do for that you know sort of weird time between when they get their name tag and their welcome packet uh to um and and feel free to stand next to a question and just be like I'm just going to be posted here at this question and try to help people like get through that question because we want you to take that information and make sure it gets up on the

on the post-it notes. So, we might even divide everybody up, you know, by poster at the beginning, too, just to help people like get things up. And and just because the questions are like, you know, one through six at the beginning doesn't mean you need to like not everybody needs to start at question one. You know, they're in no particular order. I think I would probably switch the the um in terms of the way I described it, maybe switch the ping-pong ball exercise like, "Hey, the last thing you should do when you're done is go to the ping pong ball. Make sure you do that." But it could be I don't know. I think the ping-pong ball thing is a kind of an experiment on our part, but it could be a really cool visual. So, what ping pong ball? What's that?

What is it? It's just a No, I Yeah. So, we're having like a cookie jar with ping pong. We're giving everybody one ping pong ball and we're going to ask you to basically vote on the Oh, on their top three. Yeah, it's we're vote on which one of these three things you want. We're thinking like one of the questions in the survey is like, you know, what are your top three concerns for the town of Desert and looking at like what are the ones that stand out? Kind of asking that question again, but making it kind of more fun and interactive. Yeah, in some meetings we've done we could do like um actually everybody get on your phone and we can do like a ranking bad

up on the screen like we're ranking your it's like a visual preference survey or um some other type of ranking but this just doesn't um which is actually really cool and it's in the future we might want to use that as a as a tool but uh in this meeting it doesn't quite fit but this visual exercise might be really it could bomb and be totally ineffective. Or it could be really awesome and everybody be like, "Wow, I can't believe there's all of the ping-pong balls are in this bucket." Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna be the one who takes responsibility for counting how many get bounced around the room.

Well, I was wondering about that too a bit, Gail. And you guys probably have thought this through, but I'm curious about if the packets like have a place for the pingpong because if people are carrying around a pingpong and trying to write sticky notes, like maybe the ping pong activity needs to be the front end of things as as opposed to later on. I think they're each going to get like a little Ziploc bag with Yeah. those things in them. But yeah, we'll see. It'll be fun. Bonding is always good if everybody's running for a ping pong ball. The idea is at the beginning part it's going to be a little chaotic and that's the point

and maybe that's going to be fun and it's going to get people talking. Yes. Right. Yeah. Or do you think there's always this, you know, peri when you do have the formal presentation in the beginning, there's always this period of time where people do just want to kind of reconnect and see each other or they're like, "Oh, this person's here. I haven't seen in a while or maybe they have a specific agenda. They want somebody to talk about something in particular."

Right. There's going to be one other thing that I think I would like to if nobody else is going to do it would like to have a moment to tell this group and that is about a very important community meeting that's happening the next week and that's when people from the reorganization planning committee come to the town of Mount Dert to talk about their proposal to reorganize the school system and we really really need to get a lot of people to come to that meeting um and not just people with kids in the school because it's it's has the potential to affect everybody in the town and we should all care about education. So I I do want us to highlight that at some point to encourage people to come back to that meeting and um I can talk I I don't know whether I can talk to Brian Hankle because he's on the reorganization planning committee and see if he is going to be there and can do it but somebody I'll do it if nobody else will. Somebody certainly needs to encourage people to come and everybody because at a bottom line is that it's it it could rearrange things but more as as importantly for a lot of people it's going to raise everybody's taxes in the town of Montur and everybody needs to understand that that's the that's the way that plan is is constructed now that's what's going to happen um and and that the plan's still in process it could be altered so I would just I think people need to understand that because when they go to vote on it in the they need to understand what they're voting.

I feel like it's a great point and I think that could be something that we could do as a wrap up at the end um and really push that, you know, sort of explain, hey, we've all been here tonight talking about the future of the town. There's another really important meeting that affects the future of this town. Yeah. and Gale if there is any kind of a poster that could be set up at the entrance way when people are registering just as some reference point to point to. So, put the date and time in there. Date time location. They do have those posters and I can check into that. Make a big one for the hallway.

Or if if they have them and you want us to plot one at 24, you know, at poster size, we can just do that and bring it if you if you send it to me in PDF. But I like the idea of finding a spot in the beginning and then mentioning it at the end. I I'll ask I'll get in touch with Mike Zabori and ask him. Yeah. And it seems like a good transition out like Heather said and we don't want to like have that be the dominant thing at the full part of the meeting, but it should be something that's talked about for sure. Yeah, I can even do that the intro too about Yeah, we're very small. Yeah, I think at the at the end it might be even more impactful to say, you know, we've all been talking about this and then we have

I like that in front of us. Okay, that's what I would do. Okay. All right. So, there's going to be 200 people there. It's going to be awesome. There are 200 people. We'll we'll adapt. It'll be big tables. Make shopping quick for Yeah. But I mean if say we have seven tables set up and there's 50 people there or whatever like we may end up just sort of pivoting and saying all right hey I know you guys and groups um whatever tables end up being the smallest we'll we may combine some tables so we can we can figure it out. It's a you know public meeting supposed to be a little chaotic. Okay. Yeah.

So you started to talk about um our role at act one and then act two. So act two I think is basically just Suzanne and I going over stuff except you at the beginning Heather welcoming everyone. Okay. Okay. And then act three I think it's committee members as not takers. Okay. And I I really like the idea of you guys parked at a table because then when we debrief on this at the next meeting then you'll say well at our table I remember this discussion. I think that would be really cool. Okay.

Otherwise, you're going to just walk around and miss a bunch of stuff. And I do I do I think it's going to be really important not to overly participate or hardly at all participate in the conversations because we want to hear from them. Even I have that problem. Um All right, materials.

Uh, yep, we have a lot of materials. Um, I think we're going to bring flip charts, um, easels. We've got all those. We've got the ping pong balls. Suzanne just mentioned the zip ziploc bags with all the stuff in them. Um, name tags. Um, yeah, I think we're good with materials. I don't know. Did you have anything else you want to think about for materials with the group, Suzanne? Yeah, I mean I think we um we'll bring copies like 11 by 17 copies of the posters for people to look at at their tables. There'll be printed maps for every table. Basically everything they'll need to, you know, work on these exercises.

Yeah, we'll we'll have handouts for different things and

yeah, quite a bit of stuff to do between now and then. Um, I did want to share, I don't know if now's the right time to jump in, but um, thanks for those who sent feedback and edits on the inventory chapters. It took us a little bit more time to go through again with fine tooth comb, but they're all now up on the Google Drive. Um, so if you don't have access to this, let me know. Um, but it's in a a folder called draft inventory chapters and you all should have access to it, but I can resend the link out after this meeting. Um, and yeah, so those are all the topic areas. We we are not planning to um bring this material necessarily printed out to the meeting, but um we're going to put it up on the project website as sort of that like first kind of substantive set of things to share with the public. Um, and we will have like revised and updated the what we've been calling it sort of a briefing book, but it's really like that existing condition summary. So, those slides that we created um for each of these topic areas and we'll have that and that'll be up on the project website as well. Suz Suzanne, last meeting um we had all identified certain sections that we were responsible for, but I never was quite clear on what we were responsible for.

Questions? Yeah, I can't remember. I wrote that down. I know people volunteered to kind of be the lead on um different ones. These were my notes that were Oh, you can't take that. That just goes into clutter when I try to paste it in because of the bullets. But I can reshare the notes if that's helpful.

Great. Yeah. I mean, I remember do do people remember what they kind of volunteered to. And again, it's not to be like the subject matter expert on these topics. It's just to kind of be more familiar with like what's in that inventory chapter. and um really nothing major beyond that. So I don't anticipate I mean the data posters are interesting. You can imagine people being like what does that mean like where did you get this? Um I think most if not all of the graphs and charts have sources on them. Um, but it's just a way to sort of like divide and conquer the amount of information that's in the inventories. So like Kathy, I know you took on um housing and economy and Oh, great. Shashana. Yeah. Wreck and health, duty, public facilities and services. Shashana. Historic and cultural resources. Vince um economy housing. Kathy, marine resources and natural resources. Allan and then maybe water was in there also. There's some question marks. Null is going to be the lead on existing land use. Tracy transportation fiscal capacity. Matt, that's our other employee. Yeah. So, just someone who can, you know, generally speak to the content in those sections. So, they're all up

in draft form. Certainly time to make good adjustments to them. And Susan, some of the other ones more recently, there's I mean, we there's still some adjustments to make, but it would be good to get other eyes on them for sure.

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean it's kind of like one of these I don't know what the right analogy is. I took this abstract painting class in college and it was sort of like you just paint and paint and it's like never done right. And so I kind of feel like that about these inventories like you can always add more. There's always another angle, but at a certain point, we have to say like, okay, does this, you know, capture enough of the information that we're trying to capture to tell this big picture story about what's happening in this subject area. Okay, great.

Um, so I'll send out an email after this with uh attachments of the postcard and poster again, and then I'll send a link to that drive. Thank you. Yeah. Are you going to do an article? Try and get the Islander to have an article and that Carrie Jones get something the Islander did write an article. Did do one. Yeah, I haven't read it.

Um but yeah, Rebecca interviewed Suzanne and I and she was great. Um and uh yeah, we'll we can reach out to um Carrie, too. Um the town. Should we put posters up in the town for the town workers and at the fire department? And can we do that? Posters up wherever you think they should go. They're not going to arrest me. Don't know. Right around the corner. When am we going to want to show up? Well, I think it would be really helpful to have um some help setting up the room. And we'll probably be there um 4:30. Yeah, 4:30 would be

4:30. Yep. We'll probably be there a little before that, but yeah, to to get the tables out. And I have no idea what the neighborhood house, you know, we need to check in with them tomorrow, early next week, too, just to give them a understanding of what they're what they're to expect that night. But yeah, we'll also want to help clean up at the end. So, yep. So it starts at 5 and then neighborhood house. Don't they have kids there? Yep. At they leave at 430. Arrive probably at 5. Yeah. But I mean the neighborhood house has programs. Childcare program I think ends at 4:30. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. So minor point the uh are there going to be tablecloths? No. Probably not. Thought about it. We're just because we're gonna be like throwing maps on. We're I think we're gonna try to use the round tables. They're more conducive. Good. Did you want table class, Kathy? Um I just thought we should say yes or no. And if it's yes, then we should finding find them. Get them. Yeah, I think no. I'd say no. Say no. You got maps. I think they'll be markers. Like we don't want to mess them up. Yeah. Okay.

Keep it simple. Yep. Yeah. We're gonna have, you know, sophisticated cheese plate from Hanner to It's gonna be awesome. We really Yeah. Right. We really don't want it to feel formal and we don't ever want it to feel like, you know, certainly that it's like me and null like telling people how it's supposed to be, right? Like this is a the committee's project and like the community's effort. So, it's really important that everybody feels like, you know, they're engaged and have a stake in it. Yeah. They're in the driver's seat to so to speak. Yep.

I guess we'll have name tags that say we're comprehensive plan. You can definitely write that on your name tag when you get it uh at 4:30 on next week. I would. Yeah. Write comp plan committee member on there. So, who's the person that lives in Theo Harbor? Vincson. So, yeah, that's me. So, you could cover Sale Harbor. Yep, I sure can. Yeah, recruit a few folks. Great. Great.

Okay. So, let me take a I've cleared my calendar. Have too much to do. see what happens tomorrow. But Judy's getting the word out. Love it. Yeah. All right. Um I think that was all we had on the agenda for today. Is that anything that you wanted to cover, Suzanne? I don't think so. Um I'm interested to read section on um traffic that you have those posters. Yeah, great. Yeah, we'll get those out to you.

You know, and if between like tomorrow or, you know, Monday and Wednesday you have a really big question or concern, like certainly reach out. Like this is all very, again, it's not meant to be formal. It's flexible. um you know we can make adjustments and null and I are often in situations where certain activities like we just did this meeting with the elected leaders last week I can't even remember and we had planned three big things to get through and we got through the first one I think so anyway I think we'll get through more next week than that but it's okay like we can you know certainly pivot as needed Yeah.

Is there going to be a part of this process at the end in which we explain to people what the future steps are for the comp plan process? Yes. Yeah. There's like a next step wrap up where we'll talk about that. Got my list of questions from stuff. So, do you want me to bring any of this uh stuff over to you? the cards or No, no, it's all right. Okay. Okay. All right. Anything else you guys wanted to go over tonight? No. No. This is good. Awesome. Seeing no public There's no public comment. Yep.

Make a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Second. All in favor? Hi everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I was going to ask you Yep. Um,