Comprehensive Plan Committee - Regular Meeting

hear from her. So that's says she's still not feeling well. Doesn't want to infect anybody. So thank you. I appreciate that. Appreciate it. And Suzanne may or may not join in. She's got some kids stuff to deal with tonight. Uh so it's just us. And I think uh we can rock through this thing. Yep. Sure. All right. So um I don't know if everybody has an agenda. I'm not going to pull stuff up on the screen unless I need to. Um that's okay. And then when people join in, we'll take it from there. Um I don't know how formal you guys want me to be, but uh

yeah, call it to order. I don't see any um public and I don't know if Suzanne forwarded on any minutes from the last meeting. I know Shashana did forward them to us and we probably just haven't had a chance to We could do that the next meeting. Um so tonight we wanted to do I I actually wanted to do three things. two of them are on the agenda and one of them is just more of an update. So, first is um just kind of go over the schedule high level a little bit uh again and then um get into historical archaeological and cultural resources and get into the recreation health and recreation also statute. Does that sound good? Sure.

Great. All right. So, first one uh just an update. I think we had tenatively scheduled a meeting for Saturday, but we're not going to do that meeting on Saturday. Just I didn't say it. I thought it was the 30th. I had it on the this weekend in my calendar. Oh, wow. I missed that meeting. Okay. I might not have been there. Um and so when we uh we're doing a little bit of a look ahead. Um there is a uh we haven't scheduled a second meeting in May yet. And I know we were trying to schedule a couple of meetings um in May to see who's joining. Shashana's here. Hey Shashana.

Hi all. Well, I'm getting my I'm I'm here, but I'm getting my kids situated a bit. Perfect. Um so the um the next opportunity may be May 27th, but I don't know if there's any conflicts there stuff. And then we have a planning board. There's is that May 27th? Okay.

And I know we have a League of on the 29th. Um, what I may do is send an email around to everybody with a couple of options. If we could try to do a second one in May, that would really help. Otherwise, our next one is June 4th. Um, so what I'd like to do is, so after tonight, we're going to have four topics left and I think it would be natural resources and marine resources and then public facilities and fiscal capacity. So, what I'd like to be able to do is in June, uh, by the end of June, tackle those four. We should have all of them done and then we can spend July talking about future land use and then integrating in public meetings in say end of July August time frame so that we're working on public meetings and public participation say um basically July August September um probably August September more than likely and then um we'll get back together in September and then we're going to be shooting to um finish up the complete document, solicit feedback, do whatever we need to do. We have October, November, and then we're pencils down at the end of December.

Okay? So, that sets us up to be able to send the draft plan to the state for their comments by December, January time frame, probably right after the holidays. uh if all goes well and then um we can be gearing up for public hearings and article development in preparation for the town meeting. That's high level that work. I think we have a little flexibility, but I'd like to um I think we could spend a couple of meetings on future land use because we're going to want to have the map out and I think that's going to be a July

seems like a good good July topic. So, if we do it a little bit in July and that sets the table for some public meetings in August, then we're like really refining all that stuff in July and August. Okay, great. I've written it down. I haven't shared it with anybody, but I that's how I see it going. Hey, Nel, I apologize. I may have missed this, but I think you were saying I I have in my calendar on the Saturday the 30th, a meeting, but that's not happening. Is that correct? Yes, that's I actually had it in my calendar for this Saturday, but Let's not do it on the 30th either. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Isn't Is that a holiday weekend, too? No. No. Is that the weekend before?

So, I'll re I'll revisit that email with everybody. Yeah. Another meeting in May. But I think we're in good shape

for, you know, trying to hammer through these things. So, if we can do like if we can get through these two tonight, um then I think we're we're in good shape. And the other ones, the marine and natural resources one might it's the data sections long. I just don't know, you know, how much is going to actually change from the old plan to the new plan. Probably not a lot. I wouldn't imagine. All right. Great. Let's jump into um historic archaeological archaeological and cultural resources. So, at the last meeting, right before we were leaving, I was talking about this one and said, um I'm going to take a couple of swipes at it before we all get to it. Um but also, let's add the term cultural resources into this mix because there's a lot of um you know, reasons why one would do that. Uh and everybody was fine with that. So that's what we did. Um, and I also wanted to sort of set the table for what is it that we're trying to address in the historic and cultural resources section. Um, just to try to keep it simple. It's really we're trying to address protection of those resources. We're trying to address identification of um, cultural resources. And there's a distinction I'm making between historical and archaeological resources and cultural resources. But um to mix those two together and not get too far into the weeds, like the state and federal government also identifies those resources, some of which are mapped and that we have as part of our data. And then there are also locally significant historic archaeological and cultural resources, some of which we identified, but many of which we haven't really thought about or the town hasn't really thought about. And then there's um another um what we're trying to achieve is recognizing um the integration of

these things into the the economy. So there's a real um you know here in on our island and in this town um the um cultural tourism is a big field and it's something to think about as we're going through this. And then we're also looking for partnerships. So, all that being said, um I think we can go through this and what we're really thinking about as we're going through this is whether or not there are any gaps in what we've already proposed toward um toward those things. Make sense?

Great. All right. So, Shashana, do you need me to pull this up on the screen or do you have a copy of it um handy? I have I have it. Thank you. Great. All right. So, the first one uh just to go over the goals, the goal that we have drafted up is historic and cultural resources that are valued and interpreted for current and future generations. I thought we should add a word there such as preserve historic and cultural resources. There's it's a statement, but it's not really a goal. What are you going to do with historical and cultural resources?

About historical and cultural resources that are preserved, valued and interpreted for culture for future. Is that what you were saying or did you want to start off? Well, I was thinking the goal would be to preserve historic and cultural resources that are valued and interpreted or the word that Yeah, because we're not creating history here, right? We're identifying it. Yeah. Historic and cultural resources are preserved, valued, and interpreted. Okay.

Don't you identify them first, though? Well, that was my first objective. Let's let's identify them. Okay. Does that sound good as a start? Yeah. All right. So, going through the objectives, the first objective um is prioritize protection and interpretation of historic and cultural resources. Pathy, you were just saying something. Well, that I think the first objective should be to identify what are the historical, cultural and archaeological resources that we should be protecting.

I think that's encompassed within objective one theoretically in under strategies and I'm comfortable with it like within that. Sorry. Yeah. I find those the word prioritize is a bit strong of all the things that are going on in this town. I would not prioritize that. I would put it on the list somewhere. So consider protection when applicable or whatever, you know, it's like Yep. Prioritize feels a little too strong there.

Yeah, that's fair. Um the other way that to think about prioritization is uh you are prioritizing what historical and cultural resources should be protected. Yeah. So like does that make sense to everybody? Okay. And I don't know if that's exactly what this meant, but what do other people think about Vince's comment? And then my I can read it both ways, but my initial thing was like, let's make this the top priority of the town, right? Like that seems you got other top priorities to worry about. Yeah.

Yeah. But how how Yeah. How do we reward that to nice? Do you like the concept of prioritizing? So there's an action involved with this which is you know first you identify which ones and then you actually prioritize how you you know which ones are the most important ones to protect. Yeah. Um and then there's an objective of you know what is that objective getting at? But Kathy to add to yours are you are you so Shasha was uh okay with the way it's worded but in that context Shasha that Vince is saying does it make sense to make some addition some edits?

Sure. I don't feel strongly here. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to wordsmith on the fly here, but so this shouldn't be prioritized. Everybody agree with that sentiment like historic preser. We're not talking about making this the top priority in the comprehensive plan. But among historical, archological and cultural resources, we should prioritize.

Some are more worthy of preservation than others. Why? I also wonder why do we sometimes use archaeological and sometimes leave out. Yeah, I'm I think archaeological is like a hold over from the old plan. And I tend to want to simplify everything and just say historic and cultural resources, but that's just my own. But I think probably the historians in the room would argue with me that archaeological resources are actually different than Yeah.

historic resources. So um that's a good catch. You can easily uh add archaeological where needed. I wonder that first gold can be sort of um rearranged to identify those resources and prioritize for protection interpretation. That sounds a lot better.

Then you take them first identify them and then say these are more important. That's the prioritization. Okay. How do everybody give that as an edit suggestion? Okay. How about the second one? And I would add archaeological to that just so we can once again I'd say resources are integral to the culture like important. It's important. They're contributing. They're some factor in that. But what makes the town not desert the town of Mount Dessert? Nobody's going to say culture and person.

I don't know. You drive through so and so you get all those white houses. That's true. I guess there's a No, there there are slight variations and that's the real, you know, a dark black and so it's a light one. That is the real rebels right there. You're right. Depending on how much the sun has aged things. Yes. Yes. You've got nude. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Shape the shell mounds. Shell mounds are cool. Just want to recognize Gail's on now. I just need to change them. Integral to important. Yep. Done. Moving on. How about number three? Do you guys want me to read them out loud or are you happy to read them yourselves? Great.

Read them. Thank you. Absolutely good. Yeah. Yeah. What are we leveraging that like the leverage outside resources like what are the outside resources? I think um um NBI historical society main preservation

pres that also Vince if we when we get to the action the strategies under that objective that might also help verify. Okay. So if we're good with that, you want to dive into the strategies objective one which we have now modified to be more like ID and prioritize for protection and interpretation. So the first one was conducting a comprehensive inventory.

And this was language from the 2009 version, right? of this was modified from that but yeah we use we used a bunch of stuff from that I don't know this version it doesn't have the strikethroughs in it so I don't know for sure how well I wonder was any work done on it so in the comprehensive plan there we have some inventory of historic resources I think the suggestion here is to basically work have so this is getting to um I think Gail's good comment from the last meeting which is like let's not make the planning board do all the work Mhm. Yeah. And so this one might be let's lean on the resource that you already have in the MBI historical society to help you have the, you know, help the town

create a good inventory of historic resources. Historic archae Well, not necessarily archaeological, but cultural resources. Well, and I was wondering if we should add in the abbey museum. Yeah. Why wouldn't you just say island museums? Yeah. And that way you're comprehensive. We miss one. Yeah. And I asked um what about the village improvement societies because they seem to that's kind of your trail mapping and actually goes down further but and I also asked about the archives at the libraries.

Yep. So I think in this situation those are all really good and maybe we could use put those in the list like in the strategy but that if if I were to say who if somebody's got to actually like take the ball and run with it like I would maybe say hey Rainey can you uh can you do this for us

uh just as an other point if you look back in the between like the the last plan and this and where we are now in the data that we've had. One of the glaring holes in what we've done is um there's a lot of comments about like inventorying but not all that has been done and then there's also not a lot of regul there's like the regulatory side isn't really up to the level that has been talked about in the past. So it's kind of a thing to think about as we're getting into it. But in order to have good rules, you actually have to know what you're supposed to be regulating for.

And I wonder, has anyone had a conversation with the historical society to say? We actually did reach out to them. Uh Rainey about 30 minutes ago sent back um not 30 minutes, probably an hour ago. I haven't had a chance to look at it. Sent back. She's she's read this, made some comments. Read it. Okay. Great. And then I think we sent it to Willie. Yeah. Haven't heard back from him yet. He just got done grading exams. I think Gmania coffee's But I think we would um take comments from people who know more about it than we do. For sure.

Yep. All right. So, no changes on the language there, but adding adding those resources. Does that make sense? Unless you're going to add in archaeological again. I probably will. Yep. And I would say you have to really it's the state this where you get into the archaeological resources that like the state basically has drawn the magic marker line around all of India. I had said these are all the shell midden areas. Make sure you're doing inventories of them. Check with us before you do anything.

But there's other things. All right. The next one, um, identify ways to improve the land use ordinance to provide sufficient protection for important historic resources and archaeological resources. I thought it would be nice to incentivize protections because otherwise it sounds like you're going to prohibit land use if there happens to be something of significance on the land. And since pretty much all her historic things are privately owned now, this seems like a bit of an overreach to rather tax credit. We say if you open this to the public, you're no longer of whatever tax

now be tree growth. So you' change the word provide incentive to incentivize. And the same thing for the next line. You got adopter amend land use to require the planning board to incorporate maps. Do we need to force the planning board to adopt that with an ordinance or we already do on most everything they have to they have to show yeah that there's no nothing at all. Yeah. I was kind of wondering is this already been done?

Yeah. Well, it is something that you would normally do. I mean, it is in the ordinance where you're doing most applications, you would have to, you know, provide a letter from main historic preservation that says, you know, there's no undue adverse impact to the historic for archaeological resource for that area. I think where this comes in is uh back to the point which is I think there's already a list there's a good list of what the state defines is important then there's a list of what's on the national register of historic places but there are no there's no local what's the what does the town find to be important to their

town's history. So that might need to be updated in the ordinance once that is really understood and prioritized. Was with the planning board, we get something from the state saying that there's no historical archaeological sites. Yeah. But it's not a local thing. It's a state thing that we That's what I'm saying. We get with every application. Yeah. We could change the language a little bit to to just say continue to refine the ordinance or continue to um maintain the ordinance to adequately protect something like that.

Yep. Maintain something like that. Why is it only for subdivision and non-residential developers? Why wouldn't it be for I I agree. That's the next one coming up. I did the same thing. Why not individual? It needs to be all even when I build my next house. All right. So, we're on number three right now. Yes. So, that would be uh um just cut up the word subdivision or run residential.

And I don't know how you describe I mean is a homeowner. It's Bells. Mhm. Need a different word for developer.

Maybe owners anyone building. Yeah, I was going to say builders or is that really property owner's responsibility though? So property owner would be they're the one filling out or signing the applicant. smoothly now.

Okay. And a lot of these are also, by the way, I think you'll see on the column um that says state goals. These are just these are reflections of goals that the state requires as part of them. Okay. Objective two, first strategy is to ensure any adjustments to the land use ordinance and zoning ordinance are consistent with the historic character of our town's villages. Is that creeping into um design review?

I don't know. I don't think that's not what we're suggesting, but okay. That could be an it could be an outcome in the future. You know, I was thinking it was more like height restrictions, you know, that kind of thing. Not necessarily style or a design review, but like height restrictions. Nobody's going to build a skyscraper in their village, that kind of thing. But I did ask the third one, does this mean no contemporary styles?

Yeah. The historic character, that's kind of a subjective You feel like this is a relic from the point in time when everyone on this island was terrified of a McDonald's replacing such and such. Um, that level of it. And a lot of this feels that way of us being very concerned about that. I don't know that that's necessarily the same concern today, but I also worry that if I say this and someone comes in 7-Eleven and there it goes. Yeah. Oops.

Yeah. Um, so maybe can we uh unpack the the strategy to to get to a more um a better result? And is is the strategy because this is probably from the old plan. I agree with Alex. Is the strategy more more to not be like this one says establish guidelines that ensure new commercial development? But is it more like let's develop a set of guidelines that people can use to be more

compliant with historic aesthetics or whatever something like that. love to send a book of architecture to architects before they start designing these new houses. Here's what we like. Here's what we like. Just saying. Let's make house a Fred Savage house. Yeah, that's what it would end up being. Gail. Gail's hands up. You got to take yourself off mute, though. Oh, Gail.

All right, there we go. Um, we do not have um design review standards system in this town and there's long been a supposition that we do not want them. And as someone who built a house on one end of that white clabard main street in Ssville, um I did find that I had to personally wrestle with the shape and design of my house before the trees grew up so you couldn't see it anyway. Um, and you do somewhat rely upon the the people who are building to have respect for the vernacular around it, but we should not expect that Sville or any part of this island is going to look the way it does in perpetuity. We should not try to freeze oursel in amber. And so contemporary housing styles and that sort of thing, we should not, in my opinion, be afraid of. So, um, thanks.

Yeah, good comment. Thank you, Gail. How do other people feel about that? So, am I hearing basically, let's just delete this one, or do you think modifying it to be more of a creating some guidelines? Not guidelines that are mandatory, but guidelines that are helpful. I'm just throwing out a suggestion. Not sure how to word it. I think you're asking people to do things that they may not want to do. In this the wording here. Yes. Yep.

I Yeah. What I'm hearing is it's too um prescriptive and we don't want it to end end in a recommendation that we want to have a design review comm a historic design review committee in town. That's pretty fair, right? Yeah. Be restrictive. too restrictive. Yep. And so my question is in the light of that there's a couple options. One is just delete it. Number two would be is there something about this that we want to soften? Soften not soften

but I think you've softened it with number two because you've explored opportunities to create historic districts. So you've Yes. You can build a Gail Marshall house. Yep. That's unusual for that strip of Sville, but you could also have a historic district nearby. And if you wanted to have a historic home, you would be in that district. Yeah. Others

I would get rid of the first strategy and the third strategy and just say let's like going to the goal recognize that the projection is important. So, let's look at historic landmarks and work with organizations that educate because this goal seem or this objective really seems about education, right? You want people to recognize that these are important to the culture and economy of the town. And I don't know if either the first or the third ordinances don't help people recognize the importance. They make them resent the importance. It's like, why can't I paint my house? Never go.

Yeah. And I wonder if if all of these are about style or if it is really getting into what you mentioned earlier of we don't want a 7-Eleven or we don't want a McDonald's. and that if we're talking about um ordinance consistent, you know, with what's going on in the village, it's like these are small villages. We don't have franchises. We don't have big industrial complexes in the middle of a village, something like that. Um but if we're sticking with that sort of a nature, it's not necessarily a design style that's being applied

on the planning board. We have compatibility as combat. You know, my favorite section. Yeah, I know. That's such a judgment call though. It is. Yeah. Yep. I'm sorry. I could I'm trying to restrain what I know. Yep. I don't It's tough, you know, to establish guidelines to Sure. I just so everybody I'm not advocating that we keep any of this. I'm just curious what you think because it seems like there's when I say do we just delete it that not everybody jumped up and said yes just delete it. So I'm wondering if there's some element of uh

of this that even that between this and the first one that Vince mentioned you know that we have to combine. So like if um and I like the the thread that you were going down which is for this objective we're trying to think of strategies to recognize the protection and interpretation of historic and cultural resources as important to the culture and economy of the town. So the these two strategies that we're talking about are very much regulatory strategies. What if on the third one here we get rid of established guidelines that and just ensure new commercial development will complement new development?

New development does it do we care if it's commercial or residential? Probably should be both.

Well, I'm really I'm staying quiet because I'm struggling. So, I agree on one going away. Three, I'm really struggling because we come back to that fear of a McDonald. Let's use that as an example, right? And sort of like getting back to do we fear a modern house? No. Do we we know that current economic conditions mean that we don't really need to fear McDonald's because it's not going to happen? But what if in the future? Um, and that's I don't really have the answer. I'm just struggling with this. Yeah, because Freeport has a McDonald's that fits in with the T, you know, it's that white in a house forced them to do it,

right? Well, that's so it's like, well, it should still be Yeah. careful. Yeah. But I mean, the reality is has realized a town like this is never a good idea. Not even Bar Harbor is a good idea. So, well, you have uh Yeah. So the McDonald's example would be like that particular chain the business model might not work here or in a harbor even but like there are other chains which are chains which are smaller in nature precious like brushes when was there Starbucks is another good example perhaps but it's possible that again their business models are probably geared more toward

not here well I think the population density I don't know for sure. But I'm just thinking thinking out loud though to to what you're getting at is how do we not we may not really be worried about it, but we also might want to just have something in there so that we at least put a pin in that worry. Is that where you're getting at? Kind of a future proof one. Yeah. Like I do do I really think the conditions I mean the way this all unfolded is there was a point at which we thought it would never really end with the franchises and it turned out well. No, there's a point at which they some of those franchises they opened didn't make money and so there was an end to it

where they realized, oh no, not here. Um, is that set of conditions change again? Yeah. Yeah. Like is So Sville at the one stop like a good location for Dunkin Donuts? Yeah, probably. Yeah. But the real is it Dunkin Donuts or is it the design the corporate design of Dunkin Donuts that were worried? I just remember sitting in the planning board meeting when freshies came before the planning board and the big huge brewhaha was having the tomato thing the logo

on the side of the building and I'm thinking if you think of it as art it's okay but if you call it a logo it's not okay. And that's I mean it was just a lot of conversation about the tomato.

And so in the comprehensive plan context, we actually don't need to solve that problem. What we need to say is something that asks the planning board or whoever to in a in the regulatory context to solve that problem and to say um that the the objective is to recognize the protection and interpretation of historical cultural resources is important and how are we going to continue that through you know I think yep Um, I also read the first one, um, in light of what we're going to be required to do by the state, and I'm just not sure it's entirely consistent with what the state's going to require, but I agree in in general that that strategy, as it's worded, is overly broad and overly prescriptive, but the third one is not. And um, we should perhaps eliminate the first one. And I also agree with null about con compatibility in the planning board, but it does exist at this point in time, so we have to deal with it.

But I I think it's a great Thank you, Gail. Uh, also good comment. Um it's also interesting to keep that if we're continuing to talk about the land use ordinance, but to it's been informative to keep that section um in your minds when you think about compatibility because it is a question like what is compatibility? Yeah, we're already wrestling say I think it helped I think it's helped in the conversations to really fine-tune the thinking a little bit more. Well, it's funny. I was having a conversation with someone the other day about Freshies, SOS, OneTop, whatever we call

Vernals. Vernals. Exactly. It's like, you know what? Was great. There was a mechanic downstairs. You could buy ice cream, you could buy fluids, you for your car, you could buy groceries, you could, you know, there was a lot going on there when it was Fernold's and it was individually owned. Is that the kind of business we want rather than a corporate franchise? Is that the character of the commercial developments that we want to have happening in town? Cuz I'm not sure that it's historic necessarily, but it's it's locally owned and operated and and is that, you know, that's the distinction between something like Fernolds and something like SOS, right? It

is interesting though. The only thing that it doesn't currently offer that you mention is the mechanic service. Anything else? Everything else is right there. Still there. I think picking and choosing style of business. We had an ace in town here for years and years and that no longer became viable, right? And so to say, well, we only want locallyowned artisal produce that's affordable. I have zero business. Yeah. Oh, and Ace was those are franchises too, aren't they? Yeah.

I feel like we should move this strategy to the first goal. I think it's right. We like you can get rid of the established guidelines that and just say ensure that new and it can only really be commercial because that this is our this is our excuse to prohibit franchises. If you include residential, then now you're on the aesthetics committee route. So if we want to leave this in here, I think it has to be limited to commercial development staying in character with the towns, villages.

And we also want to make it easy that commercial ventures can come, right? Mhm. Great jobs, year round living.

Okay. So, I just need to summarize what I think I'm hearing because we're So, we're talking about strategy number one and strategy number three. And um I I just want to clarify because I thought what Gail said and what Vince is saying may be like reversed. So, I could be wrong. So, let me just So, what I'm hearing, I'll just use what Vince just said. Uh suggestion from Vince is let's let's keep number one but make sure it's reflected in objective number one. No, sorry, Steve. Uh strategy three. Keep strategy. Put it in objective one. I think that's

okay. And then and then delete objective or strategy number one. Correct. Yep. Gail, was that is that kind of what you were saying too, just to be sure? Yes. Yeah. People good with that?

And then um I'm gonna put a pin in this one, but I think uh if you could give us maybe um we can brainstorm a little bit just to get to the if there's another suggestion we can come up with that sort of addresses the how the the franchise discussion might reflect in this particular objective because here I think it's The idea is we're trying to uh recognize. So the first objective is more about um identifying and protecting historic resources. The second one is more about like let's recognize the importance of those resources and it's sort of reflecting through this conversation that we're having about you know franchise. So if you're putting in a McDonald's to make sure it, you know, does what Freeport does or something to that effect. Um, so I just want Can I Should we stew on that one a little bit more? Not tonight, but

Okay. All right. Well, what about the second strategy? Good. Doesn't hurt to explore opportunities. Right. Right. I guess as long as it doesn't lead to go hunting ways to establish historic like we don't need to actively pursue this, right? I think what that would mean is um when you're looking at the opportunities for having a historic district, let's just say downtown Northeast Harbor becomes a historic district, like there are financial um benefits to doing that, rent opportunities, things that you don't yet you could potentially take advantage of. or if you're

have buildings that can take advantage of the historic tax credits and blah blah blah. I think that probably that's the explore opportunities. And then the last one is continue to work with local organizations that provide historic educational opportunities. Good. Yes. Keep that ongoing. So, all right. Number three, leverage outside resources. That's the objective. Um the first one, explore the possibility of becoming a certified local government through the National Park Service. This was part of the old plan.

I looked this one up. Did you? I was like, did did this get doed? I think it did. It still exists. Yeah. But but who wants to go first? Yeah, I'll let you go first. Okay, we'll see if we're all in agreement. Yeah. So, what I summarized that you have to enact a historic preservation ordinance of so much. You have to do a survey of everything. The one that sort of gave me pause was well, there's two that gave me a little bit of pause. One is the creation of a historic presentation and committee that needs to be an ongoing

and then that committee gets involved in all binding board select board decisions. So to become a certified local government, you really got to sort of level this all up. The pot of money is about $2 million statewide. Um, and it would go towards, I guess, historic preservation of those things. Um, there are no certified local governments on Mount Desert Island, I noticed. Nope. I think Castine is the closest one, right?

So, that's what I found. Did anyone disagree with what I found? And the other question about it was is like in Castine, do you you're a certified government, but like is the historic area, you know what I mean? Is it more it's it's like defined in in a particular? So if you did a, you know, here's our historic district, that would be the defined area, I think. Does that make things too restrictive? Potentially. I mean, that's up to you guys. Well, I know this was a carryover, so we wouldn't we didn't suggest that. My struggle is out of work.

Committee overload. We've got a limited pool of people willing to serve. So, I would hate to it further, but that's I I need to shut up on this because I'm the employee. Well, that complicates the other committee's activities as well. Yeah. Yeah. I'd say strike it. Gail's got her hand up. I say strike it, too. Striking it does not mean you can't do it. It just means that it's not a priority of the town to create another layer of bureaucracy. Uh Shashan, I just want to check in on you because we're flying through these things. I just want to make sure you have a chance to weigh in if you have anything. Uh I will jump in.

Okay, good. So, I say don't strike it. Just keep it as a medium-term goal. just to keep it as a thought. You know, I'm not saying it, but I'm saying just keep it as a thought. If there's $2 million available in the state at some point, it might not be a bad idea, but it's not something we need to jump on now. Yep. It just says explore the possibility. So, it leaves it wide open. About change the word explore to consider. Don't have to explore now. We know what it is. We've done our exploring, right? We've explored it out. Yeah, I can I can consider and it doesn't need to be a medium-term goal either. It could be

long term. Yeah. Okay. Good with that. Sure. Anybody have any strong objections to that? And I would think um the responsibility you would actually include the main historic preservation too, right? Um I'm sure they would be a part of it. Yeah. But I think you would use We can certainly add them. That's helpful. I think we'll probably will do no harm to keep it in there since nothing's happened and it was in here before. I think Pina is saying as part of this suggested responsibility is does MHPC do we have to list it? Should we list?

I think we need to acknowledge that they're important in this process. Okay. Good. All right. How about the next one? Consider ways to use development or redevelopment as a tool to preserve historic sites. Sounds good. Great. And the last one, partner with local organizations that provide local historic educational opportunities for residents and visitors to pursue grant funding for

we make our pier historic so we can get government funding. I think there are other ways to get government funding other than that. I really let's push hard on the working butterfly. always just call it working waterfront and you're going to be fine. Yeah. Yeah. There's our answer. Y and getting the Harbor Committee okay with getting money from the federal government. Good luck. That whole Can we just add museums? Yep. Rather than identifying them because I think the abby's important in here. You know, you've got museum at COA. You've got chipping away. So, what you're saying, Katrina, just to wrap the close the loop on this one, uh, town staff,

chamber of commerce, MD guides, local society, the library, the national park, and museums. Yeah. Island museum because you've got Steel Cove Auto Museum. You've got all these other museums that have got educational opportunities. One that's specifically identified. Is it a great harbor marine? Great harbor. I I doesn't matter to me. I'm just asking to cl for clarity. Yeah. I just think you need to say islandwide museums. Got it. As opposed and then delete great harbor. So staff chamber and islandwide museum. Great harbor. But I'll delete it. Perfect. Makes sense.

Lifting of course. So the last can't say that.

Yeah. To get back to my larger question. Are there things? So, if we think about the historic um and cultural section, you know, we're addressing protection, we're addressing identification of cultural resources, we're recognizing the integration of things of these things into our economy, we're looking for partnerships. Have we missed anything? Um, you introduced the whole idea of cultural What what did you have in mind for that? Because so far we've been talking about like buildings. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean to me I think it's a I think that what we have to what the comprehensive plan should be doing is recognizing that um the objective of recognize the importance of the fact that there are cultural resources that are specific to this community and that the first thing you should do which is actually strategy number one under objective number one is conduct a comprehensive um inventory of what those resources are and in doing so you also need to um so like the state and federal governments have a set of criteria by which they judge cultural resources. The town actually needs to develop its own what do you mean what do you mean by cultural resources

and can you throw out some examples of what other communities have used as cultural resources? Can I throw out some examples? Well, I think um like Rockland for example, some of their cultural resources revolve around their uh quaring history. Do we really want to go down vote? Oh, I was maybe for another tonight. I mean, maybe I mean building building there is museum dedicated to you have to regulate everything because there's a by my house. Yep. And you cannot ignore it that that was a foundational part of all Corey.

Yes, it was. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't be afraid of that topic. I was there in the beginning. I remember. Oh god. No. Yeah. I live it all. I know you do. Oh lord. You don't want to catch somebody walking. Well, and what I'm wondering is what the work we have just done now. Do we actually do our objectives and strategies actually acknowledge anything around those cultural?

Yep. could we be? And so we're I would tie some of that back also into the fact that there's cult, you know, cultural history is also a really good economic driver and are there ways to recognize that? And then how do you do it peacefully in a town that deserve and should we add that something more specific to like objective number two? Well, yeah. Objective number two, so continue to work with local organizations that provide local historic educational opportunities, but maybe it should be historic and cultural.

You guys all right with that? I'm just thinking we introduced it, but we hadn't actually addressed it in any of the things. It's more about historic landmarks and things. Now we're getting back to what Alan made the comment about pier talk cultural yeah fishing pier that would that is a good tie in for that. Yeah that's that's where you come back to it.

All right that's a good one. I would also add just for consideration that we do have some um you know climate change topics in the ordinance and that we haven't really done anything with climate change for historic resources. So we could try to add something there about that. And then um I think just continuing to recognize that the AI Museum is great, you know, on the island and that there is a you know a lack of we haven't really added anything about uh you know Native American connection. I don't know what the wording would be, but happy to take a whack at it.

That's Yeah, there's a lot to that. not have to dive down the rabbit hole on that one. Okay, good start. So, we'll make some tweaks and then we're good with this one. Any any uh any other online comments or Shashana on historic before we move to the next one? No, not right now. I think we're doing good.

Awesome. All right. So, the next one on the list, uh, moving on to health and recreation. Um, and I did want to sort of set the table on this one. The one that you guys have, um, that Suzanne sent, I think does have some just some comments off to the side, but this is pretty much what's in the old plan. The one that I printed off here, I actually deleted the comments just because it printed better. Um so the the I what we're trying to achieve in this section um at least from my perspective and I welcome everybody else's up um thoughts on it is um this is this for this section the question is this is how we support you know physical mental social well-being throughout the community through either the built environment through public spaces uh through our recreational systems and through community services. So that's what we're dealing with in this section. Does that make sense to everybody?

Okay. Are we missing anything? All right. So my question to everybody is what are the gaps in the existing plan? Have we read over the existing plan? You want to just go through I'll tell you what I think. Do you want me to tell you what I think the gaps are? Yeah.

I think we're um as we're going through it, I think that we're missing some uh language about aging in place. So our our data section talks about population aging and um the the data in the recreation section talks a lot about it too. We don't really have any good um we need to be mindful of strategies and objectives there. Um I think we're missing uh a little bit more about social connections sort of like the mental health piece of that too.

Um I think we're missing something about climate change. I don't know exactly what that is. Um I'm curious to hear everybody's thoughts on um the overall recreational system and how that works. I think we rely on school programming in the neighborhood house for like youth sports and things which is fine. Just want to recognize that and then making sure that we have good thought about public access strategies. So this will be um both in here in this section. This will be also in the um maybe in the marine resources section or the public facilities section. So it's like a flow through even even for land use. Um and then healthcare access was something that we spent a lot of time being very um there's a lot of pride in the

you know the clinic. I don't know if we I mean I know we talk about it and like the last sentence of the of the description has something to do with like making sure we help prevent diseases and stuff like that. So, not that those are things that we can actually control, but the comp plan can help um do that. So, so food systems, sorry, this is my last one. Go ahead. Maybe a scenario I haven't read like transportation is that's I just wrote down.

Oh, okay. like they're I it's great when the island explorers running even that's sort of you know you got to be here but the transport I've had so many people recently ask me from out of town or whatnot like you guys don't have a bus that means you're no something to get you to Bar Harbor to the store and I was like no we we don't I mean there's island connections and things like that but there's not like a okay I could go to the end of my driveway or whatever and get to the store in you know 20 minutes. Y like I think that's becoming more and more I don't I just keep hearing it more often. I don't know. It's more identified.

Yeah. I plus I think people or towns outside of us are starting to do it more and more um if they haven't already. But it's a pretty good size island to so uh try and navigate. just to summarize what I think you're saying is um because we have talked about that in the transportation section but to tie that with the health that like tie the um uh having a better public transportation into the health and recreation section.

Yeah. Yeah. One thing for mental health for those that say don't have a license or you know they're elderly and they can't drive but maybe they can't afford island can you know I think some of those are free but do you know if there was a bus that ran year round I take it to work every day I think you'd find a lot of people like lab and in the summertime no I can't get well you can't it's harder to get on but yeah I get to get to work at the wrong time my daughter used to use kids all the time and then when the bus goes away and then she had to before she had her driver's license she had to bicycle through the park and all around and

I just think it's I don't know elderly population I don't know boom up hills I just I don't and I feel like my own child who doesn't you know she's nervous to drive like she's sort of yep stuck a little I mean there isn't even really yeah you get there isn't even really Uber until the summer, you know, it's hard to get I don't know around if you don't have the means, I guess. But yeah, and nothing is necessarily nearby. I think we can um be mindful of that and add something into one of these objectives.

Thank you. Um does it make sense to So, first of all, do those things that I think are missing make sense to everybody else or Sure. Yeah. What was age in place and social connections? Social connections. Climate change and I had recreation.

Yep. I I wrote down um maybe as we're thinking about it, aging in place seems to be missing from either strategies or or objectives. Um, and sometimes when we're thinking about these like you know the way that we organize the historic one like thinking about all the objectives first and then all the strategies is another way kind of you know to go through this but um youth recreation and overall recreation um system and again it's not um a suggestion to like re you know create a rec department for the town of Mount Desert. It's to recognize the importance of

um of the recreation the recreation system we have on the island and in this town is very much reliant on other places for that to be successful. And and to recognize the importance of that it would actually cost the town more Yeah. to have a rec department than it would be to give money to Yeah. neighborhood have a neighborhood. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um the public access strategies, um healthcare access and food systems were my other ones. What do you mean by food systems?

So do we, you know, there was I think there was something in here food systems, but that was all part of like Yeah. making sure that we have um you know support the you know, gardening in your backyard, those kinds of things. I wonder um I like this expansion that you're presenting ideas around um and I I just am wondering if the actual full section is around health and recreation is just a component of it if the recreation emphasis is kind of dis misdirecting us. Well, we rename it public health. Good. Yeah. What do you guys think?

I also I like that. I also um I think I've said this before, but no, I am looking forward to at some point like looking I love it when we look at the objectives for a specific goal area. Um, and I'm look I'm interested I'm excited about doing that at the global like at the full comprehensive plan level at some point to see like where that is a moment I think we'll see gaps where where are we missing things um that will be helpful for me for thinking about what we're what we're covering.

Yeah. So, as we're going, we'll go through it and then another. So, um just to make sure I understand what you're asking, which I think I do, which is a great idea. Um if I'm understanding it right, it's probably a great idea even if I'm not understanding it right. But, um at the end, we can pull out objectives and just list them like here's our objectives for historic and cultural resources. Boom, boom, boom. We'll just list them all. So, we can see that on like one printout without the distraction of all the other things. That's what you're talking about, right?

Yeah. I'm almost I'm almost thinking about like a a list of our goals, right? And then like on the next page, a list of all of the objectives for all of the goals, but maybe broken out by by goal, but so that we can see them as an entirety. Um, so that we can see across the document kind of what we're painting a picture of. And in some of these instances, it's hard for me to answer the question like when we get down to like a specific word choice because I really want to think about like, well, if we're using this word across all of them, maybe it means less. Like that prioritization like if we're using that word across all of them, like just kind of like what does the broader picture look like will be helpful for me. If if if that's assuming that's part of our plan, that would be helpful for my process and understanding and helping think about where we're going. Yeah, I see some heads nodding around here, too. So, I think we'll we can definitely work that into the the next cut, the next review. Um, can I can I ask Gail?

Um, I want to circle back just for a second to something that you were talking about with respect to community- based transportation and that sort of issue. And I want to point out that often times these issues are bigger than us and they reflect the priorities of the overall society. And sometimes I will go on about how we really need to be talking about income inequality and resource inequality. And people say, "Well, that's not anything that we can deal with." And I want to point out that something like having good public-based transportation is an ex is a more specific example of how we can't and don't prioritize those sorts of things that are bigger than us because we choose to prioritize other things. And until we recognize that, and on this particular subject, I say this is someone who's watching my child now navigate around without a vehicle in a small city in Norway with a light rail system right outside their door and they're getting to just about anywhere they need to. Um, they're much bigger than we are, that city, but that whole country is linked. my child could get on a train or buses and go anywhere in that country and we don't do that here in the way that we should and that's a matter of larger choices but it's something that we should be mindful about to whatever extent we can impact that. Thank you.

Social media there's constantly like my car broke down is anyone driving by you know and I have to get to the lab by eight. I mean it just seems like it's becoming more of a Yep. Yep. Thank you, Gail. Um, if I could also maybe just slightly reframe the the comment, which is this is a good if we look at the public transportation comment, this is a good example of how we can um prioritize uh or have enough have or help that income equality

income inequality issue or some of the other larger topics that you that you've brought up in the past. You know, I I was thinking when I first read this um that the town's role in preventing disease and disability just it it doesn't seem right to me. And but you know using our um public spaces for quiet enjoyment and recreational opportunities etc. It is more healthy, holistic, but it's not about disease, correct,

or disability. And um so I, you know, there are ways that we can do that is making sure that we have we know what our all of our public spaces are and we make sure that they're accessible and useful for healthy things, whether it's like social connections. It's like, okay, let's let's allow free Tai Chi classes down on the village green. Yeah. You know, people can move around. It's an age expansion thing. Um, healthy, communal, etc. But that kind of thing as opposed to disease. Yes. Prevention. Yeah. That really stuck out to me as well.

Existing writing. He's sort of so why I tried to um say what we are trying to do in this section was kind of that what you know. So the where where we are right now is we're thinking about renaming this section to public health which will include recreation. And um one the one thing I was going to ask about is maybe thinking about the goal statement a little bit more and if it makes sense to try to reframe the goal statement. I started crossing things out and I crossed everything except for the last three words which is encourage healthy lifestyles. That's it. Can you pull up a web page on that for everyone to take a look at? You want me to pull it up?

Yeah, I got something for us to point towards. This is going to be an amusing full circle here. Pull up your web page. No, actually, can we do a Google search on something? Um, I have to figure out how to do this. I'm going to share my screen. Yeah,

it's not sh Where I'm going is and this is my funny full circle. Um, my last couple of years at the county, Cumberland County, we formed a Cumberland County public health department. And I can read off their mission statement from the website, but I was hoping we could pull it up because it's going to be kind of almost funny how well this is going to dovetail. Yeah, just go to Google that thing across the bottom. Hey, you were sharing. Stop sharing. There we go. I would like to um What about the things? I know what I was doing is um Can I get on the website from here? Yeah. Yep. Just Google. So now if you just can get to Google.

Oh, my daughter will be thrilled. She's going to school for public health. Yeah, she Yeah. Um so Yep. Here we go. Not the great Cumberland County, Maine. I know. Wrong. Wrong keyboard. Look at that. That was an interesting one. Yeah. Don't you want to be scared? Go to that. Yeah. Main public health department.

Does Hancock County have a public health department? Oh. Oh, sorry. This is where we're going. Or Okay. All right. I gotta share the screen with uh see if I can do this. Uh we formed this out of a mish mash of a whole bunch of different grant opportunities to make it happen and it's a conglomeration of a bunch of different stuff. Okay. But I think when we if we can get to their mission statement think that we might be able to crib some language here. Okay. You guys can can you say can you guys see that online? Yes. Please say finally go. All right, I did it. Let's scroll down a little bit. Right, scrolling down.

Public health department. Public health director. Boom. Try the vision. Okay, got it. So, Alex, we're looking at the vision. Yeah. We transcribed some of that. Yeah. Do you guys have transportation? Did you have when you were you had transportation was not part of it? No. Okay. No. What? Connections. Connections that could be Yeah. across the Yeah. To live long healthy lives. All we do is replace Cumberland County Public. Yeah. Can we put that amount as I mean why recreate the wheel folks? Yeah. Yeah. But that is very I mean Yeah.

That's really nice. That is really nice actually. We can include some of the language we have in here too about you know take advantage of the park etc. Yeah, we did some real stuff. Yeah. Internet connection norms, the abilities bas How about that? The ability to this basic resources. I mean, yeah. Um, climate change. Yeah. I mean, not everything's going to fit here. The department really truly was a conglomeration of a bunch of different other grants. Um,

for example, tremendous amount of the money that they spent the time on um was tobacco use prevention um largely because that's where there was a lot of um funding um due to um the settlements with the tobacco company. So, I mean some of it not everything's going to work here, but um I think overall maybe we can crib some language from this. Sure. Are you suggesting cribbing language um for the description at the top or for and or for the the goal? I would say at the top because when I was listening to everything we were getting at, we were kind of getting at this. Yes. Uh yeah, this is this is where we were sort of going. Yep.

So we can mold massage that to fit our and so that would go under the health and recreation like the introductory paragraph basically. Yes. Yep. Yeah. Perfect. Yes. their department head is up here twice a year every year. Really? No, no, no. Please. How long did it take for you to form that um to form that department? Shockingly quickly. We did it in about two years. Um what occurred was as soon as we started, all of the municipalities in the county jumped on board and said, "Please, please, please do this for us." So Hancock County does not have one is what you're saying. Yeah. you they'd have much as we would really could use

they'd have to take the initiative start it up. We also got lucky in that we hired up a really strong first person y um who then got tons of people to come and join her and so there was there was definitely a bit of a critical mass going on there um that got it going. You need a good cheerleader to and we got a perfect one for that. So yeah, I mean there there was a little bit of how does Hancock County not have a public I that's amazes me. I mean, I guess it shouldn't. A lot of the public health funding um is and that work is held by healthy acadia.

We serve the county um in many of the same ways that I think I'm I'm I'm absorbing this Cumberland County Public Health for the first time, but I think there's a lot of um similar. You're absolutely correct on that. And that's that's their closest cohorts in fact is the healthy acadia. Healthy acadia. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's let's uh so that's that's great. Now, let's look at the goal. And I think Vince, your last edit was just delete everything except for the end part. And I actually wrote down I wrote down two things. One was um help keep residents active and healthy, which is pretty similar. Yeah.

And then the other one I wrote down was support physical and mental well-being through recreation, mobility, and wellness opportunities for residents of all ages. Yeah, I took a stab at it. Thought um the goal would be to maintain and provide access to public spaces for quiet enjoyment and recreational opportunities to encourage healthy lifestyles. The last three words. Yeah. Yeah. Just to try to keep it simple. Yeah. What was your second one, N? My second one was support physical and mental well-being through recreation, mobility, and wellness opportunities for residents of all ages. I like that.

Yeah. Because that little list there that encompasses pretty much everything. Recreation to wellness opportunities, which everything else. Everything else. Yes. Everything. Yeah. Yeah. I I'm wondering I also agree wellness could just cover it all. I'm wondering if if we want to have recreation and mobility included if it's if it's one of those if there's if they can be if if that's kind of duplicative to so like mobility wellness maybe is mobility are recreation and mobility the same is

they're not the same thing but don't don't you feel like we're highlighting the recreation still pretty significantly with having both of those. Well, we have a lot of so we're kind of leaning on it hard. Well, yeah. And I'd rather like we need to lean on what we don't have. Like that's the thing we Right. Yeah. But I'm I'm not What's your edit? um either just well like dropping recreation and mobility in that top level sentence or just doing one of them.

So maybe like support physical and mental well-being through wellness opportunities, right? Does feel pretty hard to know what that means. I'm not sure. No, I think that's good for a goal. Necessarily need to figure define it later. That comes later. Yeah. Others just throwing out suggestions. I wrote down a couple other ones, but they're too long. Longer than encourage healthy lifestyles. Uh, that's the shortest one. Pretty darn good.

All right. All right. Well, do you want me to take a whack at that version and then next time we look at it and we can have another added? All right. So, I'll I'm going to cross out um recreation and mobility and just keep wellness opportunities.

Good. All right. Sounds good. Um the next one is the next thing I wanted to kind of go over on this topic was just based on sort of the list of things that we're talking about now that we've sort of brought into the topic um slightly or reframed the the way that we think about it. Um suggesting um a slightly different organization uh around um I had five different objectives and I'm going to just I'll write them down. we can look at them and then I think we can populate the activities around that if it makes sense to people. So this is like a framing exercise. So the first one is um if we think about organizing this section around healthy and active communities. So what are the strategies that would fall into that one? I don't it doesn't matter if I'm going to talk about it. If you don't like it, we'll change it. And the next one I had was um accessible recreation and public spaces. Probably nobody's going to be able to read my handwriting.

No, I see. We got it. You got it. Yes. Um the next one is aging in place and community connection. Next one is climate resilient recreational resources. And then the last one I had was local food and wellness systems. So, and those are all objectives or are those all strategies? I would call this um my attempt at starting to frame the objectives and then under these things would be the strategies. So, we can reframe them into objectives, but that's really what they are. want me to write them down? Yes.

Okay. So, the next one I had Yes. accessible. I apologize for not typing this up before this meeting, but it just came to me before we This is accessible recreation and public spaces. Next one. aging in place and community connection. Next one would be uh climate resilient recreational resources. and the last one will be local food and wellness systems farms open up next week.

Awesome. When you say wellness systems, what do you mean by that? Um, what I mean by that would be how do we like create systems um to allow for I think sort of like what they I think about like what Kathy was saying. Do we provide um you know free do we support providing free yoga classes on the village green or something like that? Okay. Yeah. But it may be too broad. I just was thinking about it in that category. Maybe local food systems might be the better way to do it because that might be covered by other things. Yeah. When I go towards wellness, I go more towards mental health a little bit. Yep. And I was wondering if mental health should be a piece of this if we're going public health. Y

mental health is a huge issue in this community right now.

Yeah. And I'd want it very separate from something like food because it is its own unique distinct be its own. So absolutely F how about that? Food systems and mental health support. Support is a big one in this town. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Everywhere too. I mean it's

Yep. And as we're and as we're thinking about these, I also think um getting back to what I was saying at the earlier like how do we in this section what are the tools that the town has? So it's um you know the built environment, public spaces, recreation, community systems, those kinds of things. In the letter B, accessible is accessible being ADA compliant accessible and otherwise. Yes. Yep. which is like we can access recreation no problem. Yep. But it's the ADA compliant public spaces what we're talking about.

And I think in a broad term if your objective was accessible public um recreational and public spaces the broader term and then under that would be we want to make sure you have access to them. Yeah. Not just because we have a Kadia National Park, but because um we have resources to get to water, whatever. And and they need to be accessible. Yeah. Which also ties into that aging in place. Does the town have anything besides I know we have the mental health like liaison with the police department. Do we have other mental health? I mean,

elementary school I mean the Mr. Coun. I don't know if they have a dedicated mental health re. I honestly don't know the answer to that one. That's a good question though. I should know the answer to that one. Parttime person don't so yeah I think they have something at least part time. Gil's got her hand up. Yeah,

Gail. Speaking of the schools and mental health, um we do have both a behavioralist, we have the school nurse and we also have extensive services, psychological services both through the central office and something located in the school itself. Is it enough? Does it reach the whole family? No, it's an unmet need communitywide. It's an unmet need. And like everything else, it's harder and harder and harder for the behavioral health center at the hospital to find staff and to provide the level of services even that they used to. Yeah.

So, in answer to the question, no. And I I I'm going to speak personally, but I think this is an area where the town needs to be things up. Um, great. So that's why from my perspective, I'm not necessarily looking at it and saying, you know, how can we possibly have more outdoor recreation areas, right? Like that's not our pressing need, but that one to me is yeah, pretty high on the list. So what would beefing it up look like to you?

Town, you know, what and being from other towns? Yeah, I think it's it's a reframing of some of existing positions to have a stronger component onto that. Okay. Um where you don't necessarily need more, but you need people to shift their focus. Yeah. And also better co coordination of the net because you have a lot of different places that can provide these services. But um how does someone get to them if bingo? Yeah. Yeah. Um and it does bring it back to that that need for a group that presides over a lot of this. Um yeah,

what organization that would be is to be but I I do think since this is our comprehensive plan and this is us looking 10 years out. Um yeah, we should probably put this one up there. Yeah, of course. Alex you were saying reing staff to have that component in it. We're already going there.

Well, and I wonder about greater stronger partnership with the hospital with the medical center that's here. We know that there are private providers who do mental health counseling etc over there. But maybe it's a matter of um getting the word out those thing resources are available also with the um Red Cross I mean visiting nursing association. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Do they have someone on st at the nurses for more of a mental health? Are they more physical therapists and more physicalist at this point in time? Yeah. Yep.

Gale, you know, with the um medical center in Northeast Harbor, there already is a close relationship with the hospital. But one of the questions is if this is a pressing unmet need, in what ways could the community actually, financially, if necessary, support the provision of mental health provider um services in Northeast Harbor or something like that? don't have insurance and don't Yeah, there's something great. Any other um elements? This is kind of a new one for the plan. So,

I would I would say uh civic organizations and you can't make that happen, but groups, charitable groups or groups of people get together. Um any kinds of any kind like the Lions Club, the Masons that used to be there. I mean, people gathering together in social environments to do something that Yes. they would do social connections them as much as the people they were helping to have that purpose and so culturally we've just moved away from that and yes true

even as so I'm part of the old-timers club in Seal Harbor and part of our goal is to help people who are there if they need it but nobody takes us up on it because we're very independent and insular like no I can I can manage to shovel my own walkway it's like okay well I can't even help you, you know. So, you have to be like an elf and go before they get up. Yeah. So, yeah. Love that. An old-timers club in Seal Harbor. Yeah, the oldtimes. Wow. And they let you in. Yeah. There's no age. I think that's what the Oddfellows did. They helped out elderly people.

They had the oddfellows place all over the place. They give people firewood and stuff. That's what the nations did. Yeah. As well. They would help families that need across from the whale. There's an odd fellow's building. Says Oddfellow. That's a big building. Yeah. Yep. Um All right. So, this kind of framing makes sense to everybody.

Yeah. And then does it um make would it be most helpful if we take this framing including the notes that we just took on until they'll help go scrub this and I will say like the first two things on that on the list I would have deleted from anyway. Good effect of one and two. Yeah. to scrub it and then add things underneath this and then share a new draft or do you want to we can brainstorm together? I want to know what's a climate resilient recreational resources.

Yep. So I think part of that for me would be um an objective would be climate resilient recreational resources and strategies under that would be to make sure that um like if you're uh let's take the bar harbor um shore path for an example like that in order to be climate resilient needs to be built in a way that doesn't get destroyed by storms every time or something like that. I'm only using the I'm using the built environment now, but there's other strategies to think about too. Um things like um accessible recreation or aging in place things might be um you know, do we have enough benches if people are recreating outside that they can go and sit somewhere or um I like to add I would like to add under mental health more of the that that social component too. You know, is there aging in place? Um, are we supporting opportunities through partnerships with like um, not that the town has to do this, but like we're supporting either financially or through other ways like the neighborhood house that does, you know, card games or, you know, all the ladies are playing back gaming these days or whatever it is. I don't know that kind of stuff. So, we can add some of that stuff in using this, but I think we're building out this a little more in this framework.

Yeah, I definitely think this is a section that needs an overhaul. Yep. Agree. Yep. Talk about it now. Great. This is a good initially. You probably didn't talk about mental health. No, you probably didn't. Go into 2009. Not as much as it's about now. Yeah. Well, that what I was trying to say at the beginning is what are we actually trying to do in this section and it isn't and the way that it's written now is very much like yay we are next to Aadia National Park and we have all that and that's great. Yeah. But when you think about it from the comprehensive plan perspective, it's that's one element of the whole that you have to try to figure out. Yeah, I agree.

And what makes a liveable community are those things. So when we get all the houses that people are going to be living on here, they also are going to be attracted to a place like this because all of this support exists. Yeah. And and a lot of that support is coming from neighbors. So that whole that's the cultural thing of what the Lions or the Masons or the old-timers group do. How do how what role can the town play in supporting those kinds of engagements? Yeah, it's interesting in a struggle that we're um in a digital age, you know, like what 30 years ago is it that Bowling Alone came out? If anybody's read that book, but um

you know, we're we're seeing the results of that. Well, is your do you think the oldtime do you think if someone called the town office and they said, "I need help. I'm in Seal Harbor, you know, shoveling my driveway." Do you think they would give you guys's number or No, our number's listed. So we'll see individuals. Yeah. Yeah. That's the kind of stuff we need to Yeah. That if there should be a list. So it seems like the town has an opportunity to have that to make that rolodex of Exactly. Oh, this person's in Otter Creek and they could use some help. Do we have someone that might Yeah.

But then like do you get down to my friend's going through a hard time. I'm going to call the town to talk to find another friend to like it would be kind of like depends on what it I think if it's shoveling a drive you know and things like that then I think the whole mental health needs to be a diff that's a whole another category and then yeah who has the intuition to call the town if they need like that's not anything no it's all over social media yeah it's more social like the harbor story and a and a story about the old times would be really beneficial because you all have been in existence forever. Forever. I've never heard of you.

Not that I would, but they're very quiet. Well, something in what's the other barber barter and swap. That's hu one that a lot of people on the island are well and I I'll say I know somebody who lives in Bar Harbor and does have health conditions and probably some mental health conditions as well. And then she had a knock on their door and it was a mental health person from the police department because somebody called into the police department. Yeah. Exactly. And and that in itself was just terrifying. Yeah. You know that someone's Yeah. Someone is kind of watching you and and then you know there's that sort of sense of this person's going to come in and judge me and it's what am I doing here?

These do wellness checks all the time. Exactly. that you know the morning phone call. Oh, right. That Yeah, that you have to sign up for that though. It's not like a drop in. Somebody was worried about you. No, dessert do that like the hair call. That's good to know. I've done it in the P. I did it during the pandemic. I had two ladies that I called during the pandemic. Okay. One of them lived in Sville and one lived in Southwest Harbor. Oh, okay. Just And you call them every day. Make sure they're okay. Hey, how are you doing? Alex your point to to tie in this conversation like um we can also try to say something like this in the complaint if it makes sense but like you're

the law enforcement has a role and and when you have a blue uniform and a badge coming to check on somebody's mental health that's like a different potentially terrifying but that's not to say that that person isn't actually well trained to deal with that it's just how we frame that that yeah that person specifically is there to be a kinder gentler better trained and exactly doing that um I mean that's that's exactly their role but yes the fact that they do still have the uniform is still always going to be jarring

it also brings us back to how much do people really want it to be their local government agency doing this and this is the sort of I'd almost call this somewhat uncharted territories because everyone's sort of we're at a point in time where everyone's recognizing need. There's this generalized well-being area out there, which is why they're pulling it under public health. But it's not necessarily to say that the town of Mount Dert specifically is the best source for that, but needs to figure out a way to support it. And so it may have to be a different agency handling it. um that would be the best outcome neighborhood house or something some variation on it

maybe this is all a work in progress and it's a work in progress throughout government's really everywhere um but I think it's definitely if we're a forward thinking document and if we're looking as being a planning document we should be planning about this because this is a area that is being recognized as almost like a hidden unserved need that's that's been out there that we really ought to start heading after a little better. Police beat it's all through it. It was just made a mental health call, made a mental health visit to put the name, but I was like, "Wow, there can be a lot in a week." Correct. Yeah.

But could there be a mechanism where that was still occurring but not landing in police speed? Yes. Yeah. So it seems like if the town has a role in it, it's that you have a megaphone to tell people that the resources are out there or if you are a resource, provide your information. Correct. And if we're providing that resource, we have to do so very carefully. Yes. Y very very carefully. Right. Like I said, this is new territory, but the point of the comprehensive plan is for the people when they are looking at this 10, 15 years from now to say, hey, look what they did. Right. Yeah.

Or we did that like I saw the night sky. I'm like, don't we have a night sky? I was like, I was like, oh, okay. Yeah. So, it'd be nice if Yeah. 10 years down. Oh, we've got we can have a Yeah. handle on mental health. It's interesting like you immediately go to like the liability of having that resource on the recommended list, right? Because like if you recommend some counselor to talk to somebody, now the town is involved in that exchange and is now

culpable for recommending a lousy therapist. I wasn't going in a slightly different direction, but that's definitely where I would go eventually. Eventually. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's more of a we don't want people feeling like we're there to be punitive. And there's the natural tendency because we are the local government, we are the enforcer, we are big brother. Yes. The big brother. And that's that very fine line of how does one help without getting into that territory and where it becomes

a good and open question as to whether the governmental entity in of itself is actually the perfect source for that. But if nobody else can get it done right there's around it. It is to come back to Cumberland County. There's a reason that the only public I think they're the only public health true department in the state because other non-governmental entities have taken on that role. There was just a a hole in Cumberland County that got built that way and it's still an organization that doesn't it's very different than the other departments. I guess I'll put it that way.

Well, very interesting. Does our town website have anything on I can't think of anything but it's been changed fairly recently. Anything about public health like access to medical care, you know, AA meetings. There's a hole in the town around town, you know, that kind of thing. Um they have community assistance. Yeah, it's there. It's just not um Yeah. Yeah. But it is an area that could be just like you said a list of resources something. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I didn't expect us to go in this direction today. No, but it's well obviously people think it's a hole like you said there's Yeah.

And part of it is as you said because for years I worked in substance abuse recovery work. It's like yeah the the mayor mentality of independence. I'm never going to the doctor to get something checked out. You're just going to suffer through quietly and it's hard to help people sometimes in that. Yep. And that it is. Yeah, definitely. Awesome. Well, I think the marching orders are take that framework, that stuff, county stock. Yep. Reframe that and uh get an updated draft and go from there.

Yeah. And uh the next action item also is finding another meeting in May. May May, whatever month we're in. May. Yeah. Halfway soon hopefully. Yep. And uh we'll start to tackle um that again. And uh probably natural marine resources after that. Cool. Yep. Great. Well, good work tonight. So, are we settling on a date in May? No, not yet. All right. our our normal first Thursday plus another one.

Well, our normal first Thursday was last Thursday, but I was gone. So, we But yeah, and another one. We need another one in May. Absolutely. Our next scheduled meeting, I guess, was the 30th, which Saturday was canceled. Unless everybody wants to meet on Saturday. Maybe. No, I think we have some time. And uh if we can meet twice in May, twice in June, then we should be able to get through all these things to set us up for a July um future land use discussion. That's our that's our charge to get through these next sections because July and August there might be a few less of us here.

Yeah. And we're going to but we are going to be going through future land is a really important topic. Yes. I can zoom in. All right. You get to go away in July in August. You've never left this island, I think, since No, I'm defin I don't think even even as a kid. Are you all set?

Yes.

It's not even 7 o'clock. Look at that. And it's the layout.