Regulations Update Outreach Subcommittee - Regular Meeting

start the meeting call to order at 6 31 um and thanks everybody for being here of course i don't have the agenda in front of me not that we know what we're doing we're discussing so um michael why don't we have you start i know you've been putting some thoughts around this and we'll um

Yeah, first up on the agenda, Denise, was just a quick review without getting into an earth, fire, and water thing about where we're going to fit into this. And I know I raised that question because as I look at the materials that IMEC provided us, we've got a lot in this focus group, but all they do in the IMEC documents is say, well, The zoning commission is responsible for that. So I just, and that's going to be a fair amount of work. I tried to peel that onion a little bit and, and there's a lot of work under there. So I just wanted to make sure that we were, we were setting ourselves up for something we can deliver.

Yeah. And I think that that, yeah. So thank you. It's like, I'm jumping from one meeting to the other. So excuse me, I didn't pull up the agenda yet, but the idea was to kind of, if you will give ourselves a charge, what, what, what do we want to accomplish? So.

And what are we going to charge the zoning commission with as a result of that?

Yeah, exactly. And charge the zoning commission with. And then if they delegate, then they delegate. But the idea was, what do we need to do? And how can we be helpful? And I think as we're talking about that, Eric, one of the things that we wanted to have a discussion on was We want to make sure that the process when we're talking about this is helpful to you, not hindering you. And we know that there's some challenges. So how do we make sure that this is productive and moving forward? So, I mean, I'm looking at that. the zoning commission is really had charged us with and is looking at making sure we have the process and the communication piece in place. And I think that that's where the subgroup anyway can really help you. And then, you know, obviously the full commission, you know, what, what the work is there, but do you have any thoughts on that so that we don't, that we need to be cognizant of?

Well, I think, This is going to go on most of the summer here. I think... Where I'm going to need your help is in sort of working with the various commissions and other bodies in town to let them know when their help is sort of most useful and sort of make sure that our notices out there, our webpage, our communication with the public is reflecting, okay, at this moment in time, here is where we're trying to focus on. So if that's your focus, please come forward now. Because my fear is we're going to do environmental now, and then three months from now, someone's going to say, gee, I want to go back and revisit it. And we're going to be sort of too late to deal with it. So getting the communications timed in a way that we can encourage the right people to come in at the right time, I think is going to be a crucial piece of what we need to do the rest of this year.

Okay, and I just put the agenda in the chat server to could see it, including myself so okay so and I think that's what we were really looking at is so you know the the role of this subcommittee and facilitating the regulation regulation, so I think. it may be that we don't have to define that right now in terms of, but as we're moving forward, like, you know, it might be that, okay, this is what we, you know, now that once, once we discuss some of the stuff that, you know, IMEG has given us and whatever, and what needs to be done that will kind of, it may define what we're going to do. We're comfortable with it. We can say, okay, what piece of that can we, you know, can we, can we do, is it possible for us to do this? And again, how is, how is that, a couple of things that I was looking at. So does everybody have the most recent, um, update from IMEG? Um, it was sent to us on the 14th. Okay.

Yep. I have it. And Denise, I'm not just on briefly on that last topic. There's a, we're kind of at a fork in the road where when we were originally charged, we were, we were more or less, uh, consulted and sort of screening the IMA process before the full zoning commission got it to try and make the discussions there more productive. As we go down this path of actually taking direct accountability for the zoning commission that we're gonna wrangle the other boards and commissions and take a very active role in defining and organizing and running these focus groups, you know, that's another big step. So you probably want to bring that up on the 11th just to make sure that the rest of the commission is comfortable with that and willing to take that on.

Yeah, I agree. So the one thing I was looking at with what was on the document that they sent us was it's very structured in terms of what they're going to do and then some of the stuff the commission is going to do. But I'm looking at – and Mary, I know you're really good at this. What's the communication piece that needs to go out? Because I was at first looking to possibly – fix this document change the document whatever and i'm thinking we just need a separate document that's very very simple like almost like a one or possibly two pager that just says what the process is because i think this we don't want to lose what everything that, you know, IMG is going to do for us, what the consultant is going to do for us. But I also don't want to, but I also know that we need to communicate out. And so rather than put that document as the public facing document, I'm thinking, making some very simple documents that have like, this is, you know, this is the process of, um so like it's a one paragraph then it's like boom this is really what you need to know here's the public engagement piece here's what the public this is how we're gonna and then you know and also maybe just like a make a one pager for um that we're going to send out to all of the focus groups people so that people understand that so thoughts on that i was thinking that we might want to kind of distill this you know into something very very simple And let me just since share This Mary's on Mary Gardner is on.

I don't hear or see her.

I can see her. She's meeting on me. I'm mute right now. Gotcha.

Document. Yeah.

So I have the document here and one of the things like IMGM recommends conducting, I don't want to have to change all this language because this is kind of their internal memo to us. And that doesn't mean we can't pull things out of it, but I'm thinking if we take this and make it very simple into like two pieces and particularly focusing on this stakeholder engagement piece, so that the community workshops are this is what we're going to have we're going to have three community workshops on these three topics but just make it very simple so kind of kind of take this and and you know like you will do the executive summary that's going to be for the general public of this document It's not that long, but I'm thinking of just making it as short and sweet as possible for the public and particularly focusing on the stakeholder engagement piece. So, for example, and we kind of went through this last time, here they're talking about what they're going to do, the discovery phase, the project management team, how they're going to come to the commission or whatever. And that's kind of internal between us and them. but I don't want to get the public confused about all of that. I really want to just like, okay, because the commission and the consultant are going to have stuff back and forth all the time. I think it's really about how we're going to engage the public. That's really the public facing piece. So I just wanted that. That's my gut and just wanted reaction to, to that.

Yeah, I agree. I think the other obvious reason we wouldn't want to use this document as the communications piece is because it's very much using language of what they're recommending appropriately. So the communication has to clearly indicate what the zoning commission has decided to do, right? It can't be not present it as hypothetical, but this is the process that is going to be followed. I think we might want to consider being transparent about how the different boards and commissions are being involved in the process, almost to kind of get out in front of any criticisms that were not working with the other boards and commissions. This is a really small town. And as we all know, firsthand, there's a lot of people who wear multiple hats, right? And so, you know, we, I think, would be prudent to I like how Michael, in one of the documents he shared, you know, who it is we're going to be talking to. And I don't see a reason to obscure any of that.

Yeah, I agree. I think we kind of talked about that last time in terms of, well, actually not. Our group did a little bit, but really we talked about it at the meeting a little bit. And that was the idea of making sure we had a web page that so if you submit something, whether you're another board, if you submit something in writing, whether you're another board or whatever, that it gets posted. And that people can expect within two or three business days that if they submitted something in writing, it will be online so that a commission doesn't have to say, hey, did you get what we sent? It's just like, is it online? If it's online, we have it because everything will be posted online. And we can let people know that within two or three business days, it's going to be here and you can go and look it up. And I kind of copy that from the way the Connecticut General Assembly does theirs. Every single piece of testimony is online, boom, done. And I know, Eric, you've started to do that. Do we have a link to that yet?

I know Craig was working on it today because he was sending me language about it. I don't know whether it got put on, it went live or not. I will check in with Craig in the morning to try and figure out where we are with that. But he was sending me some language, how he thought he was going to look, and I told him I was okay with language. So I can sort of go on the website now while I'm talking to you and see if it got posted or not.

and that's fine I mean we want to have it up within you know a couple of days but I think you know so that when we tell everybody and the commission votes on it but it's like you know people are starting to send us stuff so sooner rather than later and we can what so that when we finalize a communications document and we say, here's where you can find out what everybody has sent us so far. And I also want to make sure that so when we have the one pager for the focus groups, which is the commissions and our other partners, stakeholders, that it tells them, send it to. And I guess that's one of the clarifications I was looking at. Do we want that sent to you, Eric, or do we want that sent to Craig because he's going to be managing that? Or is there like a generic place that email that he checks and will post that?

It's probably honestly best to Craig because he's going to be managing that page. So I would suggest it be Craig. I see, based on what I'm looking at here, that the language that he drafted for the regulations rewrite phase two is up, but I don't see the the piece where we're posting all the materials on here yet. So let me talk to him in the morning about creating that page for posting all the materials because that piece has not yet been completed at this point. Okay.

And like I said, that's fine. I mean, we don't want to delay it forever, but we understand that as long as it's in process and we all know what we want, I think that's important. And then so that we're saying it's online, it's part of the process, sending people to Craig so that anybody who's commenting will send to Craig. I think that's really important. I'm going to stop sharing this unless someone wants to look at a very specific piece of this at this point.

No, I think that's fine. I have it up on my screen.

But that's fine.

Yeah, Eric, thanks for working with Craig. I mean, he has a summary of what phase two is, like a little intro blurb that I think is done quite well, actually. So I think we can just consider that done because then he also has a link to the details that I might put together if people want to look at the details. I think as we start to build out along the lines of what Michael came up, we can flesh it out more. Yeah. but I think your first tasking Denise is done. So good job.

There you go. And Michael, Michael has a great graphic, a schematic. So why don't you share that, Michael?

I don't think I have the ability to share. Oh, you know what?

Well, then let me, give me one second.

It's in your inboxes.

It's in my inbox. I have it. Hold on a second.

I gotta figure out why my laptop is refusing to run Zoom now. Let's see if I have it open. There we go, I do. So the first one is just the graphic and basically, what that is intended to do is I just kind of drew out what are we talking about in terms of the three main work streams, the environmental, residential, commercial, industrial, with the parking and signage and all the common items overlaid across the three of those, which I did not note. And then a lot of this was, again, myself just trying to wrap my head around what the focus group thing meant and what it would look like. And that's the next one down. And we had talked about, sorry, we had talked about potentially having some of the other specialized boards and commissions take point on that. So for example, for the environmental focus, whether it's flood and erosion resiliency, both were again, some one or two commissions that actually are close to that and are subject matter experts in that. Same with housing, affordable housing, taking point on it. And for the commercial, again, I just thrown this out there, economic development or someone else. And then, so the coarsest input and the broadest input would be at the top of this funnel. It would be refined and augmented by the This is where I think we have an opportunity to plug in the town ABCCs, external subject matter experts and NGOs could plug in at the focus group level, potentially by invitation, not just by broadcast and having them voluntarily show up. And that would be what goes to IMAG. for the triage and the synthesis into the proposed amendments that would ultimately get to zoning for the formal adoption process.

Yeah, so I mean, I think that this is great in terms of, you know, the stakeholder engagement piece. Obviously, we're going to go back and forth. So because the, you know, with the commission and the consultant, we're going to be going back and forth. But I think in terms of collecting data, this is a great flow chart. Let me just bring, does anybody have, I brought it up because I wasn't sure if Eric had seen this.

I did see it. I don't have it open to my screen at the moment, but I have been checking my email all day. Okay. And I did see this come in.

All right. So then let's look at the other piece that Michael had so that we can.

i just want to say michael i i love this idea i really um wholeheartedly think this is the way we need to go in terms of one uh making it a manageable process for the zoning commission itself but also probably um just as importantly um i creating real substantive ways to bring in other members of the community, both that are on kind of the governance side of the equation and the stakeholder. So I thought that this was a really kind of creative way to manage both of those pieces. Thank you for putting it forward and thinking this through.

Thank you. And at the bottom there, it sort of You know, the folks who are the Zoning Commission and the Selectmen and River Cog are playing, the people who are inside the, inside, who have accountability for pieces of this, actually. That's really the accountable group.

Yeah.

Because planning is going to be referred to, River Cog is in, they're going to be submitting stuff and the Selectmen. So they're more of a, if you had this as concentric circles, they'd be at the next ring out from zoning. Yeah.

I think it also is the appropriate workflow in terms of where IMEC comes in and out, right? And the sequencing. So they're running the workshops because that's kind of their expertise. But then the workshops will inform the focus groups so that whatever ABC is in charge of a focus group has something to work with already. They're not kind of starting from scratch. And then the next time IMEC looks at all of this, They're doing so from a, you know, it follows a format that they were looking for, but also gives them the broad, what's the word that I'm looking for, exposure to the different inputs from ABCs and SMEs and NGOs. I guess what I was, so the community, I just want to make sure I understand your thinking, Michael. The community workshops, the three that go across the top that IMAC runs, like would those be things that the zoning commission, we would just advertise publicly and anybody from the public could show up at? And then the focus groups would be organized by the relevant ABC and on an invite only, obviously also open to the public, but with targeted invites as well.

So the first thing that the community workshops, I think those are meant to represent exactly what IMEC has recommended in the document. So along with the process and the materials that they've provided. Okay, the middle level, the focus group is kind of TBD. Again, I was trying to wrap my head around, okay, what does this focus group thing mean? And what is this going to entail? So yeah, I think it needs more definition around who's going to send out the invitations, what level of wrangling is going to be done? Can we get some support from IMAG? All of those things.

And River Cog has also offered to support some of this as well. So if we need expertise in running these sorts of meetings, River Cog has offered their planning assistance as well.

So if we're looking at, Michael, to the focus groups and like who's responsible for what, Um, in terms of the, just the logistics. So I appreciate what you're saying, Eric, in terms of substance. Um, but in terms of logistics, would we want to keep that within zoning or would we really want to have other ABCs kind of own part of this process?

Who are you asking? Delegated as much as. Yeah.

I mean, my only warning is obviously they're our rigs. So I'm reluctant to empower to us beyond a certain point, other bodies for fear that they're going to then say, no, there are regs now. And you have to do the things that we're looking to put into these regs. So, I mean, I think we need to make it clear that at the end of the day, these still have to be zoning commission regulations and not housing commission regulations or whatever else. So the, the, I agree with bringing all these people in and empowering them, but I think at some level the zoning commission still has to sit at the top of the pyramid.

Yeah, I agree with Eric. I think it's a matter of how do we get the focus groups. If we say when we have a focus group meeting, if there's something that they've written they can provide to us because they have a plan or they're developing something or they can have information that we can use to digest something, And we can share with the consultant who's then, you know, updating this. I think that's a great way for us. And then, and obviously if they're sharing written documents, then it gets published so everybody can see the information that we're gathering and that we have. But I do agree with Eric that from not just, you know, because we're not just doing a planning exercise, we are looking at updating the zoning regs. And I think ultimately that falls on us.

So what if we had someone from the zoning commission paired with. So we have only three. So we have three members of the zoning commission that are like the co-lead for a focus group. And then the other person would be somebody from one of the ABCs and they can work out between the two of them. how they want to handle just the nitty gritty logistics, but that way there's a zoning commission overlay on each of them.

I mean, we could decide to assign, you know, like, okay, you know, like some of the commissions to somebody. I mean, that's one of the strategies. There are a lot of commissions, but it depends on, you know, but that doesn't mean everybody's going to have a lot to say. I think some are going to have more to say than others because some stuff is a little bit more applicable than others to the zoning regulations per se or is not, you know, is not as that. so one of the things and it was kind of based a little bit on michael's although i didn't capture everything because i was doing this as and i wasn't going back and forth between the documents but the one thing i was looking at that i wanted to make sure we talked about tonight was not with this this process and how do we you know assign it but i also didn't want to lose the fact that I don't want to kick it down the road. It's like we need to start putting dates around things because as we develop the communication piece, the first thing I want to say is this is when all this is happening. So if I'm sending something out to let's let's pick on the commissions. it's going to be within these two weeks that we're going to be talking to you so you know so and so they understand the process and when we're going to be trying to schedule a meeting with them and um you know based on everybody's availability and not that we're going to be able to do a doodle poll with everybody but when i'm saying everybody's it's you know ours eric's room availability the key the key people who have to be in the room And then get as many of the other folks to be there as possible for the focus groups. And it may be that we hold more than one meeting. If we have some key people who can't be at a particular meeting, like I said, there's a lot of people under the... environmental it may be that we're going to have we're going to split this into two it may be that we have the flood erosion control board and the emergency management people and the resiliency committee all at one and then we may have the conservation commission and the open space commission and you know uh the inland wetland agency at another depending you know and i'm not saying i mean you could advertise it just among the agencies who's going to be there there is you know overlap with with almost all of them about what happens um but i think it's you know so we could do it in two so that people have time or we could kind of do a similar type workshop with two dates So that whoever comes, comes. And we just hear on the same topics with those. I mean, I don't think we have to have it exactly tightened up. What I really want to do is make sure that we communicate dates and somewhat of the process as we're working through a few of the things. Because, you know, like I said, it may be that even if we have the first meeting where we have them all there, it may be that, okay, we're going to schedule another meeting just with this particular board because they've got a lot they need to share with us. So it might be that we have an initial meeting with everybody and then open it up to even more further input. And with Mary, your idea of having a liaison with that commission may be a good way to handle it as well.

Denise, just a quick note on the output of the focus groups too. The next entity downstream from that is IMG and consultants are great at templates. So one of the ways that we can help manage and structure the output of the focus groups is to have IMG provide sort of a A template for the focus groups to work with to structure and guide their their output so that it's usable by and I may get the next step but.

yeah what what what what do they need yeah exactly. So what IMIG needs, and then we also might be able to talk with River Clog if they're going to help us possibly by helping facilitate some of the focus group meetings. Because it's hard to facilitate if we're, we want to really be listening. We don't want to necessarily be facilitating. So if we could get someone who would help facilitate the focus groups, I think that would be a really good part of our process as well.

And they have ways to willingness to do that. So I think we should be able to get some help with that. Okay.

And if we're part of the focus group meetings, I think we're going to need as a zoning commission to be careful not to put our thumb on the scale and really make it an open listening thing.

Yes. Yeah. And that's where having the facilitator does that, you know, so it's like, how do we, how do we, how do we do that? So it's like, so I just want to catch that.

Yeah, no, I think that's great. So yeah, I agree with you, Denise. We just need to start getting stuff on the calendar. And as good a place as any would be to start with the community workshops. I'm a little hesitant to have, I mean, yes, we have to start, but I feel like we've waited this long and we basically are having two of them in the middle of the summer. And so I just want to make sure we're thoughtful about how we communicate that out and how we potentially plan to have to do a round two if we don't get a good turnout, if this is just based on public response. Maybe we have people RSVP so we know in advance, I don't know, but that would be my only concern. And then Michael, I wanna understand with your flow, I'm looking at it and it's very neat for the chart you came up with to have kind of the three workshops feed into three focus groups. But, you know, Denise brings up an interesting point of some of those focus groups. It might be just too many issues, too many groups to have in one focus group. Or if we have a talented facilitator, does the number not necessarily matter because we can discuss? capture it, fine. And I mean, it's neat to have it kind of be a one-to-one ratio. And for moving things forward, that will be a lot more efficient. I just want to make sure we think through how that would potentially play out. And if we have the capacity to manage a lot of different stakeholders in one event.

Great question and observation. Mary Gardner. And when I scratched this together, I had not thought through to that level of, you know, does that branch out or actually take the form? I was thinking more of the bucket and the layer than how many meetings it would be or if it may be too broad for some of them that you'd want to cut it up into multiple focal points. Yeah. I try to keep it aligned with the three major work streams that we set out for the community workshops.

Well, one of the reasons I like the idea of like you know, having multiple, you know, having them all at this table is the idea of the synergy that it could potentially create as they hear from each other, right? We know that they tend to meet separately and I'm sure they're reading each other's minutes and what have you, but there's something to be said about being in person together, not just with your exact cohort. And so that's why I raised the point, do we think we would have a sophisticated enough, not sophisticated, but, you know, an experienced enough facilitator that would be able to kind of take these disparate groups and ensure they all had a chance to say what they were going to say, but then also have it make sense and not just kind of be one person after another getting up in front of a microphone and saying, this is what my view is. And then the next person, and there's like nothing that ties it all together or, or builds on each other.

So in that, that was where I thought I loved your idea of the liaison is having the, you know, starting with so that we could get their synergy with everybody there, but then either figuring out like, okay, these people need to give us more information because they have so much. And is it a liaison thing or do we need to look just here? Do we need to set up a special meeting where they come in and talk to us? But then it, you know, then it, you know and so we could do it either way we could figure out which you know so i wouldn't want to write that in stone but have those as options you know because it's like we can we can talk to any commission that needs to talk to us more if you know what I mean. But I think it's a matter of starting out, and I love the idea. So I put, my town planner used to love the word charrette, so I put it out there. But what I'm really looking at is the idea that we could have breakout groups, you know, tables set up with a facilitator so that, okay, here's a focus, like I said, these are the folks who are going to focus on emergency response or emergency management or, you know, from the zoning perspective, not from the first responders perspective. And then here's the folks who are going to want to talk about open space or whatever the issues are. And we could kind of, based on what we already have in our regs, where do we need to go? And like I said, I just started filling this in. I don't have everybody in there. I know I don't have the Gateway Commission in there. I don't have, probably the land trust needs to be, there's probably some other focus groups that need to be in here, similar under the other topics. And obviously I didn't even, figure out what I wanted to do with the commercial industrial yet. So I'll have to look at what Michael had on his sheet for that. I know economic development was the one that jumped out, but I wasn't sure of other, other stuff that needed to go in there. But, you know, I didn't know if we had a chamber of commerce, for example. So chamber of commerce, economic development.

We're in Old Saybrook's and we're not very well represented there. So.

Okay.

So.

I mean, it still might be worth, you know, saying that, but, you know, it's also the commercial, you know, what else do we need to look at there? And so, and was the transit under there as well? Transit and parking, was that under there as well? I'll have to take a look at that.

I'm not sure it had a defined landing place yet, but we can certainly figure out where we want to put it. Nothing is set in stone on that yet.

Yeah.

Within the work streams, you mean?

Where's the land? Yeah, within the community workshops, it was environmental housing and then commercial industrial. Was there a landing place? I can't remember the document. I have it open, but I've got multiple documents open at this point. Where was the parking and transit stuff?

Oh, the transit and signage was, I think we said we're going to spread them across all three as it,

to that stream. All right. So we're just going to make sure that gets incorporated into the questions.

And to go back to something that Mary Gardner raised earlier, one of the reasons I think we focused on having housing in the summer was because there's generally a feeling in a seasonal community like ours, if we put it in January, that we're not reflecting the seasonal people who aren't always around. So we want to have it when the seasonal people are around and can attend on some of this stuff. So

I agree. I'm convinced, Eric. You're right on that. I remember we did talk about that. And also, as I've been thinking through, picking up something Denise just said also of Like, there's so many things about just getting this all on the books through the end of September. And we should be clear about how we communicate this. If we get through the end of September and we feel we don't have enough input, that there was some issues that just didn't get enough airtime or what have you, then we can add on afterwards. But at least it... gets us moving in the right direction. Because there's a certain element of it could be difficult to predict exactly what is going to generate the most discussion. We likely all have some ideas. So yeah, no, I like your idea, Denise, of let's just start putting stuff on the books and start working through it with the understanding that this is dynamic. And we may have to revisit, revise, and update as we go along.

To speak to that a little bit, I know ZBA is doing a ton of work about what they want to see in the ZBA piece of the regs. And obviously that's not really captured anywhere in here. So it may be that we're going to need something else that sort of addresses how we deal with different boards and commissions that are sort of feature prominently in the regs as they're written and how we want to address that. So, you know, I don't really want to see the months of work that ZBA is doing, not, not reflective in the final document, obviously.

Eric, do you think ZBA falls more under the housing piece than the other stuff or not? Is that?

It does. However, a lot of what ZBA does now tends to have flood zone components because most of what we're seeing now is elevation stuff that requires variances because it is being elevated. And in fact, one of the things I want to talk about is do we really need variances if all you're doing is elevating? So, yes, mostly housing, but also a little bit on the environmental. So, again, we'll try and sort of fit it in there. I know ZBA wants to talk about the FEMA stuff in the environmental piece because, again, they're seeing stuff that they don't think they should be seeing. So, you know, again, they're going to be spread out a little bit, but at the end of the day, we need to make sure that their basket of concerns gets picked up somewhere along the way.

Okay. So I did add just for – obviously we can – this is all drafts at this point until we present to the commission, and we can still refine who's going to get invited to what. But I put ZVA and planning in both of those just because they're – They are the ones who are tied most closely to us on everything. And I think that they're going to have to be invited to all the focus groups where, for example, the Open Space Commission, not that they aren't interested in housing and they can, you know, and we'll hear from them, but we'll probably hear their concerns about the housing piece in when we're talking about the environmental, because it is, you know, obviously about zoning rights. Yeah. All right, so I know we're going to continue to talk about process, but I wanted to make sure. So I did throw some dates out there, and they're just dates that I was just looking at where we should be so that we don't keep kicking this down the road and we just start putting stuff in. So I didn't put the exact dates, but I was looking at the environmental, the week of the 31st, um the housing the week of july 26th and i mean i agree with you mary i'm like i was trying to look at the housing thing and saying like uh but it's funny because martha shoemaker brought up to us at the housing committee meeting the other day um like don't do it when that housing you know when the you know residents aren't the summer residents aren't here so that's a big one and then i kind of put the commercial industrial towards the end of september and that was because i think that housing piece is there's going to be a lot of discussion around that and we may have i have a feeling we might we may have other meetings that come up on that so and that and plus it's summer so you know everybody's schedule is going to be crazy oh we lost michael

So I guess the question would be with it. I think those dates, they look fine to me. I mean, in lieu of anything else, I guess the question really then would be touching base with IMAG to ensure that they would be ready. May 31st is going to be here before we know. So are they going to be ready that week to have gone through, you know, done that initial review of all environmental pieces and, and then have prepared enough to do a community workshop. And if so, then great, let's go.

Let's do it. And I just stopped my share for a minute because Michael dropped off and I didn't want to miss him if he's trying to get back in. But I don't see him anywhere.

Tied to that, I think we asked him to come back with a survey. So I don't know where the survey fits in the timeline here because we would have wanted to get that done sort of earlier. But May 31st, as was pointed out, is going to be here quickly. particularly with me on leave the next two weeks. So how this all fits together, we're going to need to just keep a close eye on.

I mean, we can move that down. This committee is going to be the committee that really helps with the process piece. So I kind of wanted to throw the dates out.

Well, I mean, we can't hurt to ask. Let me talk to them and get back to you guys with thoughts on that.

And I'll send this out to everybody. Let me share it again. I stopped sharing so that I could make sure I let you in there.

All right, there we go.

So again, I just was throwing, and I knew how the short timeframe, but I also was like, we just can't keep waiting. So why don't we... Think about that, Eric, especially that first date. If we need to move it into June sometime.

Let me bounce it off and see what he has to say about it. Then I'll get back to you guys in the next few days with his thoughts on that as well.

Folks, one thing we probably want to push to the head of the list is to reach out to the commissions that we have proposed might be the focus group leaders to make sure they're willing and able.

Yeah.

So we need to identify, I think that's a good point, Michael. So once we hear back from IMEC, then the next step is to check with the focus group co-lead. So we need to identify who that might be for each, so we know who we're reaching out to.

Yeah. I mean, I think in terms of putting in the public hearing process or the community workshops, it's going to be a lot of people to make sure they're available that week. I'm not sure how we're going to get everybody. So I think that that would be just too difficult.

No, no. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. I was building what Michael was saying. The co-lead. So Make sure it works for the one person that's representing.

But I'm still saying it's like at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 people there, plus our whole commission. You're talking about 24 people's schedules.

I guess that's a question I have then. Are we really trying to make sure? that all of, you know, it's a community workshop. This isn't the focus group. This is the community workshop is where I was starting. The focus group, I mean, at a certain, because those are going to come after. So my expectation is that the focus groups wouldn't start then until after September 27th, right? Yeah.

Well, no, they're going to be within two weeks of the public hearing. I put public hearing. It should say community workshop.

As it was broken down by IMED, you would do one, then the other, one, then the other throughout the process. And that's my bad for

Well, I think we need to then come to an understanding of what is considered sufficient for critical mass.

Yeah, no, I mean, I really, I think when we're scheduling the focus group workshops, we really need to have them there. No, I mean, I don't want to schedule and know that people can't be there, but I really think, so we need to reach out to them. But I really think with the other workshops, we're going to really have to, I think it's going to be hard for us to say like, oh, you know, the chair of planning can't be there. So we can't hold it that week because we're going to be driving ourselves crazy. There's just a lot of, especially with the time of year.

Yeah, no, I respect that. I guess if we're tying them together, though, so if we're tying the community workshop and then two weeks later, we're going to have the focus group, then we're going to need to. We have to confirm both dates before we can move forward with.

Oh, yeah. No, we want to confirm the dates. I'm just saying, you know, I think we need to confirm the dates. But not that everybody can be, I think we should set the community workshops and then say, okay, you know, and then it's like, okay, within two weeks, okay, now we've got some flexibility for the people on the focus groups on when we're going to have the focus group thing. And I put within two weeks, if it's like ends up being three weeks because we can't get everybody together, it's like it is what it is. Yeah.

So again, apologies for my not entirely tracking the sequencing here. It's completely clear to me now. But I guess when I'm looking at the focus groups and I'm looking at this IMEC document and what Eric was talking about in terms of what we'd be asking them to come to the table with is, are we giving them enough time to pull together what they have, what they need to? since we haven't And consistent in how we've been communicating for the last six months or so in terms of our expectations.

I mean, I'm looking at that. If we're going to get the community workshops going, we need to get the, you know, the, if you will, the executive summary documents, but the two communication pieces, one on the community workshops and one on the focus groups out there. So we need to, you know, I mean, we need one on the bigger community engagement piece that talks about the focus groups and the community workshops, but then something very, very specific to our, our workers. And I'm looking at that needs to happen. You know, once we have this, a process approved by the, by the commission, I'm looking that we're going to have to have those out there pretty quickly.

So, yeah. And then are we giving the specific. ABCs or whatever you're calling them, enough time to prepare substantive input?

I mean, most of them are giving us input already, so I'm thinking yes. I mean, we already have stuff from almost every commission listed here has already given us stuff, so. And they know it's been coming. So I think it's just a matter of us. Okay, here's the date. So let's just, because if we push this back, I mean, they're ready to go. I think we'd be doing a disservice to everybody if we just said like, oh, we want to give you guys plenty of time to be ready. I think that they're ready. That was our problem is they were ready before we were. I think that's true. But I think us trying to fill in this worksheet like this that has the dates on it is just really, really important. And then to your other point, Mary, it's like, okay, but what are the steps we need to make sure we have in place? And that is the communication piece needs to be ready to go so that we can get out to them and say, and we probably should start developing that so that once the dates are set, we fill in the dates on those and they're ready to go.

What else are we trying to accomplish this evening? Since we're coming up about an hour or so, I just figured I would figure out what else we want to.

I will do two things. I will share this document, but I will also send the full Excel so you'll have it. I've got it on my OneDrive so I can share it. I will share it if people want to go in and especially with all of these key participants, you know, just keep adding to it. And you just put a comma in between if you need to add. So like if under planning, you just, you know, double click and do that. That said, I'll do it so that, or if that doesn't work, just send it to me and I'll put it in. I'll stop sharing that for now. And so I think that was the, you know, most of what I wanted to make sure we accomplished tonight was, I will take a stab at getting a draft of a communication piece out, looking at shortening. Like I said, I'm calling it an executive summary, but it's really the public-facing communication piece for both the community engagement, which includes both things, but then one very specifically to our stakeholder groups. Because the commissions, like I said, they're chomping at the bit at this point. and also you know very clearly you know let them know how we're going to utilize the website in terms of certain things okay and then you're going to talk to craig about just building on the website on on like what that could potentially look like yeah i i've talked to him about it several times in the past we haven't obviously got anything up yet but i will reach out to him in the morning and talk about

How to sort of create more on that web page for those documents here and what that's going to look like. Again, everything that comes in needs to go up. So we're ready for that process going forward.

Yeah. And it would be good to... figure out how you want to have it listed so that it's not like a date or just say, so let it should say conservation commission, or it should say something submitted by or, or the person. And if it's submitted for a commission, I would just, just think about what you want it to say there.

Yeah. I mean, I'm almost thinking it needs to be something closer to a spreadsheet where first column is a submitter. Second column is date. Third column is date. some sort of what it's regarding, I guess, for lack of a better word there, just so that people can have a better sense as to what they're looking at and they don't need to search necessarily through every single document.

Yeah, think about how that would work. A lot of people are going to comment probably on multiple things. It won't just be housing, it'll be housing, it'll be flooding. Some of the topics won't, but I think as long as we know that, you know what, this is everything we've received from the Conservation Commission. This is everything we received from the Flood and Erosion Control Board. so that people understand who sent that. I think if you could kind of look at how you would make sure that that's standardized. Okay. yeah and and you probably could do it just by like you said you know do it like put a nurse control board you know you know and and put the and if you put the date on it then if you have multiple things from them it's like okay they submitted something here they submitted something here they submitted something here you know we've got three submissions from them and this is this is what they've submitted at this point

okay and eric when you're talking to i'm just looking at the um document from imeg again going back to your point about this survey that the commission said they definitely want to do so it looks like uh the survey would also be on the website people could fill out the survey on the website so um i guess we like what do we need to start pulling that together not we don't have to figure that out tonight but that's

Theoretically, since it's something that we're asking IMEC to do, they should already be working on it. So let me see what their thoughts are as to what that looks like. It was going to be strictly an online survey. We were going to pay for phoning or whatever else. It was going to be strictly online. So making sure it then got out to all the relevant areas where we can get people to go and take it, we'll work on that piece of it. But let me talk to Gomes about where he is on that timeline, and I'll get back to you about that.

exciting and then michael so do you for the for the focus groups and we're talking about having a head person like is that something we need to identify right now you're muted michael i was thinking anyway so um

wasn't trying to answer yet. We can see the smoke coming in out. Yeah. So the person maybe not, but I think we have some, some commissions in mind. So for example, affordable housing, we should reach out to the chair of affordable housing and say, you know, this is what we're thinking in terms of the process for the zoning reg updates. And we've tagged the affordable housing commission as being a key player in it by, wrangling a focus group on the housing workstream. So kind of bring them into the tent for the folks and get some hopefully enthusiastic agreement that they would love to help with this and contribute to it. We'll see.

I think that's a great point. And I think, yeah, let's go ahead and identify who we think right now, and we can just decide amongst ourselves who's going to reach out to which lead. or if one person wants to reach out to all of them and at least get that conversation started.

Yeah. I think you have to be careful there because for example, zoning, someone shouldn't just reach out to Denise Savage and say, we want you on this committee. It really needs to go through the chair who on the, who on the commission needs to be there.

So we, yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. It should be the chair. And does it need to be the chair of zoning to the chair of what have you? So do we need to put together a message for Paul?

Well, I think we'll have a message that goes out. It could go out from Paul or, you know, it could come out from Eric. It could come out from whoever.

You know, Paul is having his own health issues at the moment, so I'm not sure his availability over the next couple of weeks. So it may need to be sort of farmed out to others who are available to reach out to people.

Yeah. And then, you know, and Eric, do you. There was a meeting that got canceled because Martha was sick and she was going to have all of the boards get together. Do you know if she's rescheduled that? Because if she reschedules that and it's within our timeframe, that would be a great time for us to be able to go and give a little spiel on what's happening.

I haven't seen any new data on that, but I'll follow up with Martha on that as well.

Yeah, that would be great because I know that she was going to meet with all, and I was hoping at that time, here we are, so obviously we didn't meet that, but the idea was to have a communication. She did ask us for a little blurb on it, remember? I don't know if you remember. Anyway, she did ask for a little blurb on where we were with the zoning rewrite because she was going to talk to the commissions about that. But at this point, if she's looking to reschedule that, It would be good. So if you could ask her, because that would be a good place for us to get to all the commissions and be able to be in front of them with the one pager that kind of talks about the process.

And where they fit into it.

And where they fit into it.

And so since Paul's unavailable and Eric, I know you mentioned you're going to be out for the next two weeks. So while ideally it would have been Paul or Eric reaching out to the three commission heads. Do we want it to be Craig then, or can we say it could be Denise?

I will be available at home. I just need to stay home with my wife here because she's just at a smile and I can't leave her alone. So it's not like I'm unavailable. I just have limited availability. So I can certainly take some of this on. I think some of it probably should come through Denise or another commission member. I don't know that Craig has the necessary sort of heft of title or whatever to be able to reach out to people and try and get this level of commitment. Cool.

Totally. I'm just trying to go through like order of succession. So. So, OK, so what do you. So then should it be from Eric or should it be from Denise that I'm sorry?

You know, I, I think that if we could have it come from Eric. because he works with all those other commissions. But I think if we help draft everything, because then he's got all their emails. So it's just a matter of like, okay. But one of the things we could make sure, and I can talk to, well, Eric, you obviously are in town. We can get probably a list of all the commission heads from like Katie. Okay. Because she has the list. The only thing I would say is, because I think we've made this mistake on another committee I'm serving on, I would not use their... Some of the commissions have a commission email for them, like the chairman of the planning and zoning. I would use their real email. I'm telling you, I'm not sure they open those commission emails enough. I'm sure they don't, actually.

Yeah.

Yeah. So just to put that out there. Sorry, go ahead, Mary.

No, it's fine. So for the three people we want to reach out to and say, will you be our co-lead for a focus group? So Michael identified affordable, reaching out to affordable housing commission for the housing focus group. So we just need to identify what are the other two commissions we want to use. for the other two focus group co-leads so that we can then draft an email for Eric to send out to those folks.

Yeah, Mary Gardner, that was just all brainstorming on my part, so.

I know, that's what all of this is, though, right?

I don't know what you mean by co-leads. It seems natural to me, but if there's a better idea, bring it on.

Michael, can you explain that again? Yeah, go ahead. I was going to say, I guess I missed that you were trying to have a co-lead. I thought you meant, I thought you were saying a co-lead or a liaison from the other, but I wasn't looking that it was a co-lead in terms of a rewrite. Is that what you were trying to do?

No, no, logistics, like literally just.

Because I think everybody.

Mike, I don't know, Michael, I'll pause. It's your idea.

Yeah. Okay, so what's the, rephrase the question, please. Repeat the question.

How are we going to organize the three focus groups and community workshops? If they're not, you had suggested having them be led by the relevant, a representative from the stakeholder group who's gonna be addressed. So I had heard you say, and perhaps I misunderstood, I'd heard you say, for example, for the housing focus group, partnering with somebody from the Affordable Housing Commission to pull the whole event together as part of a delegation effort so that the zoning commission isn't doing all the work on its own. And perhaps I misunderstood.

What I started was just generically saying, affordable housing would have the ball for the focus group. During this conversation, it evolved into a point liaison and such. So I had not thought it through that far. I was just looking at basically what commission would be the most likely most likely partner to run the focus group. Yeah, so that takes the form of a liaison or whatever they want to do. I haven't taken that far. But it makes sense to me that yeah, there's there's a there's a point person. And the other part that came up would be in during this meeting was that there would be a zoning counterpart for each of the the focus groups. So I hadn't thought of through that bar, all I got to was using the the key commissions to run the focus groups because it's kind of in their backyard already.

so this is what i would say i would say the reason you don't want to have them run the focus group is because you want to hear from them so i'm looking at having a facilitator like from rivercog run the focus groups so that everybody gets their input because otherwise you're not getting input from that commission if they're the ones who are facilitating or running the work group that's We need to hear from them, not ask them to run it because... then we get to say what we want, but you know, we're actually the ones who should be listening. And I think that, like I said, I think having a facilitator from River Cog or, you know, with the community groups that will be, you know, our consultant, but you definitely want to make sure that you're hearing from those groups. So I'd rather hear from them rather than have them run it, if you know what I mean.

I think that's a great idea. I think it's a, perfect evolution of the concept that I threw out there. So strike the fact that the, the ball is going to be in the court of that commission and just, we just want to make sure they're there.

Yeah. I mean, I think having them there and I was looking at the fall, you know, the, some of the followup stuff, maybe, Hey, give us a key person who's going to follow who that, if we want to, if we're running something, let's say we come that, you know, Gomes comes back with a concept of a change. who do we want to run it through at affordable housing? And it could be the whole commission, but as there were liaison that we could say, hey, we could get it to them and they can bring it to the commission or they can give us feedback so that we have, I was looking at it more being liaisons that way so that we have a give and take back and forth after the workshops, both the focus workshops as well as the public workshops. Or it could be, hey, at the public workshop, people said this, what do you guys think about that?

You know? Yeah, the whole idea of the focus groups was theoretically they were focusing on the material that had come in to some degree at the public hearing. Ultimately, they're going to be hearing what other people are saying, and that's going to factor into what the focus group then does.

Yeah, I mean, they should be helping us digest that as well as bringing, hey, they've been dealing with this for three years and they need us to fix this, you know. so that so they have their own stuff they need to bring to us but also if they can help us digest what happens at the work groups And that may be the way we structure it so that we're asking those questions so that we're working with, you know, whoever helps us facilitate. And I think that's where if we can get a facilitator, it doesn't have to be the same person, but if we could get a facilitator from River Cog or Yukon Cooperative Extension used to have facilitators too. There's other folks who have facilitators, but if there's people who could facilitate that, you know, that we work with, that's a great way to do that. Because then it's like, You're not throwing your stuff in there. You know, it's hard for me. It's like, you know, we all have our biases and we're not as good as facilitators as some of the other folks who aren't there.

So we're still, I think, going to want to engage some of the key commissions who would be, I don't know what I'll call them, anchors of the focus group so that we get from them what subject matter experts, what NGOs should we be bringing into this by invitation.

And that's where if we can get who, rather than say that they're going to lead the focus groups, but ask who a liaison is and we can ask the questions we could ask them. Hey, this is what we're looking at. Have come to this focus group. Who's missing? Who should we have there? That might be a questionnaire. And we could actually do an online questionnaire with folks on that. Not the survey thing. I'm talking about just very specific for the focus groups. Who should be here? These are the folks we're inviting. Who's missing?

Okay. So to recap, and I think this is a great idea, so I want to capture it. So the ABCs are not going to facilitate the focus groups, but they're going to partner with us to organize them and define with it. Who's with the attendance is going to be.

Yeah. I mean, we'll, yeah. I mean, I think we'll, you know, and when we say organized, they're not going to set the date or whatever. I mean, we'll, we'll ask them about the date, but you know, we'll get the room we're taking care of all that. But what we're going to do is ask them, okay, what, what, you know, are there key things we need to focus on content wise? And are there key things and there are there key people that need to be in the room?

I like that. An agenda. And then who's sitting at the table.

Yeah. And since we have a housing work group, we can probably figure that one out. Michael would hope.

So is that something we want to just kind of crystallize right now? So we have some action items coming out of that if we're talking about potentially having the first focus group six weeks from now.

Yeah. I mean, I think we're, I think I know where we need to go. So I will, like I said, as I'm putting the condensed stuff, I'll put down what, what everything we want to accomplish and what we'll do. Cause if we're going to have, if with the focus groups, for example, if we're going to have a liaison left to say like what we, what we want that liaison to do and how we want to coordinate that. So I'll, I'll write that into the one pager, try to capture it that way. So one of the things I will do is when we end the meeting, I will, within a half hour or so, I will share the Zoom link so people can review this. If you didn't catch some notes or whatever and you want to go into the Zoom meeting, you'll have it. And I'll definitely send it. Well, I was going to send it to Eric anyway so that he would have it to post or however they post it. But I'll also make sure that you guys have it. So if you want to take a look and say, what did we sorry about that. Think that's important.

Here's a detail, but I'm just looking at the agenda for Monday's meeting that Craig sent out and I don't see an item. on there for a discussion of what we just did.

Yeah, no, it's on there. But Eric, I was going to actually ask if he could put that at the beginning of the agenda, because just having it somewhere in the middle of the agenda is just like it's just really disruptive. So if you could do that, I think because I think if we can just like boom, hammer this out and then we can get into all our public hearing stuff.

Oh, there it is sitting on the logo. I got it.

That's right. Yeah, it just didn't come out right. It looked weird when I opened it up. I'm glad I happened to open it up ahead of time, but I was looking at that.

Let me talk to Craig about moving that higher up the agenda there so we can get that out of the way.

All right. Yeah, because I think if we can get through that, because what we're really just going to say is get people to kind of approve the process we've kind of gone through and said, boom, so it's, you know, just moving forward with some of this stuff. Is there anything else we need to do? I mean, I can give you back 15 minutes of your time, and I know, Mary, you have to run to another meeting, so that's so much fun.

Yeah, I have two more meetings tonight, actually.

Is it time zone stuff?

Yeah, I've got colleagues that work in East Asia.

I have a lot of weird late afternoon, dinner time stuff because of West Coast people that I deal with all the time. So, yeah. All right. Anything else then? You think we're good for now?

All right.

Thanks, everybody. I really appreciate everybody coming together so quickly. And we'll just keep plugging away at it. Thank you, Eric, for joining us. I know that you've got a lot on your plate right now. I appreciate it.

Well, glad to be here. Thank you.

Bye-bye. Bye.