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needs. John's Liquor Store, 729 Main Street, Falmouth, 508-5482287. Yes, sir. Good morning. This is the Saturday September 2025
meeting of the found select board. Uh it is our strategic planning workshop. Uh and it is now 9:03. Uh and I would uh ask my uh fellow members to uh step stand
to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Thank you. I'd like to thank all
of the members for being here this morning. Mr. Colton who we'll hear from uh Mr. Renro and Mr. Johnson style, Mr. Renro, would you start us off here? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd love to. Good morning, everybody. Uh Mr. Chairman uh select board as you know um every uh
every year at least for the past few years in the fall August September time frame uh we gather to review and consider updates to the strategic plan FY23 to FY27 strategic plan as it stands. The last update we made was
October of last year. So um this morning um we are uh pleased to have a uh senior associate with the Collins Institute, Mr. David Coloulton. David is going to uh walk us through. He's got a really robust agenda this
morning. Um to let you all know and I think most of you know this already, this is going to be the first of a series of three uh sessions with David. So that Mr. Chairman, turn it back over to you. Okay. Thank you. Um Mr. Colton, why don't you lay out some ground rules for
us and would you like uh us to do introductions of any sort? I I saw that as u Yes, I would. Um um I'm I need the uh not sure how we get get through the the technical issue here.
Yep. I just barely remembered to turn back the the red on. Why can't we just leave them on? Good. I don't want to hear everybody hearing you chewing. Okay. I play a lot of video games and it's
push to talk. So, I'm I'm I'm a natural. Well, while we're while we're getting that together, let's uh your mic's off, too. Red is very confusing. Oh my goodness. While we're getting the uh the PowerPoint fired up here, um I'll
introduce myself. Um, as Mike said, um, my name is David Coloulton. I am a senior associate with the Collins Center for Public Management at University of Massachusetts Boston. Um, the uh, uh, Colin Center
it was established many years ago by the legislature to provide uh, consulting services to cities and towns primarily in in Massachusetts. although we do serve uh state agencies and um um we
have some clients in other New England states. So, um, my background, um, I, um, I had a 35 year career in local government, uh, starting in the city of
Quinsey. Um, and, uh, uh, I was there for 20 years, 12 of as commissioner of public works. Then I went to the, uh, town of Milton. I was a town administrator there. and from there to the town of Eastston where I was a town
administrator. I've been with the center since 2017. Um I uh I work in many different areas in the center. Um I'm on the finance team. I'm
on the HR team. I and I do um workshops like this uh most recently in uh on the Cape uh in Oak uh Cape and Islands uh Oak Bluffs and uh Barnstable. So um I'm
happy to be here to facilitate your u update to your plan. So to start things off, why don't you let me know a little bit about yourselves and you know maybe uh to start off with
something interesting. So you know maybe tell me something you bring to the uh select board that might be a little unique. Okay. Well, I'll start. I guess I'm Bobc. Uh this is my third year on the uh
on the select board. Uh in June I was elected to be the chair. Um I guess uh I don't see anything particularly unique. Um you know I'm an attorney. Uh I've almost 50 years practicing uh and I've
been in the private sector, the nonprofit sector, the government sector, worked for the state of New York uh for an agency uh for a number of years. So I think what I bring to the board is that rather broad perspective of all the
different you know sectors that intersect with uh with the work that we do here on the select board. So that's me. Thank you. All right. Good morning. I'm Heather Goldstone. Um currently serving as vice chairman, my second year on the board. Um I guess two
unique things that I would say I bring to the board. Um I have a background in science and science journalism. Um and uh through that journalism, well both of those I guess um I would say I bring a focus more on asking the right questions
um than finding a particular answer. All right, sounds good. Um my name is Colin Reed. I'm in month three, I think, of being a select board member. Um, and uh, I guess my background is
communications and uh, business management. I've always been on the strategic side of uh, helping the various places I've worked. Um, and uh, yeah, just looking forward to what we have in store today. Thank you.
I'm Doug Brown. Um, I grew up here in Balmouth. Uh I'm a building contractor in my 40th year in business in Felmouth. I was a town contractor for almost 30 of those 40 years. Had to give that up when I became a select board member in 2016.
And uh I have a pretty good knowledge and understanding of how the town works from both perspectives of being a town contractor as well as having been a village association member and village association president in East Felmouth. Then I became a town meeting member in
2006 I think and then uh was on the planning board, the housing trust and many other things before I got on the select board. And so I think this is my fourth term. I think this will probably be my last one. Hopefully some of the young folks will come along and carry
on. Thanks. Yeah. So Doug te it up. Jack Richardson. Uh I'm the youngest member ever elected. I'm 22. Um and you know I bring that perspective of uh looking things through just a different lens and perhaps a
bolder lens than traditional for municipal governments would be to be kind to myself. Uh I also work for our state senator Dylan Fernandez. So I bring knowledge from the state and what the state might be planning to do uh to this role as well.
Thank you. So uh thank you all. Um, let's see. We have the uh you'll have to use the mouse. We don't have a remote for that. Okay. Um, so we've uh
that's for the introductions. So, I wanted to uh lay out a few ground rules um here. Um David, they did say if you're not going to be at this mic, if you could use this one.
Sorry. So, we're going to we're going to lay out some ground rules in in a minute. Um, we're going to do a little strategic planning 101 very briefly. Um, then we're going to have a little exercise. Then we're going to get into
the smart goals, prioritizing your goals, and is that Sorry, I didn't turn it on. Yeah, you're sorry. Uh, there we go. Okay. Um
and then we're going to refine those goals and we'll we'll wrap up and talk about section two session two. We'll we'll get we'll squeeze in a couple of breaks. I know there's uh lunch coming at about 11:45. Um so the ground rules
simple ground rules. You've probably all seen these before. Listen to understand, right? Um, you know, so many people listen to for while they're formulating their argument. Uh, you know, listen to understand what the other person is
saying. Uh, respect people's differences of opinion. Uh, be open. Um, share the air as they say. Uh, you know, don't uh monopolize it. Don't be repetitive.
um you know some people as we know are extroverted and want to have a lot to say and some people are more introverted and need to be coaxed out. So give people the room to uh express their opinion
um and uh self-manage. That means you know if you need to up use the facilities just go ahead do that. Don't raise your You don't have to raise your hand, ask permission. You're all grown-ups. You can
uh manage yourselves. So, we are here to revise your strategic plan. you have a strategic plan in place that uh it's a 5-year plan as I understand and it's uh it's due to
expire in 27. So, it's got a couple of years of life left on it and we're here to revise that plan. Um but just in the interest of uh of getting us to the right place to
do that, let's review strategic planning. Um so couple of uh notes here, deliberate and disciplined, right? A strategic plan needs to be a deliberate
plan. You need to set out and deliberately want to make a plan. Uh and you need to have be disciplined in making that plan. Um it's not just a collection of ideas and thoughts and things that you want to do. You need to
be disciplined. You need to focus and develop a plan. Um because you're in the business of shaping the future of your organization. Fundamental questions and strategic
planning. Who are we? What are we? What do we do now and why? What do we want to be in the future? What do we want to do in the future? and why. The why is always very important and how we get from here to
there. That those are really the fundamentals of what you're trying to get at in a strategic plan. Everybody's strategic plan is going to be different. You'll Google strategic planning and you'll be buried in vendors
who have their strategic planning methodology and this one is better and this one is focused on vision and mission and this one is focused on alignment and uh tasks.
Different focuses, different plans. There are a million of them out there. We try to we we try to not u subscribe to any particular methodology. We want to do what's best for this organization.
Um particularly in uh public sector and in town government in Massachusetts very specifically, there's so many different types, right? You're a select board with a town manager. your strategic plan is going to
look a little different than a town council form or a city form with the mayor. Um, even within the select board town manager realm, there are some towns that
are very decentralized. Um, so their strategic plan is going to look a little different than yours. Uh, you're a little bit more centralized in some towns. uh in Massachusetts. Can you tell me what that means? We're
more centralized. Thank you. Well, you have a Tommy manager form, right? Um I assume it means you have a charter. We do. Okay. Some towns don't have a charter.
Um they have a uh they rely on what's in in the state law and they rely on bylaws. um but they don't have a charter. So, and and some towns have a lot of independently elected
boards and officers. Um I'm not sure exactly where you fall in that range here, but lots of towns have elected clerks and treasurers and collectors and uh elected planning boards, elected, you know, everything's
elected and they're very independent. So your government your local government is very decentralized. So naturally in that kind of a government structure the select board strategic plan is going to be very high
level right because they're not going to be telling the other elected boards exactly what they have to do. Right. Got it. Thank you. Okay. And we were more elected and we've been phasing it out over the years. Okay. So you you you're you're somewhere
in the middle. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So the first thing you need to do when doing a strategic plan is lay a foundation. Um you know plan the plan. That just means who's responsible for the plan,
what the time frame is, um who's who who's going to be involved, who you going to talk to. uh when you put this plan together plan the plan you think about how you're going to do the plan need to do a stakeholder assessment that's simply just identifying who your
stakeholders are um what they're uh what they need from the organization what they need from you and what you need from them to be successful right can I stop you there Doug for a sec
so you know and that struck me when I was looking through the earlier PowerPoint, but how interactive or how robust is that stakeholder assessment in developing the plan? I mean, are we actually going out and asking for assistance as we develop the strategic
plan? Yes, you should. If you're right now, we're in the process of revising the plan. And the second after this workshop, we're going to be sending out a survey to department heads and select board and committee chairs. um that you
know we're in the middle of putting together that list. So you're going to be getting their input during this process. So they're certainly stakeholders in this process. If you were starting from scratch and said we're we want we're we're building a a
new strategic plan. This one's done. We're going to do a new one. Then you would you would do you would start with more a more robust assessment of who you need to talk to community and so right we're gonna have to get your name tag David
I'm sorry thank you um mandate analysis is kind of like what I was talking about earlier in terms of how the plan is for you right it's not it's not a mandated analysis it's an
analysis of your mandate So what is your uh level of authority? Um are you purely a policy board and the town manager carries out policy? Are you uh are you a working select board that
actually gets rolls up their sleeves and and does and does things? I mean there's still towns out there where select board members are actually working for the town. So there's a there's a range and you you you need to understand what your
mandate is. Should we talk about that while we're on it? Sure. We did used to have five uh full-time or three full-time select board members and then we changed that when we did the town charter. Okay. We became a five member
mostly like a sort of a volunteer uh policy setting board. And really the town manager is a strong town manager. So he has the ability to do everything he needs to do dayto-day. So your mandate is is really to set policy
I think. Yes. Right. Okay. I guess I would I would add to that in that we are somewhere in the middle of the range in terms of centralization. We do have an independent, you know, planning board, board of health, ZBA. Um
we have 40ish volunteer advisory committees and working groups and as per the charter one of our mandates is also coordination. We don't necessarily have oversight or direction over those um various different bodies.
But we do have a coordinating role and I think that's something really important in this in in updating this strategic plan is making and we've heard from a lot of our advisory committees in particular that they would like clearer direction and also that the advice that
they're providing needs to be heard and so I think there's a lot of of bringing together the work of those different committees into one comprehensive strategic plan and I don't want to get it confused with a comprehensive plan one overarching strategic plan that brings the work of those committees together and provides
clear enough direction and coordination across all of those bodies. Great, great clarification. Um and that and that's important in the mandate analysis. And then um an assessment of your strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges. You might have seen this as strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Um I like to use challenges. I think it's less threatening
of her word. Uh and it also I think it's more accurate. You want to want the strengths and weaknesses is the internal side of this this equation. What are your internal strengths? What are your internal weaknesses?
Opportunities and challenges are the positive and negative on the outside external to the organization. Now, in local government, that gets a little fuzzy because a town is an organization, right? But a lot of those
challenges have to do with the town outside of this room if you right. Um although sometimes you consider the town outside of this room
uh as part of the internal strength, right? You can you're a an involved give you an example an involved active uh citizen citizenry that serving on committees and doing good work is a
strength right certainly um but it can be there can be challenges in that right as well. So, um, so a challenge is something that's
out there that you need to be aware of that's challenging your ability to do your work, right? We have so many great volunteers and committees that the challenge is keeping up with all the recommendations.
There you go. Um, David, most people have uh Go ahead. Sorry. Uh, Peter, I was Peter, I was just if it if I could, I wanted to go back briefly to the uh the stakeholder assessment. Yeah. uh and
just uh provide some context in terms of the strategic plan uh sort of work and updates that the board has done in the you know the eight years that I've been here which is there there has not been a reach out for the years that I've been here there has not been a reach out to
the committees or staff let alone the entire community and what had been done is simply updating each year the five-year plan would be updated and and future you know, so it so the start date would be whatever the current year is that the
board was updating the plan, they would move the date from that year and and maintain it as a five-year look ahead. Okay. So I you know, if if the board wants to do something different from that, you know, obviously the you know, that's that's up to the board. I just wanted to
sort of set that background. Yeah. Actually, that kind of anticipates my question and and that is, you know, are we really looking to revise what we have or to to maybe think about starting a new and going forward. Uh, and I think
uh I think that's got to be a threshold decision we have to kind of come to pretty early on in the in the process. Well, I I think in terms of this process, I don't know that in the next three sessions we can
write you a new plan. Just just not enough there's not enough time to do it. Not enough hours in our contract, all of that. But we can give you a pretty robust revision that includes some stakeholder
um uh analysis and input. um that helps you that strengthens your goals. Uh one critique I would have of your current plan is that a lot of your goals aren't really specific, right? They're they are
wishy-washy for lack of a better term. Um so we want to work focus on these sessions on strengthening those goals and maybe reducing the number of goals to something more manageable.
Um, so I think we can improve this plan, improve it a lot over the next three sessions. I don't think we can give you a new one. But I do think that that's a question you should decide now is
are you revising this plan as continuing it as a plan that ends in 27 and you're going to do a new one or are we revising the plan and calling it uh instead of 20
what is it 23 to 27 instead of calling it that we're going to call 24 to 28 when it's done. Yep. Okay, David, quick question. Um, having the benefit of these slides ahead of time. Um, we have these four groupings, plan,
the plan, stakeholder, etc. But it's not doesn't seem that we're doing that in any of the following slides. So are these threads that we bring to each of the slides and we then when we talk about you know vision and strategy we bring in plan the plan stakeholder assessment because if not maybe it's
worthwhile to spend a little bit on these four now if they're not going to be threads later okay because I'm new to this and I'm still trying to figure out what is our mandate I think we have a general idea of the stakeholders
my questions that come out and these are kind global big questions that I presented in my response to you is what is the flow down of these recommendations of the strategic plan? If we are not a working body and
we're just a high and we keep this high level per your words because we can't tell other people what to do then what are we doing cuz who does these work? Who does this work? And then if you look at it from a horizontal point of view
and you go to the plans and studies of Falmouth that are existent, do our updates flow down to those because we have a comprehensive plan, we have a land plan, we have a recreation plan, we have a historic plan, we have
all these plans. So I guess that's where the stakeholder assessment. I I don't understand the flow. Okay. And maybe we'll get to that later, but it's these are the high level questions that I have in terms of who does what at at the end of this
because if we're going to hold Michael and Peter accountable for this, then do they flow down all these things and all those updates have to happen within all those plans and work because this is very much a if the capital improvement project plan
is any example, it's bottom up here, right? It's we have to deliver on the needs now of the here and now of water, waste water, of safety, of roads, of whatever. So, I'm just trying to figure out how it all mashes together.
Can I share with my perspective? Yeah, sure. I think what we need to do is pay attention to all the other studies that you're talking about, coastal res resiliency reports, the financial analysis, put it all together, and then put it in
our strategic plan so that the town manager and assistant town manager know where they're head. So, we pick from those and put it into ours. Yeah. We prioritize and we and we'll get there. That's an awful lot to unpack right there. And what what I guess what
I'm saying is if I wasn't clear this is settled law as from as far as my perspective and coming here. I'm assuming that something like this already happened a few years ago.
All right. And we're going to go to the and you certainly can spend your time working on that and and doing that. David, could I just make one comment? I'm sorry. I know you're running short on time with this session. So, to tie it together, um, and you've heard us, Peter
and I talk about this before. You know, the goal, we've done a lot of work over the past few years tying the, um, the capital improvement plan process into the strate strategic plan or vice versa, right? We have the departments as they make the requests, tie that back. That's a little that's a little high level and
and and and somebody could argue maybe, you know, the effectiveness of the tie tie-in. One of the things that we're working really hard on is that dashboard that that measurement system where we report to the select board on a quarterly basis and allow you an opportunity to uh provide more guidance.
You know that's a resource allocation uh tool is the way I see it as well. If we're falling short on making certain targets and milestones then that's our effort or our opportunity to bring those challenges uh to the select board. So that's the tie-in I hope and the involvement in the engagement. And like
Peter said, I I I had hoped when I when I came here a few years ago that there had been more of the engagement with the staff level because that that's really, you know, those folks at the at the staff level are actually doing the work under our direction and ultimately your oversight and then policy leadership.
So I think this will a lot of this will clear up for you in a few minutes. Um the next step is to straighten out your vision and strategy. what's your mission? Right? In a classic strategic
plan, it doesn't make sense to have a strategic plan that's not in alignment with the organization's mission because you want everybody on the team trying to accomplish the same mission, right? You don't want 10 missions.
Um and so that's where the vision comes in. The values uh just uh sort of guide that mission. Uh and then you have your strategic issues. You have seven strategic issues
essentially that you already identified in your plan. And from the worksheet that you you did, I take away from that that you're all pretty satisfied that they're all relevant. uh they continue to be relevant issues
and we're not looking to change your strategic issues. Although sometimes we do rep prioritize which one is top and which one is at the bottom. Right. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And that's part of what we're going to do.
And then there's the goals and I think this is where we are in these three workshops. We're here on these strategic goals. Now, strategic goals. Let's talk about the difference between strategy and tactics. I think you've all
heard those terms, right? You know, I think you probably have a good idea what the difference is. Your strategic goals are overarching goals. They're high level goals. They're not necessarily the do X Y then
Z. It's not the road map. Um, it's not it's a road map, but it's not your car navigation directions, right? It you tells you where you want to get to, but it doesn't tell you turn left, turn
right, drive six miles, turn left again. Right? That comes later. And that's where the connection is between you and uh let's go to the next slide. We'll go
back to that. Your leadership um you have leadership and coordination. Part of your role is to coordinate. You provide the town leadership and a town manager and assistant town manager.
This is where they come in. What are the tactics? What are the action plans? And that's what you're working on in your strategic planning process. I know with your department heads, right? You're coming up with you're using uh key performance
indicators and so forth to measure where where you're going. And you have certain tactics that you're employing to get there. Correct me if I'm wrong. Correct. Okay. So this is kind of the next level down.
This is where it gets more specific. Um and um obviously you need resources to get these things done. Um your town manager identifies
those resourc heads identify those resources comes to you. you go to town meeting, you get the resources and you can move forward. Right? So, um these things, this part of the
planning process involves everybody here. Prior to that, it's really the board with some input from stakeholders. Good. Go ahead. The only thing I will say here
um because I don't think it really fits into this but I think at some point it should be in here that the structure of our government and I don't know if the charter you might know this Doug if that's already what's part of the charter committee's plan but I think every few years from an efficiency
standpoint the act every few years I mean every five years or so the actual structure because a lot of towns have recently changed away from this model and the only reason I'm bringing it up now is what you just mentioned was like four steps but those are four very long steps when you need to wait for town
meeting and go go for things so political government major I think town council would fit found very well but I don't want to direct a conversation in that way at all I just thought this would be a good point maybe somewhere in there to look at the forms of government
just to throw it out there that charter review is done every 5 to seven years and part of their review is whether or not our government system is working as it is if they feel like it's not working, they would recommend the formation of a charter commission. Then it takes it to the next level and
it's a public process to town the whole town considers whether or not they want to change. Thank you. That was that was my question. Do you have a charter review committee? So one thing that's a danger in laying these things out step by step, you know, the four steps is it ignores the fact
that a lot of this is happening at the same time, right? So it's not like you go through all of this and then you go to town meeting two years later. You, you know, it's there's a there's it's a
more it iterative process uh than Go ahead. Can I ask a clarifying question for my thinking moving forward? Because while it can be easy to say this is what a goal is, in my experience in this process, people are often thinking at a
lot of different levels. And I'm familiar with a framework of that has an additional step in it or a different an additional layer to what you mentioned right where you would have an overarching goal strategies objectives and tactics. And I guess what I'm as we
talk about moving forward smart goals for our strategic plan. I want to make sure we're all thinking on the same level. Are you thinking that for each issue area there is one strategic goal and that's kind of a high level and
there may be very specific objectives that are smart goals that are numbers and within that or are we looking for one smart goal one quantitative measurable smart goal for each of those issue areas? Yeah. And and my question is the way I
hear you, I think what you're saying in in relation to our current plan is a lot of the things that are stated as goals are really tactical goals uh as opposed to strategic goals and and and kind of missing that interim step that you're
referring that that we need to do. A few of them are pretty uh a few of them might be a little tactical. I think moreover my critique of the plan is that um it's too high level right
it's it's it doesn't have enough details um in these areas and to answer your question if you look at your current plan you've got the seven areas and within each area you've got a category of ongoing goals
within the strategic priority area R well that doesn't really mean much, right? You want in to in place of that, you want to have that that one overarching goal for for
housing, for example, right? And then the the the the specific actionable goals which are objectives right in your strategic plan. They're the ones you want to make smart and say so can I
they're specific. They're measurable. They're achievable. They're relevant. And in the relevant category is where you bring in the um the connectivity in
the organization. the um uh connecting your goal, a housing goal to the production plan or the comprehensive plan, connecting a uh
sustainability goal to your open space plan, right? That's where you want to make them relevant to the organization and the other the the other relevant to the other stakeholders, relevant to the other
plans that you've already spent resources on developing. You don't want to ignore them, right? So that that's where that comes in. And then time bound. So you set out a goal that says uh well you have a goal here 60 deed
restricted affordable rental units annually. Um so that's over the next 5 years. So you've got the time in that one that's going to be changed to 80 every year. Okay. Yeah. Now you may not goal every year. I made that I made that
mistake in my first meeting. Okay. Good. Thank you. You may not want to keep that particular goal. I'm not saying that. that has a lot of the attributes of a smart goal. On the other hand, um contract with creative contractors to
establish innovative ways to increase affordable housing stock through existing infrastructure, right? I appreciate that. Um can you go back one slide? Yeah. So with this I guess it's two questions using this as an example. I feel that
there's a line kind of between leadership and coordination and the action plans based on where we were just before that last question which was once we set a high level goal the action plans and tactical goals move over to
town offices and flow down and flow up to say this is the road map to how we get there. We're saying we want to go from Cape Cod to uh San Diego by way of going through the bad lands and then back down, right? That's the big one.
But then the everyday like we're actually going to take this route, you know, route 90 to this to that to that is the tactical like how we do it. And it sounded to me that was very much that's where the town comes in and and lays out how we're going to get to that.
Right. That's right. I I don't want to over overuse the uh the map analogy, but it's it's uh that's you're on the right track. You're on you're definitely on the right track. You your your town manager, the department heads, your
boards and committees, they have to decide, they have to go through a process and decide how are we going to accomplish this goal. the select order said we want to create 60 affordable units. Well, somebody has to turn that
goal into action. And that's where the tactics come in. So, does that I'm sorry to just just to continue down this path. Is it our job to say we want 60 units or is it to bring the language even higher and then
the 60 units happens to be one of the tactics that goes in there or are we to set these goals cuz why you know again I come from the why set 60 why not 120 you know but it's it's mandated by the state yeah but we could do more if we wanted
to right but um yeah so there's that but then I taking a half a step back in the strategic plan as it exists after step one and we get into action plans and how well is how in your
opinions um how well is the strategic plan in its current form flowing down to and across the current committees departments and such and such and if good what can we do
to make it better if not good. What do we need to do to improve? I mean, it's a it's kind of like the current state of affairs because I really don't know because I'm 3 months in. Yeah. So, from my perspective, having been here for a little over two years, not good at the committee board level.
Um, better perhaps um over the past couple of years at the department level in terms of the engagements. Um, but we're missing the mark in a lot of these areas too at the department level because, um, you know, they they weren't part of the process early on. Um and and now we're trying to like you know
bring them into it and and and and Peter and I work with them. Um and uh you know Peter oversees community uh services uh divisions the department. Um so he works with those individuals with the overall goal of or aim I should say focus of
identifying those tactics that could achieve okay the problem. Let me let me address that for a second. A lot of you in your comments have um uh threw out the word alignment, right? The alignment isn't good, right? We
don't have alignment. I think that's what you're talking about. The goals aren't aligned with the departments uh necessarily. So, what I want to say about that is you need to have something to align with,
right? You can't have alignment in the abstract. You have to that's why we go through the smart goal process to develop those goals so that your department heads have something specific
to which they can align themselves. Right? Does that make that make sense? Can I I was I was going to say something similar which is an a an articulation of where we are and where we need to get to. um that might
inform some of our our conversations because I think where we've been is that our strategic plan has provided very high level vision and has been maybe more focused on strategies that the select board
specifically can can pursue. It hasn't provided that smart goal framework for the entire town government infrastructure. And so in the absence of that, we have had initiative, this is not a bad thing, right? We've had initiative from our committees, from our
departments to set goals and create plans and move the work forward within that high level vision. So, so now we've got to figure out how we we we've had a lot that means we've had a lot more of that bottom up input and now
we've got to figure out how we create bring what we want of that into the high level strategic plan and fill in and kind of reset that as more of a a top down and I think that's a an interesting aspect of this update and and kind of what we need to do
because two parts that because I think it is our role as select board members you know we're leaison to committee to to to represent those from needs from the community, you know, their our voices. And also, I think kind of like you mentioned, you know, I think that currently we've built a blueprint, but
for a good outside of the house, but I I'd like to put in more of the plumbing and the specific this is something that I think we should pursue. Like you mentioned the the good goal with, you know, these numbers of units per year versus the vague pursue development. I
think adding more of those uh concrete this is something we should be doing uh ideas uh makes a lot of sense. So, as you can see, Dave, we we have mostly introverts on this.
I guess that was something I didn't really have to worry about. Uh so, yeah. Um all all very good points. All very good points and I think we'll you as we go along you'll see how we how we
address those points. Like I said before, every strategic plan is different and every process is a little different depending on the organization you're doing. Um, so I think the right fit for you is
kind of what we're talking about, which is let's get some strategic goals down so that your department heads can decide what they have to do to implement them.
In some organizations, let me finish my thought. In some organizations, you would stop you as your board would stop at the high level. These are these are the seven areas and this is the
overarching goal for each of those areas. And you would say to your manager or your executive director or your CEO, come back to us and tell us how you're going to do that. And then they would come up with the goals. I think in a
town it's a little it's a little different. And I think for a for a town like Felmouth, you're you're you're still a little bit decentralized. You
don't have you have a a strong manager but not um you know not at you have a strong manager but you also still have a strong select board I guess is what I want to
say and you need to be involved in in setting some of those some of those details. Yeah. So go ahead. So yeah I just wanted to follow on Heather's point. um which is a really good one in terms of I think I think
Heather you're right that the strategic plan to this point has been mostly focused on the domain of the select board and the town manager um and the charter does say that the select board is the chief policy setting board which indicates that perhaps the strategic
plan should go beyond that but it does get tricky right because the the select board cannot dictate per say what the ZBA does, what the board of health does, what the conservation commission does. Um, and I think that is New England's
structural um, you know, for better or worse, decentralization. Now, that said, what I've I've never seen, you know, I've I've only worked in four communities and, um, you know, all very different. the the limited
opportunity that the that the board of se that the select board has to sort of influence and bring policy coherence to all of those disperate um regulatory independent boards. You know, one is, you know, adopt a strategic plan and
hope that they care about it. Um and then the second is to use the appointment process to say these are our views. You know, we're looking for folks whose whose priorities align with ours. Um that's a I I think that's a very high
performance level select board which I have not yet seen. So I want to make a couple points here. The messy part of doing a strategic plan for a town is the fact that you do have this some bottom up stuff. You have some
top down stuff. You have some lateral stuff. Everything is coming to the to you from different directions, right? So it gets a little messy. Secondly, um the independent boards,
it varies significantly from town to town, but the independent board, you're the policy, you're the chief policymaking board of the town. You're the you're the C you're essentially the CEO of the town.
Those boards have a responsibility to pay attention to what you what policy you set, right? they have a responsibility to follow your policy. Um, it's like I give you a more straightforward example, human resource
policy, right? If you have an independent board that hires people independently, they still have to follow town human resources policy, right? They have a responsibility to do that. Now, that
varies from town to town. some elective boards in some towns are able to get away with, you know, we'll do what we're going to do. Um, some towns it's very uh uh the culture is that it's very well
understood that the board of assessors has to pay attention to the policy set by the select board. Okay. So, it I don't know where you fit in there, but that's something to keep in mind. I would love to get others thoughts on
this. My I think an opportunity that we have in this particular moment is that those independent boards have expressed that they are looking for more direction and more direction is the
wrong word but they want to know what we're thinking and how we're thinking about things. The ZBA came to us and said we have questions and we want to understand how the select board is thinking about these issues so that we can act in alignment. We had our first joint meeting in a long time with the planning board and there was a lot of we
want to understand how you're thinking about this so we can be acting in alignment. Not asking for overstep, right? But asking for that like we want to know that we're all work pulling in the same direction. So I think that's a real opportunity that we have at the moment.
So speaking of all pulling in the same direction, I think this exercise will help help you do that and help you see how difficult that is. Okay. So clarify anything though in relation to that. At the same time, we have
a select board policy that we want to make sure we keep the transfer station operational because it's strategic for us. And then we have the bikeways committee recommending ripping up the tracks. So they're free to have their own speech, right? They are absolutely and and free to free to disagree and provide advice.
That's absolutely how the system should work. All I'm saying is that I think we have in general an ecosystem where our many different committees and boards are very open to greater alignment and coordination. And another example is the board of
health determined that it wasn't their role to appoint somebody to the committee that we created for short-term rentals, which is clearly under the purview of the board of health or the health department. So they don't always really
interested. I have yet to see a town where align perfect alignment is possible. Right. And I you know certainly the zoning board of appeals and and our desire for affordable housing sometimes uh gets tied up in the process of the zoning
board of appeals. Mhm. You know, I think that's another uh area that we we need to express our real policy that we want to uh to the within the confines of law and regulations and time requirements
to uh to try and speed things up there. So, I want to kind of keep things rolling along. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll keep things rolling along here. We do have three sessions. Uh you've got seven areas, seven sets of goals to go through. That's going to take time. Um,
but to to kind of kick things off here, I'm going to stop talking and let you do some work for about 10 minutes. Discuss the re reasons as a group each of you decided to seek election of the select board. Why did you decide to run? What
was your what did you want to do? Find commonalities. What's your common ground? and then write a group statement that says we not I we sought election to the select board because we value or we
have these values in common. Okay. Does that sound doable? Okay. You have about 10 minutes for that. Well, I guess I'll start it off. Don't get too close there because it really I guess I'll start it off.
It makes it really fuzzy when you if you're too close to the mic. Okay. So, um you know, I mean, I think we we all touched upon it, Dave, when you asked us for for our introductions as to why we, you know, are here. Um you know I'd say that uh that I thought that my
experience uh that I mentioned before you know 50 years in the different sectors uh you know I had the qualifications the experience to bring something you know to the select board. Uh, you know, I think I certainly saw
2025 as a as a focal point for certain big decisions that had to come uh to the select board for discussion and and and action and felt that I had the, you know, the experience to be able to assist the board in coming to those rather big decisions with respect to
housing, with respect to wastewater, uh, you know, and and number of other issues. So, Do you want to just go around or Sure. Yeah. Um I pursued um election for two reasons.
One from just a viewpoint perspective. As I mentioned, I think that it's important to have younger voices in government. Um I I nowhere in the country do I think young people get involved enough and I wanted to perhaps set an example and offer a different perspective from a secondly I base a lot
of my values and a lot of the way I work on a class perspective and the way that Falmouth has had an increasing more than other parts of the country a decreasing middle class and the wealth that has entered this town to me
is a problem and I I ran for for the board because I want to pursue ways that we can capitalize off this wealth and have it go back into the community and keep fun with an affordable community. Well, I started because uh you know, I just saw things that were being done
that were kind of got my attention as a contractor. I saw the main street renovation. Although it was a great project, the first thing that caught my eye was the curb was set too low from 1910 or whenever it was. And I went into the town man town administrator's office
and I said, "Who's in charge of that main street project?" And Peter Buer said, "Well, that would be me." And I said, "Well, those curbs need to be raised." And the uh contractor I hear now is not using the sandon concrete that he was supposed to use. And he said, "Well, you know, there's a lot of stuff under Give me the reasons why they
agreed to remove the sand concrete." And he said, "Don't worry about the curbs. They're right." And you know, turns out then the the sidewalks are slanted and you they had to put these blue stones. That got me involved in the town. That's when I got into town meeting. I volunteered to be on the town building committee thinking I was going to have
some kind of purview over all the town construction projects, but that was totally different that we only had limited purview over particular projects that we were awarded an an interest in. So then I got involved in housing trust and then I got onto the planning board and the select board was the next
natural progression. I had intended to wait till later in my life before doing it. I thought I'd do it in retirement, but events came into play that pushed me to go a little sooner. I'm glad I did because now when I retire, I'll be retired from this, too.
Um, well, I see what you're writing on the whiteboard over there and my brain immediately I'm jumping over the the the actual question. and and I guess I would say um
uh big decisions, hard conversations, long-term thinking. Um, I saw our town struggling to grapple with really foundational issues of
environmental quality, affordability, inclusivity, uh, financial and I already said environment, but financial and environmental sustainability and thriving. um and wanted to be part of
thinking about those issues in a really ambitious and long-term way to shape our community so that my kids and I guess I'm I'm a my family is a sandwich generation to to
Jack, right? Um my my kids are are five to 10 years younger than Jack. Um, and so I'm thinking about what will this community look like for them and hope they can afford to live here, right? Yeah. Not only can they afford to live here, would they want to live here,
right? Um, I'm going to take Heather's big three there and add in things are going to happen outside of our alignment or our goals. We want to keep
found more affordable. There are bigger things happening that we cannot control. So for me it is process and flow of those big things and taking really big picture items and kind of amalgamating
them and figuring out how they all work and flow together so that I think we have a better chance at alignment than we do agreement. I think we can align but we don't have to have full agreement from the from the committees the boards
that are independent right but we can set some highlevel strategic goals and then let the rest of the process kind of fill up from the bottom up of how we want to achieve those goals and that gets us to those smart kind of
things but process and flow and looking at the interconnectivity of everything is kind of where you know my mo always has been and where I am in this process and why I came to the select board which is we have big
uh huge tasks in front of us. an example of process and flow and interconnectivity and it's the one that I'm sorry I keep pressing on is this like a thematic approach to things right we can't
address it in the way we're currently doing things in the form of isolated agenda items or isolated um you know conversations here and there we have to have big ones so when I thought think about coming to the board
it's if we're going to talk about housing. Well, we're going to bring in all the interconnected elements so that we're making the best decision possible with all the people that are working on it instead of just haphazardly picking a new goal over here. Um, so that's kind
of I want to see that interconnectivity, that integration of all these plans into our goal. So like out of coming out of this kind of activity. I'd like to see that highlevel goal like expand affordable housing and workforce housing
right as a big one. But then how does that integrate to the housing plan? How does that integrate to the zoning plan? How does that integrate into this plan? And kind of see that roll out so that when we go to them we say hey does this align with your thinking because this is our thinking. And then we kind of push
and pull there. So that's the when I think about my skills and skill sets to answer your question why I wanted to join the sled board it's finding commonalities amongst many working groups to then figure out how to put forth because some
things are under our control some of them are not I'd like to just jump on Peter's point aside from regulatory policy we do have the power of agenda setting appointment setting and budget
Right. And I think that's where we have to find alignment in the end, which is, you know, we can set all the goals we want, but if everybody's out firing in their own directions, we're not going to achieve much. But I think we have a real opportunity here to help.
Okay. So, what what did you all hear? What did you all hear? I hear we're all getting to know each other, but I I'm concerned that we're not really going to get into the actual plan. Are we done today? That's why we have three meetings.
Well, certainly that we all feel that the big decisions that we're we're facing are something that was the motivating reason why many of us decided to to see whether our experience, our qualifications could help the town, you
know, reach these big decisions. And so, yeah. So what I hear is what you have in common is that you you all think there there's some really big decisions to be made around affordability around waste water environmental sustainability
around financial stability economics of the town economics of the economics of the town. Um and you all think you have something that you bring to that, right? That can be helpful,
right? So there's your your common value, right? You um uh the common value is that you value
your your expertise, right? Yeah. because we value the film. I can tell you the reason I I ran for this last term when I hadn't initially planned to was specifically because of our capital plan, our capital budget. Now that we've identified all the needs
that we have, the funding for it's going to be I think is our biggest challenge in the next few years. So yeah, I mean that's very similar to me where I for me it's I think there's revenue bases or buckets that I want to dip into more because of the way our
communities change. So from similar you know perspective of of the finances of increasing our revenue so we can pay for these big projects and uh news I got bigger projects that I want to put in the plan I'm sure which isn't surprising. Um, yeah. So,
right. And the and the other thing I I think I hear you all value is having some ability to manage change. Right. Right. Right. There are big changes out there in the wider world coming your way already here. Uh, and you want to have
some uh role in managing that change, right? All right. So, I don't want to spend too much time on that. So,
smart bulbs. All right. I'm going to quickly just run over what smart bulbs are. Um, smart goals specific. Just um use the microphone. Oh, sorry. I turned it off and I put it somewhere.
We got plenty of microphones. Here it is. I'll do it. Okay. Smart goals. SM A smart goal is specific. All right. Um I don't think I need to explain what specific means. It's measurable.
Um you're you you need to have some way of measuring of determining whether or not you were successful, right? How far along are you in that goal? How many housing units did
you create this year? What was your goal? Your goal was 60. You created 45. Okay, tells you something. Is it attainable? When you set out your goal, you want to make sure it's attainable.
So again, I keep going back to that one housing example. You want to 60 units. Is 60 units attainable? Do you think you can do 60 units a year? Should your goal maybe be 45? No. Is 60 units easily attainable and you
should be doing 90. What is what's it what's attainable in your goal setting? Can I ask you or just offer that sometimes we don't know if it's attainable? Like the ocean outfall, we're the first ones to do that in forever. So, we don't know if it's
attainable, but it's still a goal. And we don't know if it's measurable because we don't even know what the steps are. But yet, we're making great progress, but we threw it out there as a as an objective. Yeah. And a lot of this is subjective. And you know, if
um you don't know what's obtain attainable, who does, right? So only you you as the select board, you get to say we think this is attainable.
And the reason why and the reason why we think it's attainable is our staff has told us, you know, well, we're getting there that it is attainable. It is now. Now we now we feel confident, but initially when we first got started, we didn't know. And that happens sometimes.
Well, a goal could be find out what's attainable. Right. Right. by X date. Mhm. Right. So, same thing with the urine diverting toilets. It's still a goal. We keep moving the goalposts, but we're still
trying. Right. Relevance. Relevance can mean many things, right? Is it? And I think for purposes of this discussion, is it relevant to the rest of the organization vertically, especially laterally as
well? Um, does it does your housing goal um is your housing goal uh how does your housing goal relate to your housing production plan? It's in it. Is it in it? Yeah, that's where it came from.
Okay. So, you have to assume that's a relevant goal. Um time bound. So, your goals need to be need to have some milestones along the way, right? You can't just say, "Well,
we want to get done by uh June 30th, 2027, and not check in sometimes in between." So, you want to set milestones, you know, when are you going to when are you going to get this part of it, when are you going to get that part of it, when are you going to when do you want
the town manager to give you a report? When do you want to call the uh um affordable housing trust board in for a joint meeting to to discuss something, right? Depending on who who is
responsible. Um measurable and attainable also mean that you have to have accountability. Some you need in these goals. It can't be measurable if nobody's
measuring it, right? And it can't be attainable if nobody's working on it or if you don't know who's working on it. So, you want those you have to identify who's responsible, who are you when you want to know what's
going on on the progress of this goal, who you going to call, who you going to put on your agenda for your next meeting to ask. But that doesn't change for us, right? We go to the town management. Town management then has different folks.
Right. Right. But I you I mean you could do that. You could put the town manager's responsible on every single goal. Uh but I think you want to go one level below that. Obviously he's responsible. So, so
uh the way that we have this uh new platform established, we have uh responsible persons assigned to to specific uh goals within the within the plan um within the seven key focus areas. Um I'd like to one of the results of this these three sessions, I'd like to see we talked about the boards and
committees involvement in this process. I'd like to see them tied into this somehow some way as well because right now Peter and I are working with the departments um and and and the department heads, the managers assign individuals within their uh work groups to enter the data so to speak and you're
going to see the results of that in a couple of weeks. Um but right now um I I think what we're missing is that is that important piece the uh advisory boards and committees and their role in all this process too because they could have is the way I see this David they could
have some some some goals as well and objectives right through their committee work I I think oh absolutely absolutely right now there's none of that it it literally is just it it's it's Peter and I managing the department managers who then manage their folks to come up with the KPIs that are tracking progress
towards achieving these goals That's that's and our reach our reach only goes to you and to the committees that with whom we work. Your job is to hold your folks accountable. We don't jump that and go
ultimately hold hold me accountable um for getting the getting the results. Um but the tie-in and the inter the engagement which I think is important whether it be the board of committee members or you know even the department heads is the quarterly reports that we've been talking about right where we we come in front of you and tell tell
you where we're at statuswise in regards to all of these attaining all of these smart and the only reason I ask that clarification is because I have been part in previous employments where overreach has happened and it turns into micromanagement and I want to make sure
that this board does not do that that we give you the responsibility and authority to do your managing accordingly and we just set the rules accordingly. Right? And I'm not I'm not advocating for micromanaging any way, shape, manner, or form.
But what I'm saying is you need to know it's the town manager's responsibility, but you need to know who has manager has has assigned this to. Y and that needs to be in your plan. Also, as Mike said, the next element is
who else is involved, right? Is um is there uh their committees uh involved? The conservation commission involved in this, but they may not be responsible for it, but you need them.
You need their input is important to this goal. Do do we need their input at this stage? Uh, no, no, you just need to identify whose input you're going to need. But I I mean as far as setting goals, as far as setting goals, well, you're
going to be getting some of that input. That's right. Uh, in after this after this first between the first and second with your survey to the other board. Okay. Okay. Okay. Good. Um
so you know that's smart goals in in 5 minutes or less. Um some strategies for achieving your smart goals. You obviously you want to practice the hours if possible. Um as I said establish milestones in the finish
line. Uh you want to gather your necessary resources. Identify outcomes and deliverables. Um assign accountability. um seek participation and buy in. It's where these you know who are you going
to identify as who who else do you need to talk to? Um and the goal should relate somehow to your mission v vision and values. Um like I said at the beginning
if there's 10 different missions that doesn't work. Certainly boards and committees can and even department heads can have their own goals, but this process starts with you. You're the chief elected body of the town.
And the if when as a department head I'm setting goals for my department, what do I what do I want to do? What do I what do I don't want to do? Be unclear. I don't want to be unclear. And I don't
want to set a goal that is unreal that is at odds with your goals. Right. You should all be on the same page. So it has to kind of start with you. Okay.
Maybe how are we feeling about a break? You want to take five? Sure. Okay. and then we'll then we'll stop the priorities prioritization. All right, back in five minutes back in the room. So, I'm just going to
move on. Here we go. So, what we're going to do next is try to prioritize some goals. Now, I noticed in your plan you have these specific actual goals within the strategic area
listed for each strategic area. In some areas, you have a list as long as my arm. In other areas, you have one. So, we need one of the goals of this is to fix that, right? get that one that's
as long as your arm a little shorter and add a few goals to the ones that aren't. So, we're going to focus on today I'm going to try to get through a couple of these areas. Um, we'll start with housing. Um, and then maybe I don't know, maybe
we'll do uh well, I'll I'll leave that to be a mystery for now. Dave, could I just ask one question before we go? Yeah. Do you think it is wise for us to prioritize the goals rather than having
them listed presumably in alphabetical order? Although I don't know how housing comes first alphabetically, but I mean would it be better to be, you know, when we do develop this to actually prioritize those goals as opposed to
putting them in some kind of order that's not prioritized? When you write your plan, I'm of the school of thought that says they're all important. Don't prioritize them. Don't say, you know, we have we have five goal, five housing
goals we want to accomplish, but this one is more important than that one. I I don't believe that that's what you should do. But for this purposes, in order to get you to a manageable list of goals, you need to prioritize.
So, I hope that makes sense. So, see, so what I want you to do is tell me your top five in housing. What's your top five? Don't try to make them smart yet,
right? And think of and and I'm going to from one of many times I'm going to contradict myself. Strategic goals are generally long-term, but I want you to focus on things that can get done in under five years. Right.
For now, go ahead. When it comes to the housing area, uh, I have a radical suggestion. We have a housing production plan with seven goals. I don't understand why our strategic plan would have different
goals than our housing production plan. One of them is to to follow the housing production plan. So that incorporates the whole thing, right? But that already that already has the housing goals in this plan are as follows. Produce at least 80 units of affordable housing annually. Promote a
diversity of housing types. maximize the number of affordable units included in the development on Tana. I mean, this is I when it comes to alignment, I don't understand why I mean, I feel like that's where we should be starting with the set of goals for housing at this point is that we have a housing
production plan with seven goals in it. Yeah. And that's up to you. Okay. I will say off that pretty much all the outreach from the affordable housing community when they saw we were doing this was I feel like a lot of effort was put in by last board and
other people to make that plan. Why is this now an emphasis of ours? I think that really only applies to housing of our the things on the plan. But I have some things that I want to suggest to be added to that. So I'm not sure if it's just control C controlV everything from
that and then add to it so that there is that alignment or if is it um you know just pick and choose from it but I think that it should be 95% just changing numbers in the affordable housing plan would be my only suggestion
and I have some things that I personally would like to add to it okay so I'm going to cut off the debate on this right now because this is meant to be an individual exercise, right? I want you what I want you to do is individually
you're going to take different colored post-it pads, right? Write down your your number one, your most your favorite goal on the purple one, your second on the yellow one, and
so forth. Um, and and ground, can I just ask a ground rules question? Yeah. So where we're updating the plan and not creating a new one, are we saying we cannot add new goals? No, you can add new goals. You can add new goals. You have the current goals
with you. So you can refer to those. You can say, you know, you can pick five from that list. You can pick five new ones. It's up to you at this point. And don't worry about them being in perfect form. Um,
right. Your goal could be implement the production plan. Um, right. Um, so is that is that clear? Not really. Okay. How can I make it more clear?
Don't don't get ahead of me. Am I going to take a a post-it and write my new idea that I want to incorporate into art? You can. Yeah. If you want a new plan, you you want a new idea. Uh you want That's my question. You you can put a new idea, you can just
put ideas that are already here. Um what are your you can build on the existing you can build on the existing more specific more smart. Okay. But at the end of the day, if there's a goal
that isn't in any one of your top five, we're going to set it aside. We can come back to it later, but for now, we're going to set it aside. Okay? So, we're going to end up working on
the goals that you individually um think are in your top five today. Okay? Did that make sense? Do we do one of each color? So,
I need you. I know. I need more purple around. So, we're just doing purple right now or we That's how the priority though. You're going to put your top one on the purple, second on the yellow. So many purple,
third on the blue, fourth on the pink. They all can't be priorities. They're all priorities. That's where we get into trouble. Yeah. I'm going to flip a coin now. My apologies in advance for my
handwriting. Yeah. Handwriting does not help. Just one one question. So the the way the plan is the way the plan is we have ongoing specific
which ones are we focusing on that's up to you. I mean I would I would look at the specific ones first but if there's one of those ongoing that you think should be a specific you're going to have extra one of the specific goals.
I don't know if it makes a lot of sense to me. Do you agree? So once everybody has it be nice to somehow consolid can't Peter and Mike have some Can't Peter and Mike have some too like
wishing for a better select board or cut out the letters of the newspaper and like magazine so you can't tie the handwriting to anybody. I appreciate that you activity the team here. You're living it every day. There are no talk.
This is your domain. You can have five all new ones if you think they're more important than anything on that plan. The current plan. You can have five goals on that plan and put them put them in priority order. So, we're going to do this for each of the seven. We're going to do this for each of the
seven. We're going to start with house. Oh, so these are okay. Great. Today we're going to do housing purple. We're going to try to housing one. We're going to do housing. Okay. How do you spell municipal? Um, next up, select word spelling be.
Yeah, both of my brother and my father are dyslexic. I allegedly am not. I don't know how that works. So, so these are kind of big to fit on these little Let's say we on them 10 minutes. I was just gonna how much time?
Yeah, we'll take like 10 minutes to do this. I'll give you a heads up in 10 minutes and then take a couple minutes to wrap up after that. That Doug Doug is asking some of the uh some of his goals may be difficult to fit on the Yeah. How do they fit on the uh you don't have to write them word for
word. I seem to know like for example um you want to do prioritize creation of affordable housing. Well, you don't have to write that out word for word. So, like just enough information so that I know which this is what I wrote for this one. Could I talk about what that is? So, I just
don't have to write it down. Talk about good. You're going to be able to clarify Yeah. Yeah. We're not going to put these in the plan yet. Let me know. Okay. Oh, somebody's idea. Just
doesn't count. It's the new rule. If it falls off, it it wasn't meant to be there. I'm going to do the purples. First priorities expand. affordable
housing. More ideas are falling to the wayside. Real estate We did a home rule petition for that, but it didn't get passed in the legislature. It's going to be a meeting next week where Dan's going to speak.
I got it on my schedule. legislator. Okay. So, this says large scale heat restriction restricted. Yeah. And purchase of properties. Bingo. Right.
Nice job. Sure. You weren't supposed to be a medical doctor. I used to work at Jimmy's and Woods Hole and they after my like first three shifts, I wasn't allowed to write the tickets anymore. I scooped ice cream. Here we have uh an
entire generation. Yeah. I mean I can type, right? They don't they don't write anything. No. Right. And they don't care about spelling either. Okay. Well, because you type and you have spell check. Yeah. Oh, they just use the letter U to
say you. Yeah. I don't I don't even know if I like properly know cursive. very you write checks specifically. I do, but I usually just sign JPR books in the dollar amount. You don't use cursive.
No. I don't even have a checkbook anymore. Why is that? Why is cursive the standard for writing out the letters of the check? The amount. I don't know. I just thought it was. I'm a block printer. I think Yeah, that's how I do it, too.
You do? So what do all these do? Um mine creates new revenue. All right. So everything here is about increasing housing, not necessarily
the same kind of housing though because 80 units against I don't think it does anything for work workforce that's affordable. It could it could well Right. It could I mean but that that layers on to it but what that does is
two things. Yes. What what that does in my mind is two things. It adds actual units and it keeps us as a town in control of what growth looks like.
Are you at 10%. We are right now. Okay. That's what we need to stay there. And you need to and you real your your real goal is maintain 10%. No. No. I think our goal is greater than minimum my goal but right but okay so fine so yes
this is a two-part goal which is increase housing stock and stay in safe harbor so that we're in control okay um that's a different that's a different goal than I see that as a different goal than this right
I wrote that first one and I did it to on purpose because it's a high level not specific, right? A lot of these things in my brain are actually tactics to do the overall goal.
And those tactics over time will change based on the needs, right? So is our high level one just to expand affordable and workforce housing. We know we don't have a expensive housing inventory problem, but is the problem this? And
then we I'd put this as a question to the group. Should we be generalizing and then adding tactics that will change? Let let me I'll ask the questions here. So the question is from my point of
view. Is this your overarching goal for afford for housing? Expand the number of units that are affordable and available to workforce. was that it was kind of tricky because you asked
us to identify specific goals. So, we're picking and choosing how they No, I know. I know. I I I I know. I'm trying to use this to get to the next level. So, bear with me. All right. I'd have to say yes. I think that is the
overarching goal that we're looking for. And you know, these other ones, you know, or the tools, at least three, if not four of them are ways to get there. So, so your housing goal, your overarching housing goal, not
your specific actionable smart goal, but your overarching strategy is to increase the number of affordable and workforce units available. Two two nuances on that.
Okay. Um I think we will we do need to increase the total number but I think in my mind equally important is we need to increase the fraction of our housing stock that is affordable workforce whatever we call
it and my second goal was really more a question because I don't know what the numbers are but I would like us to have target numbers agree what percentage of our house housing should be at the 60% AMI. What fraction of our housing do we want to see be at
80%. What fraction of our housing do we want to see at 100%. Because like yes, that's an overarching goal, but it's definitely attainable because to say yes to that goal, all we have to do is add one a year and that's not enough. Right. And and so
I like I just Yeah. Right. And I get what I'm what I'm what I'm getting at here is let's try to you have a housing strategic area housing. What is your one
overarching goal if you were going to sum it up? Well, it's not you know what it's not really in the individual goals. It's in the it's in the beginning where it says select board has included housing as a specific priority area to sign signify its importance. prioritizing creation of housing that's available and attainable
to individuals of all income levels including workforce and you know families that's really the goal I mean I don't think we should forget about market value housing as as well I mean uh that's you know there is that missing middle that that we all know
about that you know people do have you know the the income and resources to support and we have to support that as well for a vi vibrant community that we want to Yeah. And housing for all, I mean, is I think the language that's in our production plan, right?
Okay. So, I'm going to double down on my So, that's what I was That's what I was trying to get at. I'm going to double down on my No, my goal is not just to expand housing stock. My goal is to shift the distribution of housing within our community.
Building more units at an affordable price point is one way to do that, but my overarching goal is to shift the distribution of of housing We need available housing toward more affordable more. I I'll say it more pointed. There's too many second homes is is my view on it.
There's too many second homes in this town. And I think that's Heather's right. That's number five. Yeah, I think Heather's right in terms of um having whether it be percentage goals or number goals, I think is important for for this. We need more housing for people making
30 to 40% of the average median income, right? because they're out there and they will never be able to buy a house right now. So you you're you So we're including in our definition affordable, we're including market, we're including
workforce, and we're including low income. Yeah, it should be maybe called subaffordable because, you know, it's just they're so far away. As wealthy people move here and take their money out of their retirement accounts, their income is so much higher than the person
that's working at the hardware store or McDonald's that it's becoming the average median income is becoming so high that it's making it unrealistic for people at the lower end to ever have a chance to buy anything. And I will say that I think this discussion is affected
by the higher level stuff where as Bob said our missing middle is so missing that we that's why when we just say affordable I think sometimes that's just looped into it automatically because it literally doesn't exist anymore. Mhm. Okay. Yeah. I'm just trying to trying to
be trying to be specific here. What are you talking about? And you're talking you're talking you're not talking about only affordable which is defined in the law right there are definitions what's affordable. Uh you're not talking only workforce
you're talking also market and low income. Yeah. Okay. So want to make sure we're clear. Yeah. I was just going to sort of try try to take a stab at um at a broad statement that incorporates the the
point that Heather's bringing forward about the proportion. So, so is the overarching goal to increase the proportion of the town's housing stock that is affordable, you know, that is
attainable that is a affordable 80% of of SA of area median income and workforce housing. So, it's so it's affordable and attainable. Yeah. I guess I think my high level end goal very
clearly. people who work here should have a fair shot at living here. There you go. I like that. And and the re the reason this distinction is important is because, you
know, one way to, you know, to get about the housing goal is just to create more housing that's that's afford that meets certain income limits, but another way is to convert convert existing housing stock. And that's what I was thinking with my deed restrict, right? And it's also well and play with taxes and a whole
bunch there's a whole bunch of ways that you make housing more affordable and people who retired 10 years ago should be able to live here too. So I think I have a pretty good idea and I'll I'll draft something for your next that kind of encapsulates what I'm
hearing and then you can play with it. I don't want to spend the workshop words smmithing things today. So that's your So what are some strategies to get there?
Well, I've already done mine. Yep. Transfer transfer a fee, right? But we don't strategy to be fair. We don't have the ability to do that. So I'm not sure it's really
I mean I think I One of mine is seek legislation, you know, from our county and state to, you know, to get to that point, but we can show up at the meeting Monday and advocate for it and continue to speak for it, but we don't have the ability ourselves
to do that. That's my But that's I think that's word smithing. We're going to get that. We're going to get to that part next. Let's I I want to try to come up I want to try to get to a point where we have like the kernel of a of a of a goal, right? I mean, I think our I think our
statement at the top of the page is still pretty relevant. I don't know that we need to have it redone unless you can make it better. I kind of like um restrictions. That was mine. Yeah. Uh I I think that
there are so many homes Cape Cape Cod as a whole in film is for the most part developed and I don't want to to this comes in mind with all of the environment and with our water where we have a finite amount of land and a
finite amount of houses. I think that we should go through the process of deed deed restricting because we have a lot of seniors who, you know, perhaps want to downsize and change their the size of their their plots and stuff. And on
that, we also have a just a broken record. The amount of second homes in the community is is ridiculous. And I don't think the town any ways that we can have the capital to whatever property it makes sense. You know, maybe there'll be a housing crash is what it
looks like. Purchasing up properties that are whether it be a good size lot or in a good area in a good flood plane. I think we should pursue that because I think that that is the best way to on a time time scale-wise and on a um making
as many people happy while achieving our goals. I think deed restricting is one of the most important tools for that. So let's divide let's divide the question here because they they say in the legislature deed restrictions and purchasing property can be two different things. Right.
So one is you want a program that would purchase deed restrictions. Right. Right. Correct. And other is you would want a program that outright purchases property. Correct. And then converts it. Yeah. Yeah.
Either existing housing converted to affordable or workforce or low income. Who's purchasing the property? I This is my big one. I would want to pursue municipally owned. Okay. That's I want to get it out.
It's my second one. I have a much larger one, but I I understand that would be revolutionary. But we saw when we talk about state control, we we want to stay in control. I want the town to be over in control in terms of I think there's been some bad developers
main street uh the but the one on Lantern Lake. I want the town to have as much control as possible. And I think there's been a lot of really good plans. you know, but we'll we'll get really into the municipal model after this, but I think that the town owning properties would
create jobs, would create, you know, in the interest of time, we can talk about when that comes up, but I actually municipally owned housing. Okay. I just wanted to No worries. No worries. Yeah. I mean, the two it's one thing to say you somebody
wants to sell their house and for the town to step in, we're going to uh purchase a deed restriction on this house so that when you sell it, you'll get your asking price because it's going to sell to somebody with it meets the
affordable criteria, but the town is going to pay the difference in a deed restriction. That was one a more likely scenario would be that we use the deed restriction uh funding to enable someone to purchase a house in the first place. Right. Yeah.
Right. From whichever direction the town is buying the deed restriction, right? And it's voluntary. Right. You have somebody wants to sell their house, they're willing to accept the deed restriction as long as they got their
their money. They don't care. or they might they might need a new roof and accept the deed restriction just to you know make it a permanent thing and get the money. That's a that's another kind of program. Um purchasing the property outright
is it whole is a is a different right. So I was going to make it my uh yellow one but then I thought because it was both around money I just want to make it one. You tried to get a twofer? I tried. Yeah, I tried to get a two. That would be the correct way to say
apparently. So did I. I thought I was doing like a awesome smart goal. All right. So the last one here, add uh specific programs favor yearround rental options such as uh cash incentives such as real
estate tax exemptions for primary residences. that would effectively increase taxes for secondary homes. Um tax breaks for year- round renters. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, property owners that go with year round
lease. Yeah. All of those options that we've all been hearing about. Yeah. So, you're talking about financial incentives. Financial incentives so that people will not keep their houses empty for 10 months out of the year and not uh and rent them for the other two.
Right. basic. I'm sure this is somewhere in your process, but that's my number three. The only reason I didn't write it was I just included it in the the five saving it for finances. I mean, it all dep, you know, it's the prioritizing. It's a rank choice bill.
Yeah. So, what I'm seeing here is what we've come to is we have we've kind of um restated that overarching goal in it's already in the plan about
increasing affordable housing, but we're adding to that all kinds of housing, right? You want you just want more housing. You want more options. more options.
Um I mean there is a school of thought that says the reason housing is not affordable is there isn't enough housing available and if you increase the supply of housing the price will go down. History does not prove that out, but
people do believe that sometimes it increases the population by bringing more people in, right? Or the number of empty houses. And then we've got a we've got some specific strategies. Now, the difference between a strategy
and a and a tactic in this case is this is this is a strategy. Add specific financial incentives to favor year-round rental options. That's you're beginning to talk about a
good strategic goal there, right? Um, and we'll start framing those up. And and to go down that path, the tactic would be all of the different financial incentive types.
Does that nullify the whole? So now we need to build more second homes. That's just just what that means. That notes. Okay. On to the yellow. Your left one is not. I think that uh those little brackets
need to be lower. Number two. This is my Can you see? I'm fine. Thank you. Try to lower those if you can. The brackets themselves. Yeah, it's too it's too topheavy. I think
that might be easier said than done. Need a screwdriver. Yeah, actually. I think the board is just soft for some reason. It's not a very rigid board. What's that top say? Vienna.
Vienna model. Uh, I will explain that. I want I want some more details. Is that a cocktail? No, you have to vote for it just based on those. Yeah, that's it. I mean, Vienna's got a lot going for Vote. Yeah, vote it and then I'll maybe
see if we can take a trip. Check it out. I got a remembrance for uh Matt Patrick across the street at Liam's today. That's right. I'm going to swing in there and then if you're struggling to understand what my question is, I can rephrase my
goal, but we already talked about it. Williamstown 12 to three. It's to establish police station targets for housing at distinct income
uh levels give you a chance to explain um I'm not that I ran Tom's team last year in the amateur soccer league. It was my thing. We were the best first half team and the worst second half team. Okay.
Because they didn't choose enough guys for the bench. Second priority. All right. Yes. The Vienna model. So this goes back to municipally owned housing. Vienna made the decision in the 1930s that basically the decision that we're at now where developers were
building housing that was not affordable. Vienna went and purchased a bunch of buildings and developed a bunch of buildings in their downtown areas and they called it social housing where they own it and they operate it. I was thinking areas like whether we have close to downtown, we have large amounts
of of parking that we this is something that we should pursue is it's essentially a betterun version of a municipally owned version of a housing authority. My problem with the housing authority is you're relying on the federal government, you're relying on the state government, and they're
usually never in tandem. Right now, they're definitely not in tandem. They're cutting billions from them. It's an it's an expensive initial investment, but then once you do it, it's it's not that expensive to maintain. And the um you you would
create jobs here in town uh in terms of, you know, building and running the the housing. And then also the town controls the rates uh that it's rented out at. So, it's a way to do rent control
without actually needing the legislature to approve it and without actually needing anyone else but the town of Falmouth to to run it. It's the initial capital investment that is the biggest push back to it. It can though work in tandem in my view with what I was saying on deed restriction and greed
restriction or the purchasing of housing is we could just do it with existing units because the biggest push back that I think you would get on this is people saying well that doesn't fit in the character community. Well, we'll just build it to fit the character of the community. But if there's an example examples of large scale housing or large buildings where we could go and renovate
it, that's actually what they did in Vienna. There was literally a castle. They literally purchased a castle and made it into housing. So, this is my this is a bold thing. This I to my knowledge this hasn't been done anywhere in the United States. I know the candidate for mayor in New York
has proposed it in New York, but um Madrid has copied this model. Uh Denmark has copied this model. Uh, and it's worked in Europe. Uh, and I just think it would be something that we could pursue here. I think we could do that at the uh, school administration building. Yeah, the exact something like that.
School administration, Morris Pond. There's, you know, it doesn't have to be that those exact buildings, but the process of changing our buildings to be municipally owned ran. I just haven't been pleased with if you give something to a developer that only a certain percent is affordable and then that gets into what's affordable. We can't really
change that. This is something that we would have complete control of. We could also do the depot uh lot that we're planning to pave, but I don't know if that's really essential. We could consider putting housing there. Everybody clear on the concept? Okay. That ties exactly into mine, which is
the next one because the second half what you didn't write is take advantage of safe harbor in order to build municipal housing that we could identify just for our uh public safety or school teachers or whatever. Okay. Because that's in that safe harbor uh
advantage, I believe. I'd have to read it again, but I think that's included that once you reach that, you can you don't have to uh make it available to everyone. It can be specific. It it it is definitely in the seasonal communities designation. I I spoke with the uh that I do know.
And you are designated. Not yet. Not yet. We have We're struggling because the planning board's not sure about tiny homes. That's the sticking point. We have to opt in. We don't meet the 35% Cape Cod invent tiny homes.
We used to be all tiny homes and it was so gotten that. Yeah. I'm going to put on my notes the follow. Uh okay. So, uh take advantage of safe harbor having safe. Okay. Preserve character while increasing
housing. Elaborate please. That's me going again to a higher level goal that to into which we add uh strategic directions andor tactics, but the whole goal of that in my mind
was uh things that we've already talked about incentivizing adaptive reuse a Vienna plan. We may find out that Vienna plan doesn't work. We have to go in a different direction, but it keeps the goal high. um updating
zoning laws to allow the expanded use or the overlays or thereabouts of kind of what we talked about at the at the joint meeting the other day. It those kind of fold up into that and balancing seasonal
and short-term rental use with re year long is kind of that piece. But aside from adding inventory, what's the second most thing that we always hear is preserving character. So I think we have to like acknowledge preserving community
character while increasing the supply and doing that. And some of these kind of are strategies that we can take within that. So that was where my brain was on that one. Okay, good. Um transfer fee is back.
That's one word. I think that was me. Okay. You can double up support a right mix. I have uh that's me. Okay. Um goes back to what we were talking about before and um
I'll share one way that I've been thinking about how would we figure out what the right mix is because we can say as a highle goal those who work here should have a fair shot at living here. But I don't think we really know what that means in terms of what mix of housing we need. And currently all of
our um housing price and and all of that is is based on area median income. The problem with that structure for determining what housing we build and how we price it is that the pandemic uh
divorced where you live from where you work and we saw an influx of people who live here but don't work here and as a result our area median income has shot up and so um I don't know if this is a
you know a feasible attainable um goal But what I would love to understand is actually what is the area median salary offered, right? Not what are the people who already live here because the people who already live here have figured out how to make it
work. Not how much what's that income for the people who've already figured it out, but what are the what is the earning opportunity? What is the distribution of earning opportunity within our community? And what is the housing distribution we would need to accommodate those people?
cost devil's advocate. Isn't that the what the housing production plan is supposed to look at? I don't think they looked at that specific number. It's always AMI. The the primary goal of the housing production plan is to figure out how we
produce 80 units per year to stay in safe harbor and continue producing affordable housing beyond that minimum in a way that Falmouth controls. that that's my read of the housing production plan is that's the primary overarching goal of that,
right? That's the goal. But there's a whole part of the housing production plan that's supposed to do analyze the data and the demographics and the income spread and all that in your community and but again the income spread in our
community is the incomes that people are who already live here are earning and they're often earning those incomes well outside our community. My next door neighbors both work for for a company in Colorado. Right. Right. So if we want a community where
those who work here are able to live here, then we need to understand what the earning opportunities in our community are. She's rejecting a premise of the analysis in the housing production plan. Right. No, I we we need to not we need to not base it on AMI but area.
You make a very salary. Yep. Commuter community development index. I don't know, just something like that. I'm thinking of thinking of acronyms. It's interesting. I never really thought about it in that terms, but that's exactly what me up. I'm sorry.
Oh, I was just saying I was complimenting Miss Goldstone on that because we often are just using a a statistic that is common, but it's actually not indicative of our area. Because if you take the upper level like
the number one sector we have here is travel and tourism and I guarantee you that those salaries are a lot different than our science and technology and I would say that those are probably lower and that's our biggest sector that we have to take care of here and construction is in there the trades
are in there and I would say you know salary availability will dictate what we can afford here. And I may say that our AMI maybe maybe didn't grow to the level that it that the
housing costs did. The average I guess we'd have to No, but I just I just think that we we broke the underlying assumption of an AMI 5 years ago with CO and remote work. Yeah. It's exactly like how G I think GDP is a horrible way to measure how societyy's doing because it's too
generalized and measured. The the top rung of it influences it so much and it's not actually connected to what working people actually face. Maybe we need to separate the online and maybe it's like onsite viring somehow. I don't know what the proper term would be.
Do you need to live in Belmouth for your work? something. I mean, I think the only way you would do that would actually be to survey employers in terms of what do they offer. Trying to think of where that data would be. Exactly. I don't know where that, you know, not asking the people who live here what they or not seeking information about those who live here
what they earn, but let's there's a new state law, right, that requires that employment listings are going to now have to show the salary caps that are, you know, that they're changes. So, that data is there someplace. So would it be fair to
say that what you're really looking for is a different kind of housing production plan a supplement to it then is it's a different analysis because the housing production plan you have to meet certain criteria that the state sets up right you have you get certified by u
right whatever the state whatever whatever that state agency is called one that always changes I think it's critically important that we play the game and we meet the the safe harbor so that we have control. But to actually figure out
what what we want for our town, I think there is a different analysis needed and identify all those people that are sitting at some rental apartment just knowing that they're never going to own a house. So just to identify it, but you know, the CPC and the affordable housing have certain requirements that
are tied to AMI. So, we're not going to be able to get rid of AMI that easily, but we can have our own analysis. So, we may not be able to have the right off the top of our head, are we 12%. You know, just over 10
just over 10.48 or that the next census you're going to if you don't add housing, you're going to go below 10. So next I think we're on track to stay above 10 for at least a couple years with all the development we just had.
So just thought experiment continue down the path of that calculation. What do we learn? What's different than we don't already know which is we can't afford the homes the market rate homes that are here because our salaries
do not support that. So the question then becomes can our employers fill that gap and say the answer is no we can't control that. So then we're now back into the first premise which is how do we add more inventory that is not
market rate because we can't afford market rate. Uh people that can afford market rate can come in and can and there is availability now. We're seeing the real estate market open up, but that's not dropping prices and our salaries are not catching up. So, we're
back to the first premise, which is how do we add more inventory that is somehow controlled so that the workforce, right, people can live and work here.
Yeah. I mean, I think I think at the moment I just feel like we have a very clear threshold. we have to meet for safe harbor. Correct. That is that the need to meet that is so that we retain control. It's not because
we think that 10% at that income level is actually what our community needs to be a a thriving and diverse community. Right? We don't know what the numbers are to have a housing stock that would allow us to have a thriving and diverse community. And so we're kind of taking a
shot in the dark and we say, "Well, let's let's add a little bit more at 80%. let's add some more at 120, but we don't actually know how much of that we need. And for that matter, I had an aha moment at the school committee, um the the consultant that did the building needs assessment for the the school district
last year said something that was glimpse of the blindingly obvious that we've been adding a lot of one and two-bedroom housing. If you want to add families, you need three-bedroom units. with the housing that we've been adding and that
we have currently slated. She looked at all of the housing currently in the pipeline. We were slated to add something like I can't remember the exact number now, but it was like less than 50 students to the district. But that was so we're doing all this talking about families, but we're not actually adding housing. So I I just I feel like we
don't have the information to inform decisions at a really granular level about what is the housing we need to add. So then taking your the formula would then allow us to then figure out the the mix right what is the mix what is necessary and then to that we
can add in our highle goals like if we do want more families to live here we can't just do one and twobedroom we need threebedroom at this level but I think that was we had been finding that the developers all wanted to do three bedrooms right so we had to push them to do the smaller
units if you look at the whole inven inventory of the town. We have we don't have too many one and two bedroom. We have too few. Even that's why the new ones are concentrated on one and two bedroom. That's a good thing I think. And you have to incentivize that because they make more money with the three
bedrooms. It's a it's a full value home. That's why I want to own it, which is why I'm arguing for the expensive initial investment, but we actually get to decide what we do with it. Yeah. Okay. So, okay. pretty good idea where you are
here. Um, number three, make tax assess assessment process more equitable. The way I read that, whose was that? Mine. I read that you're advocating I don't put words in your mouth for a graduated property tax.
Not necessarily. I mean, we we've heard a very good presentation at the 1K uh summit by uh a developer who was questioning the uh you know, the way assessments are done and that the way they're done tends to favor the more
expensive homes at the at the expense of the lesser valued homes. And the lesser valued homes are overvalued on the assessment and the upper end is undervalued. Yeah. So if you make it more equitable, we may be able to generate more taxes
and and alleviate the the stress on the lower assessed taxes homes that are paying too much in tax. And even though he was from out of state, where was he from? Out of I don't remember, but he did have a Barnes Democrat. This is why I was late this morning as I
was trying to print out the Barnstable County report, a copy for every sent it to me. was from Asheville, North Carolina. Oh, that's right. Yeah, Asheville, North Carolina. That's right. So, that's what I was referring. So, make you talking about making the
process more equitable or the assessments themselves? The assessments. Okay. Yeah. We need to look at the assessments and determine if they're accurate or if we're being too generous with the upper end because that could be a huge revenue
stream that we're missing just by by accident. Yeah. So, okay, I totally agree that we need to do this. Um, I have that sitting in my parking lot for the financial stability
goal because I I see the impact. I see that serving two purposes, right? Right. One is it is just the right thing to do morally to make our tax code fair. And the second is that it could generate
we are leaving thousands of dollars per home at the highest income, highest property value on the table and the town needs revenue. So I see it as a revenue generator and a morally right thing to do but not necessarily a housing strategy. That's how that's how I felt with all my stuff.
Okay. You you do realize that assess the assessing process is strictly mandated by law and assessments have to be certified by the department of revenue. So and it's a based on market
based on sales. This this analysis what we saw this week shows that in fact when you compare sale value to assessed value it is not equitable. that that comparison that that that there is a different
ratio of assessed value to to sale value at the low end than there is between assessed value and and sale value at the high end. So what we're talking about is correcting. Can you email me that? I will gladly email you. It's from the Harris School. Did we get the email report? I I had texted it to Jack because we
talked about it. I will gladly at the next break it to everyone forformational purposes. Please don't reply all. So that's an interesting interesting thing to pursue. Um continue to incorporate housing reduction plan and the strategic plan.
We all know what that means, right? Address uh aging and vulnerable communities. Okay, that's me again. Okay. Uh I'm actually going to uh say that this should be a different priority. I
think I want to take my fourth and bring it to three, which is um ensuring sustainable um basically tying housing to our wastewater management plan, our expanded housing goal to the wastewater and
water. We learned that at the joint meeting the other day. Making sure that what we are doing is sustainable and resilient. So I think it's brings in uh wastewater water availability and
coastal resiliency to that and that's like the third level to address this one specifically uh aging and vulnerable. I think that is another way to look at it and make sure that we have age friendly housing because we aren't we we have we're at an
impass right now pe because of interest rates and whatnot. people aren't downsizing because there are no options to downsize and stay. That is one lever that we could potentially help with. Um, expanding partnerships is kind of in there. We have good partnerships. I say
Falmouth has wonderful partnerships because we have so many people working in on that. But then I think there's an emergency housing part of this when we think about vulnerability. We have emergency housing needs for people that need something right here and now. We
don't have a big shelter system, if you will. But even just housing in case of financial circumstances change. So that was my one here. But I respectfully request that I bring the other one forward. You had too many sticky notes. I had too many sticky notes.
You got to have two. Well, we'll we'll get to the other one. Um, you know, nothing's written in concrete yet, so far probably ever will be. Um financial again financial incentives to
support year-round housing stock. Now this is a little different than the last one because this is all housing stock not just rental that year round. Well I think talking year round is basically getting rid of the sec you know many of the second homes somehow.
I don't remember that right that that is that yours. That was not mine. I I was that might have been mine because I rearranged my priorities at the last minute. I think that was mine. Um and
uh I would say in my mind that addresses both second homes and short-term rentals. Mhm. Right. It's it's it's about ensuring that we have year round that more of our housing stock is being used for year round residential purposes. I think I wrote
you could I see mine? I don't actually I swapped my I swapped my first my priorities at the last minute and so this is this is directed at short-term rentals and what else did you
say second home second home that was one of mine I think I can't remember okay this is like the the housing version of of butts and seats with bodies and beds [Applause]
[Music] Okay. Fourth, we have seek legislation to increase affordability levels for CPC funding. Uh, this is for housing. I'm gonna email you that uh assessor's thing right now.
Oh, I think um I think Jack No, he sent it to all of us and I just Okay. emailed it to him. Perfect. Okay. Adopt Seasonal Communities Act. Now, do we have No, actually, do we have to go to town meeting for that? For which one? I believe so.
I think we do. I believe so. Julian wrote that that way unfortunately, but I will lobby it for sure. We've been waiting for the planning board to recommend it. So maybe next next town meeting maybe they
might be ready to we don't but it's just a respectful practice. If we don't see it coming, we can maybe I I know we only are required one joint meeting per year with the planning board, but after a long time of not
doing them, maybe we could have another very targeted joint meeting with the planning board regarding seasonal communities. Yeah, after meeting I think our mistake was having it as part of whole agenda. I think it requires a special one issue meeting
with the you just said it. Maybe we should go meeting. Maybe we should go to go to their meeting. I like that because they have a less agenda. Yeah, I like that a lot. Maybe they could start their meeting a little earlier and then we could stay.
I was happy with the Enterprise article on it. Thought it was good. Thank you. Press. Okay. Increase affordable levels for CPC funding. So I I I understand what that is. CPC can't fund you can't fund
workforce housing, for example. You can't you can't fund 100% AMI. There's an AMI limitation that would seek to increase it to like 140% of AMI to be able to get some CPC
funding. I mean, that would be legislature, right? Right. I believe so. Yeah. Right. Um I there's a lot of people who want to see that happen. Um adopt seasonal communities act.
Um dens increase density. Yeah. down you use the term densify that increased density. This is something that's come up uh a couple times. Um but I think again with make where it makes sense there's a lot
of a lot of buildings here on Main Street where I know that you could expand upon and make you know Liam's already has a couple of great one-bedroom, two-bedroom apartments above it. more of that that we can do uh where it doesn't you know you build
things where people are close to for American standards close to public transit close to public transit close to their could be close to their jobs um close to downtown you know social social areas uh areas where I think would incentivize having seniors and young
people uh which is what we're starting to miss out on because younger people want to be closer to the transit closer to uh downtown activities and night life older people want to be closer to their social services senior centers right there. I think the best way to do that uh in the short term even is to work
with people uh business owners here on Main Street to expand upon what we currently have so we don't get projects like the one we got on on Lantern Lake. So the very last one on the list is mine and it's very much aligned with that which obviously we don't update zoning.
Um, but uh working with with planning board. I don't know if you were talking about this as a as needing a zoning change or if you're talking about just kind of the the building. The reason I construction aspect of The reason I talked about it from the
construction standpoint is what you said is we don't change the zoning. Right. Okay. Personally, I would love to see our zoning, and we've been moving in this direction, but better aligned with smart development principles, which
would include targeted density. Um, and there's there's more to it than that, right? But the targeted density is is a big part of it. the the way that we've we have uh through a number of choices we've made over the past 30 years as a
town kind of regulated ourselves into sprawl and would love to see us move away from that. I think we have. It just hasn't happened yet. That Mr. Cod residential overlay was a big step forward with that. Unfortunately, the underlying zoning still remains. So in fact,
but I think it's also we saw more we saw more opportunities at the at our joint meeting with the planning board when we were talking about duplex, triplex and ADU by right in a larger part of the town, but it doesn't even necessarily need to be like the whole town, right? If we were to think about where is their public like is it does it align with cultural districts and business
districts to have targeted density. So yeah, obviously those are conversations that that are joint with the planning board and and then h but I think for the part Jack's talking about on Main Street, it's already doable. But what but it's a
financial barrier because they got to come up to the uh fire code safety with the sprinklers. Those are old buildings that when you start to work on them, you have to do the whole thing. Becomes cost prohibitive. But if we put enough financial incentives, if there was access to funding for the initial
start of work and then tax breaks going forward, if they keep it year round, maybe then we could incentivize it enough that it might happen. My bill is already pretty high for what I've been proposing. But and and of course the right amount of density so the developers will develop,
right? If you go through the process and you know take a couple of years and redo your zoning in the downtown and you still don't have enough density for a developer to find it cost effective to develop, it's not you wasted your time. In our case, I think when we're talking
about the real estate, the property owners that are there now because they have these existing businesses with these vacant storage rooms upstairs that could be apartments or theoretically could be or they don't have a second floor. That's what I'm thinking.
I think what you're talking about is is a nice kind of thread the needle between construction and incentive on zoning. We can we can recommend zoning and do an overlay and say in the future we want anything new that is coming or replaced
have the two stories from the construction point having been part of uh uh we'll build it strong enough so we can build it later. That just doesn't happen. And I don't think many of the buildings are built to have a second story to your point. And it's the ROI is
not there for the individual owner of that one property. But if we can incentivize and thread the needle, that's where it's going to be. Because even if let's just say every place did build it strong enough for a second story, the cost of business interruption, the cost of adding that on
is very prohibitive right now. So, but I like it and I completely agree that density downtown and in our commercial areas is is of the utmost priority before we start even thinking of the green areas um that we've talked about
like put it in a place where it makes sense where the humans are or should be before sprawl happen. You know, where should that center be? Where should the housing be to put people closer to services? migrating village centers too. Even that also that also speaks to the last
one that we haven't talked about is ensure sustainable and resilient options align with waste water. So you want you want and I would I would expand wastewater to be infrastructure. Right.
Correct. You want to have your new housing options where there's infrastructure in place to support them. Y that's why I I filed a town meeting article on that one. So the these did these all kind of
fit together. Um okay. What about mine? Does it go with aftering the last one? Yeah. This one it doesn't go with those community. Well, I kind of
it's a different these two things are opportunities. Okay. They're external. Okay. And those are tactics, right? You have a uh seasonal communities act that you can adopt and
it's a state law and all of that, right? Um for CPC, you're going to have to change the law to get that done. So I see these as opportunities that are external to your organization. I could be wrong. Okay, you think of them differently. And these
are more internal. These are all right. Right. Okay. This is where I forgot what my fifth one was. Yeah. Yeah. say
nice for those. All right, last but not least, number five, support the renovation of our housing authority properties. Oh, that was I think we're wealthy enough
and coverage ZBA. Jack, how come all of yours are so easy known that they're yours? I know, right? Cuz they're expensive. Yeah, they're expensive. Exactly. We got the You thought I was CO for the
last one. Yeah. No, I like to spend money. But we'll get I have tax plans too when we get there. I'm going to ask about this one. I'm not going to write it down yet. Um bet you it's mine.
If it's not legible, it could be Jack. No, mine's already on there. We're good. We're good. He's a big housing authority guy. Oh yeah, that's going to be fedally funded though, right? There's there's gray gray area and I think there's going to be let's deal
with these three and then I'll the fourth one. Um support the renovation of housing authority property. Yeah. So renovation and redevelopment. Um, so a lot of the housing authority properties are not built for density.
Uh, Scrant Nav, there's so much room on the property right across from Banchell. Uh, where that could just be built into be such a better property where it's closer to downtown. You could make green space into it. Uh and I think that the and I talked with Secretary Augustus
about this. I think that in his vision and I think should be our vision the towns should get more involved with their housing authorities and I think that we should take that mantle and try and and build. So look at because that's again going back to we already have a
lot of our properties and land is built is built up or it's taken up. This is property that I mean we don't own it but it is owned by people who are working in our interest in the interest of our community. to build that to be better suited for the needs of the community. Those buildings are very old when they
were built and weren't built to that. You know, I got, you know, I was I was a commissioner, Chairman Scally was commissioner. There's a lot of complaints about the quality of those and those are our constituents at the end of the day. A lot of vacancy due to condition. Exa Exactly. Um, so I think it is it is
critical. I I overall I think we just need to get more involved with them to the extent we can but I would like to see us support in whatever ways incentivize them doing some redevelopment. Did you know the property at Tatican Apartments there's enough room to build another whole building? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. There's there's
numerous examples. I think this one we've talked about u density downtown strengthen access all existing plans. Maybe I don't
think that's okay. Across. I bet it says Yeah. So, oh, strengthen across all existing clips, not access. Okay. Yeah. So, that's looks almost the same. It looks almost the same. That's just my my take on there's a lot of moving parts
and we just got to ensure that if a great example at the at the um joint meeting, Mr. Fox was like the numbers, the numbers, the numbers, right? Well, he's not wrong. So, anything that we add in, we have to make sure that there isn't a negative effect on nitrogen
output and whatnot. So, tie making sure that whatever we put in at a high level on these bigger goals is actually tied in well to the other existing plans or goals that we have or even restrictions because you can't we don't want to make
things worse. Our job here is to make things better across the board and not leave something off the board accidentally like, oh, we just put in, you know, 800 new units, but we don't have the nitrogen. You did the way to deal with nitrogen.
You're never going to nail it down completely with these broad goals, but you know, each project has got to be evaluated on an individual basis. Correct. I think the bigger point here is just integration. Integration of the plans. So if we set an overall goal kind of put those
integrations within that you know the goal or whatever just so we know we have cross reference and then if you happen to be looking at a housing production plan in it in isolation it has you know again integration back into ours people
can see the natural linkages between the two and then you know it's similar to how you built the um capital improvement um project budget you linked back to the um financial policy, right? Because you made it clear that that's how they flow.
And I think that's our goal that that was the state piece there. Got it. Consistent with recent legislation, ensure that relevant towns assist in reducing the time the permitting process takes.
Okay, now that I read it out loud, I know I see you fit a good amount in there. Do you think our lunch is at town hall? Streamline. What's that? Do you think our lunches are at town hall? No. They have the sources to deliver here.
Just cuz you went to town hall. What'd you get? Steak tip salad. You know, what was the reason? I want lamp. the governor has has you know incentivized I don't know all the
particulars that the permitting process at localities be speeded up to assist in developing and certainly a you know a common I won't say criticism but a common view is that uh that that the
permitting process in Falmouth and in many you know localities takes too long and developers are not anxious to you know develop here because it can take so so long. So, uh, you know, consistent
with what regulations are with respect to timing and so forth, you know, to to expedite the permitting process and direct our staff that we have control over the, you know, at the zoning office and so forth, uh, you know, to to assist
in expediting the permitting process to assist in housing developers coming here and wanting to work with the town. I I would have to say I I would hope that you can clarify it's the regulatory process rather than the permitting because by the time it gets to the building department, it's pretty fast.
In years past, it was always 28 days before you find out if your package has problems. Now, if there's a problem, you know, within a few days, you get an email from Gary saying, "I need this. I need that." So, when it finally gets to the building department, the permitting phase, I think we're really good now. I
think it's the regulatory leading up to the permitting. You might call it all permitting, I guess. Okay. So, there's a here's a good example of a strategy and a and a tactic. The strategy is reduce the amount of
time it takes to get from idea, right? This is my project to a permit to do it, right? That may be it may involve as it tactically
addressing regulations. It may involve addressing process. You might have an integrated permitting process that just takes too much time. I don't know if you have
online permitting. We do. Okay. But so there are there are elements in there that you might want that might be different uh to address. So I think this is a good
strategy strategic goal. Reduce the time to obtain permits, right? And that includes everything be before you actually the building inspector actually signs the document. Right.
Is that clear? It is. I didn't actually have a fifth one that I submitted and so I I might offer a a slight slightly different version of that. Uhhuh. which is I would love to see it be not only faster but also easier
to get to a mutual yes. So making it clearer what the town is looking for, what constitutes a yes, right? It is sustainable, it has
water, wastewater, affordable housing. What are all those things that we're looking for that would make us happy to support a project? Pre-approved plans. Pre-approved plans. It's like what what are those things that we can do to make it easier, not only faster, but easier
for a developer to have and develop a viable idea that the town is happy with. Right. Lots and there's different ways to do that. Yeah. Okay. So, those are our housing. I don't think
we're going to get to a second. Um those are our h that's our our housing. Is the is Mike? Is is lunch being delivered? So maybe Yeah, it is just to the wrong place. Yeah. So So we're in communication with uh with Steve. So
they're going to they're going to have a ship here. So Okay. Give us a few more. All right. I know. It's great. Absolutely. Okay. I know. Yeah,
it's all good. We got bagels. It's just a cat of the week. All right, I'm going to start with a relatively easy one. Transfer fee, right? That was on a few different lists
and different priorities. So, yeah, I'm going to start with that one. So, how do we make this a smart goal? Well, we've already petitioned the uh special legislation to get the home rule, you know, petition to get
permission to do it, but it needs action from the legislature. So, we're kind of in a holding pattern. Now, the county uh government is taking up the initiative to, you know, have a public conversation about it to reinvigorate it. And then the sustainable, what do you what's
that? The Seasonal Communities Act may bring it back. It was in the Seasonal Communities Act last time it came out, but it got removed. It was one of the elements that got pulled out during the legislative process. I'm hopeful that it come back again. Another shot at it that way.
So, the county though filed it as as part of their charter is what they're trying to do. That's a different angle, right? Okay. Yes. Okay. Gotcha. So, there's a couple of ways it might come back into play. I think that's the best way to pursue it personally. uh talking with Dan our our delegates
obviously going to vote yes. Uh I think it's what the way that what how do we actually do this goal I think it's up to us as politicians to lobby the other members of of the assembly to support it. It's the upper Cape ones to my understanding that need the most work
and as a town on the upper Cape I think that we should should have conversations attend that meeting on Wednesday uh a letter of support perhaps to get that to happen. Well, right now they haven't framed exactly. I I don't think we need another infrastructure, another
bureaucracy to manage the money. I don't trust the state legislature to pass as long as the state legislature. I agree. So So I'm going to go ahead. I'm going to ask a question. Is this really a goal? I don't think this is a goal is what I was about to say.
Okay. I'm I'm trying to I'm I'm leaning there, too. But go ahead. And I think this may actually be a tactic along with a few other things we've talked about
including 10% SHI that the real goal is to give us as a town as much um
as much power and as flexibility as possible to pursue affordable housing on our own terms. Okay. No, that's a big that's a big one. That's a big goal. But right, but that's when we're in safe harbor, we're in control. If we're community seasonal, seasonal communities designation, we have
additional funding and options available to us. So that's what I'm trying to get at. Like there these are these are frameworks within which the town gets power and money to pursue our goals. The Daly Lama would tell you control is an illusion. It is that's funny.
Um it be an illusion with funding. So what what I think the strategy here if you want to have a specific strategy goal revenue sources is is increase funding increase
for affordable housing, right? Yeah. And the transfer fee is one tactic. Okay. Um there might be other tactics, right? So you want to seek additional revenue, increase
revenue sources or I mean yeah that sounds good for Yes. Do you have a lot of trust? We do. Right. Okay. Um,
how you going to measure question? Did you just supersede transfer fee into saving paper? Yeah. Okay. All right. Cool. Good. All right. So, we're no longer talking about the goal being transfer fee. We're talking about the goal is
increasing revenue sources. Okay. Having more revenue sources for the and transfer fee is one potential and transfer. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, how do you measure that goal? If there's more money in the affordable
housing trend, we monitor that that level of uh we we we at one point we identified the need to fund that trust $4 million a year at that time. We haven't really kept up
with that, but at there's been times when we've been up to four million, but lately it's more around one or two gap. I mean, maybe it's a question for Peter, but uh do we have the ability to uh to
impose impact fees ourselves on what the short-term rentals? No. No. On development. When a developer develops a property, right, there's an impact to the infrastructure of the community, you know, certain some municipalities assess an impact fee.
Maybe we do and we just don't use it. Well, that's I mean, I don't know where authority comes from, but if it's an authority that rests with us on our own, maybe something and maybe you know, I I think it would have to be in your bylaws. having something in your
violence by but do we do we have the control to do it AI overview says that town meeting has that ability not us but we could have town I don't want yeah I mean town meeting that's fine I don't want to have to go
to the state legislature I think you said it already we'd have to amend our bylaw town meeting would be that would be but there would be limitations because you I mean that's that that's a question for your town council you want to enact a an impact fee on development. You want to
draft a bylaw that does that. There's going to be certain state law limitations. I can't list them for you right now, but you need to to do that if you don't already have something. Yeah. Okay. Um,
is attainable like a yes or no? Yeah. Is it attainable? I think so. A lot of Okay. It's attainable. Um is it it's relevant obviously, right? Because
um and time how what couple years. When do you want to see an increase in the the impact funding in the bottom line of yesterday? Two years. Two years from now realistic.
When is that? When do you think it's attainable? Two years. Well, this is why six months to figure out council. That's why I prefer council governments, but I feel like there are changes. Yeah. I mean, I want to find a way to
say a year where you can do I I think you can do a year if we can adopt residential exemption by the end or by the end the end of my year term. I think that is a doable goal by the end of 2026 have that adopted.
So I might be obtain but that is part of that is that is a part of the revenue discussion though. That is that but we were talking about the impact fee where we need a new bylaw and all. I don't think that could Oh that well that particular one. Yeah, that would be Yeah, but in terms of just in Sorry, Heather, but in terms of just
increasing our revenues, I think that is a measurable year-over-year goal. I think it's measurable, but in terms of attainability and specificity, how much do we want to increase it? I mean, some of these things that we're talking about are going to take time and they will create larger increases in But if the
goal is to increase revenue going into the affordable housing fund, we there's a whole range of tactics, right? And we could see an increase. That's his job. Yeah. Right. We we could we could see an increase in the next year, but how much
do we want to see it increase? That informs the ta tactics we have to pursue or how we prioritize the tactic is how big of an increase and how quickly do we want to see it? And we should probably talk percentages as opposed to binary. Jack, you've thrown out a million dollars a year instead of 800,000 a year
being allocated to the Fmouth Affordable Housing Fund. Right. Right. that came up during our budget discussions. Is that the number that we want to aim for? Do we want to see it increasing by 200,000 per year? Like is it constantly increasing or is there a total goal that we want to see that we
want to get to as the annual allocation? Like Well, like I said, we started off with 4 million and then we said we would keep it in keep it funding it as projects come on the horizon. Right now the horizon is there not a lot on it unless what we come up with. Well, Jack's got
plenty of ways that we could spend an affordable housing. I've got I got things to spend. Well, we have to come up with this, right? So, I mean, I feel like again, and I hate to say like hate to be the one sounding like a scientist who says we need more data, but like what are we trying what is that
fund there to what are we trying to spend that fund on? How much do we need to put into it? And then how do we get that with the I mean the the the residential exemption there's so much math that needs to happen on how much money would that bring in if you do XYZ%. So
and it's flexible on depending on what development you got. If you have development that only needs $50,000 per unit subsidy because it's a big giant box that's easy to build. That's one thing. And if you got an affordable housing like the Fouth Housing Trust,
they need 140,000 per unit because they're making 100% affordable, right? Let's not get hung up too much on these terms. Attainable doesn't mean absolute, right? Doesn't mean it's it's it's in the realm of the possible. Possible,
right? So what's a you know, and and we don't have to decide this now. We can you can think about this between now and the next section. But I think a percentage per year is a good benchmark to put on this
because we're we want to increase revenue into the affordable housing trust fund by 20% a year. I 10% a year. I appreciate that. From what baseline where we are right now, I guess.
Yes, I different every year. Yeah, I appreciate that because I think something that we're battling at the previous or the current strategic plan is everything's squishy. It's kind of like continue working on this and it's like okay well not you could read a page and be like well we're continuing it
versus the binary question of increase well if you put 25 more cents into it we have increased so I agree I think and to your point you know let's let's be a little flexible here in the first year because we don't know how much we can
actually move but like as a team we can figure out okay what's an attainable percentage for us to go after knowing that the next year we can increase it to a different number and we can update it. Um, but thread that needle. Just remember that you're sitting now currently one quarter of the way through
a fiscal year. So you're not going you're probably not going to increase its revenue. Yeah, that's a realistic part in in you know like when are you going to measure that? Are you going to measure that at the end of a fiscal year? Next time we do the budget. We just
are you going to you know what is what is the balance in that account on June 30th 2026 or what is the balance of that account on December 31st 2027 what what date
are you looking at? Yeah. So, if we were to set an a goal of year-over-year increase in revenue into that fund, I would say a a a minimum for that. Right. Right now, what we're doing is flat funding it
with a a an absolute allocation each year to the affordable housing fund. Well, none of the costs going out are flat. We have inflation and increases in construction costs and and everything else. So I would say that matching
inflation or roughly where we see that should be the floor of like we should be putting at least enough more money in there every year to match the increase in I'd set a larger floor. I I think I think we can No, but I would say I would love to go higher than that, but I think that I think
that gives us one minimum. Go ahead. So I I we could talk we could talk for the next hour and a half on what percentage it should be. Think about it. you know, between now and the next session. But think about it also has
what percentage you want it to go up over year over year and on what date you're going to measure it. I think it also has to have I could measure it on March 1st and you could measure it on August 1 to get you the numbers. I think it has to have some relevance to to the market as well as to
what's what's out there as far as, you know, the possibilities of utilizing the fund for that there. You know, we we can't just be putting money in if there's not the the need. I mean, I think there is the need, but it does
have to be measured by what the activity is as well or what the foreseeable activity is. It could be a wide range of needs because right now or in in years past, we've been funding to be ready to deal with developers and incentivize
projects or supplement uh local housing authority initiatives or whatnot. But now coming up soon, we're going to have to do our own projects like if we convince the school committee that they don't need the administration building, we want to rehab that. That's going to be all on us to come up with the money
for that. Maybe we can get bonding or something. But I think that's a separate question, right? Finding funding for a particular project is different than saying we just want to make sure that the fund
balance in our affordable housing trust increases by X. Well, here going into the future, I don't think we settled on fund balance. I think one suggestion was revenue in because if if we've got lots of money going in and lots of money going out,
great. That's the goal. So I I think the earlier suggestion was the the measure is revenue in. I think that makes revenue in. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Is that [Laughter]
So we're measuring the revenue that goes in. It's definitely measurable during a fiscal year. Um and we want to see that amount of revenue going in increase by at a minimum of x%.
How much did we put in the pay attention to it? Do you know? Okay. Said 800k. Is that right? So lunch is here. Why don't we take a few minutes and grab any anything and then we'll we'll keep working on these
while while we uh we also have to agree upon what is the purpose of the deed restriction right yes you know are we looking for in incentivizing you know year round housing get you know rentals you know h
how what what is really the goal of what we want to do traditionally it's just been to to ensure that it's a year round house whether it's ownership or rental. And I think that is kind of more where I'm leaning just because it's part of our larger goal where we are trying to
create all different kinds of housing. So I don't think we need to restrict the deeds just to certain other than it being year round. Mhm. Jack. So it's de restricted. Yeah. Um, all right.
Three. Financial incentives for rental. Well, I'll wait before we move on. What's uh what's what are our milestones on that? How how much do you want
increase that? Um what is it is this happen at all really at its current level? Do we have that kind of program? So so I guess to form the program would be the first one. Right. I'm really not sure what standard or
where this has been done. I don't know if anyone does. You mean the financial incentives? No, we're still are we still talking about two or we on three? I thought we still talking about deed restricting. Oh, they'll done by affordable housing trusts. Yeah, thank you.
They'll put together a program and allocate so many dollars of their funding a year to buy these services. I mean, the affordable housing committee has been doing research on these and has
a couple of proposals to bring to us. Yeah. In the next month, two months, something. I I have a call with Dave soon. So I guess I guess that'll be for the next for the next meeting I guess having that okay exact number.
Okay. It is a you know it does come down to fund availability. Right. We got to create the program and then we got to fund it. Yeah. So which going back to increasing revenue under the affordable housing fund. That's kind of the chicken and the egg. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. If you have a program that funding
Yeah. Okay. It's also chicken and egg because we could get those estimates of what it would take to spin up a program and that's going to inform how much we need to increase revenue into the affordable housing fund. District
you want to increase the number. You know it's you're going to you know it's going to be in the portal and trust the committee of course area. I hate to say, but that's the responsible.
That's all right. That's on our list to lapel mics, wireless mics. It's all right. I tend to move around a lot. Uh uh so you you you want to um you know, you know who's who's responsible. the affordable housing
trust board, right? You um you want them to develop a program, but when do you want them to have that program in place and when do you want them to start purchasing deed restrictions? You don't have to answer
all the questions about it's up to them to go and come back to you and say, "All right, we heard you select board. This is we share your goal. We want to do this, too." But we can't we can't get this program in place
until six months after you want us to. Right. You have to have that kind of conversation. So the next get the funding for it. Right. Um, and if you it's
it's sometimes difficult to get funding if you can't articulate what you're going to spend the money on, right? You go to town meeting and say, "Oh, give me some money." Right? You know how far that gets you, right?
Um, so, uh, financial incentives for uh year- round rental. So, um real estate tax breaks for landlords willing to uh rent year round.
Jim, so you want a tax incentive program. You you you give the landlords a tax real estate tax abatement of some sort to incentivize them to rent year round.
Okay. And that that would require you to say that would require legislation. Not sure. What is is there are there ways to do this without legislation?
Like I mean the reason why I push for the real estate transfer fee is well my thinking personally instead of incentives I prefer not necessarily deed incentivizing but you know capitalizing off what's already there but
I feel like there are ways that we can whether it is tax or or whatever I think we can find a way to do that just us doing it without the legislature. Well, one way would be to have a grant program, right? Establish a grant program for
um owners of rental property and you grant them money as an incentive to rent year round rather than seasonally. Do you know what they do in Nucket with the lease to locals the incentivized with that? Do do you know anything about that? So, that's what we're we're going to be
hear that's what we're going to be hearing about from the affordable housing committee shortly. They've been looking at both cash um incentive payments and property tax um
exemption. And I didn't realize that any property tax exemption that required legislation in order for us to do that. I mean, we give we give property tax abatements to seniors and veterans and and set that level state law. That's all
set within state law adoption of state law. And I think there is a new local adoption state law for I think for this year round rental as well. Another senior assumption last session, right? True.
But so my understanding is that Province Town actually does both. They do up to a 100% and I should check my numbers, but they they do both a property tax exemption plus an additional um like lease to
locals cash incentive. But I guess one question in terms of our process is I feel like we're getting into a level of maybe tactics here that feel like some
pretty big policy decisions that we're potentially making pretty quickly. And in this particular case, we are due to hear from one of our advisory committees about this issue specifically and make a decision at that point about
whether or not this is a tactic that we want to adopt. And so I worry a little bit about like this is only a draft. Yeah, we're not deciding at this point. Well, maybe to David's point is all right, if we're going to keep this high level, what is a measurable outcome and
by when instead of getting into the nitty-gritty to your point because that would be doing it in isolation without all the data, what can we as a select board say, you know, that is a goal, a strategic goal for financial incentives for year- round rentals. I don't know.
It could be a binary like in create financial incentives for year- round rental and then this year it's a yes or no. We either did it or we didn't. Or if we say we want to increase the financial incentives. Well, if we go from zero to
five, we can say five should be it. But increase financial viability of year round rentals or some I don't know what I mean is like what are we measuring, right? Does it start with evaluate the available
options and you know and um make decisions about options to adopt, right? Because one of the things that because one of the things that the affordable housing committee has been um really thinking about as they develop these
proposals is pilot projects and how we would evaluate success. All right. Right. about and and so to some degree how you evaluate success is what's the goal? Well, the goal is to increase year-round rentals and specifically affordable year-round rentals,
right? The goal isn't to enrich uh landlords. The goal is to increase year-round housing, right? Rental options. So, I I I always say to consider something is not really a goal,
right? Um, but that being said, it's really achievable. That that being said, you know, you can construct a an achievable goal
that says you're going to evaluate evaluate options. you're going to enlist the support or the uh expertise of the affordable
housing committee, right? They're your who, right? Your when is milestone number one is are they already they're already looking at this, right?
They they've already been looking at it. We'll be receiving proposals within here report from the affordable housing committee on potential uh financial incentives to increase year- round rentals.
I guess I still have a question as to whether this is the goal or if this is one of our tactics. Well, I think it's a goal. I I I think the tactics come in when the affordable housing committee comes in and says, "Yes, we we think these are the viable
ways to increase uh to to create financial incentives or we think these are the viable ways to um create more uh year round rental opportunity. You're not saying you're not deciding
what they what the those ways are, what those methods are. You're saying you want to get a report from them on based on their evaluation what what the town can do. Mhm. I was just in the restroom, but
municipal housing as a goal. Is that right? What you wrote down for the first one or that is uh Yeah, that is on the list. Good. Yeah. Okay. There. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Okay.
So, you can make that a goal, you know, uh and and many places too, you know, the goal is to the goal is to figure it out and have a plan in place by a certain date.
Right. It does go beyond evaluate options, right? Right. you're going to make it make some decision within and whether it's six months a year, right? So, you know, first milestone you hear the you want to get a report by
December 31st to 2025. Uh next milestone is you want to make a decision by the end of the first quarter of 26 y of yeah 26. Um, you know, those would be your milestones. And then your your
finish line is you've established at least one program that will result in more uh short uh long-term rental housing,
right? Something like that. Okay. I think I can articulate that for you. Um, all right. So, then we have nothing there.
There's a point of process question. Uh, I went into this thinking you were facilitating the review and our update of the strategic planning process, but you in fact are going to help us uh draft these
revisions as a knowledgebased expert. Correct. Right. Um, based on what I hear here today and then you'll give me feedback. I think that's the only way we're going to get this done. I think it right. I'm just trying to be practical. I think that's great. It was just more
of a point of clarity from me. Yeah, cuz moderating is one thing and I think your expertise has been phenomenal in this in in collecting our thoughts the right way. Uh yeah, because I think that um one of the things that it always aggravated me
to no end when I was a town administrator was h sitting at a board meeting where a board tries to write a sentence, you know, and get the sentence perfect. Uh so yeah. Yeah, you can't it's hard to write a sentence. Yeah, it's hard to
have five people write a sentence. That's what I what I'm getting at. Um, so I think that was all the number ones because we've kind of boiled them down. So now we have the Vienna model.
Yeah. I mean, you kind of got it with municipal. Yeah. It's that's essentially what it is. Um municipal. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty much that. Um Okay. Yeah. So, I'm happy to advocate for that under the municipal one when we get to So, you want to
there there is there are no municipal owned h there is no municip So, you want to create municipal owned housing. create. Yes, Bango. Okay, I'm gonna put it over here. Create
municipal owned housing. That won't bleed through on the wall, will it? No, it should be fine. Not so far. Good. Talk about leaving a legacy
board. Um, enough how are you going to measure that? Um, well, if we have it number of Yeah. Um, I guess in the it's
a probably like a a longer term goal. It's probably a timeline on this probably five years. Mhm. um but progress made towards whether it be building or purchasing a property to be municipally owned and rent. The term
they use is social housing. I'm fine with that or admitting it. It's just a term and then not part of this but just also want to point out that it also they do restrict it to people who do live and work in the city which I kind of another point. Well, first you'd have to start with select board endorsement, town meeting
approval. Oh yeah. Yeah, I think five years makes sense for it as a as a longer term goal. But yeah, so you want to have five years at least one unit of municipal housing in five years.
Five years from now, I want at least I'm going to go more than one. Uh because hopefully hopefully you have a build. Well, I don't know if you want to go by units or buildings. Let's go by buildings just for now. At least one municipally owned and ran housing
complex. Oh, complex. Not a comp. Okay. Not complex. Building. We'll dumb it down. In five years, you want to have one completed project. Yeah, let's do that. So, just to play devil's advocate for a
moment. Thank you. Cuz I was ready to be the devil. Are are we in agreement that we as a slick board want to do that? I'm I'm in favor, but I'm just saying we're heading down a path that is a very specific
thing that we haven't created before and I don't know if we have there's financial like problem like you spend a lot of money. We know this. So my my complexity is is this is this feasible? So, I'd like to have later maybe the
discussion about and Jack, I don't know if you'd be willing to enter into the discussion about um the town. You keep mentioning the town managing it. I think we need the town would need to be in control but maybe outsource the management so that we don't have to add additional staffing to it's a new model completely
but I I yeah I'm open to I mean I mean I'm I honestly have some reservations with respect to the how involved the municipality will be with you know managing the day-to-day management and u you know and honestly even owning it to be honest with you I mean I think
it's a a pretty heavy lift to to to put forth in in you know in our strategic plan. Mhm. Not knowing, you know, really where the community is with respect to us going down that path. Well, yeah. I mean, I'm not saying we
adopt it today, but I'm saying I guess that's my question is, can we back off and say, can we evaluate municipally owned isn't that kind of the purpose of this exercise is by the end have that, which is not today.
But we've got I guess I'm just still grappling with what the goal h how how this process is going because we are and I love the conversations we're having. We're introducing some really big and really
new ideas that I think deserve a fair bit of discussion and consideration before we adopt them as select board policy. And it feels like, and I do not want to be obstructionist, but I feel like we're adopting some pretty big things with like 10 minutes of
So, let me let me address that. You're not adopting anything right now. That's right. You're we're taking input from the select board members as to what they think is important to accomplish and then we're trying to define that
goal as finally as we can. And then and then you can debate it and vote on it and say, "Well, we don't we want to include this one. We don't want to include that one." But at least you'll get to the point of you'll know
exactly what it is you're voting, right? It's not a concept. You know, nobody wants to vote on a concept, right? But I I I do think there are some, you know, there are obviously a variety of different goals and objectives that are being discussed.
some of which are really sort of well known and understood and I think the board, you know, is very close to being able to act on and support. And there are others like this one that these are new big ideas and, you know, and I I think that should be
expressed. Yeah. It should be that's why you're here. Right. Right. It absolutely. Um, but when it comes to writing up the plan, I think if there are new big ideas that the board isn't sure about, then the that that um tells you how to write up the goal. So,
this one would be evaluate the potential of a municipally owned housing program. Exactly. Yeah. I I mean I that's why I did my first one on de restriction because I wanted to have one that I could definitely do and then my bigger one. Um, but yeah, I I and I
think that when it comes down to the the details of it, that's where, you know, you guys come in and you would do that in terms of, you know, is it municipally ran, whatever, blah blah blah. But the the actual the thing that the bare basis that I'm advocating for is just a townowned
uh municipal housing project. And what would it do? Well, you can just you can control the rates of it better, right? And what would it do? Create housing, right? which goes back to the first thing that we did. So this is a a a strategy or a tactic within the first thing we talked about which is
increase the number of units. This is one tactic. It would be different because it could ensure municipal employees would have a place, right? So then this this this is a potential tactic within ensuring that those who work here can live here.
I think Nuckets has adopted such a program. they they've bought housing for their municipal workers. A little more narrow I think than what is being discussed because as you said it's for the municipal workforce. So I go back to the first set of slides that
we did which was increase the number of units that are affordable and for workforce and now we are addressing your point your you know the big girl like Vienna project and and municipally owned. These are these are different
vehicles for us to get to that. Um perhaps the instead of pre-baking it saying we're going to go after municipally owned, maybe it's more of we want to go in a direction to evaluate. Well, I like what Peter said. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Where it's evaluating. I
mean, recognizing limited time, I I think what I heard you saying the process would be, which was maybe different than I'd understood, is that what you're going to come back to us with a draft that has a whole bunch of things that that there may be one person
on the board who really wants it and the rest of it and at some point we will vote on each of those things being included in the strategic plan. is that because I guess my my concern is the reason I have concern about the pace is not that I don't want to make big decisions. I don't want to make them
precipitously and I want us to have I I want to understand what the consensus or decision-m process is for these things. When I put this together, I was thinking four hours would be enough time to build
consensus around a couple of these areas and obviously I was wrong. Um, so and and I did take the first hour to explain something. So one more time next time. So, kind of shifting gears a little bit
on my feet here is what I will do is I will take these goals, refine them and I will I will put I will put them on a spreadsheet that says
goal statement, right? Uh who's who's in charge? Um who who uh what boards and committees are involved? Um milestone one, two, three, finish line
something like that. And then you can look at that. I'll get that to you before the next well before the next uh workshop. And you can look at that and say, "Yeah, this one makes sense. This one doesn't make sense. This one
I'd like to tweak." And I don't think I should limit it to only our discussion today because I would like to recognize the previous work of the select board to come up with the plan that exists. It is still a great plan. What we're doing right now is rolling some things up into
bigger buckets and then kind of listing them as sub, you know, tasks or strategies that we can then add into your measurable goals. because again we're updating something to have smart goals attached to them assignments right
but the other part is and and filling in gaps that we this board see that need to be added in so I guess my to summarize let's not forget the the the current plan in addition to what we've talked about
right and let's see where we are when we get when we get to this list that I'm going to send back to you see what's missing. That's when we need that's the next step. See what's missing. Did we did we throw, you know, did we throw a baby out with a bathwater while we were
doing this? I think this is a very valuable exercise and and a lot of good things are being discussed that, you know, I didn't necessarily think they would become be discussed at this type of a forum with respect to our strategic goals. I mean,
these are discussions we need to have. I'm just wondering, do we really need to even do anything with the, you know, with this strategic plan? I mean, do we have to change it or update it? I mean, well, I mean, are are we
I would like to Well, incorporate new ideas. Well, I I guess the the point is that um we may not all be in agreement on a lot of the things we've discussed, right? It's a discussion that we need to have
but but do we need the the pressure of two more meetings to you know refine or revise the strategic plan at this point? I mean it's still a worthwhile exercise. So so the the the work is being done in these these sessions that we have David
engaged for. Um and Peter just mentioned you know there's no definite timeline where you the board has to make a decision. That's all I I do think Bob get I do think it is important this is should be a living breathing document and and it's a different board a different different so
and I think I think it does need to be updated reviewed and updated periodically but yeah I mean ideally you should update your strategic plan every year before you initiate your budget process for the next year so that your town manager knows what your goals are when he's he
and the department has to putting together a budget. So, um, I lost my train of thought. Go ahead. I was just going to say that, you know, this is so different than anything we've ever done before. Strategic planning, we usually just go through the plan and see
what's old and talk about new ideas that might be introduced. But right now, I mean, we just kind of, it was kind of a quick thing that we picked and choose. And I was completely unprepared for doing that. I, you know, I thought we were going to read through it and
discuss it a little bit. That's kind of what I meant, Doug. I just think now we're doing this whole new take on it and I didn't put a lot of thought into I thought it was just an exercise, but now it's turning out to be that's maybe the end product of of our discussion. So, I don't know.
We're we're asking the board to take through it through it through a different lens, take a look at the current plan and giving it credit for what it is. It's a solid plan and then making adjustments right based upon the this board's leadership vision what it wants to see
this town go which direction the town wants to go new ideas that come forth and that's why we we asked David so so yeah you're right past three years this is my third iteration of doing this it's been a different process I thought it was timely because the board is different um to uh to have a new fresh look at it and
that's why we're kind of going going through this this new new look different lens and kind of trying to identify priorities and uh and and and and I've said this before, my biggest complaint with the plan is that it's not measurable. You know, the goals right now are not measurable. So that's that's
what it certainly. So I just don't want something to come back that I don't even recognize. Well, I neither do I. Um, so what what I see the goal here is at the end of these three sessions, you're going to have a
set of goals for each of these seven strategic areas. And the goals are going to be sharper, tighter goals that you have that you you can
articulate better to your staff. that they can understand exactly what it is you want them to do. Um it may they may not not every goal may end up being SN A R T to the to the letter but
they'll get they'll be approaching that right and they'll there'll certainly be a better set of goals even if we just stuck to the ones you had we can make a lot of improvement in those
just by tightening them up. I thought we should and that we should definitely do that, but I thought that probably had some new ideas and we ought to hear them. One one last thing, I'll keep it brief. Um there's at least one area of the seven uh that is going to be important
this body looks at in terms of uh actual conflict conflicting statements and goals within within the uh priority area. So it's in the health and public safety area. So that this exercise of going through through your lens um and and making sure it matches your vision
even though we now have a mission, vision and value statement from the organization. That's why it's going to be that's why this is important. It's a different exercise completely different than the way we've done it in the past. I like that we are um kind of converting these into bigger buckets and making
them a little more general and high level. I think that's kind of what's missing. Yep. and we have very very minute tactics without any smart attachments to them. Right? So when now that I'm really kind of thinking about how we've made it through this exercise, I think the seven
are where we're at. We need some reformat. But the way that we're going to get there to get to that smart component is to, you know, start and and and maybe this is your recommendation, which is what are the highle objectives and buckets within each of those seven that get us
to then, you know, we can then kind of as if we cut each bullet point out that's in there and put them into the buckets. And then from there, we have because that creates a strategic direction in the tactics. Then we find out what the gaps are and then we can then also look at, you know, not only
the gaps but the the new ideas and we can look at them in context to the existing plans. So it's what you're used to and we're not just coming up with something willy-nilly, but it's basically just restructuring things a little bit and and tightening it up with the smart goals so that when we get to
safety and health, we can have that bigger discussion on something that's conflicting, but we know which bucket it's serving. Um, I think there at the end of the the three sessions, we're going to have a product and that'll be fine. But I think then we're going to have to maybe give
it to you guys and let you bring it to staff and come back to us and say some of this stuff's not practical, not tenable. There's goals that are just not not achievable or you're sending us down the wrong path. because it happens, you
know, you get guidance and then you bring it to the people that have to actually do the work and they say, "What are they thinking?" Well, well, let's let's remember the next step in this process is to survey all those folks. So, we're going to get their input ahead of time. So, in of course,
nobody nobody in this room is Moses. You're not coming down off the mountain with two stone tablets saying thou shalt, right? Um, of course there has to be some give and take after this is done and and really duck to that. I mean, and
the um where we where we're coming from, we the staff had no prior involvement. So, we were actually not making we were actually starting from ground zero. This is going to give us a higher kind of a a place to start and we can come back to you and say, look, you know, we need to tweak this, modify this, right?
I don't think we blow it up. I think we we stick with the vision, right? But we we may come back with some suggestions, some edits as part of the discussion prior to adoption. Right. Right. Of this whenever that happens. I guess that's that's what I mean is when when are we expected to adopt a final product?
Yeah. There's no there's no definite time. That's all I wanted to get out there. I'm wondering um this is you're you're facilitating so feel free to shoot this down. having
gone through this once where Doug to your point um this is brand new for all of us and I'm not sure all of us feel like we put exactly the right stuff out there and on our postits. Could we
do some homework um on the other like essentially doing this first part that these are my five that's in my my speech for the last five minutes today instead of doing that on the fly next time like maybe I'll sit on our own and
do that for the other so why don't I why don't I go there so the couple of things I want I I'd like you to look at um there are two strategic areas in the plan, financial and economic stability, and there's one
other one, and I'm going to put this in a memo to you next week, right? That don't have very many goals existing. They might have one or two, but you think about really focusing on those for the next session.
Um and uh so that um now that you know what the process sort of is, right? So that you can come to the meeting more prepared
to talk actual goals that you've given some thought to. Um, well, unfortunately, we didn't have the time to lay that groundwork ahead of this one, but it's really it's really good that we got to do this. We
we got a lot of information and now I have a better understanding of where you all are. Um, and you know, I want to meet you where you are. Okay. So, you'll be getting a
um you'll be getting a memo from me with some homework. Most of it focused on um those two areas. And I I I know one is finance. There's another one that doesn't have
very many goals. I don't think Well, energy conservation doesn't have a lot of goals. Energy conservation. Yeah, I think you're right. That was that one. So, focus on those. Not today, not now, but between now and the next workshop and um
also not next week, but soon I will send you um sort of the results of today in a in a usable form for you to review. Okay. Okay.
Thank you. I just want to uh you know thank uh Mike and Peter for for implementing this process. Uh you know for the my past two years on the on the board like Doug said it was just you know reviewing things maybe changing a
word here or there crossing out something that we've completed and no longer applies but this is the kind of meat that we really need to be able to develop a workable implementable you know strategic plan. So, I thank you both for taking the initiative to do it
this way. Thank you. And Dave, thank you for your time this morning. Yeah, thank you. I second that completely. I completely agree and didn't mean to blow things up in the middle of the process. Well, it's we we've never done it before. So, it's it's it's brand new. I at least I mean in my world anyway. I
mean, maybe you know Colin and you have done these things before these workshops. I haven't. So, for me, it's a it's a new prospect. That's that's really one of the purposes of these kinds of workshops is to kind of you know I wouldn't say blow things up but
deconstruct it look at it put it back together again I go ahead I just want to throw out uh so to give you some context as far as the amount of time you'll have to kind of dig into this and chill out a little bit uh we're looking at the third week in November due to some scheduling uh David being uh
unavailable uh so we're looking at November 22nd as a date that uh I haven't put this out to you yet. Um, but if you could uh get back to me with your availability uh uh for that third week in November, I'd appreciate it. My birthday is the 23rd. Yes.
Third full third full. It's a Saturday. I think it's the 22. The Saturday before Thanksgiving. It is. It is. Oh, it's a late Thanksgiving this year. We haven't done this before. And then the third one. Are we still looking at December? December 6th. December 6th.
So, the next two are going to be very close together. Yeah, but there's a gap in between this one. I'm good for both. Wait, the 22nd. What was the other one? December 6th. The third session, December 6th. I will say that no, even though we haven't done this as a board before,
Thomas Water Stewart did hire a professional facilitator several years ago. And it really did make us focus and more effective. And you know, our budget has grown, our projects are more effective, everything is more functional
because we had professional come in and show us where we weren't we where we lacked organization. So I think even though this was maybe a little bit of a surprise start, I think in the end it'll be a good good way to refine our and I appreciate it just getting being
able to get more of my broader thoughts on policy out. You know, when we're have a hundred different agenda items, we can't actually say what we feel about certain items. It's frustrating. So I appreciate this format to talk about my big expensive ideas. We uh we should have put big expensive
decision. No no no. My um one concern is that we've only done one one thing. So we might need to I don't know how the budget works, if you need approval or some kind of recommendation or what, but my guess is we'll probably
need more than two more sessions based only on this one. And I don't know how that works, but I would fully support that as a select board member that we might have to add in. I we will have a lot of extra time. I think if we do come ahead of ahead of time with our ideas and we also took
like an hour and a half explaining that will help. And this this housing area, I mean, as I looked at the seven areas, I knew well the others are equally important, I suppose, but this this had a lot of areas that needed to be addressed at this level. So I I anticipated this one taking a longer time everywhere I go. Even though it's
not alphabetical order, housing is It used to be it used to be affordable. It used to be affordable housing and it changed and it was listed third everywhere I go the top of the list. I don't know if this would make things better or for or or worse, but um
I I guess my my question is whether especially with energy conservation um where there are few goals there, do we need to build it out or is there an opportunity? We've got this last goal that's water water conservation.
There's a lot of things in there and but I wonder if there's an opportunity actually to create one larger focus area that is like resource sustainability and it's energy and it's water. It's it's weight like it's those would would be I guess sub goals within that one area. So
I I don't know if that's helpful or unhelpful. That's up to you. But it it seems to me that you you got a lot in that water waste, solid waste already. Um but certainly if you on the energy
side, if you're having trouble coming up with more than one goal, it might make sense to incorporate it in there. Um but think about let's let's see where it depends on the level of the the goals that we're setting as to whether I have more than one. But
I I might also ask the chair and and Mr. Renshaw and Mr. Johnson stop that in before our November meeting or our December or any thereafter um any select board meetings that we have coming up where we might have a
knowledge gap or we haven't received a series of updates, you know, let's just say at the November 22nd meeting, we're going to discuss the topic you're talking about. If there are existing updates that are needed to
the board from existing um committees, this would be a nice time to get those. Got it. But also any other maybe someone has already given their update, but that should be in the room so that when we sit down, not only are we bringing our own body of knowledge, which I will say
and admittedly so is limited in some aspects. I happen to know a bunch about housing, right? But like now we have a bigger body of knowledge from which we can work to then just figure out what the big buckets are and then what the tactics are. So I don't know how to how that maps between the two, but it just
needs a little map. One other thing I'm going to ask you to do when I send you uh the the homework assignment. Um and I'll need a a really quick turnaround on on this. If you have
a question that you want asked, want posed to your department heads, to your board, committee chairs, let me know so I can include it so I can include it or something like it in the survey. So I don't I have my little wish list of new ideas.
How how do we fold those in one at a time as we did here? Yeah, I I I the survey is going to be more, you know, um uh I suppose we could ask them to to list and give a list, but it's going to be
more short answer kind of things. David's talking about the surveys going out to the department heads, right? But you're talking about No, I'm just saying I came today with my list of ideas and new things that I would wanted to fold in, but you know, we had this larger talk about housing, so we didn't get to a lot
of that, but how will we incorporate that? Should we be sending you an email and say this is on my list of new items that I want to introduce or is that going to have is there going to be an opportunity for that? Are we are you talking about a new strategic area or a new goal? Uh couple of brand are new. Um like when
I was at the uh the 1 Cape conference, I was really surprised about the level of uh success that Cambridge has with being a artistic community and you know culture. And it was amazing to me to find that they invest $2.5 million in
their arts and culture where we've been historically at $5,000 a year and now we upped it to 10 sort of by accident because one town meeting member spoke up and said, "Let's double it." You know, that's great. And we felt great about $10,000, but you know, gr
granted Cambridge has a $1 billion budget where ours is about a hundred million and something and it's a great program. And I have three grandchildren live in Cambridge and this past summer they were summer long a program that will pay for by the city and they incentivize building
development saying if you put arts and culture on the first floor we'll give you another second floor maybe a third floor because they got that kind of zoning that they can give that stuff away. So I think that's something to bring up in whatever priority are not we're not change I
don't think we're contemplating changing any of those seven areas right so whatever area you think it fits in economic economics economic development economic stability bring it up at that bring it up that day okay can I propose one more and might
actually give a home to what you're talking about area number three financial and economic stability. I would love for us to aim a little higher than stability. Maybe it's prosperity prosperity,
right? And and I think cultural districts that like that that's economic prosperity to to me or or I mean it's but maybe it's just financial economic and you don't even have that third word and it's just about Yeah. Like exact like Yeah. like
I think I think we bring you telling me that one of our areas needs to be life, liberty, and the pursuit of and utopia. No, thank you very much for all this. I really appreciate your uh comments like just hearing everybody's perspective because quite honestly this is the first time we've all worked together
opportunity to do that enough. No, that's what we need to try to increase to the within Yeah. to what he needs to do. Now we know Jack spends money. I spend money proposing to spend money. Is that because he's been spending
somebody else's money? I think maybe I paid my I was one of my only I paid my rent myself. No, I don't. You need to start going to some finance committee meetings. They'll tone you down. No. For that reason. Do you need to make a motion to adjurnn
officially? I suppose we do. We never convened to That's true. Well, no, we convene. We did, but we do need a motion. to penalty. Second and second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor?
I