By Barbara Smith,
Blogger and Social Justice Activist,
https://www.facebook.com/HWdemocrats/
Please watch the following Hamilton Master Plan Meeting from September 1, 2022.
I am highlighting speakers in black and my comments in purple. For convenience, I provide a photo with names of members present and a short description of their roles. I will use first names for my own convenience. Seated from let to right:
Marnie Crouch– a lawyer is the Chair of the Planning Board and on the Affordable Housing Trust .
Rosemary Kennedy– a nurse and lawyer, is a former Select Board Vice-Chair, and member of many other committees and boards over the years.
David Wanger- a retired lawyer and professional mediator, is a rock of the Finance and Advisory Committee, and for many years was the Chair.
Patrick Reffet– Patrick Reffet, from Andover is Hamilton town planner.
Kristin Kassner; resident of Hamilton, town planner in Burlington, Vice-chair of the Steering Committee and Democratic candidate for 2nd Essex state representative.
Jack Lawrence: is the Chair of the Steering Committee and has probably held almost every position you can imagine in Hamilton. Jack is very experienced and is considered a “Town Father” for his long history of serving the Town in many capacities and functions.
Dana Allara: is chair of the Hamilton Wenham Schools District.
Emil Dahlquist: an experienced architect and planner who hails from Connecticut with lots of great ideas, and a nice speaking voice! He is a colleague of Marnie’s as Vice-Chair of the Planning Board.
Caroline Beaulieu: hails from Texas, has resided in Hamilton 3-4 years and elected to Select Board this spring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0ccqtpJhy4
The previous Hamilton Legislature voted for the Master Planning Steering Committee to exist for a purpose, and the Select Board populated it with the smartest people with relevant experience. The vice-chair is Kristin Kassner – who not only has vast experience and expertise in town planning – SHE is the democratic candidate from Hamilton’s new district for state representative. The new Select Board member Caroline Beaulieu, a resident of only 3-4 years is supposed to function ONLY as a liaison to report back to her SB on the Steering Committee’s meeting. Caroline is NOT the boss or supervisor of these generous volunteers. She should just be listening or maybe asking a question for clarity… However, ONE needs to question (I do!) her motives for her angry, uninformed and rude statements to this board. Caroline was hand-picked and groomed by the privately-held corporate political lobby known as Hamilton Wenham Human Rights Coalition ( I will now call them “lobbyists”) to run for Select Board last spring. You will watch on the tape how she aggressively approaches the board of distinguished volunteers. The lobbyists have the ultimate goal to develop Hamilton widely, regardless of the environment, maintaining town character, open space, density and rising taxes. By the way, corporate political lobbyist Coalition leader Anna Siedzik financially benefits from development since she works for the 7-church consortium known as Harborlight Community Development. Anna uses her position as an elected official on the School Board to push her development agenda. She is also the Chief of the faith-based Morality/behavior Police that populate the Selectboard and most other Hamilton Boards.
For example, the Anna-led morality police believe that they can discriminate for or against certain citizens (i.e. atheists), and what types of flags they will allow to fly from the Town Hall flagpole and other Town property. They decide what proclamations must be recited before meetings and which candidates to endorse for office based on the candidates Coalition fealty. This is not how a direct democracy operates. They feel entitled, and they are grabbing the power to freely discriminate against citizens for whatever reasons they want.
This Steering Committee is a mandate that arose from Town Meeting. No one from the SB can unilaterally change a legislative mandate. Hamilton Legislature is a check and balance on the executive board. All committees and other Boards act as checks and balances such that no one entity has all the power. That is how the people will know that the best possible outcome for the TOWN is likely to come about. It’s all about the checks and balances.
I have not been following this process closely. However, after watching this video it appears that our town manager Joe Domelowicz chose and allowed the previous vendor to spend consultant money with no accounting and very little to show for it. In other words, he blew the budget and now there is very little left for consulting leaving the Steering Committee available as scapegoat Due to Joe’s malfeasance, a new expert needs to be found so that the process can move forward. Joe D. is employed and supervised by the SB. He answers to THEM. His behavior follows a pattern of insolence and incompetence. For example, he gave away the Covid Test kits last fall behind the backs of the previous SB and the men on the board gave him a mild reprimand. However, he should have been fired! Instead he applied for a new job in Ipswich…..
Now the 5 member board is completely controlled by the Coalition political lobbyists and there continues to be NO accounting for Joe’s poor decisions. He is insubordinate to the residents of Hamilton.
Response from Chair, Jack Lawrence is shared at end of transcript…..
Transcription….
Caroline (21:35) I would say that we have $50,000 or less to wrap up this … what defines success etc.? We need this within the next 6-12 months…. the scope is going to be significantly smaller than most of us are comfortable with because we burned a lot of cash in the first half of this work…..so the most constructive use of time today is really saying like what are those must-haves and be a list of 3 to 5 small , specific, tactical deliverables….
Jack (23:56) same for us to come out with a master plan that places the town on a fiscally stable basis which i do not believe will be shown it is now.
Caroline (24:02) I agree, but I think though it might be more of …here are the directions you can go… Its up to the town to decide after the fact. I don’t think the master plan is going to give us that direction. I think its going to give us the possibilities, the strategic directions we could go. I think there’s too many differences of opinion in this Core Group about what those directions could and couldn’t be and I think we need some data to support them and we need to understand the financials of each of those directions and we need to get Town input about those directions. I don’t think its realistic that in four to six months we’re going to have a singular plan based on where we are and the timeline and the involvement of this group. I don’t think its realistic , I’d love to be proven wrong and if we could come up with a scope that’s succinct and smart and can do that with the money we have …. I don’t think that’s what we’re gonna get so my question is what could we get that would still feel really good and useful and represent the opinions of this group and the entire town. I think that we’ve lost the opportunity to get to that verbatim blueprint….
Caroline sharply insults and criticizes Kristin Kassner – the Vice Chair of the Steering Committee…. as though it were Kristin’s fault that there was some mishap with consultants… However, Kristin has no control over the money and the vendor- decisions made by Joe Domelowicz and others! It appears that Ms. Beaulieu is trying to make Kristin look bad as though she failed…. One must wonder if this behavior is because Kristin stood up to Anna Siedzik and did not do as ordered as the current Select Board, School Board, Board of Health and the Hamilton Democratic Town Committee (HDTC) officials do.
Dana: (26:14) I have a real concern …
Kristin (26:36) Going to take the pause and one of the things that is so troubling to me is that we can be frustrated with some of the way in which we’ve gone about this , but we have been out there and we went to shop local…. we’ve had really good , engaging conversation, have we had enough, no…. we did put out a survey, we don’t have the result, so I think there’s frustration but there’s been a lot of great work and conversation throughout this process….and this continued kind of … we can be frustrated and work through it but I think the more we’re not celebrating and talking about the great conversations we’re having and outreach and work that we are accomplishing and us as a committee I think that’s going to be problematic to be successful with anything at this point and I also think that we’re here, we’re looking at this scope but its a little bit unclear what we are here to do. … you know, we’re clearly not picking or being part of the process of the consultants that I guess have been brought to people ….. if we are not having a conversation together I don’t know what conversation we’re having that’s going to be successful and just the comment of we’ve been discussing in the “background” . There’s a lot of work that we should be really proud of , the November was really well attended, we had a lot of good information. Are we missing momentum along the way are we having a little frustration in the process ? absolutely…..but this is a really good thing and a good opportunity to have a conversation among ourselves. I mean some of us have been in government for a long, long time, some of us are brand new and some of us have been here in Hamilton for a long time in Hamilton and some of us are newer. Its going to be hard to all sit together and be like best friends and we’re not. We’re all coming from different places and different opinions….. I just want to emphasize that this has been GOOD and this whole process is good and doing a master plan and talking about what our future is is really good and I just feel like meeting after meeting, we’re arguing and saying bad things about things and I feel like who would want to come be part of this unless it’s really fun and good and that we want to continue so … I appreciate the comments and … we have a limited budget and a limited scope and we’re good, we want to get out of this what we can to hopefully set us up for whatever the next step from this is …are we going to have the 500 page document. I don’t know if we even wanted the 500 page document, but we’ve agreed and voted on some really interesting ways in which to organize the document … Just thinking about how we want to organize ourselves and this document is great. I’m really appreciative of Emil’s work putting this together… Just the positive and moving forward, I think there’s something really great here.
Kristin responds with grace and intelligence…
I don’t think Caroline’s complaints make sense. The highly qualified, committed and tolerant steering committee appears befuddled and taken aback by Caroline’s misplaced anger, inappropriate outburst, insinuations and weird role as spokesperson for Hamilton government rather than a liaison. The Steering committee was thrown off course due to Joe D.’s poor judgement in hiring the consultant and inability to properly supervise this person. Kristin does a remarkable job of trying to rein in Caroline’s false narrative and blame and at the same time not call out Caroline’s ignorance and insolence.
Caroline (30:26) I don’t think we want to throw any of that away , there has been a lot of frustration and I ‘ll be candid with you like most of the emails I get are the frustration right so … there are subgroups that are coordinated to people who know each other better who are emailing amongst two or three people and then that gets forwarded to a group and then there’s miscommunication that that group decided something and then one groups so….i think my question is how do we do the best job documenting all the great stuff, putting and then putting it into a form. I think the structure that Emil came up with was great , I don’t think that we should lose that at all. I don’t think we can re-scope and have a new consultant go back and fill in some of the gaps or do some of the wish list items that we had. it’s more where have we gotten to today….I don’t know where that stuff lives….
Frustration?
Caroline continues to paint some sort of weird implication that she is responding to resident concerns. In reality, most residents do not pay attention to these issues unless like Anna Siedzik they stand to make money from town policy or Anna tells them what to think and say. Does Caroline and the SB want to get their hands on the money earmarked for the Steering Committee???? Maybe they want to use that money in a different way to further the political lobbyist agenda. Who are the so-called sub-groups? Do they include the Hamilton Wenham Human Rights Committee, a privately held corporate lobby outfit packed with the same faith-based , political lobbyists led by Gordon associated, faith-leader, SB member Jamie Knudsen?
Kristin (31:27) I agree and I think that is one of the pieces to show that we are getting the reflection of those presentations and that conversation from the first phase before we move in but we’re getting that piece so … it has been worth our while. …
Rosemary Kennedy (32:38) I think public engagement is what a master pan is all about and that’s imperative that we have more public engagement…. that needs to be part of the scope… there were some things that have been done unfortunately, we were not responsible for organizing that the entity who was is wrapping up and we kept expecting this group is going to do this….and so in our defense we have worked very hard over the past year as a group and we expect to continue doing that and I think we’ve all learned a great deal about a master plan over the past year, so I hope that whoever is behind the scenes here is understanding that we have been through a very painful learning process and we will take that forward as we move along in this next phase. We don’t want the work and effort that we’ve put in to be discounted because another entity was not able to fulfill their obligation. The town should not suffer , the master plan should not suffer, our vision for the future should not suffer, its a critical part of any town… I hope that as the board thinks about this they will consider those factors.
Public engagement….
Indeed, Rosemary is correct. Hamilton residents need to be involved and outreach is part of the “scope” that Caroline is focused on. I, Barbara Smith blog to create transparency on Hamilton’s government and agree that the town should NOT suffer just because Joe failed in his job to work closely with the Steering Committee to make sure they had everything they needed when they asked for it.
Why is Caroline zeroing in on these attacks at this particular time?
Kristin Kassner is the Democratic candidate for state representative in the new district that includes Hamilton. Hamilton is extremely fortunate to have a well-qualified candidate from our town stepping up to represent our district. These attacks make no sense. Although Caroline is a member of the Democratic Town Committee and the elected Secretary/Clerk , she has done nothing to promote Kristin’s candidacy. In fact, she appears to be trying to sabotage her campaign. Is this because Kristin is an independent thinker, not beholden to the Coalition lobbyists??? Are the lobbyists simply upset that the candidate did not seek Anna Siedzik’s approval as lame duck candidate Jamie Belsito did??? I wonder if the Coalition backed SB members want to disband the current Steering Committee in order to replace them with Coalition lobby/cult followers who do not care about the environment and town character and have other ideas on how to spend the remaining steering money earmarked for planning Hamilton’s future development? Don’t forget that Anna Siezik earns money when her development corporation sells units. Just take a look at the following video. She wants Hamilton to be like Newburyport.
There is a conflict of interest that can be fixed by Anna Siedzik quitting her political job on the School Board or resigning from her job at Harborlight.
Caroline (34:13) This is not a reflection I hope Patrick wasn’t going to kick their shins anymore, but I will.
(Why is Caroline so angry and aggressive at this group?)
Caroline (34:19) :: To your point like many of us were new to this process and if we weren’t managed appropriately by the consultant like that, its on the consultant that things … we bled budget for months and months because the consultant wasn’t leading the process appropriately… that is not on this group at all.
Rosemary (34:34) so perhaps the consultant should bear some of the financial responsibility …
Caroline: (34:42) I want to be clear that that’s actually what a lot of this sort of is about and when I say in the background it is quite literally trying to figure out like the contract wasn’t broken out into segmented budgets. It was one budget for the entire process and so working out with them what they think they have done vs what they haven’t like clawbacks a difficult, is a mean, you know this like clawbacks is really difficult and we’ve already paid a large portion of this budget over to them based on the duration and what they would consider the amount of work that’s happened …
What is Caroline’s point?
Caroline criticizes the steering committee and then agrees with them that the consultant should pay back some money. Then Caroline explains that it is too difficult to get that clawbacks money back. So what exactly does Caroline want?
Rosemary (35:12) but we need to consider from our viewpoint what has happened and what hasn’t happened just because they say they’ve done this and this, doesn’t make it so…
Caroline (35:21) agreed. and I think that we are eyes wide open on that part which is, you know….
Marnie (35:28) could I make just a few comments. I mean there’s a real difference between a cl
Rosemary (35:47) now we have a very limited budget, a masterplan really is something that the planning board and other boards in town will need to rely on. So rather than cobble together a bare minimum master plan another concept might be to suspend the process so that we can accumulate funds to do a really good job, because if we try and just cobble together something. It may or may not be a functional document. It may be something that’s just put in the circular file and never referred to again because it doesn’t have enough substance to it to make it meaningful.
We do have some public participation when … one of the first tasks for the new consultant would be to assess whether more public participation in terms of in the form of a survey is required or whether we have enough content from those surveys to draw conclusions. .. and also assessing the existing conditions because that’s .. to me- we got existing conditions and some maps. But the rest of the scope of work really is not completed and I don’t know for fifty thousand dollars whether we can get it done and I don’t know what portion of Emil’s outline we can drop out. .. if we drop out too many things then again, its not a worthwhile document, its not meaningful. ….
Jack: 37:44) Caroline, I have a question for you. I’m not sure that you’re aware of this history of this committee’s attempt to monitor the expenditure of money in this project.
Caroline: I am
Jack: so you’re aware that the committee wanted a Treasurer position . It was voted on, it was occupied, there was an attempt to pursue that dutifully and the manager, (Joe Domelowicz) ultimately told us that’s none of our business… So we were unable to track in the course of the time period the expenditure vs the product and make comments about that. I think you and your colleagues should be cognizant of that. Have you had an opportunity to look at Patrick’s?
Caroline: I have
Jack (38:14) Do you view that as achievable given the budget restraints that you’ve related?
Caroline (38:50) I think its a really good start and I think it outlines sine of the key concerns that we still have. I don’t know that it goes far enough and then I think maybe you have some perspective here. I don’t think it goes far enough to really outline what the deliverable is and what it needs to do. To your point of like can other committees and commissions in town use this as you know a guide post for decision making and prioritization? I don’t know that reading what Patrick put together I ‘m not sure that that comes out . Its almost too big and too vague at the same time, like specifically you know we can’t answer all those questions I think or we can or to you but we need to back away and say we’re going to start this whole process over again once we have more budget and more time? But I don’t think that’s the desire of the group. But the goal is for everybody here to sort of decide today what those really important key scope pieces are and if the recommendation of the group is it’s everything that’s left that we already had in the original scope and this isn’t worth doing if we don’t hit all of those things then that’s the recommendation of this group and we go back and figure that out.
David: ( 40:08) Let me try and summarize what I think we’ve accomplished – a date and that is in the existing conditions pretty well ascertained. may I , sorry I apologize..
David (40:15) may I just continue for a minute. …Patrick has listed certain specifics toward the end of his work product: CLIMATE CHANGE, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, ONGOING PUBLIC TO TOWN ENGAGEMENT, FORUM BASED ZONING AMENDMENTS TO TOWN, CONSERVATION COMMISSION BYLAWS , MEANS OF ADDRESSING THE MBTA COMMUNITY ZONING . He did not include and I would have asked him to include some WATER generic subject and COMMUNITY CHARACTER. Are those labels achievable with a remaining budget you believe in terms of a reasonable approach
Caroline ( 41:06) if those all align to categories within the existing conditions and don’t require their own set of research then I think that anything that’s already represented in the body of research done in existing conditions… yes, if we’re now saying we need somebody to go do a water study … but like we need you to go do your own and we need you to do an assessment . Im not saying that’s true. I’m literally here saying like, depending on what we’re saying we’re giving them and what we would need them to then do with that or add to that that changes how many of those things that I think we can adequately expect a consultant to report back in on.
David (41:48) I’m not talking about existing conditions. I’m talking about a consultant providing us with some kind of blueprint for the future within those categories.
Caroline (41:57) the data inputs are the existing conditions , that’s right, like that’s why this group was so focused on those existing conditions, that we wanted to make sure that the data in was accurate so that the synthesis of that data then was correct and that if we’re assuming that if this stuff is represented in the current existing conditions that we can hand over that’s a great thing, right that’s a ton of stuff that we can give to a consultant to say we did all the leg work, we need you to do the synthesis and we need you to do the sort of the analysis we need you to help us get to this. … that’s great. but what about new things like the MBTA thing like how much of that do they now need to go back and research and better understand and do… i don’t know. I don’t know….because that list gets very very specific about things that are on the table for us right now . Those aren’t really future forward generic categories. A lot of those things are like very specific questions we want them to answer for us… again this is a data gathering. I’m not responsible for the final scope . I’m just trying to represent sort of the reality of what I’ve seen in the conversations I’ve had with the budget that we have and the concerns that I’ve heard I candidly from individuals in this group who’ve emailed me so its … I feel little bit like its an inquisition of me like I ‘m just a colander here of things that I’ve- you know- been gathering over the last couple of weeks
Patrick (43:29) this is a collection of inputs, this is not my piece, this is a collection of the inputs that I’ve gotten from most of you.
David (43:42) I didn’t mean to suggest this was your invention , but you typed it up kindly and that’s why i called it your work product ….
Kristin (43:49) I think that the reason i feel like we’re like us and you but I think the statement of whatever your recommendation is we’ll take it and then we will figure it out….
Who is “We”?
…….is the question and that’s- I think is what’s frustrating at least its frustrating me a little bit of kind of like we’re here together to figure this out as your appointees to do this job….so I think that’s the piece of it but in my opinion, we’ve done a lot you know. Existing conditions are super duper important yes and there is lot of information of this whole question of what we want to protect and where we want to grow. If we do nothing in this but recognize an outline and map opportunity that we should talk about in just a collective way— here are 15 areas that the future might be different let’s talk about it. if that’s all we do, that’s super important because this 75% of Hamilton is going to be what it is and we’re going to protect it. I think, just so that we can narrow it down and have these real conversations we haven’t even gotten to talk about the scope… anyway just .. that phrasing is what’s hitting me a little bit off of like .. you guys do this and we’ll do that… it’s we are HERE…. to do this TOGETHER… and at least for me that’s the language I know Lauren has a comment, too. but yeah, ok….
Kristin asks an excellent question because….
“We” should be all of us together. When I first told Anna over a year ago- that I supported the Select Board members who wanted to include “women” and “atheists” as protected classes in human rights policy, she told me that the 2 women on the board were not on the right side and in the way of human rights. I told her that she should NOT be creating a WE vs. THEM situation in Hamilton. This attitude is wrong and harmful in moving Hamilton forward as a community that listens to ALL residents not only the Coalition Lobbyists.
I agree with Kristin that Hamilton, ALL of Hamilton- the residents and the physical environment need to be protected. Our water is at risk and Joe D wants to give it away to Ipswich. https://news.yahoo.com/report-says-towns-could-share-140000010.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall
The community planning professionals who do not earn money from selling housing units like Anna Siedzik does should be determining what is important for Hamilton’s future.
“We are in this together”, says Kristin Kassner…
I for one am grateful to have such a smart, committed, hard-working independent thinking Hamilton resident running for state representative. SHE is who our district needs at this time in history….
Chair Jack Lawrence was also disturbed by this meeting and I share his letter to town officials…..
To: Shawn Farrell, Chair, Hamilton Select Board September 5, 2022
Cc: Joe Domelowicz, Town Manager, Patrick Reffett, Town Planner
Subject: Next phase of the Master Plan
Beginning in the Spring of 2021, the Master Plan Steering Committee (MPSC) was appointed by the Board of Selectman to oversee the creation of the Master Plan over the next 12-18 months. The appointments were made after the scope had been written, consultant hired, and contract signed by the Town Manager. Members of the MPSC believed the committee was charged to lead the Master Plan Process for the Town, with Patrick as our liaison to the Town Staff. What the MPSC learned during this time was this was not the case, and that the budget, scope and deliverables were not in the hands of the MPSC and that we should not be involved. Leaving many of us confused as to our mission.
Over the course of more than a year the committee has been meeting, discussing and hosting events with and without the consultant, including the November 2021 public meeting with over 50 people in attendance and the Shop Local event in September of 2021. The committee has not waivered, however the W&S consultant team changed completely during this time, with the exit of Caroline Wells and her team, replaced by Jim Riordan. This transition was not successful, often zoom links were not working, previous information collected was not located, pubic input was not organized and relayed back, and the website fell apart before it got off the ground. Tumultuous as the process has been over the last year, the committee has devoted a lot of time in this endeavor and a lot of work and outreach has been done that should be appreciated and not overlooked. The committee agrees that the existing path is not going to get us to a successful end and that we should consider a new direction and scope to complete the Master Plan.
At the September 1, 2022 meeting of the Master Plan Steering Committee, regarding the Scope of Work for the next consultant to guide the process to the finish line, the MPSC concluded it should
have a role in the selection of the consultant engaged to complete the Master Plan. A comment was made by a member of the Select Board that the MPSC “can develop a scope” and the Select Board may take it into consideration. This type of comment continues to confuse the committee’s mission as to our distinct roles in this process. I, and Vice-Chair Kristin Kassner have repeatedly reached out to communicate to the Town Manager and you that we have concerns regarding our role and the Select Board and/or Chair’s role in decision making throughout this process. While we have met to discuss, roles remain unclear.
The MPSC had no role in the last selection; indeed, it had not even been formed. Only Weston & Sampson (W&S) responded to the RFP. Rather than re-issuing the RFP and soliciting additional responses, W&S was given the contract. The selection of W&S was ill advised as they lacked experience preparing a Master Plan for a Massachusetts community of Hamilton’s size and were unable to develop an understanding of Hamilton’s history and challenges, except in a perfunctory and limited manner. During data gathering, W&S used only public sources of information. Much of the data from those sources is outdated despite the recently completed census. In terms of the “existing conditions” chapters W&S prepared, its evolving and tardy work product contained factual errors, and sophomoric composition. In sum, MPSC members were required to proofread documents and make corrections to documents, charts and maps that should have been the responsibility of the consultant. The text that resulted, which was to reveal “existing conditions,” should have been the basis for trend analyses to enable the MPSC to arrive at conclusions and a set of recommendations. Instead, to repeat, the 1 resulting chapters were badly stated and frequently inaccurate. Examples are too numerous to repeat in this letter.
The consultant demonstrated a lack of competence, the process has been confused and, as is now apparent, wasted Town funds. The contract was not written to provide reasonable protections to the Town regarding inadequate performance, now making retrieval of funds problematic. Moreover, the MPSC’s efforts to monitor expenditures was denied, evidencing an unwillingness to collaborate with the MPSC to obtain the best possible direction and product.
We need to work together to engage in a careful screening of applicants to avoid repetition of the prior process with its wasteful outcome. The selection committee must include a subcommittee from the MPSC, armed with a list of questions from the MPSC. Such a list of questions would be informed by the work produced to date and the intimate experience with the deficiencies of the contract. In
particular, the absence of discrete roles for the consultant and members of the MPSC, along with information about the available budget and the feasibility of obtaining a Master Plan document of a
caliber that would enable MPSC members to affix their signatures to it.
Any decision to exclude members of the MPSC confuses the committee’s mission to oversee the Master Plan and fails to recognize the experience of MPSC members, who as you are well aware, are all volunteers – volunteers, however, who collectively have significant experience that can be deployed to avoid the problems associated with W & S’s engagement. The MPSC is comprised of elected and appointed officials, successful businesspeople and long terms residents with intimate knowledge of the Town and its history. Our members are, new families, life-long residents, attorneys, a professional architect and town planner. Excluding their expertise is disrespectful at best and insulting at worst, particularly as the decision making is now reserved to those who made the decision to choose W&S in the first place. The Select Board has appointed us to do a job, we all have devoted significant time to this process, and we want to be successful and proud of the outcome – a Master Plan that will truly guide our decision making toward a thriving future.
Respectfully submitted,
Jack Lawrence, Chair MPSC