OAKLAND — The town is in the early stages of developing a new comprehensive plan, and it may look at putting a committee together to help guide the work.
After a Town Council meeting Wednesday night, Town Manager Gary Bowman said the town has not had an updated version of a comprehensive plan since 1996, and he called that iteration of it “archaic.” During the meeting, he said it was time to get rolling, and part of that involved putting a committee together.
“We’ve been without one all this time,” he said.
Residents at Town Meeting earlier this month approved the town rejoining the Central Maine Growth Council, which has worked with Waterville, Winslow and Fairfield in recent years to improve the regional economy. Bowman said a aspect of joining the council was that the council would help the town draft a new version of the plan. Joining the Central Maine Growth Council will cost the town $20,096 per year for two years.
“We’re just starting the process,” Bowman said.
Councilor Don Borman said in addition to seeking volunteers for a committee, the council also should look at existing town committees for people with experience that could be useful. Bowman said those were the kind of ideas he was looking for at this early stage in the process. He said councilors were just beginning to look at people who might be interested in joining, and indicated he would like at least one councilor involved in that group. Councilor Mark Fisher said he would be interested. He also asked the councilors to think of any names of potential volunteers to bring to the table, and he said he’d like to see something come together in the coming months. Borman said he thought it was a good idea to get started now in recruiting for the committee.
“It’s important to get a broad spread of people,” he said.
A comprehensive plan is a document designed to guide the future actions of a community. Bowman said it’s essentially a plan for the future, looking at how they envision the town in the next 10 years, and said the comprehensive plan was a tool to get them there. He said it could take two years to finish the full plan.
At the meeting, the council also voted to reduce the number of meetings it would have over the summer. The council was scheduled to meet June 14, June 28, July 12, July 26, Aug. 9 and Aug. 23. Rather than have two meetings scheduled for July and August, the council voted to schedule only the first meeting of each of those months, unless otherwise needed.
Colin Ellis — 861-9253
cellis@centralmaine.com
Twitter: @colinoellis
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