Christa: Monday's Community Development Plan (CDP) public hearing did have a disappointing turnout for a variety of reasons. We could have done a better job of advertising, although 200 copies of a meeting announcement were distributed at Town Meeting, the Town did a press release, two articles were in the papers concerning the issue the previous week, the meeting was posted through the Town Clerk's Office, and it was advertised for a few days on the local cable station. The effort could have been better (and hopefully next time around it will be), but the advertising we did do should have resulted in a much better turnout given the subject matter.
There were at least two other reasons for the poor turnout: 1.) a very long Town Meeting just finished up the week before, and many individuals that would normally make an effort to go to our public hearing were tired of meetings, and 2.) the Town has just finished its Open Space and Recreation Plan (OSRP) Update, much of which will be used in development of the Natural Resources and Open Space element of the Town's CDP. During the Planning process the OSRP Committee gained public input in a variety of ways including a questionnaire and four public hearings. If we had not just finished the OSRP planning process, several Town residents I spoke with during the last couple weeks would have attended Monday's public hearing, but they had shared their concerns and desires regarding open space issues previously and believed attending would have been a waste of time. In addition during the OSRP planning process we reached out to nonprofits and government agencies. SVT had two different representatives at OSRP regular meetings early in the planning process (Rob Johnson and Ralph Monticello). In addition, the Town has worked with SVT in other fairly recent planning efforts, including the Greater Callahan Open Space Preservation and Greenway Plan. If you have additional thoughts regarding open space preservation, natural resource protection, regional greenway development, trail development, or anything else, I'm happy to meet with you. No need for SVT to wait until a public hearing to discuss these issues with the Town. However, if you'd like to attend the next CDP public hearing I'll be happy to let you know when and where it will be held well in advance. Bryan W. Taberner, AICP, Senior Planner Planning and Economic Development Town of Framingham 150 Concord Street, Room B2 Framingham, MA 01702-8325 Phone: 508-620-4852 FAX: 508-820-9645 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subj: Re: Last night's Planning Department Meeting, and new 311 service Date: 6/18/03 6:25:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent from the Internet I would have been very happy to have weighed in for Sudbury Valley Trustees on some of these issues - we spend a lot of time thinking about open space and trails in Framingham! It seems that most of the information I receive on public meetings in Framingham comes from this list-serve, which is great, but most of them also seem to arrive the day of the meeting, which makes it difficult to plan ahead (SVT has around 32 towns to cover, so it's a challenge to try to track all public meeting schedules). I wonder how well and how widely this was advertised, and if that's part of the reason for the poor turn-out. If anyone has suggestions about how to get advance notice of such meetings and events, I'd love to hear them, and we are often willing to forward information to our members in hopes that they'll get out to advocate for better planning and open space preservation. Christa Hawryluk Collins Land Protection Specialist Sudbury Valley Trustees 978.897.5500 x15 -----Original Message----- From: Steven W. Orr [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2003 9:42 AM To: Framingham Neighbors; Town Meeting Members Subject: Last night's Planning Department Meeting, and new 311 service. On Monday, Jun 16th 2003 at 09:49 -0400, quoth Steven W. Orr: =>Planning Department Tonight: => =>Framingham's Department of Planning and Economic Development is holding a =>public hearing on Monday, June 16, 2003 at 7:00 p.m. in Nevins Hall to =>obtain input from Framingham residents and organizations regarding natural =>resource and open space preservation issues. Input gathered will be =>utilized to develop the Natural Resources and Open Space element of the =>Town's Community Development Plan. =>Specific areas of discussion will include: =>A) Determine public goals for specific areas such as water supplies to be => protected by zoning, acquisition or other means =>B) Discuss, expand upon, and further refine previous Natural Resource and => Open Space Goals: =>Streetscapes as open space and historical resources =>Work to protect connecting trails =>Retain local character of villages and streetscapes with open space =>Protection of open land &parks throughout town =>Provide access to water resources and protect water quality =>Encourage more greenspace development and an analysis of Bulk/Density of =>new developments as an impact on open space =>C) Determine which areas of the community should be initially designated => for residential, commercial, and industrial uses (if any). => =>Input from each of the Town's eighteen precincts is especially important. =>Please consider attending. Well, that was a big bust. What we had last night was a fairly important agenda which didn't happen because the number of people who showed up was inadequate for the purpose. Kathy Bartolini was expecting between 50 and 100 people, a number that would have provided enough of a statistical sampling of the town to justify relevance. At 7:30 there were about a dozen members of the public. The engineers had to pack up and go home and the meeting will have to be rescheduled in the Fall. Also, there's an interesting article in today's MWsNooze about the success of the new 311 service happening on Martha's Vineyard which we should be getting soon here in Framingham. http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/local_regional/ap_vineyard0617200 3.ht m To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with body "unsubscribe frambors" (the subject is ignored).
