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L i 2006 Progress Report Page 2 insioN Completed Task Forces —2005 Recommendations and Results Constructive Community Discourse: This Task Force set out to: 1) identify reasons why communication and discourse among citizens and between town and citizens can be problematic; and 2) create an action plan for improving both the structure and the quality of public communication and discourse. Their top priority recommendations are identified below, along with implementing decisions and actions to date. • Training for committee and board chairs and members — over 60 chairs of boards or committees participated in a 2 -hour training session on their roles and responsibilities, including how to maintain civil discourse during meetings. This program was well received, and Town staff plan to offer the training on an annual basis. • Development of an improved town Website — a Website Coordinator has been identified, and a small group is working toward a redesign of the Town's website to make it more informative and easy to use. • Creation of a Gathering Place — no new project being planned, but the new Meeting Room at Cary Library is used by many groups and'a future new Senior Center might have space for informal gathering together. Budget Process and Communication: This taskforce evaluated and proposed improvements to Lexington's annual budget development in the areas of process, communication, and analytics. Recommendations and follow-up actions are described below. • Create a Financial Policy Review Committee — this committee submitted its report to the Selectmen in March of 2006. The FY2007 Recommended Budget begins implementation of several of the committee's recommendations. • • Revise the budget development schedule to obtain earlier vote by Selectmen — the Selectmen, School Committee, and 2 finance committees at a summit meeting established a schedule for budget development to be completed by the first week in February; although this target was not met, the earlier start to the process provided needed time for discussing the issues. • Implement a comprehensive communications plan to disseminate budget information within the community — the Selectmen support increased public communication and outreach around FY07 budget issues, and one of their new biweekly cable TV programs was on the subject of the budget. • Establish a Metrics Review Committee — the Selectmen plan to work with staff to identify the areas of greatest interest for performance measures in future budgets. New Areas of Focus for 2006 Preliminary work is underway to launch Task Forces in two new areas in the fall. Economic Development: the basic question is whether the Town wishes to encourage commercial/industrial development to build up the tax base, given the tradeoffs such as increased traffic. A number of issues and actions need to be considered, including the value of having an Economic Development Officer, the desired mix of different types of businesses, and the impacts of changing technologies on business development. These discussions need to involve a variety of business and local government interests as well as residents, Town Meeting members, and other opinion leaders in the community. Sustainable Lexington: these conversations could include issues such as "green" design of public buildings; purchase of alternate -fuel vehicles, reduction of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission, waste stream management, and targeting of development. The roles played by Lexington residents, the Town as a whole, regional cooperative efforts, and state and federal governments should all be considered.