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Town of Lexington
Lexington 20/20 Vision Committee
Minutes of Meeting of February 21, 2014
20/20 Vision Committee
A meeting of the was held on Friday, February 21 at 7:45 a.m. in the Selectmen Meeting Room
in the Town Office Building at 1625 Massachusetts Avenue.
Members Present: Dan Krupka, Peter Enrich, Marian Cohen, Bhumip Khasnabish, Andrew Dixon,
Staff: Candy McLaughlin, Melissa Jones
Members Absent: Alan Wrigley, Peter Lee, Greg Zurlo, Margaret Coppe Fernando Quezada, Joe Pato, Jane Warren
Action Items:
Present Demographic Change report to the Senior Management Team – March 11 (Dan)
Make final edits to revised Committee charge to be submitted to the Board of Selectmen (Andrew)
Meet with Joe to negotiate Board of Selectmen’s boilerplate language in Committee charge (Fernando)
Send out proposed meeting schedule based on a new Thursday/Friday rotation (Candy)
Future agenda item: Follow-up oncommunity survey results and analysis (Candy)
The meeting was called to order at 7:55 a.m. and acted on the following items:
Approved the minutes from January 17, 2014.
Discuss potential mini-Citizens’ Academy:
Melissa and Candy explained that the Town Manager would prefer to focus
staff time and resources on developing a student version of the Citizens’ Academy to be included in the high school’s
community service curriculum. The Town Manager is committed to “next generation initiatives” and to developing a
pipeline of people who may pursue local government management as a career. The group is supportive of an Academy
for students, but would still like Town staff to think of ways to engage populations that are underrepresented in Town
government. Candy noted that this year’s Citizens’ Academy participants suggested a tutorial for joining committees, and
that we may consider an open house or a virtual tutorial. The group discussed potentially forming a task force to work
with the Town’s Webmaster to create an online tutorial/introduction to Town government. The group noted that this work
could be done by students as part of the community service requirement; Marian said she is committed to promoting
civics curriculum and would possibly be interested in supporting this work.
Hear report on Demographic Change Subcommittee’s presentation to the Selectmen and identify next steps:
Dan
said that he focused his presentation on the recommendations and action items from the report. He said that the Board
asked a lot of thoughtful questions, but that there was no leap to action. He is not clear about how the Board will move
forward on having more regular, candid conversations with CAAL and IAL. He said that things tend to move more
quickly when there is a “champion,” such as Leslie Zales with the PTO. CAAL is scheduled to meet with the PTO next
week; Dan said he would like the Board of Selectmen to act similarly. Peter said that this report should be brought to the
Board’s attention again during its annual goal-setting session in June. Marian noted that it is frustrating to work so hard
on a report like this and have it go nowhere. This is partially the reason why people get discouraged from volunteering on
committees. Candy suggested featuring pieces of the report on the website. Marian said that providing project updates on
the website would be a good way to let the public know that certain issues have not been forgotten. Peter said that the
Board of Selectmen’s goals should be tracked throughout the year.
Request that the Board of Selectmen revise the Committee’s charge:
Andrew walked the group through his suggested
edits to the draft. There are concerns from the group regarding the boilerplate language from the Board of Selectmen,
particularly in regards to the text stating that the Committee may only make recommendations to the Board. Because
20/20 makes also makes recommendations to the School Committee and the Planning Board, the group would like this
language to be substituted with something more appropriate for 20/20. The group would also like the text regarding the
Conflict of Interest Statute made smaller or at least made clear that this is required of all committees. In regards to
membership, the group determined a need to clarify that the Committee seeks people with both knowledge and experience
of the Town as well as fresh perspectives from newcomers.
Brainstorm Committee recruitment strategy:
This agenda item was tabled until the next meeting.
Meeting Adjourned:
9:00 a.m.
Respectfully Submitted,
Melissa Jones, Scribe
Next meeting:
Friday, March 28 in the Parker Meeting Room