The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink About2000-01-06-MGWG-min.pdf - Subject: minutes from 01/06/00 first meeting Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2000 06:02:08 -0500 Hello Lexington 2020 Managing Growth Work Group members: First, my apologies for the lateness of this message. I tried to send this message last night, but my ISP's outgoing mail server shut down. So I had to send this message this morning. Here are the minutes from our first meeting last week. Please note that I was not able to learn everyone's name during the meeting, so there are at least two names missing from the list of members present below. Do not take offense if you are one of the missing people - just add your name to the list and send the corrected list to Michael Baker in the Town Manager's office. [start of minutes] Title of Work Group: Managing Growth: Development and Open Space Date, Time, and Location of Meeting: Thursday, January 6, 2000 8:15pm - 9:00pm United Methodist Church, room 21 Members Present: Heather Sweeney [Steering Committee liaison #1] John Andrews Larry Belvin Suzanne Caton Gary Fallick John Frey Ione Garing Mike Hanauer Tom Harden Karl Kastorf Joe Marino [town employee] Gerard Moloney Edmund Vail OTHERS - PLEASE ADD THEM HERE! Members Absent: Karen Longeteig Fred Merrill [Steering Committee liaison #2] Lee Sinai Distributed Information: Mike Hanauer distributed two handouts on sustainability. The first was called "Our Opportunity in Sustainability", and the second was an article from the March/April 1999 issue of "Population Press" entitled "Building Sustainable Communities" . Date, Time, and Location of next scheduled Meeting: Tuesday, January 11, 2000 7 :00pm - 9:00pm Board of Selectmen's Meeting Room, Town Hall Building, third floor We also proposed that the following meeting would be Thursday, January 20 starting at 7:00pm. Issues addressed and agreements made: According to page 4 of the "Guidance for Lexington 2020 Work Groups" document that was given to us at the 01/06/00 Work Group Orientation, our first task as a group is to develop a Workplan for our group's operation. Appendix A on page 4 of the guidance document lists specific questions that the Workplan should address. Logistics On the issue of logistics in general, Tom Harden expressed the desire to have logistical structure dictated to us so that we could spend more time on the real (non-logistical issues) . Someone else concurred, stating his or her desire to get quickly to the end result and not to get bogged down by organizational minutia. 1. How often will the group meet? One person suggested every two weeks, while others noted that we must complete our first deliverable, the Workplan, by Friday, February 4 [4 weeks after the January 6 kickoff meeting] . Therefore, we will meet every week until we complete the Workplan. Please note that we must complete the Environmental Scan [5 pages] by Friday, March 3 - 4 weeks after our Workplan deadline. 2 . How long will the meeting last? We did not discuss this topic, although there appeared to be some consensus to start our meetings at 7:00pm and to finish them before 9:OOpm. 3. Can the group adhere to the overall project timeline as presented in the guidance? We did not discuss this topic, although no one stated that he or she thought the timeline was unreasonable. 4a. What are the expectations for attendance at meetings? We did not discuss this topic, although it was evident from the negotiations regarding our next meeting that no one present wanted to miss the next meeting. 4b. What constitutes a quorum for a full group meeting? We did not discuss this topic. 4c. Are there a certain percentage of meetings which must be attended to qualify for participation? We did not discuss this topic. 5. How will changes in meeting dates/times be handled? Who will be responsible? We did not discuss this topic. We did, however, discuss our desire to handle as much as possible of our group logistics via e-mail. However, two members of the group do not have e-mail. We need to develop a process to ensure that these two members are kept in the loop via fax or telephone. Someone asked whether we could use the 2020 web site for planning and/or a chat room between meetings. 6. A Work Group member must attend and take notes at meetings of the Core Participants Group [CPG] , as appropriate. How will it be determined who attends? Larry Belvin volunteered to attend the first meeting of the CPG on Thursday January 13 from 7:30pm-9:OOpm at Diamond Middle School. 7 . Where will the group meet? According to the "Meeting Logistics" document, there are seven meeting rooms available via the Town Manager's Office. Rick White popped his head in near the end of our meeting to let us know that we should call his office to request a meeting room. Perhaps the chairman should make this phone call. Procedural 1. Will the group select a Chairperson? Vice-Chair? Secretary? If so, how? And who are they? If not, what is the group's plan for managing the group? No one volunteered to be chairman. Suzanne Caton did volunteer to be acting chairman for the 01/11 meeting. She also suggested that we rotate the role of Secretary, since it is an undesirable position. More than one person suggested waiting for one or two meetings before electing a chairman. 2. How will the agenda be set for each meeting? Who will produce it? How will it be distributed? We did not really discuss this topic. Those with e-mail probably want the agenda distributed via e-mail. Gary Fallick suggested that group members should send suggestions to the [acting] chairman for the agenda for upcoming meetings. 3. A Steering Committee Liaison will facilitate the first two group meetings [01/06 and 01/11] . How will future meetings be facilitated? By an outside facilitator or by a group member? Will there be a facilitator for each meeting? We did not discuss this topic directly, although there appeared to be an implication that the acting chairman would facilitate (lead) group meetings. 4. Who will take meeting minutes and how will they be distributed? The acting Secretary will take meeting minutes. We did not discuss how they will be distributed. 5. What are the expectations for behavior during group meetings? Speak one at a time; do not interrupt; everyone gets a chance to speak; no one dominates the discussion; stay on the topic; etc. We discussed this issue indirectly. There seemed to be somewhat of a consensus that we do not want frequent interruptions to be the norm. Karl Kastorf suggested that speakers in our group meetings should be recognized [by the chairman/facilitator] . We did not discuss any of the following five questions: 6. How will unacceptable behavior of group members be addressed? What constitutes such behavior? 7. How will decisions be reached? Consensus? Voting? 8. How will dissenting opinions be recorded? 9. How will input from non-members in attendance be handled? 10. Who will draft documents and what will the review process be? Organizational 1. Will subcommittees be needed as part of our Work Group? If so, how many will there be and what will they be called? We did not discuss this issue. 2 . Does the group feel that its members are representative of the Lexington population? Are there individuals in the group with appropriate knowledge of Lexington town government? Of the group's specific topic? Of group dynamics and meeting management? We did not discuss this issue. 3 . Does the Work Group need to augment its membership? If so, how? Are there any specific people the group has in mind? We discussed this issue briefly. One person pointed out that our group should have a close relationship with the Planning Board. Since Fred Merrill is one of our Steering Committee liaisons, this relationship should be easy to establish. One person said that perhaps our group is a little heavy on the open space side of things and a little light on housing. Tom Harden pointed out that he has experience on the issue of affordable housing, and someone else said that they don't think we need more opinions (of people not in the group) at this time. Someone else said that it is too early to tell at this point what the gaps our in our collective experiences and backgrounds. Miscellaneous: The first item on the agenda for our next meeting should be a proposal for the structure of our group. Karl Kastorf volunteered to find out if there are electronic versions of the documents that Joe Marino is keeping as our "library" . [end of minutes] Regards, Larry Belvin lnbelvin@world.std.com • Larry Belvin 10 Denver Street Lexington, MA 02421-6502 781.674.0246