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Home My WebLink About2022-03-25-VISION2025-min1 Town of Lexington Vision for Lexington Committee Meeting March 25, 2022 Remote Meeting 7:45 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. Members Present: Margaret Coppe, Joe Pato, Bhumip Khasnabish, Samita Mandelia, Kathleen Lenihan, Rina Kodendera, Robert Peters, Daniel Joyner, Shannon Murtagh, Weidong Wang, Mark Manasas, Dan Krupka, and Andrew Dixon Members Absent: Meg Van Nostrand and Vishwanathan Krishnamoorthy Guests: Jyotsna Kakullavarapu Staff Present: The meeting was called to order: 7:54am The Remote Meeting Script was read by the Chair, Margaret Coppe. Minutes:  No minutes were approved at this meeting. Handouts/Documents Shared on Zoom Screen: Action Items Summary:  Mark, Weidong and Samita will prepare a formal proposal for the community contact list for the committee at the next meeting  Mark will send around a sign-up sheet asking members to sign up to be a scribe or facilitator.  Andrew will write a letter acknowledging the High School students who submitted designs for the new logo, and then send the letter to the committee for review before sending.  Margaret will ask Kat to send out a calendar invite for the next meeting. Meeting Highlights: Contact Information List for Local Community Groups Weidong gave an update on where the working group is on the contact list for local community groups. Weidong walked through the features of the site. Overall the site is easy to use and people can easily use the search function. Weidong mentioned that they spoke with the Town’s webmaster, Kathy Santos, and Sean Dugan to find out if the Town can host this site. Unfortunately, they would not be able to. There is the possibility to link it to the website as long as it meets the Town’s accessibility standards. Weidong added that the Town also does not want the Town email addresses for boards and committees to be advertised, which is not what we wanted. They are worried about spam emails. In addition, the Town also has their own list of community organizations on the website. Mark commented that the whole genesis for this was that it makes it really easy for new committees or groups to communicate with each 2 other, unlike the current process. Weidong asked the committee if they want to proceed with this and if so, if we can formally approve it. Hosting the site would cost about $100/year. Margaret confirmed that this aligns with the work that ECiL subcommittee did. Margaret asked who maintains all the sites. Weidong responded that Kathy Santos updates the website periodically. Margaret commented that it makes a big difference when certain sites have their own webmaster. Mark proposed that he, Weidong and Samita make a more formal proposal to the committee at the next meeting. Mark added that what we are really asking for is this committee’s support. Dan asked if this is something that fits into our charter. Joe commented that he doesn’t feel this is the core direction of the committee, but there is potential value here in bringing the community together and making communications more feasible. Rina commented that although this is not directly related to the committee’s work, it will make other committees, subcommittees and group’s work easier if this information was available. Rina continued that this would create a lot of work to maintain, and that may not be something the committee should be doing. Samita commented that even though the Town has a list of community organizations, many community groups are missing and information is not up-to-date. Samita asked if there is a way for us to register organizations we already have data for instead of the organization doing it themselves. Weidong responded that we could if we wanted to. Shannon commented that maybe there can be some sort of future partnership with the Town. Shannon also shared the Town’s concern about spam emails because in her position on the PTO, she gets inundated with them. Joe commented that the function of this committee is to make long-term recommendations to the Select Board, and doesn’t want this activity to take away from the central work of this committee. Joe added it could be something a subcommittee works on. Mark asked Joe if there is another committee that would be a natural fit for this, or if this is something that a private citizen should take up. Joe said no, there isn’t another target committee he has in mind. Town-wide Survey Preparations Mark commented that 9.6% of the Town population responded the survey. The increases in the number of responses that came in are clearly connected to the mailings and Sean’s outreach. The working group is currently preparing to host the focus groups in late May. Mark said he will send around a sign-up sheet asking members to sign up to be a scribe or facilitator. Shannon will be training volunteers. Mark continued that the final report will be delivered to the committee in August for approval before being sent to the Select Board. After going to the Select Board, there will be 3 public presentations. Mark asked Kathleen, Joe and Bob what the best way is to schedule a joint meeting like we did in 2017. Joe suggested contacting the chairs of the three committees to see what would work. Mark asked how long this presentation needs on the agenda. Everyone commented that at least an hour is necessary. Mark also asked who else should Marian present to. Mark suggested League of Women Voters or a public presentation at Cary Library. Marian suggested the PTO groups or various cultural groups. Weidong suggested a presentation at Cary hall and invite anyone to come. Margaret asked if the focus groups will be remote. Mark responded that it depends on what is in place in May. Subcommittee on Voter participation in Lexington Margaret shared that Rina offered to be the Chair of this subcommittee. Margaret said that the subcommittee met on March 3rd and they will meet again on April 4th. We won’t be putting their questions together for other Towns until we get the results from the Town-wide survey. Rina asked that the members reevaluate the time they meet so that we have a quorum. Dan suggested putting together a timeline for each action and then press Marian for the data sooner than later. Margaret responded that 3 Marian was going to try to give us some preliminary data but is concerned that it will be released to the public. Committee logo Andrew said that he recently spoke with the class instructor, and the student will put together a package with different color schemes and formats depending on how we will use the logo. Andrew asked if we could drop off some breakfast to thank all of the students for their work. In addition, what would be helpful is to write a letter of acknowledgement of what the students did so they can add it to their portfolio for college. Margaret mentioned that when she was on the School Committee, they handed students gift cards. Andrew offered to write the letter and then send it around to the committee for review. Margaret mentioned that we should acknowledge the instructor as well. Discovery Day Margaret asked if we want to participate in Discovery Day on May 28th and if so, what would we set up. Joe commented that normally there is an elected officials’ tent, but there were not enough members available this year to participate. Rina asked if we did have a booth, what would we communicate. Rina added that if the survey was still live that would have been a good thing to have available then. Joe commented that if there is a fall Discovery Day, then we might want to showcase the report from the survey then. After the discussion, Margaret concluded that we will not participate this spring. Next Meeting Margaret asked that everyone thing about whether or not they can meet prior to the long weekend. Margaret will ask Kat to send out a calendar invite for the next meeting. Next Meeting Date  April 29, 2022 @ 7:45am Meeting ended at 9:00 a.m. Minutes submitted by Management Analyst, Katharine Labrecque