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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022-12-01-MMC-min RECEIVED 023 23 ,Jairi, 1 am Monuments & Memorials Committee Meeting Minutes T OWN CL,ERK Thursday, December 1, 2022 Conducted in Person and by Remote Participation LEXINGTON MA Parker Room, Town Office Building, 7:00 PM Members Present in Person Linda Dixon, Chair; Avram Baskin, Chuck French, George Gamota, Charles Price, Danjun Pu Members Present by Remote Participation: Glen Bassett, Bebe Fallick Members Not Present: Leslie Masson Guests Holly Ding, Lexington Heroes liaison with Town of Lexington Mira Mirchandani and Leo Qian, Lexington High School Students Business Chair Dixon convened the meeting at 7:15 p.m. due to technical difficulties. She read the Town notice regarding the conduct of public virtual meetings and declared that a quorum was present. Essays by Lexington High School Students Mira Mirchandani and Leo Qian were part of a group of Lexington High School students who wrote essays to honor veterans on Veterans Day. They chose a Lexington monument as the inspiration and theme for their essays, and read their essays to the Committee. Mira wrote about the World War H monument while Leo's essay featured the Minuteman Statue. All student essays have been published in a booklet, and will be preserved on the Lexington Veterans Association website. The Committee congratulated Mira and Leo on their work. Approval of Minutes After a minor correction, on a roll call vote, the corrected minutes of November 3, 2022 were approved. Database Progress Avram Baskin, who has professional expertise in user experience, analyzed the current data processing and mapping system developed by Judy Baldasaro and the Town of Lexington and made several suggestions to improve the visual presentation of the data to make it more user- friendly. He emphasized that this was separate and distinct from any programs being worked on by the Lexington Heroes student group. Some of Avram's suggestions were: • The data display is not optimized for display on a smart phone • It does not include the ability to get turn-by-turn narrated directions • Vertical cell height is insufficient for mobile devices, leading to"fat finger" errors • Monument address information is lacking and not intuitive • Single sort option should be applied by default • Inconsistent use of Caps; should be initial caps only • Don't show underscores or hyphens • The monument types listed in the dropdown menu are not how people search • Visitors will be interested primarily in historic landmarks specific to Lexington • The public is sophisticated in the use of mobile devices • We need to meet their high expectations for a satisfying user experience Suggested Action Steps: • Meet with Kathy Santos, make modest changes to current web site • Develop a marketing promotion plan to encourage residents to identify missing monuments and memorials • Verify submissions, obtain GIS Coordinates,perform additional research • Continue to catalogue monuments and memorials that are already identified • Conduct an in-depth usability analysis of the Pathfinder program • Explore collaboration with Lex250, Tourism, Visitors Center, etc. • Recommend appropriate design changes for the Pathfinder program • Complete Google Maps training for Lexington Heroes Development Team Lex250 Update Suzie Barry was unable to attend, but the committee discussed the merits of approaching the Lex250 Commission to introduce our fledgling Pathfinder program. This application, which helps the user select a set of monuments or memorials to visit and then designs a custom route with the shortest route between memorials, could be an attractive menu offering for visitors to Lexington during 2024-25. Linda and Suzie have spoken about this and are planning a small working group meeting in December. Hopefully the M&M Committee will make a presentation to the Lex250 Commission in January. Policies and Procedures Manual The group reviewed the section entitled: "A Successful Proposal is Relevant to the Community. This means:" along with comments submitted by committee member Leslie Masson and Victoria Buckley, Chair of the Commission on Disability. The group made several edits to this section. Accept two of Leslie Masson's suggestions: 1) Add the words "object" and"ideal" to the opening bullet phrase so that is now reads "The proposed work represents a significant individual, event, group, object, or ideal in Lexington's history not already commemorated elsewhere in town." 2) Remove the requirement that an individual to be honored must have been a Lexington resident for a major portion of his/her life and instead state that there should be a Lexington connection of some kind. This paragraph would now read as follows: "The individual to be honored should have a connection with the Town ofLexington and, through public service,professional achievements, or volunteer activities, have contributed significantly to the Lexington community or to the greater society. " Delete two bullet points: 1) The proposal makes a strong argument why this particular time is the right time to commemorate the individual, group, or event. 2) The proposed work has the potential to remain relevant and engage with future audiences. Add language to emphasize the importance of issues expressed by Commission on Disability. Current language: "The proposed work gives thought to how the public will approach and interact with the monument or memorial." Proposed language: "The proposed work demonstrates full consideration of all accessibility issues, choice of material,pedestrian approach access, and physical siting." The meeting was adjourned by roll call vote at 8:45 p.m. Next meeting: Thursday, January 5, 2023. Respectfully submitted, Linda Dixon, Chair