Progress on Buckfield comprehensive plan not fast enough for some

BUCKFIELD — Although Buckfield’s planning board has dedicated itself to updating that town’s comprehensive plan — originally written in 1985 — this work is not coming soon enough, or fast enough, for some people.

At a recent meeting of the town fathers, during that portion of the agenda dedicated to ‘other business,’ Selectman Oscar Gammon made his feelings known.

“We’ve been approximately 11 years getting a comprehensive plan made here,” he said. 

The “11 years” reference was to a 1993 update that had been shelved after meeting with voter disapproval at a public hearing.

“I feel that if we can’t have something for town meeting [in June, 2005] to put before the voters, then we ought to spend $7,000 and have AVCOG [the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments] make us one,” declared Gammon.

Selectmen noted that, as long as the town does not have a current comprehensive plan, it would remain “significantly limited” in both the number and type of grants it could apply for.  The most expedient course of action, they said, would be to “dust off” that proposed 1993 update and resubmit it to voters.

“Would that not be easier than starting from scratch?” asked Chairman Joanne Bly.

“If you look at 11 years ago, and you look at today, is it the same direction, or the same place, that we want to go?” answered Town Manager Glen Holmes.  “There are people on the planning board who feel that it needs to be reworked.”

However, this logic was not sufficient for Gammon’s tastes.

“There’s a lot of changes been made in this town in 11 years,” he declared, “and I don’t believe that you are going to get the same feedback [to a comprehensive plan as in 1993.]

“Oh, You’re always going to get [some of] that feedback,” said Gammon.  “There are a certain amount of people in every town that don’t want any change, and they’ll vote against any change anyway.

“But the town has got to move into the future.  We can’t stay in the background forever. “

“I’d like to add one big important thing,” said planning board member Richard Piper, who occasionally attends selectmen’s meetings.  “I think people need to look at this again.  It’s not zoning.  It’s simply a guideline to go by.”

“The problem is,” agreed Gammon, “there is a good percentage of the people who think that, if you have a comprehensive plan, that it’s a kind of zoning.  And that’s not true.”

At the behest of selectmen, Holmes drafted a letter to the planning board requesting their detailed timetable for rewriting the town’s comprehensive plan.

“There’s no way we can make the [June] town meeting,” said Planning Board Chairman Judy Berg, upon submitting the desired information.  “We have to go to public hearing and, by law, people have to have a draft in hand for so long before the hearing.”

Berg also made note of the planning board’s strategy for garnering voter approval in 2005 that had been denied in 1993.

“What happened in ‘93 is that the planning committee labored for two years, and then had a finished plan written,” she said.  “They brought it to a public hearing and people didn’t like it.  So what we would like to do is have a sort of hearing first, or an open information and comment period.”

These “visioning meetings,” as they have also been called, are scheduled to take place in January.  In hopes of maximizing citizen turnout, two separate meetings will be held.  One meeting will occur on a weekday evening — 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. on Thursday, January 13 — while the other will take place on a weekend day — from 9:00 a.m. until noon on Saturday, January 15.

Both meetings will be held in the cafeteria of the Buckfield Junior/ Senior High School on Route 140.

Prior to these meetings, statistical information will be gathered and collated so that charts, graphs, maps, and even a power point demonstration, can be made available for attendees.

From among those who attend and provide their input, planners hope to solicit at least two to three volunteers willing to work on each of the major portions in any comprehensive plan, as recommended by the Maine Municipal Authority.  These sections include:  affordable housing; capitol investment planning; economic development; hazard mitigation; historic and archeological resources; land use planning; natural resources; outdoor recreation; production agriculture; public services and facilities; rare, endangered and significant natural features; regional coordination; scenic resources; transportation and roadway systems.

Berg advised selectmen that, with the volume of work that is required, the best that can be hoped for at the annual town meeting in June is a first draft for review purposes.

“We’ll work as expeditiously as we can, but we are not going to promise something on which we may not be able to deliver,” she said, resolutely.

“Having an outside consultant help us is not going to make a difference,” Berg noted, in reference to Gammon’s thought of farming out the work to AVCOG.  “What we would like to do is have a consultant look it over and make sure that we have covered all the bases.”

According to the timeline prepared by the planning board, a final draft of the comprehensive plan should be completed by September.  A public hearing would then be scheduled for that same month.  If, based on feedback, any revisions are required, a second public hearing could then take place in October.

It was expected that a special town meeting for final acceptance of the plan would be held, at the soonest, sometime in November 2005.

Berg stated that, for all of this work, the planning board is only anticipating expenditures of between $3,000 and $5,000.  A warrant for some of that amount may need to be included in the annual town meeting. 

However, Berg did believe that no additional funds would be required before that time, despite the requisite costs involved in the preliminary work.  She noted that planning board secretary Margot Siekman routinely declines all enumeration for her work.  Likewise, planning board members have unanimously voted to refuse the $10 per meeting stipend approved for them at the 2004 town meeting.  This money will instead be applied to the comprehensive plan.

Also, Piper, having risen to become a major champion of the comprehensive plan, has volunteered to foot all postage costs associated with alerting the public to the January visioning meetings.

Berg did state that certain computer software, for map work, would still need to be purchased, but she was hopeful that any such programs could then be put to additional later use by the town.  She also left open the possibility of sharing the cost of software with Sumner, which is also in the process of updating its own comprehensive plan.

“If the two boards need something, let’s share it,” agreed Sumner Selectman Thomas Standard.  “We’re good friends.”

Berg concluded her presentation by inviting the selectmen to also take an active part in the planning process.  Perhaps, she recommended, they might even include themselves in helping to research and draft those sections of the plan applicable to their office.

And while all three selectmen nodded in agreement to the importance of the comprehensive plan, and it’s convergence with their own duties, they each remained silent.  Not one, even Gammon, raised an immediate hand to volunteer.