FRYEBURG PLANNING BOARD
Minutes- January 12, 2010
Town Office

In Attendance: A.O. Lucy - Chairman, Ed Price - Vice Chairman, Michael Holtgrefe - Secretary, Bill Mosher, Judy Redding.

The meeting was called to order at 6:32 pm and a quorum was declared.

Ed Price made a motion to have Judy Redding act as a voting member for the meeting. The motion was seconded and the vote was unanimous.

Ms. Redding noted that the minutes posted on the town's website were not accurate. Katie Haley stated that she usually sends the draft minutes to be posted and requests the website manager to post them as 'draft minutes'. Ed Price suggested using the watermark text feature to post draft minutes so that it is clear they are drafts and not yet approved.

Ed Price made a motion to approve the December minutes as corrected. The motion was seconded by Michael Holtgrefe and the vote was unanimous.

CEO Report

The Code Enforcement Officer has issued 2 since the December 15, 2009 meeting.

Public Forum:

 No one was in attendance for the public forum.

Comprehensive Plan Discussion:

A.O. Lucy reviewed the previous Planning Board's meeting regarding comprehensive planning and reminded the Board about their decision to work on revising and developing ordinances within the Land Use Ordinance rather than working on updating the comp plan. Mr. Lucy also discussed various aspects of the feedback that he received following the past meeting, which he generally summarized by saying that people who had contacted him felt as though efforts to update the comp plan should be undertaken. Mr. Lucy asked the Board for their thoughts, which led to lengthy discussion.

Mr. Price was wondering why the last 2 attempts at updating the comp plan didn't work. He also reviewed a document from the State Planning Office entitled "Updating Your Comprehensive Plan 50 Recommendations for Making Plan Updates More Effective", and stated that he feels that a detailed review of the existing comp plan, using the recommendations from the aforementioned document would be worthwhile. He suggested having a sub-committee complete the review and report back to the Board with their findings. Bill Mosher thought that a review like that should be completed by the Board to avoid any conflicts that might arise from trying to appoint a committee. Mr. Lucy expressed concerns about the public not being involved in the process. Mr. Holtgrefe wondered how the committee would be selected and Ms. Redding thought that a survey might be an effective way to get the public involved.

More discussion followed about the comp plan. Kent Pidgeon has done research regarding the state law regarding comp plans and summarized this for the Board. Mr. Lucy thinks that hiring facilitator is a necessary step in revising the plan and that a review shouldn't be started if there isn't a serious commitment of time, money and people to see the process through. Mr. Holtgrefe asked if there were record of the past comp planning efforts to review and possibly learn from.

Bill Harriman asked why a full rewrite of the plan is necessary because he feels that the general goals of the towns people haven't changed so it would be redundant to revise certain aspects of the comp plan. Mr. Lucy responded by stating that the state requirements have changed and a simple revision wouldn't meet that state mandated requirements. Cliff Hall also is of the opinion that the comp plan should be revised but not rewritten and he doesn't think the state should be involved in the process until the town has a final product to submit. Mr. Hall recalled that the last comp planning efforts from about 2 years ago stalled because the Selectmen weren't interested in spending money to redo the plan. Mr. Hall has also had conversations with Elizabeth Hurtz from the State Planning Office who reported that the comp plan update doesn't have to cost the town money.

Mr. Lucy believes that the people who are interested in completing a comp plan update want it because the Land Use Ordinance and the comp plan are not consistent, rather than because of the state pressure to complete an update. Mr. Hall therefore thinks that the Land Use Ordinance should be revised to make it consistent with the comp plan, rather than update the comp plan.

Mr. Harriman thinks that it is obvious that the town's people want to retain the rural character of the town and thinks that the ordinance should be revised to reflect this since there were public hearings regarding the Poland Spring load out facility where people requested an ordinance change that wouldn't allow activities like that.

Mr. Harriman also stated that he thinks that the Planning Board meetings should be better advertised. Discussion ensued about how to better post meetings. Mr. Hall recommended posting an agenda or notice in a few different public places rather than just the town office.

This led to a discussion about why some people don't attend the Board's meeting but send private emails regarding Board issues to the chairman among other people.

The comp plan discussion ended with Mr. Pidgeon stating that he doesn't think the town would need to hire a facilitator because there are plenty if capable people that are willing to work on the plan and the Board agreeing that work on revising the Land Use Ordinance will continue rather than beginning work on the comp plan update.

GIS:

Mr. Lucy began a discussion about the necessity of implementing a GIS (Geographic Information System) within the town. Mr. Pidgeon has done research about GIS and summarized the theory behind GIS and reviewed the fact that there are programs that must be purchased and there are some that are free and capable of doing the functions that are needed by a town. He has created many maps for Fryeburg using Quantum GIS and finds it to be a useful and easy to use program. Mr. Lucy asked Mr. Hall if he thinks that the Selectmen would be interested in supporting a request for funding to implement a GIS program. Mr. Hall said that he would personally but he can't speak for the other selectmen. He recommended that the Board come up with a plan and cost estimates and submit it to Martin Krauter, who will then forward it to the Selectmen. Mr. Lucy also asked Mr. Pidgeon if he would be interested in sitting down with the CEO to review the Quantum GIS program and Mr. Pidgeon said he would.

Omitted Use and Land Use Table:

It was agreed by the Board that this item will be tabled until the next meeting. Mr. Lucy requested that everyone review the land use tables and the information forward by the CEO relating to the land use table.

The next Planning Board meeting will be on February 9 th at 6:30 at the Town Office.

Mr. Price made a motion to adjourn the meeting. The motion was seconded and passed with a unanimous vote .

The meeting was adjourned at 8:51 pm .

Respectfully submitted,
Katie Haley