Community Advisory Team Monthly Meeting
August 13, 2013 5:30-7:30pm
City Council Room
Attending: Meaghan Carlson, Heart & Soul Coordinator
Phyllis Gardiner
Jerry Maschino
Kate Willis Judy Dorsey
Brian Files
Pat Hart, Comp Plan Chair/City Councilor
Nate Rudy, Director Economic Community Development
Jane Lafleur, Consultant Orton Family Foundation
Dorothy Morang, Staff
1.
Welcome Introduction + July hours, Project update
Meg opened the meeting and introduced Jane LaFleur – hired as a consultant by
the Orton Family Foundation to assist with the final phase of the Heart & Soul
project. Meg asked the other members to introduce themselves as well.
Meg reminded members to turn in their volunteer hours for the month of July.
Meg gave a report on the community events. Two have been held so far and
they went very well – the first one had 38 in attendance and the second one had a
very large attendance. The third one will be held next week at the Boys and Girls
Club.
A Heart and Soulmate award was given out recently and another one is to be
given out in the near future.
The Leadership Series Training is ongoing and has been well attended.
2.
Jane Lafleur: Introduction and scope of work
Jane introduced herself and said that she was hired to assist with the final phase of
the project. She will be working with Meg and the CAT to review the ideas
and comments that have been collected through the various events held and the
Comp Plan Focus Discussions over the last year & a half. They will identify
non-city responsibilities and come up with a Community Strategic Plan to sift
through the ideas with community involvement, evaluate them and hold a large
community cohesion event in December or January. Ideas mentioned to include
at the event were an art show, music, a dance, food and with booths available for
various community organizations. From that they will develop a final plan, listing
all of the ideas and recommendations given by the community and identify who,
what, when, where and who are the project partners who might take responsibility
to move these ideas forward.
3.
Community Advisory Team Strategy
•
What are the goals of the group?
•
Who do we want represented on the Team?
•
When & where should we meet?
CAT members discussed the process and asked if they would have a role in
sifting through the ideas. Meg said yes, but we also hope to include others who
represent various groups throughout the city. The Final Action Plan will be a 10
year plan outside of the Comp Plan. Meg suggested that organizations and others
sign the document to show their commitment to the process. Nate said that Jane’s
role is to help us prepare for the meetings. This group will convey to her the
information gathered and help move this project into a community ownership
role.
Pat Hart said that the Comp Plan that is being developed is very liberal – it will
contain all of the state required information as well as other things.
Brian Files suggested that we need to have micro meetings – not all people will be
interested in everything.
4.
Next Steps
•
Who will do what?
Meg and Jane will work on a short write-up telling the Community the
next steps. The members came up with a number of groups that should be
represented in the review process and several offered to make the contacts
after the write-up is completed. The groups mentioned were:
Gardiner Main Street; Johnson Hall; Gardiner Public Library; Gardiner
Board of Trade; Gardiner Rotary Club; GAMMA; Leadership Training
& Focused Discussion attendees; Girl Scouts; Youth Hockey; PTAs;
KLFI; school principals; people who work in Gardiner but live in other
communities; sports; music boosters; businesses; private youth sports;
Boys & Girls Club; senior groups; churches; home school groups; Rural
Active Living Assessment interns and others.
Meg said that there will be two workshops held in the fall for the CAT and
others representing the groups above to begin to go through the ideas and
comments collected from the Community in past meetings and events and
come up with a list for a December Community Cohesion event where
these ideas will be prioritized by the Community. Jane suggested using a
graph to list the ideas, costs and other factors that might help in deciding
what things would be pretty easy/low cost/high impact to do right away.
5.
September Meeting
6.
Other
Pat Hart gave an update on the gazebo. She said that there were no bidders on the
first request – possibly because the time frame was so short and it was at a time
when most contractors had their projects lined up to do. Another bid request has
gone out to have it built by next April.
7.
Adjourn
Meeting adjourned at 7:00 PM