Open space committee to host public forum

LENOX – To survey or not survey.

While the Open Space and Recreation Plan Committee has long planned to develop a survey to gauge the public’s opinions on issues of open space and recreation in the town, who should carry out that task caused some discussion at its most recent meeting.

Members of the committee had been under the impression the students hired from the Conway School of Design would help write and implement that survey.

Yet at the first meeting with the students, they had no idea the survey would be in their purview.

“We didn’t expect to be working on the survey; it is not our expertise at all,” said Conway student Amy Wolfson.

After some discussion over what direction to take on the survey, the students decided to set a side meeting with Town Planner Mary Albertson to finalize responsibility for the survey.

Once that matter was set aside, the students led the committee through the previous open space plan by the town and divided up the sections amongst the members for them to research and bring back their thoughts and findings.

“Breaking down this last report and giving us your knowledge will be very helpful,” said Ms. Wolfson. “You are all experts on your town.”

The three students, Ms. Wolfson, Becca Robbins and Renee LaGue, led the committee members through this section of the meeting after introducing themselves.

With the goal of garnering as much public input as possible, the committee and the students will also be facilitating a public forum on Jan. 30 in the town hall auditorium at 6:30 p.m.

At this forum, all members of the community are asked to come forward and share their goals for the parks, open space and recreation in the town.

The committee also discussed how to best promote the event. Members will be placing posters around town, sending out an e-blast through the town’s listings, speaking at the next meeting of the selectmen and starting a Facebook page to get more input from young people.

The committee also took time at this first meeting with the students to discuss end goals for a new open space plan in Lenox.

“To me, this would be a great success if we could get some new input and some real new ideas,” said Open Space Committee Member Tim Flanagan.

One common goal many committee members mentioned was making sure that once a plan is written, parts of it are really used in the town.

“I first worked on this type of plan in 1969, and many of the ideas from back then still haven’t happened; I want the ideas we come up with to be used,” said Open Space Committee Member Gige Darey.

Posted by Kameron Z. Spaulding on January 17, 2013. Filed under Community News,Featured,News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry