Winchendon’s Draft Master Plan – A Deeper Dive (Part 5)
This is the fifth and last in a series of articles the Courier is publishing on the town’s draft Master Plan, which was open for public comment through October 15. We’ve provided summaries of the first six of nine chapters in previous Courier issues. Today we’ll look at the final three chapters, which focus on our people.
These three chapters represent perhaps the biggest departure from a traditional Master Plan. We recognize that people are our greatest asset, and transforming our town into what we want it to be will take investment in, and by our residents. This gives new meaning to our motto “Working Together.”
The Services and Facilities Chapter addresses our town government, municipal facilities and services. Notably, a large part of our budget is spent on our public schools. As we are not regionalized, we alone bear this burden. Our lean town government requires us to look at working together more efficiently, and evaluating regional collaboration where practical. The Master Plan contains a number of goals on these topics. These range from new cross-functional meetings, coordinated use of our website and social media platforms, regular town “updates,” and training/recruitment of new board/committee members. Finally, this Chapter calls for establishing an Implementation Committee which will coordinate and oversee the execution of this Master Plan.
The Community Health and Well-being Chapter acknowledges the absence of accessible grocery and retail items, coupled with limited local employment opportunities, affordable housing and public transportation. We have ambitious goals to build up a sustainable local food system in Winchendon, capitalizing on our local agriculture. We call for continued efforts to improve housing and transportation options. A major challenge is educating our residents on the services and options that are available. We include goals to improve our communication and outreach to those in need.
The Communication and Engagement Chapter recognizes that times have changed. At present we have no local print news, but we do have a variety of virtual formats for communication. The latter has become ever more necessary with our ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Our goals call for a complete overhaul of the town website, an inventory and coordinated use of town social media platforms, and consideration of other real time news dissemination. Our recent remote schooling has highlighted deficiencies in our broadband service; our Plan calls for making broadband available to all residents. We will investigate the possibility of continuing Zoom meetings post-pandemic. Finally, we include a number of measures to facilitate citizen participation in Town Government.
While the official commentary period has just closed, it’s never too late to express your views! Please direct your comments, questions and offers for assistance at any level to Tracy Murphy, Director of Planning and Development via email at tmurphy@townofwinchendon.com or 978-297-3537.
The entire draft Master Plan is posted on the town’s website at: www.townofwinchendon.com/home/news/now-soliciting-public-input-proposed-master-plan