At 9:55 p.m. tonight (Monday, January 11), members of the Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD) housing task force came to an easy consensus on the report they will formally present to the First Selectman at the task force’s January 30 meeting.
The unanimous 13-0 vote, with 2 members absent and 1 participating by speaker phone, was to approve the report subject to any additional editing of a non-conceptual nature that may be absolutely necessary to correct any possible “fatal flaws” prior to the official presentation.
Tonight’s meeting that lasted just under 2 hours consisted of a page-by-page editorial review of the draft report as presented by committee member Mark Schroeder. All the work focused on clearer wording. There were no conceptual changes to the draft.
Housing task force members have been meeting regularly for nearly 2 years. Their first meeting was on February 22, 2010. Appointed by the Board of Selectmen, their charge was to address the housing action items outlined in the Town’s Plan of Conservation and Development that was adopted by the RTM in June 2009.
The POCD recommended that the First Selectman create 5 task forces to follow up on the action items in the Plan. These task forces were for the downtown, parking and transportation, town properties, housing, and a plan implementation committee that receives the recommendations of the other committees.
These POCD task forces were expected to be of no more than a 2-year duration and to issue final reports with recommendations based on the POCD action items.
The work of the housing task force is remarkable. Although I observed most of the early meetings, and then attended sporadically over this nearly 2-year period, I had not been to a meeting in recent months. Tonight I was struck by the hard work these task force members have done and how well they have come to work together as a committee.
“The committee couldn’t come to consensus on the meaning of consensus,” I wrote in my blog posting of May 30, 2010. I was quoting a comment overheard after a meeting of the housing task force in its early days when nearly the entire meeting was devoted to discussion of procedural issues that members could not agree upon.
The task force was made up of diverse members from different backgrounds with a variety of viewpoints, some of whom faced a steep learning curve when it came to affordable housing. Initially, the road was a rocky one.
Under the leadership of task force chairman, Nancy Brown, members have done extraordinary work in coming to consensus on their housing recommendations. Committee member Mark Schroeder might be singled out for special commendation in pulling together the report.
“Terrific job,” said many of his fellow committee members. Sam Romeo, a task force member who serves on the Housing Authority’s Board of Commissioners, cited Schroeder’s “invaluable service to the committee.”
Schroeder, receiving a round of applause, told his fellow members that they did all the work. “I’m just a scribe,” he said.
I would say, Kudos to all the members of the housing task force.
So what does it say?
Comment by John Dough — January 13th, 2012 @ 11:40 am