Governance Project

About the Governance Project

In the Fall of 2022, the Select Board launched the Governance Project, to look at how Town Boards and Departments manage, plan, work, report and follow up on issues.

The goal is to have an organized, aligned and efficient work process between Boards, Committees and Town Departments. The cornerstone is a strong, embedded, and transparent communication framework that engages the community with Town Hall operations to share data, gain feedback, build trust and track progress regardless of the content or issue.

The first step was to take an inventory of all Board, Committees and Town Departments to understand what they are currently working on, what is working best and what is needed to be better supported and more efficient. Intersections between committees, their goals and how they align with the Master Plan recommendations were reviewed.

Susan Beckmann, past Select Board member, leads the project and works with the Select Board and Town Departments to meet the following goals:

• Engage a wider selection of the community with an efficient plan for engaging community discussion, setting expectations, receiving feedback, responsiveness and follow up.
• Align Board/Committee work, connect to strategy and town operations.
• Identify metrics for success with tactics tied to master plan and budget development.
• Create a communication framework for sharing information and data. (Internal/External)
• Identify content ownership of website, streamline how information is posted and accessed.

This project will:

• Support efforts to update Master Plan status.
• Connect Master Plan recommendations with Select Board goals and identify top priorities.
• Develop messaging and plan a Select Board listening tour.
• Assess current technology and communication structure and process
• Develop templates for staff meetings, board presentations, quarterly reviews.
• Identify how Departments will interface with Select Board, topics, templates, timing.