Overview

In early 2016, the Board of Selectmen charged the Town Manager with developing a Strategic Plan for the Town. Realizing that an overall vision for the town had never been determined, the backbone of this Strategic Plan would be the development of a Values, Vision, Goals statement.

Developing a strategic plan brings the whole community together to establish clear community goals and set realistic and sustainable strategies to achieve them. A united community, regardless of its size or location, can achieve its goals through building consensus and clearly pursuing a direction that all community members can support.

The Strategic Plan will guide town decision-making over the next twenty years. Through a synthesis of previous plans, and input from the community via a variety of mediums, the town will determine what kind of community it wants to be at the end of that time period. This applies to more tangible attributes such as the built and natural environment in town, as well as the values that the town espouses. This will be articulated through the Values, Vision and Goals Statement. The Strategic Plan will then describe the steps necessary to achieve those.

To assist in the development of the plan, the Town Manager enlisted the help of a diverse cross-section of community members to ensure that the resulting document reflected the entire community, and not just one or two special interest groups. The process consists of three stages:
1. Visioning
2. Community Feedback
3. Strategic Plan