The first Symonds Way Exploratory Committee (SWEC) meeting was held last night, and it kicked off with nominations for Chair and Vice-Chair. Member, Nancy Twomey (Permanent Building Committee) nominated fellow member Angela Binda (Recreation Committee) for Chair. Angela declined the nomination which led to member Charles Robinson (School Committee) nominating Carlo Bacci (Select Board) in which Carlo received a 6-0 unanimous vote. With Carlo as chair of the meeting, it was time for the nominations for Vice-Chair in which Charles was nominated by Angela and received a 7-0 unanimous vote (Heather Clish was the additional vote that was absent from the prior vote).
With nominations out of the way, the board discussed the charge of the committee. Essentially, the town owns ~25 acres of land (purchased for $750k), of which only 15 acres is buildable. The committee is tasked with the gathering input from the community with three criteria in mind:
- Best uses to serve as many residents as possible
- Using public funds and grants where possible towards development
- Private/public partnerships to develop the property
The committee is scheduled to meet on the 3rd Wednesday of every month, with their next meeting being on January 18th but is subject to change. The original meeting was not recorded but a recommendation was made for future ones to be. The Committee is slated to sunset on June 30, 2024.
Voting members are as follows:
- Carlo Bacci (Chair) – Select Board Appointee
- Charles Robinson (Vice Chair) – School Committee Appointee
- Angela Binda – Recreation Committee Appointee
- Heather Clish – CPDC Appointee
- Andrew Dribin – Conservation Commission Appointee
- Karen Janowski – Council on Aging Appointee
- Nancy Twomey – Permanent Building Committee Appointee
We’ll have a drone flyover video uploaded in the coming days as well as complete coverage over at our Symonds Way Exploratory Committee page located here.