By Kim Siebert MacPhail
While the base increase for the FY14 Planning budget was not controversial, a request for $8,900 for additional consulting hours to finish work on the town’s Comprehensive Plan did elicit negatives reactions from some Finance Committee members at Thursday night’s FinCom meeting. According to Glenn Garber, Planning Director, and Jon Silver, Planning Board Chair, the added funds would purchase approximately two extra weeks of service from Koff-Madden Planning Group, consultants currently being paid $24,900 appropriated last year for work to support the development of Bedford’s new comprehensive plan.
Speaking to the extension of the process and the request for additional funds, FinCom’s Ben Thomas asked, “What’s changed in the last year? This feels like future creep to me. I’m trying to understand. . . .You could have known it a year ago if you wanted a bigger plan. It’s going to require some extra work, no surprise.”
“It couldn’t have been known a year ago,” responded Jon Silver, “because we hadn’t started the process yet. We didn’t know how in-depth the plan was going to be. More time is required by the consultants to incorporate all the data and ideas that have come up because we got more feedback from people in Bedford than we anticipated. . . .It’s a bigger project and a better product than what we originally envisioned.”
“I agree with all of that,” Thomas said, “but that’s the challenge that everyone faces—to fit within their budget to accomplish the goals they set out. This just feels like a bigger goal. I’m not sure what’s changed that couldn’t have been known a year ago when you set up the first goal.”
Planning Director Glenn Garber explained how things have transpired. “When I first came here, the Planning Board’s intent was to do an update of the [current] Comprehensive Plan: some new data, a little bit of mapping, some public process. But what has evolved—because the process has been so successful—is that we are producing a world class plan. That wasn’t the intent when the Board started this, before I got here. They knew they had no money, they didn’t have the staff capacity, they couldn’t go for a big consulting contract.
“Most of the time you just simply hire a consultant make a big appropriation [for] $100,000 to $200,000 and [the consultants] do the plan,” Garber continued. “So the most they thought they could do was a substantial update. They would update the vision, strategies, goals, some of the actions, [and] add a little new data. It was going to be a stripped-down model.”
“To be honest with you,” Silver followed, “$8,900 doesn’t represent a lot of consultant time. It’s [only] two weeks.”
FinCom member Barbara Perry asked to be heard. “Some time ago, we routinely asked for items over and above what the guideline suggested. We called them ‘contingencies.’ It’s not unheard of. From what I’m hearing, this [more inclusive] Comprehensive Plan is going to be a far more usable document than we otherwise would have had, and we’re not going to need to do an update for several years. It will be more comprehensive and have a longer duration.”
Rich Bowen, another FinCom member, said he believed the plan would be beneficial for helping to attract companies that would “repopulate some of our industrial properties.”
“We have a vigorous economic development element [in the plan],” responded Garber. “In the four elements we have done [as a Comprehensive Plan Committee] to date, [economic development] has generated the liveliest debate. But one of the things in any comprehensive plan is balance—community balance in land use and future growth. We have. . .good natural and cultural resources and open space element[s]. We’re going to get into services, facilities, recreation and energy. It covers the full gamut. But the economic development certainly has a prominent place.
“I just have to stop and say that there are some things when you put a plan together that are unknowable before you get into a project,” added Silver. “It surprises me that we’re getting so much pushback here. We [did] our level best to come before you last year and say ‘this is what we’re going to deliver’ and—by and large—we’ve done that.
“We’re now asking for two more weeks’ consultant time, which is really very little,” Silver added. “We’re almost all the way through and we have a little bit more to do to get ready for Town Meeting in the fall. I think you’re going to be very pleased [with the final product].
“I have a comment,” said FinCom member Meredith McCulloch. “This is a public planning process. If you all had known what the public wanted when you started, you could have planned for it. But it goes against the whole value of a public planning process to expect at the beginning to know where you’re going to come out. I don’t hold you at all responsible for not anticipating exactly where this was going to go. I say thank you for making it bigger, and I think we need to pay for it.”
“Please keep in mind,” Garber said, “that the staff is actually drafting the Plan. We prepare all the narrative. We gather and structure the data. The consultant just helps us put it together in a coherent manner, helps us structure it, edit it, format it. . . .One way to look at it is that you’re getting [a] $150,000 comprehensive plan for $33,800 because we have the staff that has the experience to actually prepare the plan.”
It was noted by FinCom’s Bowen that the current Comprehensive Plan, completed over a decade ago, cost the town $75,000 in consultant fees.
To further the point that Bedford is getting value for its money, Silver noted that in 2011, the Planning Office’s basic budget was $171,366, even without an assistant planner, who is now on staff, or a comprehensive plan in the works. The basic budget for the current year is $154,733— or$16,633 less than it was in 2011— plus the $24,900 for the comprehensive plan consultant.
“If you look at FY2014,” said Silver,” we’re actually only [asking for] $165,000 [including the $8,900 in additional consulting fees] so we’re spending less money [than in 2011], we’re finishing up the Comprehensive Plan, we have an assistant planner. We’re basically doing a lot more with a lot less.
“To me,” Silver continued, “that’s a huge win. We have a Planning Director that’s one of the best in the state. We have an Assistant Planner that provides Glenn with a lot of bandwidth to do other things. When we’re done with the Comprehensive Plan, we’ve got zoning amendments that he’s going to take on, we have him reaching out to the business community and the development work he’s going to help with. We’ll really start to see the fruits of the added capacity that we have.”
FinCom Chair Mike Seibert asked Silver and Garber what the consequence would be if they didn’t get the requested $8,900.
“Something would have to give,” Garber replied. “For example, one of the more invisible services that we’ve spent huge amounts of time doing is supporting a number of developments that aren’t finished or are otherwise ‘troubled.’ Effectively, we are providing mediation services to try to get those resolved in favor of the residents. . . .We do a lot of that. Maybe we can’t continue [doing it]. We provide really good technical support on all the new developments—we’re very proud of it. We might just have to slack off on some of that.”
In other words, Silver summarized, “Glenn would have to shoulder more of the burden of the Comprehensive Plan.”
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