001[Music] hello and welcome to the Views expressed a community podcast here uh produced at waca TV in Ash Massachusetts this time we have a great guest who is going to educate us and hopefully Inspire us to action Roberto sulman chair of the open space and Recreation committee right here in Ashlin welcome to the inaugural podcast of the views Express how are you oh thank you I didn't realize this was the inaugural yeah thank you so much for having me yep uh we've been doing our show just uh TV but we're doing our podcast and we'll talk tell people more how they can access this later hopefully they've stumbled upon it and then they can tell their friends but Roberto welcome thank you thanks so much so I'm just going to start off with the basics
002because even though it it might seem self-explanatory I don't want to assume that people know exactly what the open space and Recreation committee does so what do you all do we were formed by the select board um at that point it was called the board of Selectmen in 1989 and we were put together with a charge to Foster preservation of open space and natural resource resources um creation of recreational opportunities for the residents and preservation of historic assets including buildings and um historic sites so and to establish also a land trust to enable the town to accept acquire and accept land purchases the historic asset thing is is not part of our initial charge it was something that comes later under the open space and Recreation plan that we're going to talk about well that
003well and I can't wait to to talk more about it but uh but uh I think a lot of folks that's a great explanation of what what your charge is but I would probably guess a lot of folks around town sort of have a an idea of some of the things that you do that directly impact them but maybe they don't like so maybe if you could point to some specific things around town that they can that that folks can see that originated out of the committee or the committee is charged with working on that would be helpful I think to tie it all back for folks there's a lot in town that people have either participated in or natural resources that the committee has helped to preserve that people are enjoying and may not
004realize that it was connected to work that the open space and Recreation committee did for example the Riverwalk um that starts at mil Pond and goes for about a mile and a quarter along the Sudbury river that was a project of the open space and Recreation committee the bridge that allow allows people to go over mil Pond was part of the um Riverwalk enhancement project that the open space and Recreation committee conceived of um got the money for and um oversaw the the work that was done the construction and the engineering uh together with with Town staff so that that was a huge project I mean people when that first opened there were double parked cars all up and down Pine Hill Road and Sunbury Road and everything wherever people were but that's wonderful um
005wonderful asset for the town and one of the greatest things about it is that it it has on it the first ADA Compliant Trail um in town so what does that mean Roberta it means that the trail was constructed so that if you have mobility issues um if you're with a walker or you're in a wheelchair it's constructed in such a way that you can access that trail go to the end of it get to mil Pond and there's a wooden Boardwalk with a a um railings and a a big area observatory so you can sit at mil Pond and enjoy it just like everyone else and it's the first time that there was ever um something that was compliant and handicapped accessible in the town it's it's a beautiful location I've been out there
006several times myself to uh to see it and I've actually been out on that that platform as well so it is it's great to just watch the the wildlife and watch the wildlife and watch what's in the water it's just wonderful beautiful it is wonderful and I think that residents of ashin have really taken advantage of of Riverwalk and so many other things that you've done but um I'm here actually to ask as you alluded to earlier I heard that there is a plan in the works what is this plan Roberta there's a plan in the works um every seven years the town updates its open space and Recreation plan so this year we're updating our plan um and there are requirements the reason the plan is so important is that it's required for the
007town in order to apply for State funds it helps to equalize um recreational and open space assets across the town so that there might be some environmental justice neighborhoods that have fewer resources and this will help to equalize that and it's also really important because it's it sets out the town's priorities the residents priorities so that town officials and government officials and other committees that um do work that has an impact on land use and open space and Recreation and protection of historic assets know what the town's residents want what their priorities are and what's important to them and they follow hopefully will follow and should follow the plan that's based on Resident input so so this plan like you know you actually uh got a little ahead of me so the the plan isn't
008something that the committee comes up with it's actually something that the residents of the Town come up with and so there's a direct say essentially in what our plans are for the future for open space and Recreation in in this town so how exactly do you get input from residents for that plan so the first thing that we're doing is a townwide survey of residents about their open space priorities their Recreation priorities protection of historic assets what facilities they use often which recreational facilities they feel need to be improved or expanded upon what are their top five Recreation priorities what open space areas do they use why is it important for them to protect open space how does it have an impact on their lives there are lots of questions that really drill down so
009that we can get as specific as possible and know people's wish lists you know what is important to them what do they feel like we're doing well now what do they want us to improve on what do they want us to expand on what would they be willing to have the town uh what money would they be willing to have the town used to spend on this what would they personally be willing to do um you know if they had owned some property would they be willing to put a conservation restriction on that property or not um would they be willing to leave it in their will to the town personal actions that people can take in addition to actions that the town could take so that's that's a range of things that you just
010yeah it is it's a big range of things um so let me see if I can break it down a little bit piece by piece so the first the first part you're talking about is in order to formulate the plan you've got you said there are a number of questions I I I am going to ask you how many questions how many questions are on the survey well there are 28 but it's not as bad as it sounds because 18 of them are related to the content of the survey and another 10 are demographics because the state wants to be sure that we have a real cross-section of representation of residents you know for example if you know they don't want us to exclude clude any groups and they are particularly interested in what do
011the youth have to say what do the elderly have to say what do renters have to say what do do limited English proficient speakers have to say so we need to make sure that the participants in the survey represent as closely as possible the population of the town and that's why we ask the demographics but we do give people an option to say prefer not to answer I about I was going to say I think that that's good that the state wants to get that information but some people don't feel comfortable about sharing that so that shouldn't be a barrier to completing the survey not at all because people can can check off for the questions that ask demographic and personal issues if they feel it's too personal and they don't want to tell us
012how old they are they don't have to they can say prefer not to answer that is that is probably good news for a lot of folks there right now I think I'd be willing to answer most of those questions I don't know about that question but I know it's important data we'll get into why that's important in a minute but um and then the rest of the questions really do have to really have to do with like what you said basically how how do we how do we want to plan to use open space but I caught also something that you said around you know what kind of resources okay we've got a re we've got a wish list of things we want to do okay great so from a resource allocation standpoint as a
013towns person what are you willing you know to do around that uh whether it's you know uh how much we should be spending on on on projects that impact open space to if you're going to be willing to donate your own land if you're a homeowner at some point or a portion of it you know for for Ashlin so those are those are weighty questions um we don't ask how much because that's impossible to know that's impossible to know but we do ask questions like would you would you want to see the town pursue private funding would you want them to pursue other Government funding would you want them to take money out of the town's own budget should we be using Community preservation act funds um seek donate donated fund you know donated land
014things of that sort and then we asked those personal um personal actions like what would you be willing to support would you support for example a tree bylaw to help protect open space that's one of the the questions so it really digs down into the how and that's actually uh that's critical like we're basically asking residents to to put on their their public policy caps there for a minute and say like okay this is what you want so how do you want to execute it so that's that's that's exciting actually um to get that kind of input and information um and it's I think it's great that folks will be able to do that if they participate in the survey you said 20 28 Quest how long would would it take me to to to
015do the survey it's a thoughtful 20 minutes a thoughtful 20 minutes a thoughtful 20 minutes I mean you can certainly go quicker you can certainly take longer there's no time limit but you do have to complete it in one sitting if you leave I don't think you can I'm not sure that you can go back I would hate for people to assume that they can um that's good to know so you know get a nice cup of coffee coffe or a nice cup of tea curl up weather's a little chilly get cozy yeah and uh just take 20 minutes to decide the future of the town like what is ashin going to feel like hopefully you know in the upcoming years you have a say and do that survey and it has an impact and
016it's not when the plan is finished um it involves all the Committees in town it's all the Committees and boards and commissions it's not a plan that's going to be strictly implemented by the open space committee because it goes beyond our purview all of the Committees are interconnected and they overlap and they should be in close communication and collaboration with each other absolutely let me just reel back though at the time of this recording we want to make sure I I'm assuming that people participate in the survey so can you give just some quick data points on uh when does it open when does it close um all that good stuff and then I want to talk about you know you're talking about the collaborative aspect what happens after the survey what what are the
017next steps after that so so the survey opened on Ashlin day um which disappointingly as everyone knows it was pouring rain and a lot of people didn't come so we had hoped to have a big bang startup at Ashland day but it did open at Ashland day okay and it will stay open until October 27th okay so people still have a couple of good weeks left um to get their voices heard and and to also encourage members of their family their friends people who live in ashon if they're Ashland residents anybody you know get them to also do the survey well depending on when people access this broadcast this podcast rather um you know they may not have as much time as they think they do so you could repeat that date again October 27th
018is when it's going to close if you are listening to this on October 27th you have my permission to pause this take 20 minutes and then come back anyway so I just want to throw that out there so we'll be right here and then we'll explain what happens after you take the survey so after folks finish the survey then what happens Roberta well we have the as a committee from October 27th we have a couple of weeks where we're going to synthesize and analyze all of the data that we got and we're going to take a look at it and we're going to see what people's priorities are what they want we're going to look at the existing plan that we have now and see what is no longer a priority for people and drop
019it what is a new priority and add it um what needs to be amended or revised it's there now but people want it in a slightly different way so we'll do some revisions and then we're going to present the draft action plan which is the goals objectives activities and timeline of the plan we're going to present that at and the survey results at two public forums one is on November 14 which is a Thursday night from 7 to 9:00 at the community center and the other one because we wanted to get people who had different schedules is November 16th which is a Saturday and that'll be Saturday morning from 9: to 11: at the community center so these are inperson in person okay iners feedback sessions or rather uh readout sessions of the plan and
020at those meetings what will folks be able to to do there'll be a short presentation about the survey results so that everyone will understand what the context was for the creation of the revised action plan and then what we haven't fully finalized this but what we're we've been thinking that we're planning to do is then ask people um to work in groups and go through the action plan and com make comments um edits make suggestions and then we'll take all of those written comments back and the committee will have another go at it and incorporate as many revisions as we possibly can recognizing and I want everyone to understand this that we could get conflicting recommendations from different well that's people that's a good point so what happens when you do get those conflicting recommendations
021how how do you determine what path forward well it depends on the weight you know how many people we're going one way versus the other and then truthfully it also depends on the best Judgment of the committee members as well um but I don't I don't expect there to be wild um Divergence in in what people come up with I think the biggest thing will be setting the priorities you know the order of the priorities and figuring out how to fund it which is not in the plan it's not our job to do that it's the job of officials working with committee people across the board and and the residents as time goes on to figure out how to fund it so this drives a lot of activity like across boards across I across the
022Committees here in town so this is really I I almost feel like this is sort of like the launching off point right you know uh so that you know the town can figure out what what how to execute whatever plan is in place so once you put together this plan and you get feedback and once say you have the plan um what happens then So the plan gets submitted to the state to the executive office of energy and environmental Affairs and they have the final approval on it um they get to decide whether it gets approved and if it gets approved then we are eligible to apply for State funds um they might give it sort of a conditional approval and say there's a little more information we want and then we would have to
023go back and provide that additional in information for them um to get final approval and then it lasts another seven years um you so this this plan is critical then uh for any of our sort of open space uh needs or wants uh because without it this enables us to be able to get those State funds uh to be able to to we're figure out how to execute and what resourcing you know it's it's open space it's and its historic assets all of which impact the quality of life for people so so it's actually really incredible that that the residents of ashin have a like a direct say of this so you know it's funny Roberto I talk to a lot of folks around town and you know some folks are just like oh you
024know I don't really know like what kind of impact I can have you know it's just me in my opinion like does it really matter in this particular circumstance it matters a lot in fact it enables you know what what we can do as a town going forward so it's pretty critical critical uh survey that you've got uh going out here we're sending it out through as many venues and avenues as we can think of we've also um I want to thank the principal um Kelly Sor at the high school she sent it out to the kids and the families because we want to get in put from youth you know and um we just want as much widespread input as we possibly can have it's a townwide initiative and this plan belongs to the
025residents um we've been doing open space and Recreation plans my involvement has been in the last you know 15 or more years and every one of the plans that we did we dedicate to the residents of the town of Ashland because that's it's their plan and that's how it should be that's incredible um couple more things before we wrap up if you are enjoying this as a podcast we're going to leave the link to the survey in the show notes so You' be able to access that um but Roberta online otherwise how's what's what's another great way to access the survey if you go to the town website and go under where it says committees and the open space and Recreation committee page has a link to the survey directly that's great so people can
026get it off of the town website that's awesome I have one more question for you sure um you know it's it it sounds like sounds like open space and Recreation does a lot of really important work um how can if if if anything uh that we've mentioned here kind of excites folks and they want to get more involved maybe even serve on the committee uh what's the process for that and then I think you all have one open seat right now is that correct right yeah so we do we do have one open seat and and the town process is for people to fill out a talent Bank form that then gets sent to me and the talent Bank forms get reviewed by the committee and we select if we have you know we select
027people that were think would be a good fit based on their background and what they put in the talent Bank form and then we would invite somebody to come and attend three or four of our committee meetings so they can get a real sense of the work that we do because you can't really tell until you sit there with people and see exactly how the meetings go and exactly what people are rolling up their sleeves to work on so we want someone to really understand that before they make a commitment to serve on the committee and then if um then the committee would vote and make a recommendation um to the select board and the select board um does the appointing so how often are open space and Recreation committee meetings if if someone's thinking
028about making a commitment like they once a month the second Tuesday of the month from 7:30 to whenever we end 9 or 9:30 or something like that depends what we're working on right now um for the convenience of some of our members um we're meeting on Zoom we've been meeting on Zoom all right so you do in person and zoom or mostly Zoom nowadays it's been mostly Zoom right at the moment yeah okay all right well that's that's great information um I think we're going to land This Plane soon Roberto do you have any uh parting thoughts for our listeners and Watchers out here um just that I want to say that that open space in this context means areas like the Riverwalk or Warren Woods or the state park or the Town Forest but
029it also means protecting Wild life protecting plant life prot protecting trees protecting water sources water quality and Water Resources um so it's a lot it's not just you know a grassy area here and there it really is all of the natural resources that are in the town that have an impact on people and that we as residents impact by our footprint whether we realize it or not I think that's an incredible way to end it Roberto Suman chair of the open space and Recreation committee here in Ashlin thank you so much for joining us here on the views expressed and to our listeners thank you so much for joining us you can tell your friends and neighbors that they can see us not just on waca TV but they can also access this wonderful podcast
030on Spotify and YouTube and of course you can go to the waca website and uh hit up that internet radio and listen to us there as well uh but again thank you so much Roberto for coming on the show thanks for having me thanks everybody for [Music] listening e