Neary Committee outlines outreach plan after well-attended office hours; posts, FAQs and three public sessions planned

Jason, subcommittee chair, opened the March 12 Neary Building Committee communications subcommittee meeting by summarizing feedback from a recently held office hours session that “there was not a seat left in the Public Safety training Room.”

The subcommittee said the session, held about 10 days earlier on a Saturday, produced heavy discussion about cost impacts on residents, operating budgets, and alternatives to the schematic design. Jason said much of the public was still working from an earlier August cost estimate and that the committee has updated numbers that have not yet been presented widely.

The committee described a three-part outreach plan aimed at making project materials easier to find and understand before town meeting: (1) reorganize the website FAQs into shorter, digestible items; (2) prepare a standalone cost presentation so residents can see the revised budget in a shareable format; and (3) run three topic-specific public sessions — a cost deep dive, education-focused sessions about grade configuration and how the schematic design supports learning, and a site-specific session to address adjacency to the landfill. Jason said the site session will be co-led by Mark, Bill Cundiff and Tim of Parr.

Greg and Stephanie were named as leads for the education sessions; the subcommittee plans two education sessions at different times (a daytime and an evening session) and asked staff to consider recording at least some sessions. Jason said the planned sessions are intended to be posted as open public meetings to ensure full access and to avoid criticisms that meetings were not properly advertised.

Several members said attendees often pressed the group to discuss alternatives to the recommended option. Roger, subcommittee member, and another member said people misunderstood the stage of the project and expected the meeting to reopen a multi-option evaluation. “We looked at 12 different options,” one member said, noting that those earlier options were part of a mandated evaluation process and that the current public outreach is focused on the option that will be presented at town meeting.

On timing and materials, Jason said the underlying cost data exists but needs to be “rolled up” into a presentable paragraph and cost slides; he asked the committee to confirm presentation parameters (length, moderator constraints) so the team can finalize a town-meeting presentation. The subcommittee discussed a short “preview” session that would cover highlights of each topic and serve as a Q&A rehearsal for the town-meeting presentation.

The subcommittee also agreed to a practical communications step: permit Jason and Kathy to draft and post a temporary website statement noting that the committee approved a revised project budget in late February and that the committee is preparing a presentation of that amount. The statement, the group agreed, would be vetted by the finance and communications leads before posting and would avoid leaving the FAQ tax-impact question blank while final, shareable figures are formatted.

Members assigned homework to collect public questions and to propose shorter, more digestible FAQ entries: committee members were asked to forward raw questions (not proposed answers) to Greg and Jason so the team can categorize and draft responses. The group emphasized that answers should be concise for a general audience, with links for readers who want technical detail.

Votes at a glance: The subcommittee approved the meeting minutes as presented at the start of the meeting and later voted to adjourn. Both procedural votes passed by roll call with the attending members recorded as aye.