Resilience Committee approves release of stormwater survey, sets mid-September engagement sessions

The town's Resilience Committee voted to publish an initial survey to gather resident input on stormwater mitigation and set a mid-September community engagement session to collect neighborhood-level feedback.

The decision followed a review of Oxford Day outreach, during which staff explained the event QR code led to a landing page rather than directly to the survey form. "The QR code doesn't go to the form. It just goes to the landing page and I can't get stats on that to, like, see how many people look at it," a staff member said, noting the landing page will include a link to the survey.

Why it matters: committee members said the survey and planned engagement sessions will help the town identify localized stormwater problems, route some inputs into public-works tickets and prioritize engineering responses. Chair (the meeting chair) told members that stormwater mitigation is primarily a property-owner responsibility but that some inputs will require town action. "Stormwater mitigation is the responsibility of the property owner," the Chair said while outlining proposed survey questions seeking to capture mitigation steps residents have taken and whether they need permit assistance.

Committee discussion and approvals Staff and committee members debated whether the survey questions had already been finalized at a prior meeting or needed formal approval and public notice under the Open Meetings Act. Staff said the committee must consolidate and formally approve a single list of questions in a posted meeting before the survey is built. After that exchange, the committee agreed to move forward: members signaled approval for staff to release the initial survey package and post it to the landing page for public access; the transcript records a committee member and the Chair indicating assent but no formal roll-call tally was recorded.

Staff also described related public-information work. A staff member said interactive ArcGIS maps (layers for flooding, drains and infrastructure) will be shared with NOAA and released to the public in June to help residents and staff locate problem areas. "We plan to release those out to the public next month, right, in June," the staff member said.

Planning engagement sessions Committee members discussed formats for engagement: neighborhood breakout tables, station-based maps, demonstrations of the MyCoast app and short, focused evening sessions to encourage attendance. The group proposed holding a single, well-advertised evening session after Labor Day to concentrate participation; several members favored Wednesday, Sept. 16. The committee already has a CRC meeting scheduled for Sept. 18 and agreed to use that meeting to review and collate responses gathered from the engagement session. "Let's do it before, and then we can have our critique on the 18th," the Chair said.

Next steps Staff were assigned to consolidate the survey questions, post the survey on the committee's landing page, and finalize logistics for the engagement session and public maps. The committee will review outreach results at its Sept. 18 meeting. The transcript does not record a formal vote tally or motion text; the approval is recorded as consensus during discussion.