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Commission flags suspect demographic and employment figures in draft plan
Summary
Commissioners questioned statistics in the draft town plan — including a claim that 77% of workers in town live elsewhere — and asked staff to verify or remove misleading figures and add caveats for externally sourced data.
Several members raised concerns that numbers in the draft plan appeared misleading or internally inconsistent. One line read that "77% of people who work in Tinmouth live in a different town," a statistic that several members said seemed implausible and should be checked with the regional commission before publication.
The commission discussed methods to validate or annotate externally produced numbers, including asking Devin at the regional commission for clarification and adding caveats above suspect figures. The chair suggested keeping a short note in the plan when data come from external surveys, for example: 'Included because this is the best available information at the time; users should treat it as provisional.'
Members also questioned other demographic points, including an item that said 47% of Plymouth residents had moved into their units after 2010. The group agreed to remove or rework any figures that fail a simple plausibility check and to confirm counts such as school enrollment (69 students) with the appropriate local offices before the next draft.
