Subcommittee considers giving open space committee power to research and recommend land acquisitions

James, a town staff member, told the subcommittee that the open space committee currently "receives its charge from the council" and therefore cannot independently initiate parcel recommendations. He suggested the council could either rewrite the resolution into a formal ordinance with clear criteria or combine open-space and environmental functions into a single board.

Members said they were open to empowering a dedicated committee to proactively research parcels and present options to the council rather than waiting for items to be referred. "If you want them to be able to go out, look at parcels, make recommendations to the council," James said, "then that is when I would recommend looking at the current resolution, looking at the criteria, and creating a full ordinance that actually goes into the code." The subcommittee asked staff to prepare ordinance options and examples from other towns for future discussion.