{"id":413,"date":"2008-12-01T16:13:41","date_gmt":"2008-12-01T20:13:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/?p=413"},"modified":"2017-12-04T09:27:47","modified_gmt":"2017-12-04T14:27:47","slug":"windham-more-personnel-more-taxes-more-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/2008\/12\/01\/windham-more-personnel-more-taxes-more-government\/","title":{"rendered":"Windham: More Personnel, More Taxes, More Government"},"content":{"rendered":"

Windham selectmen discuss possible changes in planning department<\/strong><\/p>\n

WINDHAM \u2014 Selectman Bruce Breton favors having a Planning Department headed by a director who would, among other duties, review local zoning to find ways to expand the town’s tax base.<\/p>\n

Breton will introduce his community development director proposal tonight. It draws upon consultant Gerald Coogan’s review \u2014 based on interviews with town officials, developers and his own observations \u2014 which was presented to the public Nov. 17. Coogan’s recommendations include short- and long-range planning for economic development.<\/p>\n

The review is up for public comment tonight when selectmen meet in the planning office conference room at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

Coogan’s report offered selectmen three options for structuring the Planning Department. In addition to the community development option, one would leave the department much as it is, with a director, a planner\/zoning administrator and a building inspector\/code enforcement officer. The third option would make the assistant town administrator the head of the Planning Department.<\/p>\n

Breton said his plan could be funded under the current budget. It’s not clear where that would leave long-time planning director Al Turner.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know, that is for the Board of Selectmen to decide,” Breton said.<\/p>\n

Selectman Galen Stearns said a departmental reorganization would not automatically replace Turner.<\/p>\n

The town has time, during this economic slowdown, to put in place policies and the means to attract economic development, he said.<\/p>\n

Stearns said Coogan’s report is in line with where selectmen want to go.<\/p>\n

“We want to attract business,” Stearns said.<\/p>\n

He said he looks forward to hearing from the public. In the past, the town has rejected zoning that would have allowed larger-scale economic development in some areas of town, including the intersection of Range Road and Route 111 by the golf course.<\/p>\n

“Everyone is talking about economic development, but if the residents keep voting down zoning changes that allow it, we are wasting our time trying to promote it,” Stearns said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Windham selectmen discuss possible changes in planning department WINDHAM \u2014 Selectman Bruce Breton favors having a Planning Department headed by a director who would, among other duties, review local zoning to find ways to expand the town’s tax base. Breton will introduce his community development director proposal tonight. It draws upon consultant Gerald Coogan’s review […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zoning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5508,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions\/5508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnht.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}