Adams Inviting Residents to Get Involved in Strategic Planning Process

The town is scheduling a series of Saturday sessions to gather input from the public for a new strategic plan.

ADAMS, Mass. — Town Administrator Tony Mazzucco said the town will call for community input during upcoming strategic planning sessions.

Mazzucco said the town will hold open strategic planning starting this September that will allow the community to share their vision of the town for the upcoming years.  

"It is really the community's strategic plan," he said. "It's really about the community's vision for the future and what they want to get done in the next five years."

Mazzucco said there will be four primary meetings held on Saturdays: Sept. 12, Oct. 10 and 24, and Nov. 14. Depending on how these meetings go, he said there may be followup meetings to better hash out certain topics.

Meetings will take place at Hoosac Valley High School and will be facilitated by the Collins Center for Public Management out of the University of Massachusetts at Boston that, according to Mazzucco, is "emerging as the go-to group throughout the commonwealth."

The Collins Center representatives will explain the process, help the town find a mission statement for the plan, and help pinpoint the community's vision and goals of the town over the next five years.

There will be "break out groups" and residents will have a direct influence over what goes into the plan.

"It will be an interactive process, and it won't be just listening to someone talk for two hours and a couple hand raising opportunities," Mazzucco said. "People should go with the expectation that they are going to participate in the process."

The discussions will be synthesized into a document that will eventually be inserted into the strategic plan, which the town will create in-house to save money.

The document will ultimately inform the Selectmen's and administration's "marching orders" for the next few years and help determine what goals are administered to departments.

Mazzucco said he, along with the selectmen, hope to not only get people who are involved in town government to participate in the meetings, but those who may be new to the town's process.

"We want to hear from everybody, especially from people who may not have been involved with the town," he said. "Now is the chance to do it because it is about the community not just about the town municipal structure and the services. It is much wider than that."

The Board of Selectmen have been interested in reinvigorating a strategic plan and made it one of its main goals when Mazzucco came on board last year.

Mazzucco said he expects the Adams-Cheshire Regional School District, the budget, and economic development to be hot topics.

He urged everyone and anyone to attend these meetings because they will allow people speak openly without predetermined restraints, such as a budget or town charter, which can limit discussion in other meetings.

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