Bar Harbor task force reviews draft sustainable tourism strategy

[3:25] Speaker A (unidentified): Sustainable economic development manager for the town of our harbor. [3:30] Speaker B (unidentified): Hello everybody, let me see, make sure my sound is working there. [3:35] Speaker C (unidentified): You go, can you hear me? Yes, I'm [4:00] Speaker B (unidentified): not sure if you can hear me, I'm going to try joining, I can hear you. [4:04] Speaker D (unidentified): Oh you can, okay, can you hear us? Okay, we [4:09] Speaker E (unidentified): can't see you but we can hear you. [4:12] Speaker F (unidentified): Ben, can you hear us? I'll [4:23] Speaker B (unidentified): run this on two devices, I'm not sure about this Jason. [4:30] Speaker G (unidentified): Ben. [4:35] Speaker H (unidentified): Can you hear us? It looks like we're muted. [4:45] Speaker A (unidentified): Can you hear us? It's muted. Can you hear us now? Sound [5:03] Speaker B (unidentified): check, sound check. I hear you. Let me turn up my volume a bit. Can you hear me okay? [5:20] Speaker A (unidentified): We'll start with a motion to adopt the agenda. So moved. Thank you Jim. Second? I second. Thanks Pat. Allen Fever? Any opposed? Agenda adopted. Any excused absences if it doesn't look like it? Michael. [5:46] Speaker F (unidentified): Oh, Michael. Did she say excused absence? I didn't know. An excused absence? An excused absence. I didn't know. Is [6:02] Speaker A (unidentified): that a rat? Okay. Moving along to adoption of the minutes for September 9th. Motion to adopt the minutes. Thanks, Pat. Thanks, Jim. Any discussion? Discussion on the minute? All in favor of adopting? Any opposed? Nope. All right. Moving right along to business arising from September 9th. I'll take it over to you, Ben. All [6:44] Speaker I (unidentified): right. So the last meeting really sets up this one. We discussed the strategy process, what we are working for, towards. And the last meeting was a bit of a working discussion around elements that are feeding into this document. So really, I don't think there was anything outstanding in terms of issues that were not resolved in that last meeting other than what we're discussing today, that is the strategy document. And we'll cover more in the next agenda items about the actual process as we're looking forward and then the actual strategy itself and the feedback process. [Speaker A (unidentified): All] right, yeah, all right, so I'm gonna pull up a brief set of slides to talk through this. Hope everyone can see this slide, the slides visible in the room? Yeah, okay, great. So just to review overall in the process where we are today and then what remains to be done, basically we'll be talking through the strategy document today that's been circulated, this obviously builds on the last year of work, all of the input, the study that we've done and ongoing discussions, and then today's meeting will really be About big picture feedback, we'll have some framing questions in the coming slides and discuss what we're looking for. And then in the next week and a half or so, will be an opportunity for the task force members to provide written comments. So those detailed opportunity, that opportunity for detailed feedback on elements of the strategy throughout, on being able to, whether it's specific strategy elements of the strategy, the approaches we've laid out, maybe the individual sequencing of things that will all be done through that written feedback process, similar to other ones that have been used in town processes. Once that is received, we'll consolidate it, revise the document, respond to the feedback, and then share a revised and cleaned up draft strategy early in November. And then we'll have a final task force meeting next month on November 18th. Normally it would be November 11th for our schedule, but that's Veterans Day. And in that we'll discuss the final strategy document, talk about the process, how we got here, and then address what goes on from there. In addition to that, we're going to have a public presentation and Q&A and a presentation to town council of the strategy. The timing of that is something we're still looking at, probably going to be next month in November or either at the end of the month, early December. But those dates will be confirmed as we work through some of the logistics and process and ensuring that we also have the appropriate notice period for people to be aware of any sort of public event that we're hosting. [10:18] Speaker E (unidentified): Where would you anticipate that event taking place, Ben? [10:26] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah, I'll defer to Michelle, I believe, who can share. Are you [10:45] Speaker I (unidentified): had dates on it? I don't know if you had a venue. Would you [10:55] Speaker E (unidentified): anticipate it be a large enough? I think [11:07] Speaker F (unidentified): no, in the sense that our most successful attendance always, that type of event. The [11:23] Speaker C (unidentified): public presentation, is that going to be just to show people what the final draft is, or are people going to be able to give input and have things changed at that point? [11:39] Speaker I (unidentified): We'd expect primarily that would be communicating the final version. I think we'll have a Q&A and be able to clarify, but part of the process really now is trying to input, receive the input through the task force and through the channels that we've had available on the product up to that point instead of using it necessarily to be reopening entire sections of the strategy. Some [12:13] Speaker C (unidentified): People might be unhappy with that, just to have it presented without having the opportunity to have additions or comments about it. I mean, comments obviously could be made, so I'm wondering if the feedback that we're going to be giving could also come from the public if they can see the document ahead of time. Is it available on the website? Yes. [12:54] Speaker F (unidentified): All the materials that have been presented to you are available on the agenda center. Okay. Yeah, [13:04] Speaker E (unidentified): Jim? I have a comment about that, and not to completely disagree with what Pinoch is suggesting, but one of the considerations that I have in my mind is that we've had very little public turnout. These meetings over the last year have been sparsely attended at best. We did have the two things where people came and had an opportunity to speak or ask questions, and we did the sticking out thing and all that. There were a number of people there, but my thought is that the public has had an opportunity to be part of this, has been invited to be part of this throughout this entire year, and if they come back and say, well, where did you get this final product, how come I didn't have a say in it, I think sadly that's just a kind of the way things go a lot of times, as people don't participate in large measure, and then they may or may not agree with the final decisions that are made. So I agree with enough in a sense that I'd like to see the possibility at least of a draft of the final be available for people to see, but perhaps we can just illustrate that publicly saying that's available on the website and that the final is going to be presented X date and give them an opportunity to contact you or contact us or something, but not necessarily by a separate meeting of inviting them all in to say okay we're almost going to do our final, what do you think. I kind of feel like what do you think should have been all through this whole year if people wanted to be part of the process, and I encourage people to do that, but and we all have, so just a thought. Yeah, so just to [14:52] Speaker F (unidentified): So the idea is for the documents and the information to be out there ahead of time, so that when a person from the public is entering this room, that person will have had the opportunity to look at the information that creates the strategy. The other thing, the format, as I explained, is more of a presentation of how the process unfolded, the engagement, and kind of like the maybe big three things that came out and some of the kind of the highlights, and then doing question and answer. It doesn't take away comments. If someone has a very good comment, I don't think we would just ignore it. No, of course not. So I think that 's the process. process, but as you've said, I think that at that point is more of informative to make sure that they have an opportunity to hear what's in there and ask questions, and if when it gets to council, you know, it's more of a question of is it ready to be accepted and is it really representative of what the people have said. So that's kind of what's in my mind and again I want to say that outreach, you know, we're looking for at least doing outreach that start a minimum two weeks ahead of that public information session to make sure that it is solid, it is boosted through Facebook so people are aware that is happening and they can, they know where the information is and they can be as informed as involved as they choose to be at that point, within those guardrails. It would [16:43] Speaker J (unidentified): be this long for people to look at it because I don't think [16:49] Speaker F (unidentified): it's going to be flashy no more. Oh good. Any other questions? [16:58] Speaker I (unidentified): Okay then. So I think that lays out the process. Of course there's more information that will, we come as the dates are finalized and the some of these other elements comes through and we'll make sure to be communicating with you around those and Michelle will, and so then with that we can start to jump into just what this document is that we're looking at now and then we'll have questions and get into the actual discussion today around your feedback and reactions to this document. So this is a draft version of the strategy building around the strategic areas that we've laid out through this process and that we've discussed particularly over the last few task force meetings and work through solutions, work through the issues at hand and really what are the objectives we're trying to achieve with these. And again, this is building on a year's worth of work. I think where you all have really been highly engaged and not just with us and the people in the room but also of course your neighbors in the community to understand what are the issues that need to be addressed here, what are the solutions we should be working towards, and with that in mind we produce this document that we're going to be discussing today and covering the six strategic areas that are laid out here that you will have seen, vehicle use, resident quality of life, the visitor Experience, the sustainable business model, policy issues, and governance and finance, and then linking all of that together. The basic structure that we've had has been for each of those to lay out the core objectives that are being addressed in the strategic areas and then individual strategies that fall within that. And then at the end of the document we have the implementation plan that has specific actions and some of the indicates who may be responsible for it some of the resources that are necessary in the timing and so that's a basic outline of the document here we also will have an introduction section that we're working on that will come in the next iteration that introduction will frame the overall process, provide background for any of the readers on, how did we get to this? So what is the information that this is building on? How is the public involved? What is this overall document fitting into in terms of processes, really anchoring it in the comprehensive plan and other community processes, and provides that context and framing that will help anyone reading it, whether they're familiar with the process or not, to understand how to use the strategy and how it fits. And then also understanding that this is going to be something that evolves, especially as conditions in Bar Harbor and the surrounding context evolve and we have to update or adjust the strategy as we go forward to reflect any changing conditions. You'll also have seen that in the strategy document, there were highlighted sections where we will have links to other materials. For the most part, those are materials that we've developed throughout this process for example the equator report some of the other presentations that we've done in task force meetings those in the final version will be accessible and clickable and ultimately when we 're working on consolidating all of those materials that we've produced so far so that they're in one accessible portal whether it's a share drive or a web page that everyone will be able to refer to easily pull from whether it's One of the older task force meeting presentations, for example, done case studies or that equator report, others, just to make sure that the information that this builds on is all available, recognizing that we're trying to keep this document more succinct, but it's coming from a large set of information across the process that we don't want to lose sight of. So with that, then I think our next agenda item is the actual discussion around this. And we've got a couple of just questions that help frame what we want to work through. But we've got quite a bit of time on the agenda now to discuss the overall document. And I think what Joan and I want to use this time for is first to get feedback on the overall approach and strategy as it's laid out. And then also discussing the individual sections and getting the big picture feedback, recognizing that also I know a lot of you will have specific items that you want to address. And some of those will make sense to cover today, and some of that will come out in the written feedback when we're really getting into detail, and we'll be able to respond to each of those. So looking at this, we have really four big picture questions that we want to address or have in the back of our minds as we turn it over to you. But one is just, is this reflective of what we want through this process? Are these the right sets of strategies within the big picture areas? Does it reflect what we've heard, the evidence that's been collected, the input that we've heard from you, from the community more broadly? Are there gaps within the strategy where there's something that's missing that we really need to include, or something that we might want to reconsider in terms of these approaches or action items? And then are there things that we need to frame a little differently or approach differently to make sure that they're supported by what we've heard through this process? Joe, is there anything else you would add to those questions or any clarification? But it might [23:16] Speaker B (unidentified): be frozen. Yeah, I'm sorry, I've got a bit of an unstable network work here, so I'm going, I can hear you the whole time and see you, but I know, I think sometimes I freeze. We [23:30] Speaker E (unidentified): can hear you, we can't see you, but we can hear you, Joe. [23:37] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, whenever it tells me I have an unstable network connection, I kill my video. Joe, [23:47] Speaker I (unidentified): is there anything you would add to that framing of the discussion? [23:50] Speaker B (unidentified): Before we jump into it, no, I mean, I think, you know, this task force has been really active and really involved in those, these issues really well, and so we're really, you know, confident that you've given this a good look. As Ben said, we've, we've tried to condense everything, but at the same time not miss anything. It's certainly possible we've missed some things, and you'll, you'll let us know what we might have missed, and then, you know, particularly in the plan, I mean, that's, it's really important that we have everything that we need in that plan. It may not be super specific always on things like timing, but we need to have all of the, all of the activities, all the actions need to be done in that plan, because really implementation of this is the important thing, and the plan is what's, what's really going to be it. So what we hope to get some good feedback from you and on things we might have missed or things we still need to maybe make clearer. Open [24:58] Speaker A (unidentified): up the discussion. If anyone has any comments or questions on any of those bullet points on the screen, raise your hand and [25:13] Speaker K (unidentified): you look like you're about to come out of your skin, a little overwhelmed. I'm just like, how do we want to go about this? Because this is just like blasted open there. Yeah, strategy [25:24] Speaker A (unidentified): by strategy, I think the first part is just addressing the overall as outlined on the screen. Is that right, Ben? You want to start with that? Yeah, [25:38] Speaker B (unidentified): any, you know, big things that we missed, any things that you're uncomfortable with? Okay, [25:50] Speaker E (unidentified): we'll start off with a idea with regard to this particular slide is referring to the previous one with the five or six specific issues that are part of the strategy document, correct? Yes. Then I would like to mention under resident quality of life, someplace in that list of six, I believe that housing, lack of housing, and all of the things that are surrounding the housing issue in Bar Harbor need to be prominent as components of both the resident quality of life, the sustainable business model. I see that I don't see the housing issue being specifically noted in that group of six items, and I realized that going back through our notes and the way this was put together, it does reflect what we talked about, but we also talked a lot about the housing issue. So where do you think that fits in, or where will that fit in the final draft of this? Let's be under present as in quality of life, or under business or policy issues? How's that going to shake out? [27:11] Speaker B (unidentified): That's a really good point because as you as you know, I mean, the two biggest pain points for residents seem to be vehicles and housing and affordability with, you know, with vehicles obviously we've got a major section on that with a lot of detail. With housing, you know, that's, I believe, and Michelle can comment on this too, that, you know, more covered and I think more appropriate for the comprehensive plan. So we do refer to it, but we have not gone into solutions on housing in detail. You're absolutely right about that. [27:50] Speaker E (unidentified): I fear that we might be criticized for that not being more prominent in the list of six issues. It's just a just a feeling mm-hmm I [28:06] Speaker B (unidentified): think that's a valid concern you know again I think they referring to the comprehensive plan is our answer at this point we're happy to discuss it I don't know if you want to comment on this Michelle because are you working through the implementation of the Well, [28:28] Speaker F (unidentified): I'm listening right now, and I think that Joe and Ben, I think you've got a point, quality of life, so how do we weave this through, what does that look like? I [29:01] Speaker L (unidentified): just have more of a general comment, because it's pretty thick, right? This is a lot of information, and I think it encompasses everything we've talked about. I don't know if anything's actually missing, but I feel like if we're going to submit it to a group of people like the council or for public comment, and we don't provide a series of priorities that we should be working on to accomplish, then it's just a pile of tasks with no set system to go and tackle something. If you just open it up and you look at it, 's like, oh, that's important. That's important. That's important. And it's the idea that everything's a priority so nothing's a priority and it just feels like without really pinpointing where we should start it's just going to be another document that doesn't go anywhere and it'll be a year of conversations and without any actual output in this way there's so many things in there that need funding we still don't have a decision on a funding mechanism we still haven't decided really anything that's going to pay for any of this and that means it's not Happening, it's a whole bunch of conversation to accomplish effectively nothing but a document. So at least start with a priority system. This is what we have to work on, and this is the only way something can get done is if there's money. So it's great, very comprehensive. I don't think there's nothing necessarily missing anything, but as a compendium to it or the bottom of it, we should really define what are we tackling, what are we suggesting is the number one thing to work on, and we're just gonna have to accept that some people aren't gonna be happy with that prioritization, and we're gonna have to accept that not everybody's gonna like every answer, and they're gonna have to accept that we've had a year of public comment, and it's not gonna accomplish the goals for every single person. We have to find, do [30:59] Speaker F (unidentified): do something. So I have discussed this with the Ben and Joe as in a bit like within the comp plan, kind of like there's a lot there, but what really, like what are the top three issues that continue, you know, rising up, so that's something that will come. Yeah, in, you know, as part of the package around this, strategy, as for the funding mechanism, that's something that we did just talk about today, that also needed to be looked at. [31:39] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, I mean, that second part is obviously the much tougher question, the funding mechanism. We will have discussion. Yeah, you're absolutely right, and Michelle had already beaten you to the punch on that priority issue, and that's true. I think we know what we think at least two of them are. Certainly happy to hear to what we come up with in the next draft so [32:23] Speaker K (unidentified): a complicating factor is that this is not just on the town, there's so much, so many other entities involved in doing this, and so to say it's a priority for the town may not be a priority for the chamber or the town east transportation or the key national park. So I think creating priorities is going to be a big challenge, and like most plans, a lot of stuff can happen in parallel, and some things are low-hanging fruit, some things are easy to achieve. So you know how do you prioritize if there's something easy, quick to do, may not be the highest priority, but you can get it done, that might move it up the line. So I find [33:06] Speaker E (unidentified): Does that fall on us as a body to do that, or is that after it goes to council, do you think? [33:12] Speaker K (unidentified): I'd say the question is, it's the, I mean, this is just the broad plan. There's so many specific details to any of these. [33:21] Speaker E (unidentified): And we can't implement the body. [33:24] Speaker K (unidentified): Well, no, but as I said, like, there are many other agencies and organizations involved. [33:33] Speaker F (unidentified): I'd like to add that this is a plan, this is a town plan, and those priorities at this point, recognizing that success is multi-pronged with a lot of different people involved, I also think that to start with, it falls back on the town to lead those efforts, either in-house or with partners or whatever. But I think that this said, I think that it is prioritizable. I'm not sure if that's a good word. But as from that perspective, I think in addition to that, I think that it's not to me a question as much as prioritizing the strategy unless there is clear a sequence that needs to happen as much as prioritizing the issues that needs to comfort, so I think that anything around parking and mobility is to me is one is probably the number one issue that needs to be looked at. So I think there is some place for prioritization, but still I partly agree with what you're saying, but I think there is an ability to do that in that framework. [34:56] Speaker K (unidentified): And if we do that, I'd suggest a high, medium, low versus a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. [35:03] Speaker F (unidentified): Oh, yeah,, because everything is dynamic. [35:06] Speaker K (unidentified): I'll jump [35:14] Speaker A (unidentified): in then. I thought it was very comprehensive and reflected well on the feedback that we heard throughout the process. I don't think anything was left out. The only thing that jumped out at me and probably falls under the framing and grounding, There's a couple areas where the strategy mentions limiting new lodging construction and where that's such a kind of a hot topic these days, it wasn't very clear where we meant to or did we want to be more specific about that. Are we proposing not part of the strategy be limiting lodging construction everywhere or in certain places or in different degrees in the context of vehicle congestion we haven't really mentioned much about the you know new lodging development taking it taking place in our neighboring towns which will drive additional vehicles to downtown, so I guess I'm not sure if perhaps we should be more specific on what that suggestion really means yeah. [36:49] Speaker B (unidentified): I'll respond to that one. So that's an issue that's, yeah, as you pointed out, unresolved in the town. It's discussed. It is a, it is a big issue that I suppose is going to be resulted at some point soon, and it is something that's, that's going to impact resident quality of life, vehicles, as you pointed out, other issues as well. So we feel something needs to be in there. It's extremely vague, it's true, as written, but given the fact that it's a topic being, you know, that's under discussion with no, we don't know what the outcome's going to be, I don't think we can say. [37:38] Speaker C (unidentified): Ricky, I'd like to go back to what Michelle was talking about and what John was alluding to also, in terms of how do we decide what the primary or what the most important things are. And I just think back when the other Michelle was here. She did one time do a presentation with a word salad, and it had different words in different sizes to illustrate what the most important issues were. And I think that kind of a visual would be a thing that might lend to people understanding what we see as the most important, I guess, or the things that should be addressed sooner rather than later. I'll put it that way. So I would suggest we try maybe to develop a visual like that. [38:52] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, I know. Yeah, I remember what you were talking about that Michelle did. Yeah, I like that idea. Ben, though, I'll leave it to you as our... [39:02] Speaker I (unidentified): Well, yeah, I mean, part of that is we don't have necessarily a clear mechanism where we would drive that input, because that reflected, I believe, one process in a different destination where they were pulling from, commuting input. But we haven't, we've had several different channels of input, and so being able to say this is what we heard in the Polko survey, for example, in the workshops, in the Business survey, and then in the task force meetings, we wouldn't necessarily be able to aggregate that in one way that clearly represents like that Word map that we've had. But I think one of the things that we can do also today is talk through where you, as the task force members, and thinking through as members of the community and representatives of your neighbors and other community members are, what are those priority areas? And I think, as Joe indicated, we have a couple in mind that we've heard through this process that reflect both, I think, where there are areas of consensus within the task force and within the broader community around issues that need to be addressed or solution specific solutions, but also ones that are in some sense time sensitive or need to be addressed sooner rather than later to enable other processes. I point to, for example, on the financing issue, trying to address a financing solution as we have in the policy section around local option tax, then allows you to do more in these other areas if we unlock that. Would be an example where we've heard a lot of consensus within the task force around wanting to address that as an issue. Comment, so you can move along then. Okay, well, I, yeah, I think who else in the room have we heard from? I don't think we've heard from everyone yet in terms of feedback on the document, I [41:26] Speaker M (unidentified): mean the whole document. I have, I have some issues as we get into, okay, as we get into the different sections, I, the whole document is a lot to swallow, yeah, but as I get into the sections, I was just going to send you written feedback. I can say it right now. My main feedback as we get into the responsibilities, it repeatedly says the town, the town council should. I'm having trouble with the word should. We discussed that earlier, but one thing in these charts that in addition to the town council should it refers repeatedly to the Chamber of Commerce should, and I'm at a loss as to the Chamber of Commerce's buy-in on what we're doing. I don't own a business, so maybe business owners can address this as to is this the Chamber of commerce's responsibility or are we telling them this is their responsibilities, say [42:35] Speaker L (unidentified): that we can't tell the chamber what to do, but we're telling them we can hear they should, yeah, she could [42:41] Speaker K (unidentified): instead of should, okay, could, it's not saying about other organizations having so many roles that you know it's up to them not us to go along, so I agree with you that about direction [42:56] Speaker L (unidentified): You can have a priority and not have to be telling somebody what to do. I mean there's 65 things or something in here, you have to pick some areas to say, okay if this is something we have to go work with the National Park, we've got to go work with the Chamber, then these are priorities that the Council needs to say, are you going to agree or not agree, and then go work with those organizations to figure out how to solve it. But you're right, we can't tell. [43:20] Speaker M (unidentified): Yeah, I've struggled with that throughout the document, not the town council, should the chamber of commerce should, that's my only comment right now. [43:37] Speaker C (unidentified): Curious, are you referring to these pages? Because when I look at it, my responsible party for improving visitor information and trip planning, town of our harbor chamber of commerce responsible, and I don't see this should in there. It's in there quite a bit, it really, yeah, okay, it's in the narrative part, I think maybe, yeah, in the narrative it says should. [44:06] Speaker B (unidentified): And yeah, I mean, some of that we can change to good, I think that's probably appropriate, although you know when you get to a plan you, if nobody's responsible then nothing happens, right? And I think the point that I want us to follow up on is making sure that whoever's in the responsible line is on board with that responsibility, and certainly we would need to run that by the chamber and the town is going to, you know, through the town council, and I think the town's review itself will decide whether. They want to be helped and help Vicky. [44:45] Speaker I (unidentified): Can I just. [44:46] Speaker E (unidentified): Interject, if you make, if you just simply make a language change recommended responsible party, or suggested responsible parties, that softens it a bit and you're not going to bristle and, well, wait a minute, when did this become our responsibility? It becomes a suggestion that, after all of our work, that we recommend that this be something that land in the laps of these three parties. I mean, not that we're going to do that, but the document says that. that 's a nuance that maybe prevents people from being upset about the suggestion that something's their responsibility. [45:31] Speaker K (unidentified): I think we can, the justiceship's suggestion is to take out the column that says responsible because we're saying the town council, the town of Balharb is responsible and just list those that the town would have to work with to get this done, so partners or collaborators are recommended collaborators, well so clear you say we're gonna change signs on route 3, that's main deal here, you know, like so partners is fine, it's just taking out that responsible top column and it's all. [46:08] Speaker F (unidentified): Really town as far as. [46:28] Speaker N (unidentified): The overall document goes, I think, for the casual observer who picks this up, it's probably going to be a level of disappointment in the sense that there are no magic solutions. I doubt that any or many of us came into it thinking there were magic solutions, but it's going to identify a lot of issues, some of which are in flux and some of which have no obvious, simple solution. And that's, I think it's the nature of the beast, if you will. But Ben or Joe, you worked on a lot of these. I don't know how many of them have you feel like have come out with any aha moments, but there are no any aha moments. I mean, a lot of it, a lot like, I know that people will say a lot of that was obvious, we didn't need to talk for 18 months to know there's too many cars and not enough parking and so forth. But that's my casual observation. It's not a criticism because I think it's the nature of the beast, but... [48:29] Speaker A (unidentified): I understand what you're saying, Dave, and I think perhaps in the executive summary or the opening that you were talking about, it might help the reader to understand that this is a collection of, you know, like you said, the feedback that we receive, we've identified the biggest issues. This is a, you know, a strategy document that has, you know, goals, strategies, but not yet any tactics, because that would be the next step, and I think we can help the reader understand that the real nitty gritty will come in the tactics, but that's going to be up to the town and whatever other partners they bring in to help, and I just thought that maybe helping people to understand that this wasn't supposed to solve all of our harbor's problems, but, you know, set us on the on the path that may get us there over a very long period of time. I [49:48] Speaker I (unidentified): agree. Also, I think with David and Vicki, with what you said, I would say there isn't a magic bullet here. It's a bullet that solves everything, and that's always – it's a very rare process, especially when you're dealing with really complicated and challenging issues. I think the one thing that we've seen from this process that would open up a lot would be reform around the tax situation with local option tax. I think that is one area where I would say it's not a, even if we got substantial reform there that allowed for greater visitors and improved, you know, the revenues from visitors staying, well, addressing some of the needs there, it still wouldn't solve everything, but it would go quite a bit in terms of addressing these other areas. That would be one item. But even that, if we look at it as a really complicated and contingent pack to, and so when we look at also some of the other areas where it, I think what we've seen is that there's a lot of division within the community or uncertainty around how to prioritize things. What we have heard from this process that has been positive, I think, is identifying some areas of consensus, and that's something that we didn't necessarily have. It was, because when I think Joe and I started this process, I would not have said that there was necessary consensus around, say, I think people would tell you that vehicle use, for example, in managing where vehicles are, was an important issue. But what this process has helped us do is put a finer point on that and point to some of the solutions. In other areas, there isn't necessarily a clear solution around this is just going to make everyone happy and interest in terms of what people would like to see Bar Harbor look like. And that's what's really hard to resolve in strategy. What we're trying to do is find those areas of common interest. Interest. And we've identified those, I think, and you all have worked through that throughout this process to also develop a model of working together collaboratively. And that's part of what I see as a real value in the strategy process has been the process itself. Even though often when we're coming to a strategy, we're saying things that people in some sense already intuit or know, but we're trying to articulate it and provide that evidence base as well. [52:38] Speaker B (unidentified): period yeah you know i think you 've you've all given us a really good challenge for the next the next things that we're writing because yeah i mean ben's right we the process itself has been i think really important you know that's part of it but you know you also mentioned yeah trying to get a little excitement into this document i think that's that's and i think, you know, the exciting thing on things like this is where you, and I think maybe one, a vision of those seem to be, I think, you know, as a visitor, for the visitors, but certainly for the rest, that's the kind of thing we could write something that's. I'll [53:54] Speaker C (unidentified): Respond a little bit to that, but I think that's a good idea, and I think that the executive summary is the thing that a lot of people are going to read first on the list, and a lot of people are going to read that, and hopefully they will get a sense of what the document contains through that executive summary, and hopefully that'll be a page or two at most because I think that if we just expect people to read through 44 pages right now and maybe more as we go along that people are just not Going to go there so I would hope that in the executive summary, the main things like walkability, the vehicle issue, the quality of life issue, those things could come to the surface and be focused on in that executive summary to some extent and then the rest of it would be supplemental to that I don't know whether that makes sense or not but yes it does and I think what [55:20] Speaker I (unidentified): We're also able to do in the executive summary of is anchor the rest of the document is going back to that's the definition of sustainable tourism that we had worked on much earlier in the process because I think that also helps laying out what the ambition of this is you know and I have it pulled up just as a reminder that sustainable tourism in Bar Harbor means protecting resident quality of life cultural heritage and the natural environment while strengthening the local economy and providing Quality experiences for visitors now and in the future and that helps I think provide a window into what we're looking to achieve through this strategy in a way that's so succinct but also I think a bit more appealing and then maybe what comes out and then obviously we're able in that executive summary and in the introductory sections to lay out this [56:23] Speaker K (unidentified): Is gonna be a terrible topic to bring up but not a good way to introduce what I'm gonna say but for completeness I mean a lot a lot of this I was driven by cruise ships. Originally I think we wouldn't be here if it was not a cruise ship issue and when we started it was so up in the air and vague and we've gotten more clarity. It ain't over till it's over and it's not over yet but to me I think it'll be striking for people to read this and go what about cruise ships? There's one action about disembarkation location which doesn't seem to like we seem to avoided it pretty well. I think that the public's gonna be, the residents are gonna be like, what about cruise ships? And now maybe more than ever, the question is work, where is the town gonna go with cruise ships? With the latest court decision, may not be the final decision, but it seems odd that we haven't really tackled that at all. And I'm just [57:35] Speaker J (unidentified): Yeah, and I was, but I don't do [57:48] Speaker E (unidentified): What you mean we don't really get into it? Perhaps we could in the executive summary make no joke of the fact that recognizing that was an ongoing issue in the town addressed by the town through legal means, etc., was not part of the premise of our work, so that it's indicated that we weren't just ignoring it, but what we were intentionally letting that play itself out. I mean, recognizing that some of that is driving the quality of life issues and other things, is there a way to do that and not make it Look like it's just a, just a cop out on our part? Because obviously we made a conscious decision not to have that be part of our major discussions, recognizing what was going on around us. Does that, does that seem like a bad idea? Yeah, I [58:48] Speaker B (unidentified): Mean, I think that's, that's fine, you know, I mean, it's sort of what we've done with the lodging moratorium as well, or limits on lodging, I should say. So yes, we can write that in. Obviously, it's not a solution. I did that section where we have the reference to managing disembarkation, which I think whatever level of cruise ships you're gonna have, that's kind of an issue. Obviously, the bigger cruise ships, it's a huge issue with them, but you know, we can't really put a bunch of solutions in there because we don't know how it's going to land. And also, I think you've all decided you didn't really want to dive into that issue with all this uncertainty. And so yeah, I think your suggestion, I think it's fine. Then do you want to comment on them? Yeah, I totally [59:48] Speaker I (unidentified): Agree, I think that's appropriate, just in terms of acknowledging that it is a major issue that the community is discussing, because I think if I was looking at this and knowing about what is happening in Bar Harbor, but not knowing about this process, I would ask, where is Cruz? And so I think just being able to answer that question and noting that it's not that we don't know it exists, but is an ongoing issue and one where developing solutions is a serious challenge, people in legal reasons, that we want to focus on the areas where the [1:00:28] Speaker E (unidentified): Strategy can address things. Shouldn't be put in there unless we all agree with that. I just brought it up as an addition to what John was saying, that maybe everyone should. [1:00:43] Speaker K (unidentified): again I 'm bringing it up because I do think we and this is late in the game I know but it seems like they're gonna be cruise ships in some form and if we take the latest decision it's really unanswered about what to do in the fall September October because it is so quiet according to the judge and can allow cruise ships or can't restrict them as in we do in July and August or plan to do so I mean is there a strategy that this group would recommend to the council that there be some controls as in the past? Because that's sort of open-ended, to go back to the previous MOUs with the cruise ships, or we start fresh. I just wonder if we should actually be saying yes, that those disembarkations should be managed to be an open-ended visitation because we're concerned about the capacity in the town, and so a generic strategy. There's [1:01:55] Speaker A (unidentified): a paragraph in the resident quality of life section that addresses cruise ship disembarkation logistics. It's sort of embedded underneath the strategy for managed peak season crowding. Perhaps we just pull that out and have it be its own strategy section, subsection within that section, and build it out. So in a way that kind of covers sort of like a what, you know, if-then scenario is one way of approaching it, I suppose. Or overall recommendation for, I guess John put it best, a better management of that specific type of congestion. [1:03:00] Speaker K (unidentified): I'm just looking, you know, I read through that and you know, having ambassadors to talk to people about behaviors and checking, you know, looking at different location for disembarkation doesn't get to crowding. And you could have a bunch of very polite, well-behaved visitors, but if there's too many of them, there's still too many. And neither of those go to really a crowding issue, maybe the location if it's concentrated, but I mean, it depends on where. I mean, I would say, you know, there should be a strategy that we're recommending that the town does consider limitations and I hate that's a negative word but we've had limitations we've done it 's nothing new it's just that we need to impose them if and when the cruise ships return and [1:04:00] Speaker J (unidentified): it's still so busy around here according to traffic. [1:04:07] Speaker K (unidentified): Counts, I mean like cars. I don't know if you've looked at this Jeremy, but according to traffic counts, October was busier than August for the first time. This is the first we're seeing that it's not a sort of bell curve looking visitation. It's like, you know, throughout all the other stats we looked at, it's now a different peak. There are two peaks now, August and then now. You saw that over the weekend I [1:04:44] Speaker N (unidentified): guess where I said cruise ships get a disproportionate amount of attention for what impacts they have on the overall feel because, I mean, essentially there's been little or no cruise ships. There was one today, but there's been a few this month. But meanwhile, most of the issues that are talked about in here are not impacted by whether there is or is not cruise ships. So, I certainly would not be opposed to at least alluding to the idea that moderation in cruise ship visitation would be encouraged, but it impacts a small number of businesses in any significant way. And so I think we need, I would just advocate we need to be, not attention should not get diverted into overly concerned with that issue because I won't say it's a non-issue, but it's compared to a lot of these things, it's not huge. I think it's important to some of the issues we're discussing that we not go back to the 5,000 passengers a day kind of days and be quite that explicit, but advocating for some level of moderation. I think for good reason we didn't spend a lot of time on that because, and that plus the fact it's another one of those factors like a lot of things that are in flux and we can't control, but we advocate for. If I understand you right John, you're saying let's say a little bit about it without, yeah, acknowledge that we are aware of that as an issue. [1:07:57] Speaker K (unidentified): Yeah, I think, I mean, we're definitely, there's a big chunk of this about vehicles, right? But the difference is, I don't know, me, because I've been at this for a while, I don't know how to control vehicles coming into, on a public road, into this town. We can, there is an opportunity to control the number of cruise ship passengers, getting off the boat voluntarily with the cruise lines. They seem to be willing to do that. So I don't know of any control on vehicles who can control their parking, but we can't control them coming to town. The National Park does add a Cadillac by reservation system because it can, but we can't do that with public roads as far as I know. So we're sort of stuck. And so while it may not be the biggest issue, it's an issue that we can directly control by the referendum right now in July and August and by hopefully new agreements with cruise lines in the other months. [1:09:07] Speaker G (unidentified): When's the visitor center going to have more parking? [1:09:11] Speaker K (unidentified): In Hulls Cove? Yeah. Not clear, but it's within say five years, but it's not to be quoted if anyone and listen to this it's not it's not anything certain so and that's the other thing there are a couple things in here that seem to be certain things and they should be more tentative about the bus purchases and what they can do so I do want to say that like I agree with you that [1:09:40] Speaker F (unidentified): but you can't control the as it's done in the university campus where they're not building any more parking so that controls it where you take a lane off of during peak hours for you know cars unless there are this many people and it's for buses I mean there is I think like we have I think it's permits a bit of a blanket statement saying there's no way to control the number of vehicles that come you can't control how they come but if you don't have parking or it's it's not necessarily to keep accommodating and accommodating, then you will control the facto certain number of vehicles along with other policies. I'm not advocating for one or the other. I'm just saying that, you know, it's been done in cities. [1:10:32] Speaker K (unidentified): I could say you could control parking to a certain extent, but we're down Fourth of July, right? People find a place to park and look at Acadia. People find a place to park that the park did not provide parking space for. So you get road parking, illegal parking, bad parking, because they're still going to come. No one's going to say, I'm not going to get parking space in Bar Harbor, so I'm not going to go there. They're going to go there, and hopefully they'll find a spot. That's the congestion issue. [1:11:06] Speaker A (unidentified): I think maybe I wouldn't say control. I would say we can, you know, we can't, yeah, we can't control, definitely. That was one of my notes, is we can't control the number of people that want to come here. I mean, there's just nothing you can do about that. What we can do is put mechanisms in place that will modify behavior. Katie Gateway Center is one of them. So I mean, there's mechanisms that modify behavior that could reduce vehicle traffic. And I think really that's what we're trying to get to. [1:11:41] Speaker F (unidentified): You did this on the mountain, the park was this on the mountain. Right. So. [1:11:46] Speaker K (unidentified): But my point was that's why we would keep cruise ships in the conversation because it's just another option [1:11:53] Speaker F (unidentified): to manage. So I think what we're hearing on cruise ships is address that, like there's maybe not an appetite to go back to how it was before, for but there's also an appetite to work with, you know, the decision by the judge and have finding something that's more measurable. I'm not saying those words, but that's, I think, what I'm hearing. It doesn't have to, you know, we're not stating a number, but we can, we can state an intent and a desire. Yes. Yeah. I realize that almost all the [1:12:24] Speaker E (unidentified): The vehicle management discussions are about single-family vehicles and parking and that congestion. But I'd like to point out that the cruise ships bring huge coach buses here constantly. Even the American Cruise Line doesn't use local vendors. They bring their own buses. Even when they're in Pucksport, they bring them over here and take tours. I think it would be wrong for us to assume that managing vehicle use doesn't include managing coach buses if the cruise ships were encouraged or forced to utilize local contractors, which there are many of them around here that would be delighted to all those hundreds and hundreds of people. And the park would probably be delighted to have less coach buses at the top of Cadillac Mountain than everywhere else, just making that assumption from some personal experience. But I don't think it's right for us to assume that the management vehicle use is just about private vehicles because the coach buses, I mean, the town makes a lot of concessions, takes all kinds of parking away from people that are coming here that day or those days the ships are here. That whole section of West Street is blocked off for coach buses to serve only one component of our visitors. I don't think we can ignore that 's part, and meeting coach buses on West Street, or anywhere else in town for that matter, is no different. So that's certainly part of something that people complain about, the vehicle congestion, and certainly buses, big buses, big coach buses are a component of that. Not that they all serve in cruise ships because in the fall in particular we have buses coming from Ohio and Indiana and everybody else to come and see the fall foliage. But that's a smaller percentage of them I think than those that are serving cruise ships. [1:14:23] Speaker A (unidentified): So here's a question. How do we adjust, I mean our work product here is supposed to reflect the feedback that we heard throughout the process. And on cruise we heard everything from ban them to bring them all back so how do we how do we put that into a recommendation that's supposed to be reflective of the community input when it ranges from ban them all together to [1:14:58] Speaker N (unidentified): bring them back and then or more yeah what I would say is we do it in the context of sustainable tourism, which acts down the middle there somewhere, that sustainable, but not explodable, or... [1:15:25] Speaker A (unidentified): I mean, I think we got where we got because cruise became a pressure cooker, which I controlled for 20 years, and then it exploded, and now it is the hot topic, or one of many hot topics, and I think that the best we could do is to focus on sustainability and the economic value. [1:15:49] Speaker K (unidentified): There's no way that our recommendations and our strategies reflect everybody's opinions. We hear extremes all the time on all issues so I think the hard job that we have is to filter that and then each of our own input into that is what comes out in the strategy. So I think, you know, it's maybe a middle-of-the-road type approach, but I think we're, even though we've heard a lot of extremes, we can't address everybody's. What [1:16:20] Speaker L (unidentified): about the emoji? It's just like. I like that. We just don't know. Is that an official document? I'll be on the cover. [1:16:29] Speaker C (unidentified): I'd like to go back to Jim's suggestion, and that is we, you know, recognize in the executive summary that we've discussed this but we've decided not to take a particular stand one way or another on cruise ships because who knows whether this latest legal thing about it's it's constitutional for two months but non-const unconstitutional for the other ten months. I mean, that's crazy, if you ask me, that something could be constitutional and unconstitutional. Anyway, I think that, you know, there are people in town who are not happy with the way that came out. And I think just saying that, you know, we recognize cruise ships are part of our ongoing discussions in town. Yeah, exactly. But we, you know, and I think if we open this up to making the decision one way or another, we're going to have more than just this meeting to have to discuss that. I don't think we're going to be able to come to a consensus on it during this meeting. Let's not forget the [1:17:49] Speaker F (unidentified): The survey that was done on crew shipment information that was responded by businesses and residents, I think that's, I'm not agreeing or disagreeing, I'm just saying that 's something that I think had a lot of impact. [1:18:05] Speaker K (unidentified): A lot of impact. Even staunch supporters agree that there should be limits. So I think having the idea of limits is not, it's actually probably the most popular option. I mean, it's a question of what those limits are. I wouldn't try and put into this what we think the limits are. I think we should recommend that the strategy or process should be to come to a consensus on limits if, again, sort of on the assumption that it's moving in that direction. [1:18:42] Speaker F (unidentified): My point with the survey was that if that's something that the committee wants to do and you go back to your point that he's saying like what did you hear that was definitely something that there was an incredible response, right? Again, I'm not advocating. [1:19:03] Speaker L (unidentified): I agree with John. I was joking about the emoji. I wouldn't know you did that, but that's something needs to be said. And I think one of the things that we're so fixated on in almost every level of every committee is people are going to be upset in town. And honestly, they're going to be upset. My grandfather used to give me this joke about, he's like, some of those people you give them a hundred dollar bill the complaint is wrinkled. And I never really thought about it at the time, but boy is that true today and no matter what you tell them, somebody's going to be fired up, somebody's going to be on their keyboard and they're like can you believe how stupid that person is, right? So why does that matter as much as some people put credence to it? And, but instead of these extremes that we're constantly worried about, make some decisions right in the middle. You know, Colin Powell had a really great quote where he said, Responsibility sometimes means pissing people off. And because you have to make the responsible decision, the responsible decision would have to be some kind of moderation, some kind of compromise, and people are going to be mad about it. Every compromise has upset people. If everybody's happy with it, probably wasn't the right decision. So, is it moderation? Would I like to see 5,000 people in front of the bar heart brain every day? No. But 3,000 would probably work with that. And a lot of the business owners were okay with the modified MO whatever at the time, but by then, the ship had sailed, and the people were too angry, and it didn't go through. A year before, maybe that would have worked, and we'd still have had the same moderation. But people were too far past the ability to actually compromise and take moderate solutions. So we should try to get back to some kind of moderation. And I'm not really excited about having lots of cruise ships here. But I would be okay with it. And I know as a company we weren't very excited about having lots of cruise ships every day. But we work with it because we prefer a compromise that works for the overall community instead of just what we want. [1:21:11] Speaker H (unidentified): I wonder if there is value in when writing it up in putting a stat of like the number of a percentage of the number of visitors that come to the island how many of them are cruise ship passengers just to acknowledge like cruise ships are a thing but we are looking at the big picture and cruise ships are just this small percentage so we're trying to affect the largest change all as well which maybe for now means putting little blinders to [1:21:48] Speaker E (unidentified): cruise ships we have to remember we're in this we're in this entire issue all of us to make a difference not to make friends we take if it's even proceeds that we took aside there's gonna be people that are angry about that [1:22:11] Speaker K (unidentified): my favorite topic right is visitation jeremy visitation visits riders disembarkations very hard to sure not apples and oranges it's like apples and pine trees it's like so and there are if we get into that sure there are certain people in on this island that really grab on to that and make it you probably know what i'm saying but make it the issue and i think we can go there without saying that because then we'll just be called out on well what about this number that number because it 's Happens that discussion has happened. The consensus is we do then need to have [1:23:02] Speaker E (unidentified): Some mention of it in the executive summary that everyone, I don't think it's [1:23:06] Speaker K (unidentified): The executive summary, but the executive summary has to have something. What I'm [1:23:13] Speaker A (unidentified): Hearing is that we need to have a strategy section within the main document that it, that has a little more meat to it around cruise. And is there consensus that there should be some strategies around moderation or a moderate, more moderate approach to cruise? I [1:23:37] Speaker F (unidentified): Would say to me, just like tonight listening to this, it's more of a statement, because the strategy to me is what, why did we get to where we were, is maybe how people were being managed when they were this disembarked. Wasn't that some of the rub? I mean, the rub maybe you have been like the visual and those ships were moved behind the island, that visual stuff, but I think the big rub was maybe the feeling of quality of life or being deprioritized or just that, like, it was just for whatever reason. So For me, that the way that there was a strategy there about like managing once they've disembarked, I think that's, like, super valid. And, like, the general statement may be that, I don't know if it needs to be a strategy, but a general statement that they need, like, you're talking about, but a strategy to me is about how they're being managed once they... I think that's part of it. Yeah. To me, it's a big part of it. Why we got where we got. [1:24:45] Speaker L (unidentified): I think... And 42 ships in 30 days in September is constant, reoccurring, never. This is where you turn into this rippled scaffolding here. This is probably the same things that have been talked about for a decade. [1:25:03] Speaker F (unidentified): But that they be 1,000 or 3,000, it's about what happens when, right? Is that dispersion, I think? [1:25:13] Speaker L (unidentified): Well, it's part of it, but I think that's, I mean, I was on the cruise ship committee. I remember the big part we had, where are we going to put them? you know a b or c disembarkate or the anchorages and then playing music listening to the music our guests could hear that happening all the time they're watching aladdin on the disney off deck and you can hear it at devils right that came up in our feedback so if you can't do that you're going to tender come over here and only if weather and that never got to go in effect because we had covid and then it took years for us to really see the fruits of that effort that predated my time on the cruise ship committee, and Evan and the team had already worked on that, but they never really implemented it, and we finally buried them behind the island, and they stopped doing that. I had to call once, maybe twice, to the harbor master to tell them to turn off the music and loudspeakers, but they did it, and it has been from my perspective, being the vocal critic of having them directly in front of our guests every single day, after day, after day, and hearing it directly from guests, that they moved them behind the island, just moved another one of our hotels but it was easier and further away and resolved 90% of the conflict right but then by then the courts have already gone in and they just evaporated and here we are now they're coming back but the disembarkation wasn't for us at least wasn't the biggest but it's certainly a piece like John said there's so many layers of this onion that this segment of the community is really fired up about people they couldn't cross the street in their car this is really fired up about the busia this one's really fired up about the environmental impacts or perception of environmental effects this one's about the smokestack this one's about the lack of people this one's about too many people I mean it's such a hard thing to just say anything other than it's a challenge that has ongoing court implications and we suggest some kind of moderation in the future agreement with the town that you guys have to [1:27:08] Speaker K (unidentified): figure out so Joe and Ben can summarize what you said in a way that is a strategy rather than saying without getting into numbers we need a cord the town needs a coordinated way of managing the impacts of cruise ships because they're not going there's no there's nothing anywhere in this town that's saying cruise ships aren't a band right so we have cruise ships it's and that there has to be an active way of managing their impacts that may include limitations on numbers, but behaviors like Moving the ships to Anchorage B solved a lot of those issues. And there were a number of recommendations that didn't get implemented because COVID came along and the referendum came along, and it was sort of too little too late. Okay, [1:28:07] Speaker B (unidentified): so the issue we're talking about, I think, I mean, one part of it, and this is the controversial part, is, you know, the number of passengers visiting, right? And so what I'm hearing is something like this. I wrote this down, and I don't think it's very good because I don't like the first part of it, which starts with parties involved. So, you know, maybe we should be more specific on what we're talking about. To here's what I wrote down parties involved should reach an agreement on a moderate number of cruise passenger visitors for one that could be per week I suppose and have an ongoing dialogue with cruise ship and the town should have an ongoing dialogue with cruise ship operators I know that's that but that's not very well set but is that what you're getting at and you know how can it be more specific if so how well [1:29:03] Speaker C (unidentified): One thing is that we already have limits for July and August, so I don't think, and those are considered constitutional decision for July and August, so this would only apply to the other months of the year, and of course at least four or five months of the year there are going to be no cruise ships just because of the weather. So I think that we have to be clear that we're talking about some kind of moderation for the unconstitutional months, I'll put it that way. [1:29:46] Speaker A (unidentified): So we're really talking May, June, September, October? I [1:29:51] Speaker K (unidentified): wouldn't get into that. That could change. I would not go anywhere near the litigation. I would recommend that we recommend that the town continue to engage to both support and moderate the impacts of cruise ships like it should be about supporting and sustaining their visits here, you know, in a way that does not create undue impacts those should be a little environmental I [1:30:26] Speaker F (unidentified): think that 's I would like list some of the stuff the journal categories that Jeremy said because I think that's like you know right on environmental location [1:30:39] Speaker A (unidentified): I mean so forth and so on. One element of the memorandum of agreement that it seemed was highly popular was increased number of cruise ship free days so that might be something we could actually stick our fork into here. [1:31:00] Speaker K (unidentified): We could say, and, you know, consider such things as, and there's a whole list, the total number, the number of days without. You could look at that MOU and just recommend, you know, looking, considering these options. [1:31:19] Speaker L (unidentified): I'm really glad you brought this up, John. Yeah, me too. Some more pizza? [1:31:28] Speaker B (unidentified): Okay, you know, this is a tricky issue, needless to say. And by that I mean actually wordsmithing this in a way that you're all happy with and it actually says something. My suggestion is that Ben and I write something up and send it out to you within the next couple of days. I mean, we can do it now if you want. I can keep giving you ideas if Ben can too. I want to write, but I think you've given us pretty good guidance here. You know, Ben, I think we can do that. Is that you think? Yeah, absolutely. I think on this, you know. [1:32:06] Speaker I (unidentified): Similar to what we presented for other, the other strategies within the high-level areas, certainly probably something that would fit under, probably under the visitor and visitor experience section around this, it. [1:32:26] Speaker B (unidentified): Sounds like you're all on the same page in my head, but I'm not in the room, so is that. [1:32:32] Speaker M (unidentified): I didn't say I'm not on the same page. I'm struggling with this moderation, and moderation to you might mean different than to me. So I guess I'd like to see something in writing that I can understand. I don't like the word moderation. How about consensus? Yeah. I just think moderation can mean so many different things to different people. [1:32:59] Speaker N (unidentified): That's the beauty of it. [1:33:02] Speaker J (unidentified): That's kind of the point, yeah. [1:33:03] Speaker K (unidentified): The consensus doesn't have a higher, lower, it's not descriptive that way. [1:33:11] Speaker E (unidentified): I'm not worried about offending people for using the term moderation because I think an awful lot of the community would like to see moderation and appreciation. [1:33:24] Speaker A (unidentified): I mean, doctors tell us to take all our bad habits of moderation all the time. How do you interpret that? Differently than you. [1:33:34] Speaker K (unidentified): It's like everyone, well I can't say that because it's consensus, but consensus is saying that for the most part we all agree versus moderation meaning we're, I agree that's sort of pre-decision that it's going to be in the middle and the middle may not be the right place to be. [1:33:51] Speaker C (unidentified): I'm confused about consensus. For me, consensus would mean that a body all agrees to something. So I can't see using consensus in terms of how many people should be getting off of cruise ships. [1:34:14] Speaker K (unidentified): Consensus doesn't mean everybody agrees. It means that you can live with the decision. I disagree with you, but I'm not at a point where I would actually oppose it. [1:34:25] Speaker N (unidentified): That's [1:34:28] Speaker M (unidentified): the best thing. I'm fine with it. [1:34:31] Speaker C (unidentified): I don't agree with the consensus. [1:34:33] Speaker K (unidentified): You can't have consensus on a word. [1:34:35] Speaker N (unidentified): We have a consensus. [1:34:39] Speaker A (unidentified): Consensus of disagreement. [1:34:41] Speaker E (unidentified): A general or widespread agreement in opinion, judgment, or belief among members of a group. [1:34:52] Speaker A (unidentified): Definition of consensus. Well, how about we let Ben and Joe write something up for us to look at and then we can... [1:35:00] Speaker D (unidentified): see if we can get consensus on it revisit or see if we can live with it not always unanimous [1:35:06] Speaker K (unidentified): does not strictly require 100 enthusiastic approval what does moderation mean just like quality [1:35:17] Speaker D (unidentified): or state of action keeping within reasonable or balanced limits and avoiding [1:35:40] Speaker A (unidentified): Okay. Do you have another slide, Ben? Or where are we? No. No. [1:35:52] Speaker I (unidentified): I think what we've, we've actually started to go in a really productive direction and going from looking at really around on this case gaps and I think we identified a good one here and given Joe and me some homework which we'll be looking forward to and probably pulling out at the sources dictionaries go through but I think also what I'd like to do is I'll create the opening if anyone has specific feedback, on the specific subsections, those managing vehicle use, the sustainable business model, et cetera. Unless there's any remaining of the high level general approach, I know that there may be feedback that will correspond to those specific sections or strategies, items [1:36:55] Speaker A (unidentified): that they'd like to. Do you want to go down the list of the sections and just have people give you some feedback on each section one at a time? [1:37:07] Speaker I (unidentified): Yeah we could start with going in order that managing vehicle use. [1:37:21] Speaker K (unidentified): Ben and Joe, did you get a chance to meet and talk with Paul Murphy at Downey's Transportation? Has he had a chance to give feedback on these [1:37:37] Speaker B (unidentified): strategies dealing directly I would just [1:37:58] Speaker K (unidentified): recommend using less definitive language about things that are going to happen when they haven't happened yet so for example on the first strategy increased bus service by visitors and so forth to say that Island Explorer has ordered enough new buses to do this is not you know starting in 2028 that's just too absolute and it's also not you know just in terms of correctness Island Explorer is a service is a sort of a meme of the bus service but Downey's transportation is the organization and in This case, its main dot is ordering the buses, not down these transportation. I just like to check with Paul on how comfortable he is with these strategies. And summer, just summer is so specific, like talking about early morning service and late. I would just, I would just be very tentative in being able to carry these out, because they're some of these are at this point really not feasible. I [1:39:15] Speaker B (unidentified): could hear him. I think you also mentioned something about the parking as well, which I did think that was underway. Yeah. [1:39:50] Speaker K (unidentified): Yeah, I mean, the money for construction is not available yet. So yeah, it's just not an absolute. Okay, the planning is in progress. Can I just finish one? I'll be done with one other comment in the section. I'm [1:40:19] Speaker C (unidentified): talking about sort of moving people to [1:40:23] Speaker K (unidentified): peripheral parking lots. You specifically mention the baseball fields at the parking at the athletic fields off the School Street. Yes, that is to me, that's sort of under the Park and Rec Committee purview. I know parking restrictions have been, our meters have been put in there, but in general the town is very protective of that for people using the athletic fields. And well, that's really a touch point for locals, that we don't want to push visitors into those box, and it's not, it's not going to make it 's not a huge lot to begin with it's not like the term the ferry terminal or high school or colesco yeah i would take that out [1:41:15] Speaker B (unidentified): So that should be deleted. Yes, that'd be my recommendation. Yeah, I would say so related [1:41:31] Speaker N (unidentified): Related to that, it said something about College of Atlantic Parking, which again, I don't know whether anyone has talked to them or where that came from, but I wouldn't necessarily assume they would embrace that concept. [1:41:55] Speaker K (unidentified): There are only a few big lots that would make an impact. Act Hollis Cove, the terminal and the high school. Hey, I don't know if any other like Versant, I don't know what. Yeah, and they will have the person thing was college parking at all. Yeah, [1:42:21] Speaker G (unidentified): of events. Yeah, the naming [1:42:28] Speaker A (unidentified): specific lots and that'd be part of the stuff is to identify viable satellite parking options. The high school has. Yeah, we [1:42:40] Speaker K (unidentified): should. High school has over 300 spaces that are not used in July and August. You can't tap it in the school during the school season, but in July and August is it's, and I'm again, I'm not speaking for the school system, but if you're looking for pavement [1:42:57] Speaker A (unidentified): in town, that's where it is. Can I tell my out of town friends to park and take you out on the [1:43:02] Speaker K (unidentified): floor? People do that. Yeah, that's [1:43:07] Speaker B (unidentified): The first I've heard about. Okay, so but let's go back to that other point. Should we not put in the ideas and just say the town, you know, the town should explore the various options that are out there? You say there are several options. [1:43:29] Speaker K (unidentified): You can name the ferry terminal because it's the town's and it's an obvious right, it's obvious. [1:43:36] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, I was going to suggest that because that one does seem like one that, you know, really the feasibility of that should be looked at, doesn't. [1:43:47] Speaker E (unidentified): That fly in the face of the whole concept that the Gateway Center was going to relieve a lot of the problems by having people park there. [1:43:53] Speaker K (unidentified): And take transportation, two different audiences, two different users, and you need it all, you need you need both. Comments. [1:44:10] Speaker A (unidentified): About the vehicle use section again, these are anything that's high-level or glaring, if you've got words nothing or spelling errors, the. [1:44:40] Speaker N (unidentified): Seasonal street closures, I had concerns particularly with closing the middle of Main Street and denying access to the two downtown banks and their parking areas from both a visitor standpoint and when you talked about it last month it was Cottage to West, in other words down the hill, which probably has yeah issues too, but again have concerns with that, but that would fly in the face of a lot of residents denying them access to those banking facilities which are not the only ones in town but yeah. [1:46:03] Speaker A (unidentified): That's a good point to look at those recommendations for street closures and make sure they don't cross any service services, the post office, the banks, grocery store, not that you came down that far anyway, but just looking for those big service businesses and making sure we don't recommend closing off in front of those. [1:46:36] Speaker B (unidentified): Well, there are banks on that stretch of Maine, right? [1:46:39] Speaker A (unidentified): Yeah, that's right. From Cottage down the hill to West Street makes sense but going south of Cottage. [Speaker G (unidentified): Would.] Go in front of three banks. [1:46:54] Speaker E (unidentified): There's only one business on Rhoda Street from Cottage to West Street. [1:46:58] Speaker A (unidentified): Rhoda Street's a good one. [1:47:00] Speaker E (unidentified): That one business is going to be very, they're going to have something to say about that, we're cutting off the traffic to their street. [1:47:11] Speaker A (unidentified): Actually, I think they'd like the pedestrian traffic better. [1:47:14] Speaker E (unidentified): They probably would. There's no parking there. [1:47:19] Speaker K (unidentified): You've probably all heard that most talk I've heard about doing a pedestrian street is Upper Road. From Real Pizza to Rosalie's. [1:47:32] Speaker A (unidentified): The challenge there is the parking lot. [1:47:35] Speaker K (unidentified): This will be always a challenge, but of the most least, yeah for the least and you could you could design a parking lot to loop around yeah you can loop around if you change at the end of that but I mean it essentially functions that way ever go down there and somehow yes that's [1:47:59] Speaker D (unidentified): Pedestrian over anyway so let me [1:48:06] Speaker B (unidentified): ask you which of these closures would you Dina, what street closure would most improve resident quality of life and visitor experience? Well, [1:48:30] Speaker M (unidentified): I don't think a closure, personally, on Main from, what are you calling it, Cottage to West or to the Marina? I don't think that improves resident quality of life. Maybe I'm wrong about that. [1:48:46] Speaker L (unidentified): Isn't it? Not particularly. If [1:48:54] Speaker A (unidentified): we close the street in town... Unless you are going there and walking, it makes it more walkable without any vehicles. [1:49:01] Speaker E (unidentified): If we close the street in town that has businesses and a lot of pedestrians and cars on the periphery, we have to consider the access to emergency buildings, fire departments, all of that data. [Speaker K (unidentified): I've seen and] visited a number of towns that have specific parts of the community, where it's close to traffic, to vehicular traffic. Winchester, Virginia is a perfect example of that. They have beautiful, I mean, five blocks long area that was wasn't once a main street, completely off limits, but it's accessible from both sides by side streets for emergency vehicles. Just the way it's laid out, it worked perfectly in here. The layout isn't quite as conducive to that, but there are models to follow for that sort of thing. [1:49:56] Speaker A (unidentified): That's a different way to do it. [1:49:57] Speaker B (unidentified): Yeah, I thought I put that in the text. And I talked to Chief Kearns about this and he thinks that is doable. [1:50:08] Speaker F (unidentified): There's also closures where the closure is at 5 p.m. on and then it reopens. I think there are so many different successful models out there that, you know, there's a [1:50:24] Speaker A (unidentified): I've seen towns where they just put those removable posts into the street and they're And they're removed during daytime for deliveries, but they're in place during the evenings for people walking around, going to dinner or whatever. [1:50:40] Speaker K (unidentified): Or they're removed for emergency access. [1:50:42] Speaker A (unidentified): And they can be easily removed for lots of different ways of doing it. [1:50:51] Speaker C (unidentified): I think the time closure is important and have it be the kind of thing where it's obvious if there's a fire then emergency vehicles can go through and deal with the emergency so I think that putting in a time for the closure is an important point I don't know what exactly what that would be 5 p.m. makes sense to me five to maybe 10 p.m. I don't know, something like that. I think that I just, one example that comes to mind is Fourth of July, and after the fireworks, Fourth of July, you know, Main Street is just packed with people, and even before that there are closures for part of those streets. So I think we've already seen that it can happen here. It's just a matter of when it will happen and how much of it. Yeah. [1:51:57] Speaker B (unidentified): And I mean in the, I think in the plan and also maybe the text that's, you know, what I have and have us recommending is kind of testing it out, let's call it a pilot phase for this, and seeing what works best with limited closures. Are [1:52:25] Speaker A (unidentified): there any other comments in that section? Ready to move on to visitor and visitor experience? [1:52:41] Speaker C (unidentified): B is quality of life. Resident quality of life. Is that what you said? [1:52:47] Speaker A (unidentified): Oh, I'm sorry. [1:52:49] Speaker K (unidentified): It was. Excuse me. [1:52:51] Speaker A (unidentified): Resident quality of life is our next section. I even had it open and pressed. [Speaker M (unidentified): B,] comments on resident quality of life challenges, objective strategies. [1:53:13] Speaker C (unidentified): You know, I think number one is good. The rest of them are kind of questionable, and particularly engage in targeted investment promotion to attract year-round businesses and employers. I'm not sure how that's going to improve quality of life. Design requirements and height restrictions, maybe. Yeah, that might be okay in there. Count ambassadors to guide visitors. I'm not sure how that would improve quality of life. Improving signage, I mean we've got signage all over the place now, and I think that more signs are just going to make the town look like a Disneyland or something. Improve on-ship tour promotion, I don't see that improving quality of life. There's the strategy addressing community root tensions, I don't understand that. I'm not sure what systems level framework is, so I guess there are a number of things, and I think there's some things that were left out from the text in that section, so I don't remember exactly what those would be off the top of my head, but I think there's some other things that should go in there. One of this is livability on page 17, the resident survey shows we want tourism to support not displaced, livable, affordable, accessible year-round community with some limits on tourism growth. And with gender livability, I think keeping residential neighborhoods by restricting destruction of homes and development of new hotels, encouraging biking in downtown, repairing and widening sidewalks, safer crosswalks, lessening traffic speeds, seasonal pedestrian only areas, we've talked about that. So I think there are a number of things in the discussion that were not illustrated in the other section. I'll send you some more written information on that section when we get to that process. The [1:56:45] Speaker B (unidentified): bicycle, bicycling and walking. Okay, yeah, thanks for those points. If I [1:57:03] Speaker E (unidentified): could make a point about one thing that was just mentioned, the issue of the citizen ambassadors or whatever they were called, you know, people being on the streets. And that was discussed earlier. We talked about it possibly being a core of a couple of paid people and then maybe some trained volunteers or whatever else. I think in our earlier discussion, one of the things that was perhaps somewhat tongue-in-cheek but also I think was also a consideration was the issue that those people would also, and this is how it affects quality of life would also encourage people to stop walking up between cars and walk at the crosswalks and things like that have that be part of their shtick every time they have an opportunity to speak with someone not to be policing them but to say and by the way on the way up there please go to the crosswalk I think that's how we maybe lean that towards being a quality of life issue, perhaps. [1:58:03] Speaker G (unidentified): I think you have to be careful of what [1:58:07] Speaker J (unidentified): you say to people these days. [1:58:08] Speaker G (unidentified): I saw a guy do a 20-point U-turn to park in a spot going the other way when he could have just parallel parked. A woman in the truck going the other way rolls down her window, and I thought, this is going to be good. And she said, you'll get a ticket for parking that way. And he started swearing his head off at her. And it was like, it was just unbelievable. And he didn't look the type that would do that, but he did. [1:58:39] Speaker A (unidentified): I had a woman jump right out of a car and come charging at me, screaming, because she was going to back into me. And I beeped my horn. And she jumped out and started screaming and charged at me. People are very approachable I [1:59:02] Speaker C (unidentified): Just like to add one other thing in terms of the quality of life, and that is school children walking from school to the YMCA and other places. I think should be included somewhere in quality of life. Kids walk down Mount Desert Street all the time, and they don't always cross the crosswalk, which is unfortunate, but I think that there's there should be mention of that under quality of life. I think [1:59:48] Speaker E (unidentified): An awful lot of these comments are things that we should be writing to you, if I understood your instructions earlier, that we could – it's not because I want to shorten the process here, but if each of us are going to provide you at some point at your request over the next – I don't know if you said maybe next few weeks – with written information that are all of these types of anecdotal things we'd like to see mentioned or mentioned in a different way, isn't that what you sort of suggested we should do? Or should we just continue to hash these things out if you do have a long list of [2:00:28] Speaker A (unidentified): detailed items, it is better to just email them in, and the sooner the better, because we have one month for them to provide us the next draft, so we will [2:00:40] Speaker F (unidentified): provide you a tool to do so. I mean, you can start your comments, but the way the comments need to go, we would like them to be so they're part of public record, right? No, not only, yes, but not only that, so that we like we want to know like the section, the page, and whatever your common thing, so then we can put them all together and group what you know comments go under this section and see how it all compares and kind of like be able to go through them in an efficient manner, a bit like we did through the comp plan and things like this. We Doesn't mean you shouldn't be ready, but we will provide a tool for commenting that's organized, efficient for us. [2:01:17] Speaker A (unidentified): And since you mentioned it, if we could get page numbers on the strategy, that would be really helpful. [2:01:25] Speaker K (unidentified): Do you want to set it up so that each page is numbered, each line on the page is numbered? You've seen that before, right? [2:01:34] Speaker F (unidentified): Yep, that's a good idea. [2:01:38] Speaker K (unidentified): If we can we get out like a word version? Yeah, we can give you a word and a excel [2:01:45] Speaker F (unidentified): version and you can use whatever you want, and you can copy and either, yeah, we [2:01:50] Speaker B (unidentified): can do that for sure. Yeah, I mean, yes, you're right about the specifics. I do we have a deadline, or do we want to float it in life by the group? I should [2:02:06] Speaker I (unidentified): Say we had discussed having the feedback, the written feedback, returned in by the 25th of October as a possible deadline. That would be basically a week and a half from now, Sunday. [2:02:24] Speaker K (unidentified): How fast could we get what you're providing, Michelle? Or I think we should be able to. [2:02:30] Speaker F (unidentified): To deliver by the latest Friday. I would rather say Friday and deliver on Thursday. So I'm gonna say at the end of the day, Friday. Did I confuse us? We'll have a discussion with Ben and Joe and just make sure it all works, but I think that's the minimum number of days you would have. Maybe we need to talk about a few things and maybe extend it. 25th is a Sunday. [2:03:04] Speaker K (unidentified): A Sunday, yeah. So you don't want it Sunday. [2:03:07] Speaker F (unidentified): Well, yeah, because we don't wanna cut you off Friday because it doesn't matter for us, so have them do the 26th, as long as, yeah, 26 a.m. We're not going to refuse someone in the 27th, midnight on the 25th, so. [2:03:25] Speaker A (unidentified): Should we move on with more high level feedback and save our detailed feedback for the written submission? Any additional high-level feedback on residents' quality of life. Now the next one is visitors and visitor experience. Any broad comment? I [2:04:00] Speaker J (unidentified): think the majority of people that come here really like it. [2:04:04] Speaker N (unidentified): Yeah, they do. They're on vacation. [2:04:09] Speaker K (unidentified): On the strategy about dispersing visitors, it reads well, it sounds good, but my reality check got me nowhere in terms of are we dispersing people outside of the town or into the park, which we probably shouldn't do because that's just getting, giving someone else our quote problem, and I can't think, so I live up near Hadley Point and I'm unhappy about its discovery by people on vacation. That's changed that parks local taste, mm-hmm, so I don't want people dispersed from downtown Bar Harbor to have a point, for example, I'm not sure what town help things, but or Indian Point, you know, [2:05:06] Speaker A (unidentified): people by way of redirecting them from the most popular and heavily visited areas or at certain times to different less, maybe less crowded or less crowded times, or that's not kind of how I read it, like just sort of redirecting people to not go to hike the Beehive at 10 a.m. any time, or I don't know, that was too obvious example, but try a different less popular trail at a different less popular time, or go, that's what I say in Northeast Harbor shopping towns and partners should [2:05:59] Speaker K (unidentified): coordinate this advice with the King National Park and other Mount Desert Island communities. Take our visitors, please. Yeah, I just have a thought about [2:06:12] Speaker E (unidentified): About this, the use of social media right now will force any of the best efforts we have to try to direct people someplace else. If there's something important or exciting or unusual to see, there's gonna be 10,000 posts about it, and they're gonna go to Abbey Point, they're gonna go to the Beehive, they're gonna go because somebody went there and there is social media. But I mean, we can make an effort, but that's what we're fighting against. That's what we're up against as far as an adversary, if you will, if we're trying to direct people someplace in the town's website or in literature or in signs. I just see that as almost a losing play. [2:07:02] Speaker A (unidentified): I don't disagree with that. I just think that even if you're successfully redirecting one person, that's one less person in that overcrowded spot. [2:07:11] Speaker K (unidentified): But this is sort of like our seasonal visitation, like we don't see the peak in this in this time of year a problem because we have a quiet rest of the year, and the issue with dispersal is it doesn't keep someone from going to downtown Bar Harbor, it just gives them downtown Bar Harbor and another place to go, and they're not going to say oh I'm gonna go here instead of to downtown, they're still coming to downtown, so but if they go at different times that's [2:07:42] Speaker A (unidentified): Dispersing, yes. [Speaker J (unidentified): I] like the focus on the locally owned, I think that they can't be emphasized enough at how lucky we are to have that. [2:08:52] Speaker E (unidentified): The mom and pop businesses, some of which are large, but they're not necessarily small, but they're family roots and family history. [2:09:09] Speaker A (unidentified): A large business once said, the head of a large business said once, we've gotten big, but we just haven't realized it yet. So, I mean, I think we have a lot of that big small business culture. [2:09:27] Speaker N (unidentified): And I wondered how we, I mean, it's stayed that way over the last, you know, 50 years. I mean, we've lost some, but they get replaced by local as opposed to... [2:09:55] Speaker A (unidentified): It's so predominant that there's still a ton of people that think that franchises are banned. Because there aren't any. But, you know, it's just because we're lucky to have locally owned businesses, and they thrive and hopefully we can help support that continuation but [2:10:19] Speaker N (unidentified): There's no legal, no means, yeah, no, but people are miss, yeah, it's informed or [Speaker A (unidentified): misunderstood and for] better or for worse Ellsworth is a buffer for that they [2:10:40] Speaker A (unidentified): Can keep the population base that will support a franchise. I think what we have great and we should keep it and continue it. That's my comment on that section. We can move on to policy issues to enable sustainable tourism. Comments their feedback on that section email. [Speaker E (unidentified): I think] One of the things that it's come up already in the meeting is that we have to, maybe be sure to emphasize or highlight that a lot of these recommendations and policy development exercises are gonna require collaboration with a lot of other organizations. I think that's a very important point to make, maybe right at the top. Which [2:12:12] Speaker B (unidentified): To court yeah if I can comment on that I think you're right and I yeah my view is that means that you've got to get the governance part of this you know the interim part is important because some of this needs to happen sooner rather than later you know figure it out alongside this well [2:12:50] Speaker A (unidentified): Speaking of governance and finance move into that section I'd [2:13:06] Speaker E (unidentified): Like to start off by making a comment that in my estimation though this is a town committee this is going to be town decisions and by that I mean governmental decisions I believe one of the things I've recognized most in this group is the recognition that this is about a community it's not just about business it's not just about business models it's not just about our visitors and it's not just about cars it's about a community and if the town takes that bent in attempting to make these Decisions and convincing voters to support financial issues behind this sort of continuation of this kind of work that the town needs to constantly remember and the people need to be reminded, I should say, that it is a community issue. It's not focused on just a type of business or just the park or just the local residents etc. It's a community issue and I think that's something I've felt in the discussions throughout this last year is that people have taken issue with things from a community perspective, and I think that's excellent, and I'd like to see that be part of how the town addresses it. I've not been part of town government in this town. I'm sure you do anyway, but just a reminder that it's about community. It's not just about dollars and cents or titles of groups or committees and that sort of thing. [2:14:56] Speaker A (unidentified): The only other comment that I actually wrote down is, at the end of a couple of these sections, there's a list of additional references, and then it names the document. Could those documents that are named additional references be added as exhibits? [2:15:25] Speaker I (unidentified): those will be links to yeah we're the highlight one of the things we're working on when we get this back to you is some sort of in your own chair [2:16:04] Speaker L (unidentified): of the notes and writing but i think to jim's point the community piece there has to still be a bridge between lodging in the town and that if there is a and i mean that in the sense of applying some kind of tax right none of this is really gonna happen with just town staff right we added you good luck but one more person on top of your workload it's just this is a huge aisle that is gonna go on a few employees and it's just not realistic and we've seen in all the case studies there's a whole plethora of organizations that do all of these different activities and this coordination this strategizing in the meetings and the planning and then going into augusta and doesn't even exist here so there's no physical group of people that are going to facilitate much of this right the town manager can only do so much with all the other priorities things are going to push down the layer the only way to really execute on these is funding the only way with funding is taxes and the taxes that have been applied to communities all over the country have worked just fine in accomplishing exactly what we're trying to accomplish in all of these dmos and whatever the organization titles are and we need one with four million visits a year see how fun that is with john is it's that's not going away right so if it's a consistent plateau we're at it wasn't the covid spike so if this is our new norm then obviously this is a problem we're gonna or challenge we're gonna have next year and we're gonna have this challenge the year after and if we don't change our behaviors and how we're able to handle things then we're not gonna have a different outcome so if we create a destination stewardship organization and apply a tourism development district to whatever region with it we decide downtown one downtown to shoreland whatever those are and then that's a 1.5 tax additional lodging and that will generate a 10% admin fee that goes back to the town for processing the taxes and then that funds go into funding, staffing, executive director for the organization, and the staff team. And they work in conjunction with Downey's Regional Tourism District. And we've got the Chamber of Commerce and the Maine Office of Tourism and the Maine Tourism Association. And those are the people that help with visitation and transportation, helping fund island explore, expansion of the seasons, and all of these different things. But you have to have people to do it, and you have to have people to know how to do it, and you have to have money to pay those people that know how to do it. And the money that does all these projects. And the only way to do that is apply an additional tax on top of lodging that is not popular with my colleagues in lodging, but statistically has proven in communities all over the place that it doesn't change your visitation or your lodging revenues. And we can absorb at least a 1.5% to 2% increase on our 9% lodging tax that will generate millions of dollars in funding that would solve half of the problems in this paperwork. But it would just require people to jump on board and push a few buttons in their PMS system, and people will pay it, and we can start that process. A local option tax is going to take two to three to five to never to happen in Augusta. And I've had lots of conversations in between these meetings with different people, and the congressional hearing is coming up in January, and we're already behind. So depending on what happens in November is depending on who gets voted in, depends on who's more receptive to such an idea that has failed so many years but even if it gets accepted, we still have to vote on it, and we still have to vote on it which will only be November, which means it's probably not going to happen next year, we're talking 28 or 29 but we could do a TDD whenever they want to vote on it so, Ellsworth just did it, Portland's done it they were the first one so if we can just Kind of move that's the fastest path towards having a funding mechanism and then processing an organization that supports the group but otherwise it's just a whole bunch of great ideas and it's just probably not going to get effectively accomplished because there's nobody to do it once Joe and Ben pass on all the information to us that's just the realistic approach but I think that's the big piece we have to have money and that's one of the only ways to create unless the state of Maine wants to Give us more of the tax revenues that we generate. But I just assumed that wasn't happening. That's what I think about that. [2:20:46] Speaker B (unidentified): So Ben, you looked earlier on that district and what Portland's done, and it actually isn't as fast, I think, Jeremy, as you think it might be. But Ben, can you remind us what you felt? [2:21:01] Speaker I (unidentified): Yeah, it took Portland about five years. I think that it would take for Harvard not as long with Portland having been the first and having had to navigate a lot in terms of answering questions that now should be resolved. But when I talked to the head of the Portland DMO, she did say, if you think this is quick, it's not. Because you need to get everyone on board. First off, there's just part of the district, criteria, and then getting it. Because it is a really collective, what the funding is used for. Just with that in mind, it's a challenge. I think it's certainly something to be looking at and exploring alongside the local auction tax. [2:22:25] Speaker L (unidentified): Two months, Ben, two months. [2:22:28] Speaker I (unidentified): If Bar Harbor can do it in two months, I'll be very pleased. And I will make sure to tell everyone, as a case study, this is how to do things right. [2:22:38] Speaker E (unidentified): We expect to be mentioned in all of the future contracts you guys are working on as a model of how to do things right. [2:22:46] Speaker B (unidentified): Oh, of course, sir. [2:22:48] Speaker I (unidentified): I mean, truly, I think this has been a good model for looking at how to work through challenges of tourism because Bar Harbor is facing challenges that other communities, if they're not already facing, will face in the future and need to be thinking seriously and to learn from because you guys are working to solve through these because a lot of people are thinking about tourism very differently when they're on the other side of we'd like more visitors, we'd like this or that, there's a lesson here about how you balance all of that and this last year I've learned a lot over this last year, more than many other assignments that I've worked on. I'll just say, as much as that, this has been a great experience. It's not over yet. It's not over yet, so I think there's time to change my view on that, but it's hard to unlearn things, I will say as much. [2:23:46] Speaker A (unidentified): One final call from the group, and we'll move through the rest of the agenda. And Chris Cannon, you've been on the screen the whole time, but I don't know if you've put anything in the chat or have anything. [2:24:04] Speaker K (unidentified): No, I think you guys are doing a great job. [2:24:06] Speaker E (unidentified): I've just been listening and following along. I just don't have any input that would be relevant. Do [2:24:16] Speaker A (unidentified): you have any comments? [2:24:18] Speaker F (unidentified): No. There's no one on beside Chris. [2:24:22] Speaker E (unidentified): I do have one other thing I'd like to ask, and this is for Michelle. In the process of approaching the finality of the work that we've done so far, the issue of having this being available for people to comment, the public, I mean that larger sort of thing. Is it possible to use the newspaper, I don't mean a splashy story, but have something written about the fact that we're approaching a point where there's an opportunity for the public to comment, or as opposed to it just being filtered out through social media and posts on the door of the city hall and that sort of thing. Do we as a town, do we have the ability to use the newspaper for public service announcements in that regard in a story form so we could maybe bring up something or maybe some of us could bring up something that says, by the way, we've been working on this all this time. [2:25:21] Speaker F (unidentified): Talking about purchasing space and having it. [2:25:24] Speaker E (unidentified): Do we have to do that? [2:25:26] Speaker K (unidentified): You can pitch the story. We can do that. Just pitch the story. I mean, Carrie Jones will break up with it tonight. [2:25:31] Speaker F (unidentified): I was going to say we can do a press release or we can do a, you know, we can use the regular outlet. All right. [2:25:39] Speaker E (unidentified): Well, if there are options, I'm just encouraging the town to do that as opposed. I mean, some of these things have kind of come and gone, and sometimes my neighbors have said, I didn't even know that was happening. [2:25:50] Speaker A (unidentified): Well, you've been heard. Right. [2:25:55] Speaker F (unidentified): You know some of the things I'm not saying we're going to do this, but some of the things we've been successful at is doing town white mailers. I know some people like especially during election time that I think it can get confused with another yet another one, but I think that we have had great success in getting attention through that way. But you know I think what I'm hearing is how do we make sure that I always like to use Hannaford as an example. If I go to Hannaford maybe not you know maybe In 20 days you know out of you know 10 locals how many know about that's always my you know my like my barometer. So I'd like 10 we're just talking about that you know I want to make sure at least six would know at least I've heard about it. So yeah we just heard you, and we will make sure that we take the proper way. We do as much as possible to make sure people know about it. We will go ahead and hand it over. [2:26:57] Speaker A (unidentified): Any other task force member comments? Our next meeting is November 18th. [2:27:08] Speaker F (unidentified): Can I say this is a week? [2:27:10] Speaker E (unidentified): It's the third Wednesday. [2:27:11] Speaker F (unidentified): Yeah, it's usually on the 11th, but this time it's going to be on the 18th because we're off with COVID. [2:27:18] Speaker A (unidentified): Is that worse push back the week because of Veterans Day? Is that worse for people? Do we have a motion to adjourn? [2:27:26] Speaker J (unidentified): So move, second. Thank you, thank you all, see you guys, thank you. All right, thanks everyone.