Strategic Plan Updates Following the 2025 Select Board Retreat

The Board stepped back to review progress since the Plan’s adoption in 2018 and reset priorities based on current realities—competing demands, growing implementation and construction costs, workforce constraints, rising service expectations, and the need for improved long-term debt and capital planning. The Board emphasized that the updated Plan is more focused, realistic, and achievable, continuing to serve as both as a management tool and a clear framework for communicating priorities to the public.

A key outcome of the retreat is streamlining the Plan from five Focus Areas to four, eliminating the “Healthy and Vibrant Community” Focus Area and integrating its themes into the Plan’s Mission, Values, and remaining four Focus Areas. To view the Healthy and Vibrant Community Focus Area page from 2024, please click here. The Board removed completed or duplicative initiatives, clarified goals (reducing the number of goals from 21 to 18), and narrowed initiatives to a more targeted and manageable set (reducing initiatives from 64 to 36). The Board also reviewed major capital needs and the Town’s “Collision Report”, that maps out critical and expensive capital projects that will overlap and compete for debt capacity in the near future, to reinforce the importance of aligning strategic priorities with the Town’s financial capacity and operational resources. Overall, the updated Plan prioritizes clear focus, coordinated implementation, and deliverable outcomes.