All Boards Meeting again

     No blow by blow accounting here.  An overview is in order.  Frankly the entire meeting, save a handful of individuals was an airing of his or her long held wish list of projects - predominantly for downtown.  Let's get this out of the way.  Those present included many volunteers and the remainder paid Town employees and elected officials.  We'll stipulate that most are well intentioned and desire to do right by taxpayers.  But, what is lacking essentially across the board is the disconnect from what the taxpayers want and can afford.
     Taxpayers have consistently and overwhelming rejected past warrants to do a major renovation of downtown.  Has any real effort been expended to determine what they will support.  While it is an unsupported stretch to believe, as Dan Chartrand would have you believe, that sidewalk disrepair is a "barrier to business" clearly they are a visible sign of the deterioration of downtown that one attendee referred to last evening.  The chair of the Historic and Heritage contingent stated her important issue was to bury the utility lines and remove their supporting poles.  Really?  This is high priority amongst the 10,000 or so voters and taxpayers?  These power poles are driving away out of town visitors?  And of course the lack of parking came up.  Doug Eastman put that into perspective by stating it becomes the roadblock to development when parking is required by a prospective development as restrictive zoning regulations are the stumbling block.  One individual had the answer, a parking garage on Portsmouth Avenue.  Kinda like Portsmouth, the city, don't you think?
     Paul Scafidi said it best when he commented that all the proposals being set forth in the meeting will never in all reality ever happen.  It appears he recognizes that most will not be approved by taxpayers due to their impact on one's pocketbook.  One individual hit the nail on the head.  Downtown is deteriorating be it sidewalks, curbs or street.  The Town must spend money to take care of what they have before taking on such "nice to  have" things like burying power lines, providing bike lanes and the like.
     Scant little time was spent addressing real development outside the downtown area - Epping Road, Lincoln Street and Portsmouth Avenue.  Oh, almost forgot.  Form base code was put forward as solving many of the problems, particularly in the latter area.  What is it?  Basically it is buildings in the front with sidewalks and parking in the back.  And how do we go about retrofitting businesses already in place.  Shrug of shoulders.
     What will be the follow up to this meeting?  Will anything come of it, or will it be business as usual?  Likely you know the answer.