Up Close and Personal

1. What was the most important thing you accomplished while serving on the Planning Board?

“It's tough for one member of a board to stand out and say that they accomplished something when it's really the Board that accomplishes things. The possible exception to that would be if one board member manages to convince the majority of others to see things his or her way on a particular issue. It's also tough to point to just one thing. A few things come to mind.”

“Early in my first term as Chairman, recognizing the opportunity for the Town to be pro-business for a change, I jumped at the opportunity to write a letter of support for the Bose Corporation when they were pursuing the purchase the former Digital plant. I was told later by a high-ranking Bose official how important that letter was to them, and I think it set the stage for a smooth permitting process that followed.”

“The dozens of updates to the Zoning Bylaw and our Rules and Regulations that have been adopted or soon will be, is another major accomplishment of the Board during my term.”

“I think there was a high level of importance to the organization of the Community Preservation Committee when I served as the Planning Board's first representative on that committee during its first two years of existence. And one accomplishment that I feel pretty good about that may or may not carry over after I'm gone is the way I ran meetings as Chairman. I think I was fairly successful at making the meetings fair, efficient, timely, and professional.”

2. What was your biggest disappointment while serving as a member of the Planning Board?

“My biggest disappointment was the amount of time that I believe wasted by the Board dealing with trivial matters that in the larger scheme of things will never have an impact on the abutters of a project nor the town as a whole, but often have a huge financial impact on the applicant, which in turn, just drives up the cost of housing or the cost of doing business in this town. Time is money in the private sector. And time is precious in the public sector where very little can be accomplished between meetings because of the need for almost all activities of the Board to be done in the few hours worth of scheduled open sessions each month. I will say that the current Board members have been surprisingly willing to meet as often and for as long as it was deemed necessary to get things done.”

3. Has the role of the Planning Board changed? If so, how? How will it meet the challenges of the new millennium?

“The Statutes dictate what the basic role of every Planning Board is, and that doesn't change, but exactly what the Board does and how it does it depends upon who is sitting on the Board at any particular point in time, so it changes from year to year. The Board will be able to meet the challenges of the new millennium by continually reviewing and updating the Rules and Regulations to reflect modern Planning concepts, and to propose changes to the Zoning Bylaw so that they also reflect the changing times.”

“It's not easy to modernize the Zoning Bylaw whenever a new concept comes along, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but when history shows us that there are problems with the Bylaw, they should be addressed as soon as possible instead of just being complained about. We have made a lot of progress along those lines in the last few years, but there is a lot of work left to do.”

4. What do you see as the strengths of the town planning process? What are its weaknesses?

“Its strengths lie in the knowledge and ideas that flow from the minds of the many Board members. Its weakness is the same thing. When new Board members who have new ideas are coupled with four or five other people who have their own ideas it can make for a very cumbersome process.”

5. What do you think will Stow look like in 20 years? 50 years? 100 years?

“Thanks to the public and private initiatives of a small group of people a few decades ago, a strong land conservation attitude is prevalent throughout the town and in all our planning processes, and is incorporated into our zoning. I think that the growth we will see in Stow for the most part will be done with some preservation of open space in mind and incorporated into any housing proposal that gets approved, so the actual "look" of Stow will always be very different from the towns to the north, east, and south of us. That more rural and open feel will be with us for a long, long time. Unfortunately, along with a desirable place to live come higher property values, and the slow squeezing out of those who can no longer afford to live here as a result. And then the more personal character of the town, as opposed to the physical character, becomes more homogeneous as time goes on. That's the true challenge the Planning Board faces, but I don't see anyone in agreement on how to deal with it.”

6. What makes a good planning board member?

“A good Planning Board member is committed to putting in the time necessary to read and thoroughly review applications submitted to the Board before attending the first meeting or hearing on the subject, in other words, a good Planning Board member does his homework. A good Planning Board member also has the time and willingness to attend a lot of meetings, both day and evening.”

“It's amazing how many meetings need to be attended to do the job properly, including regular Board meetings, meetings of other committees that need representation from the Planning Board - and there are a lot of those, regional planning meetings, site visits, and many more. A good Planning Board member is willing to listen and to hear, is willing to recognize that things are not always what they first appear to be, is willing to take the time to figure out what the consequences are of his actions, is willing to compromise, always has the best interests of the Town as a whole in mind recognizing that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, is willing to take into consideration the fact that not every applicant can afford to do all the things that every Board member would like him to do, and finally, a good Planning Board member needs to put himself in the shoes of the applicant and try to understand what they want to do and why, how costly and frightening it can be to appear before the Board, and how seemingly impossible it is to satisfy all the desires of all the Board members.”

7. What advice would you give to anyone seeking a position on the Planning Board?

“Learn the Town as much as possible, and not just its roads, but its preserved and unpreserved open space and undeveloped lands, it's Zoning districts, and how they correspond to those lands. Study the relevant Statutes, the Zoning Bylaw, the General Bylaw, and all the Rules and Regulations for the Conservation Commission, Board of Health, and Planning Board - it will be an eye-opener, and that knowledge will be crucial in dealing with almost all things that come before the Board. And learn some history. Anyone who doesn't learn from the mistakes of the past is doomed to repeat them.”

8. What Planning Board Decision have you been involved with that have had the largest impact on the town?

“In the business of Planning Boards, a "Decision" is the action taken by the Board on an application that comes before it. So, if I had to single out a decision in order to answer this question, I would have to say the decision on the Bose application, but most of the impact of that decision won't be felt for years to come. Hopefully the positive impact, especially in terms of future tax revenue, will far outweigh the negative impacts.”

9. What's the future look like for Bruce Fletcher?

“Bruce will continue to do what he has always done working multiple jobs, continually striving to do things that he has never done before, and trying to leave a positive legacy.”