Committee debates wording, responsibilities in proposed Complete Streets policy

Topsham’s Bicycle & Pedestrian Committee spent part of its June 8 meeting reviewing draft Complete Streets policy language and related ordinance changes, focusing on how mandatory the new policy should be and which town office should carry implementation responsibilities.

Several members urged caution about using overly prescriptive language. “If it’s written in such a way as a goal statement instead of as much as a ‘shall,’ like the goal here is to get us to…,” one committee member said during the ordinance review, recommending softer language in the policy while preserving the ability to tighten requirements later if the policy gains traction.

Committee members raised specific concerns: distinguishing performance metrics that should be tracked from requirements that might be infeasible for staff, how exceptions would be handled, and whether the public works director should be labeled the sole party “accountable” for implementation. One speaker said tracking linear feet of new sidewalk and bike lanes is reasonable for annual reporting and fundraising but questioned assigning sole accountability to a single position.

The committee agreed on a practical next step: a targeted redline edit to the draft converting some “shall”s to “should” or “may” where appropriate, and marking performance items that are realistic for annual reporting. The redline will be circulated with the full plan for review; members will submit comments in the shared PDF so the group can process them at the June 29 working session and then again at the July 13 regular meeting.

No ordinance was adopted at the meeting. The conversation prioritized crafting language that is strong enough to influence departmental practice and grant competitiveness while not creating procedural or staffing problems that could block initial adoption.