Friday January 27, 2012

WILMINGTON -- An estimated 150 people fit into the Deerfield Valley Elementary School's gymnasium on Tuesday, Jan. 17, to offer their comments and input into a long-term recovery process for Wilmington in the wake of August's Tropical Storm Irene.

As people arrived they were given Post-it Notes to place onto any of five different bulletin boards regarding their specific areas of concerns. The meeting was facilitated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency's long-term task force.

Wilmington Selectboard Chairman Tom Consolino said Tuesday he was involved in the discussion with about 35 other people regarding his village. The Deerfield Valley News reported that the other categories were natural resources and recreation; health, housing and human services; infrastructure; and community development and capacity building.

Audience members then broke down into separate groups and reviewed all notes added to the boards to think up items that could be included in the final plans for the town.

"We had a good crowd and we generally outlined what FEMA was going to help us work on," Consolino said in a telephone interview. "We only have FEMA here for another couple of months. The idea of this program was to involve as many of the residents of the town as possible. ... I think it was very helpful."

Thom Rounds, leader of the FEMA long-term community recovery team, told those in attendance that this was the beginning of a

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two-month identification process, according to the Deerfield Valley News. The process, Rounds said on Wednesday, will culminate in a community-driven planning document that Wilmington can use as it recovers from flooding due to Irene.

"The meeting was initially to solicit information on matter that concerns the storm," he said in a telephone interview. "There were a lot of folks and we had good participation.

"It was the first community meeting in long-term recovery that FEMA is supporting. We have a staff of seven working on this," he continued, adding that he has been a community planner for more than 30 years. "Our charge is to support the town in creating their vision, their plan to get them to where they need to be."

Rounds, on his first deployment with FEMA, said residents had a chance to voice their priorities and mention what type of recovery projects they would like to see.

Another general public meeting will be held at some point in February, when attendees will be asked for more input and to set priorities for the projects identified. Once the schedule gets established, anyone looking to become involved in a working group can find the meeting times and days at Wilmington Town Clerk's Office or on its website.

Domenic Poli can be reached at dpoli@reformer.com, or 802-254-2311, ext. 277.