Scarborough Town Hall Staff Writer Kelley Bouchard

The Scarborough Town Council has published their goals for the town for 2023. The goals were established in an earlier workshop meeting that due to technical difficulties was not recorded for the public.

The goals include: financial management, housing choice and homelessness, residential growth management, strategic capital and facilities planning, sustainability, conservation, and climate change, traffic and transportation, and public engagement and communications

In terms of financial management, in creating the budget for 2024, the council will review and comply with Scarborough’s Financial and Fiscal Policy. Quarterly reports will be made at town council meetings to stay up to date on the town’s financial health.

The town plans to conduct an analysis of homelessness and need in Scarborough to better understand the problem and create strategies and address resource need.

“This year we were thrown a curve ball with addressing homelessness with the Comfort Inn, which I think has made us all recognize that this is going to be a continued challenge,” said Council Chair Jon Anderson. “I think the goal we are trying to commit to is to better understand the situation in Scarborough and what do we need to do to act on it, particularly leveraging outside agencies and partners.”

The council also wants to address the need for affordable and workforce housing.

In terms of growth, the goal is for ordinances to be updated to “better manage the pace and impacts of growth on the community” according to the town’s website. A revised Growth Management Ordinance will be complete by June 30.

On facilities planning, the council will work to advance the needs of the new school and new community center projects.

The council plans to focus more on sustainability.

“Sustainability, conservation, and climate change is a new area for us that I think it is a great conversation, and it is an area where we’re really tasking a lot of committees to help us figure out what’s our plan to better conserve land and how do we better incorporate conservation and sustainability principles into how we do our planning,” Anderson said.

The council will work with other committees to create a plan to increase land conservation in Scarborough and include sustainability principles into the town’s planning processes.

“Our forests, the marsh and our beaches are something we are all proud of and we need to do more to protect them,” Anderson wrote in the town’s Feb. 1 Council Corner article. “This year, we are looking to better understand how we can conserve more land in Scarborough and better incorporate sustainability and conservation principles into our planning and development process.”

On traffic, the council wants to continue working to improve traffic flow in the town. With the Transportation Committee, a town-wide transportation study will be commenced to better understand traffic issues and make improvements. The study will also be used to improve traffic for public transportation, walking, and biking. The council will also continue supporting the Gorham connector to better support traffic in North and West Scarborough.

Finally, the council plans to improve its public engagement and communications by continuing current efforts such as Council Corner Live and creating new methods of outreach. A town-wide survey on resident satisfaction, such as the one in 2021, is also planned. The goal is to have good communication with the public to “facilitate decision making and build trust in our government”, according to the town’s website.

The council unanimously approved the list of goals.

“I will say this is a rather ambitious list, and I’m sure if we can accomplish half of these I think that would be amazing,” Anderson said. “So this is something that we are going to commit to, but as we progress and things come our way that are not predicted right now — that always happens every year — these will continue to be our North Star to kind of keep focused as we move forward.”

More details on these goals are available on the town’s website at https://www.scarboroughmaine.org/, on the Council Outlook page.