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Politics & Government

Takoma Junction Items Needing More Research Split Task Force

The task force is to report to the city council in less than two weeks.

A list of Takoma Junction items that might need more research has the Junction Task Force split on how to proceed, less than two weeks before Task Force leadership is to report the panel’s progress to the city council, and just over three months before it is scheduled to file a final report.

The list of 42 items was produced by Task Force member Roger Schlegel, and it was presented at the committee’s meeting July 12 by Task Force co-chair Seth Grimes. Grimes said it is not likely the entire list would be included in the final report, and he asked the panelist to quickly review the list and identify those items that could be removed. “Some of these things, I don’t think we need to—as a task force—worry about, but I won’t say which they are. I suggest we take a look and pull out the top items that you think we need to try to cover in the next month or two,” Grimes said.

However, Task Force member Andy Kelemen urged the committee to refer to a draft of the final report that was presented at the panel’s June 22 meeting. Kelemen said the list should be reviewed by the task force’s subcommittees in relation to the council’s mandate for the committee.

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Grimes said the task force does not have the time to do such an exercise—involving the subcommittees—during a meeting, which is why the panel as a whole was asked to review the list.

Nonetheless, Task Force member Kay Daniels-Cohen said the list was “overwhelming.”

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“It’s my intention to cut down the overwhelming,” Grimes said. “When we started this I asked people to go through it and say what’s important. I pick nine items out of 42. I would toss out 33 items. That’s how you cut out overwhelming,” he said, adding, “I’ve been trying to push the task force to close off research,” he said. Nonetheless, “closing off research doesn’t mean closing off discussion. It’s closing off research, and using the materials we have already,” he said.

Kelemen said he is concerned the panel is “back to ground zero here where we’re saying what is the junction,” and “what the content of the report is going to include.”

Content to be included in the final report is what the task force is trying to determine now, Grimes said.

“These are gaps that someone has observed. It’s not an inventory of what we have, it’s an inventory of things we don’t have," Grimes said. “I think it’s very helpful to have something to react to rather than just have discussions that circle back time and again to the topic.”

Task force member James DiLuigi asked “are we going to re-go over these things, or do we have some type of new procedure where things get put in writing and lobbed somewhere. Sometimes I feel as if I’m wasting a lot of time here.”

In response, the task force needs to start putting this information into a report, Grimes said. The information collected by the task force needs to be placed in a central location, he said adding, “If it’s not in writing, there’s just such a volume of information, and then it gets lost.”

Grimes said, “at some point here, this stuff has to get written down and included in the report. Frankly it is the failure of every single person in this room if there is something you worked on that is not currently in written form. That includes myself.

“We need to produce a product for council. We can’t get up in front of the council..we can’t give a Power Point presentation without something to back it up. That includes bibliography, documentary materials, it includes information that directly answers the council’s mandate.”

DiLuigi suggested the list be sent to the heads of each subgroup asking if they investigated these items for the report. “Send the list to the heads of the committees and ask if your committee has addressed any of these things, then bring the list to the meeting that haven’t been addressed,” he said.

However, a solution was reached involving the Web-survey company SurveyMonkey. Task force member Billy Coulter is going to create a survey document on SurveyMonkey where panelists can place an “X” next to those items they believe are important, and ignore those they believe are not important.  

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