Tonight seventy or so people gathered at UMass Lowell’s Alumni Hall for the first of two public comment session on the city of Lowell’s draft Master Plan. The full plan is available on the DPD website and a second comment session will be held this Wednesday, January 9th at Lowell Senior Center, 276 Broadway Street, from 6:00 to 8:00 PM.

The format tonight was a familiar one. The evening commenced with a quick overview of the plan and the process and then all in attendance broke into groups (the round tabled geography of tonight’s venue automatically handled the groupings). Staffers from DPD then facilitated quick 10 minute discussions with each of the group, capturing the comments on poster paper. At the end of the 10 minutes, the DPD facilitators rotated to the next table. By this method, each group was able to comment on each section of the Master Plan.

When you’re in the midst of such an exercise, 10 minutes seems like a very short time to grab the opinions of 10 people on a variety of topics. But much of value came out and more importantly, to me at least, was to give birth to a multitude of observations and comments in my head, all of which I will compose and email to Allegra Williams (awilliams@lowellma.gov) prior to the January 15 comment deadline. Hopefully others will feel the same way. Having attended previous public sessions that went into the drafting of this Master Plan, it is completely evident to me that previous public input has been incorporated so your comments are valued. Try to make the Wednesday night session but at a minimum, read the plan and send in your comments.