Artificial intelligence can help summarize some things for Wiscasset's comprehensive plan committee, Chair Sarah Whitfield said Feb. 12. "Honestly ... Then (we'd) also edit, because AI is not always so smart."

"There's going to be plenty of texts in the comprehensive plan that that could probably serve very well, for sure,"  fellow member Anne Leslie said of AI.

"I do think that the long-chapter model of the old plan is obsolete now," and some large amounts of text could go into appendices for people to dig more deeply into if they wanted, Leslie added.

Participants were talking about making the next plan more concise than its predecessor. They noted the conciseness of some other comp plans, like Bath's and Damariscotta's. "I think that the shorter versions we've seen are much more likely to actually be used," Whitfield said. Leslie agreed. 

The town's last comp plan was the 2008-2018 one; work on the next one started about six years ago and the committee has regrouped a couple times, according to Wiscasset Newspaper files. Last year, the committee gathered public input via a survey and workshops.

The Feb. 12 committee meeting, the first in several months, did not have a quorum, Whitfield noted at the start. Whitfield and Leslie, the only voting members there, and Economic Development Director Aaron Chrostowsky thought of residents and town staff who might serve as content experts for different chapters of the plan.

No goals are being written into the plan yet, Whitfield said. The plan would eventually go to a town vote.