July 1, 2013 — The following was released by the Northeast Regional Planning Body
We want to extend a thank you to everyone who attended any of the ten regional ocean planning meetings held over the last month across New England. We appreciated all of the discussions and time you invested. During these meetings, we heard from several people that it would be helpful to have additional time to provide public comment. Therefore, we are extending the public comment period through July and request comments by July 26.
Comments can be submitted on-line, via e-mail, or traditional mail; see the public comment page for additional information (including links to the draft goals which we have been discussing).
Additionally, we wanted to let you know next steps through the summer leading up to the next Regional Planning Body meeting, which has not been scheduled yet but will be held in the fall. In addition to continuing to develop data and information, we will also be using results of the public meetings and other public comments we received to help revise and refine the draft goals document, and develop a draft work plan specifying the necessary steps. These two important aspects of this regional ocean planning effort—revised goals and the draft work plan—will be discussed at the next Regional Planning Body meeting, and will be available prior to that meeting.
We will be in touch regarding the data and location for the next Regional Planning Body meeting and as additional information is posted on-line (e.g., the summary of the public meetings).
We look forward to continuing our discussions with you, and again appreciate all of your participation to date. Please contact John Weber, Nick Napoli or Katie Lund with any questions.
Again, thank you.
Betsy Nicholson, Northeast Regional Planning Body Federal Co-lead
Grover Fugate, Northeast Regional Planning Body State Co-lead
Richard Getchell, Northeast Regional Planning Body Tribal Co-lead