Watch the OCF video recorded by Lower Cape TV with our past president
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A message from our president Maxine Minkoff
Dear Friends,
Welcome to the Orleans Citizens Forum (OCF) website. Orleans is a small town with some big challenges. OCF’s mission is to improve quality of life on the Lower Cape by promoting an understanding of topical issues through informative, civil, and intelligent conversations. To this end we host interactive forums with knowledgeable speakers and provide opportunities for you to ask questions and raise concerns.
Our intent is to reach as many residents as possible. Therefore, in addition to having live audiences at our forums, we use a hybrid format for those who wish to watch and interact from home, and we begin our programs after 5:00 p.m.
We welcome feedback about how we can improve our outreach and programs. And, as an all-volunteer operation, we would welcome your hands-on help as well as your donations and membership fees so we can keep on operating.
After a strong set of programs last year, we are getting ready for a new series. Our first program is scheduled for Thursday, September 28 at the Senior Center. It will feature Orleans’ new Town Manager, Kim Newman, who will share her first impressions of Orleans and her priorities. Michael Herman, Chair of the Selectboard, will join her to discuss the Selectboard’s goals. Important warrant articles to be voted on during the upcoming Fall Town Meeting will be covered.
The tentative plan for our October session is a focus on our schools. There are a lot of moving parts in this space – ongoing covid impacts, new leadership, the construction process at the regional high school and the way forward for the elementary school. This forum will provide citizens with the opportunity to get an update on how the moving parts are doing.
In November we plan to offer a forum to assess where we are in cleaning up our damaged waters. The early phases of the downtown sewer project are going well but the closure of Pilgrim Lake this summer due to a cyano bacteria hazard and the red tides in both the Nauset Estuary and Pleasant Bay Nauset have raised new questions.
These and other substantive programs will continue throughout the year and be supplemented with a Candidates’ Night in the Spring if there is a competitive Select Board race.
Please let us know if you are interested in joining our Board and/or helping out with publicity, technology, or other tasks involved in setting up forums. Finally, we want our programs to be responsive to the interests of our citizens and would love to hear from you. If you have an idea for a topic or for a change in our format, please let us know.
Thanks to our Directors and our partners for their commitment to our mission. Without their help we couldn’t get this done. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Maxine Minkoff,
President
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