Sarah Dixon, the Town of Norwood's director of community development, told the Board of Health on Dec. 8 that the town is finishing a year-and-a-half effort to update its 10-year comprehensive plan and is touring boards to solicit targeted feedback.

"It's been about 30 years since Norwood has engaged in a planning exercise like this," Dixon said, describing a steering committee of 10 people selected to help draft strategy ideas and to bring the plan to the planning board for adoption. She said the roadshow uses a simple 1/2/3 ranking system for board feedback: 3 for "I love this idea," 2 for mixed support, and 1 for "strike this idea." Dixon said the process emphasizes public participation but does not represent an immediate funding commitment.

The Board of Health flagged several public-health and town-service items. Members endorsed low-cost "pocket park" treatments for small town-owned parcels, recommending benches and seating as high-priority, low-cost improvements for walkability. A board member cited an unused parcel on Fonson Street and urged turning such spaces into places to rest.

The board debated a strategy to "evaluate consolidating veterans health and human services into one coordinated department." Dixon said the proposal is framed as an evaluation and not an immediate hiring plan; several members voiced funding concerns and said staffing additions should be evaluated over a longer horizon.

Several members urged the plan to prioritize emergency-readiness. After recounting gaps revealed during COVID response and drills, members asked the steering committee to consider creating an emergency-notification task force to ensure outreach to vulnerable residents, non-English speakers and seniors and to clarify incident-response hierarchy among police, fire, schools and town administration.

Dixon also presented a proposal to adopt a language-access protocol across municipal services, noting that the schools already deploy translation software and that the town lacks a consistent, townwide translation approach. Board members supported expanding language access for emergency alerts and routine communications.

Dixon said many of the items on the list call for evaluation rather than immediate hires or capital projects. "Sometimes this might look like conducting more of a study," she told the board, asking members to mark which strategy ideas are feasible and which are likely prohibitive because of cost. She invited board members to complete a public survey and to email or call to submit further comments before the steering committee finalizes recommendations to the planning board in March.

The planning board, Dixon noted, is the municipal authority that will adopt the final master plan under state law.