Falmouth Welcomes Assistant Town Planner Jed Cornock
Jedediah Cornock, commonly known as Jed, is only in his first month as Falmouth’s assistant town planner but eager to hit the ground running.
“I’m really excited to learn the municipal side of things,” Mr. Cornock said. “Not everybody wants to spend a lot of time reading a zoning bylaw and figuring out exactly what it means, and that’s our role—to help them figure out what the steps are for developing their property and what they need to do to plan ahead for it. It’s really just helping people understand what’s really important.”
Originally from Becket and now living in Carver, Mr. Cornock studied geography at Bridgewater State University and has spent his career working in planning and development. Before coming to Falmouth, he was a Principal Comprehensive Planner and Contract Coordinator at the Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District in Taunton for six years.
“I did all sorts of work with the 27 communities we served, mostly community master plans, public engagement activities, housing production plans, a lot of big picture planning documents,” Mr. Cornock said. “We focused a lot of our efforts on public engagement and being able to break down complex projects or ideas in a simple way so that everyone can understand.”
Public engagement is something that Mr. Cornock would like to continue to focus on here in Falmouth, in addition to improving communication and interdepartmental collaboration.
“First and foremost is making sure the department works really well with other departments, making sure we’re responsive to the taxpayers and all the applicants that come through the door,” he said. “And then just making sure that we’re following all the goals and visions of the planning board. It’s a lot of bigger picture initiatives but all put together, it’s going to be quite a busy summer.”
Thomas Bott, who has served as town planner since 2018, was searching for an assistant town planner to essentially serve as his right hand.
“The way I see it is sort of taking the weight from Tom,” Mr. Cornock said. “Tom was without an assistant planner for what sounds like a while, and a lot of the initiatives had to be put on the back burner. That’s where I come in, and I can take some of the pressure off of him and take on some of those short-term initiatives… It’s really just supporting the department wherever I can, supporting the town planner, learning as much as I can about the town, and understanding history, but also future vision. So that’s my role right now: being a sponge and absorbing everything I can.”