001public hearing this evening on March 17th 2025 uh this is a public hearing for neighborhood assistance act application on behalf of advocacy unlimited Inc at 2075 silin Highway here in town just a quick explanation um I know the Town Council did vote on this at the last meeting May at the last meeting um however um the public hearing notice was not advertised so we have to do a redo the uh State requires copies of the public hearing minutes so tonight we have the applicants here again if you don't mind if we can just kind of Replay what we did last last time thank you um hello my name is Michaela fistle um this is uh Sean Sims and we are here from advocacy unlimited I serve in the role of executive director um Sean is
002the board president um and we are here to have our application for the neighborhood assistance act uh heard um before the rocky Hilltown Council thank you so much for having us again um so uh advocacy unlimited is a registered nonprofit organization we're at 2075 siline Highway Rocky Hill um we have been delivering services for over 30 years we've been Incorporated those since 1998 and we serve about over 10,000 community members annually uh what we do is we provide holistic peer-led recovery resources so folks who are moving through mental health challenges addiction and Trauma um and these are adults so uh we bought the building in December of 2023 and we moved in officially in July of 2024 after renovating the first floor and when we purchased the building um we knew that the HVAC system
003needed to be looked at it's functional but it's very old and so um we are looking for resources in order to uh complete an HVAC Energy Efficiency upgrade and so uh this is the application that you have before you for the neighborhood assistance Act is the application for funding that would be submitted to the state of Connecticut Department of Revenue Services to be posted um for companies corporations to be able to uh donate funds towards this project and this is considered energy conservation with 100% credit back to the corporations um we're not involved in that part of it um that's for the Department of re Revenue Services and so with the complete uh replacement um we would increase efficienc but also we would no longer be using the R22 refrigerant which is very outdated and
004shown shown to have like damaging effects on the ozone layer and not good for the water Etc so all of the newer units would be up to uh kind of current standards for um energy conservation and and Wildlife Conservation as well and so the total amount of the project is $141,400 and in that um the majority would be going towards the equipment and the installation with just a 12,000 about $800 administrative fee just given the fact that we put a lot of effort and energy into this project already as people um and that includes already having gone through a competitive bidding process and identifying the contractor who'll be completing the work which is called the be um and then that included a complete evaluation and proposal so the total that I provided you is an
005actual cost of the project um and this would begin proposal to propose to start March 2026 and extend eight weeks through July oh I'm so sorry through June 2026 and then we have to provide to you an a post project audit uh report and that will be due July 31st 2026 so I believe that's all the information that you may need in order to pass this for consideration but please let me know if you have any questions thank you yeah so we're going to open it up to the public now okay thank you is there anyone from the public who wishes to be heard on this topic okay no nobody in line for uh online online online do you want to keep it open a little or do you want to close move to close
006the public hearing yeah second any discussion all in favor I two counselors on hold we waiting anxiously for their votes is that okay Mimi can you get a hold of John and man ual yeah we have Allan here Alan we are just in the middle of voting and we we lost our connection oh I want me to call them so we need two you are one okay yeah sorry I forgot about the change we're on we're live that's okay yeah I won't embarrass myself too badly I'm sorry so we've lost connection um but we will we're working on that so everyone hang tight hi John we they lost the connection so we need you on the phone okay hi John can you hear me yep okay so we just had a little update from advocacy
007unlimited as you probably saw on your TV screen and um procedurally there is uh no one in the audience who wishes to be heard at this time so we were going to take a vote uh um to move forward and close the public hearing actually can you move it closer she keeps on cutting out okay um councilor Sullivan do you want to start again recap what you said you mean because I'm closer to the phone or just or just my motion sorry move to uh to move to close the public hearing now second just any voting to just doing the motion to close the hearing okay any discussion all in favor I I I John okay you got it Joanne all right we did it public hearing is closed