April 20, 2026 Town Council Budget Hearing

001Good evening everybody. Uh welcome to the Trumble Town Count uh Council Finance Committee. Tonight we will hear from our department heads on the town side of the budget. So if you will all please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Pledge >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> You want to call the role? >> Nicole Satin >> here. >> Mary Isaac >> here. >> Christine Elleris >> here. Tom Broadick >> here. >> John Foreman >> here. >> Richard Wolf >> here. >> Bill Mecca >> here. >> And Tony Cinto. >> Okay. Thank you. I do have a few updates. Um, there will be a public hearing at 6 PM on Monday, April 27th. Uh, this will

002be a hybrid meeting. The public is welcome and encouraged to take part and voice your thoughts on the budget. Um, the originally scheduled May 6th full council vote will now be held on Monday, May 4th. Uh, please keep in mind that the council will only be able to reduce funding from the board of finances proposed budget. We will not be able to add funding back. And regarding tonight, the finance committee members were invited to attend the department hearings with the board of finance. So many of our questions have been already answered. Um, if you would like, you can watch these hearings on Trumbull Community Television or read the minutes posted on the town website. We have asked that some of our department heads come back with any updates or uh for further questions from the

003committee. So, with that, we can get started. Uh we do have Reena Bakalar, our director of economic development on the line. She's uh available to us by phone. Hi Reena. >> Hi. How are you? >> Good. Thank you. Thanks for joining. Okay. You want to do you have any little overview you might want to give us before we get started? No, I just wanted to mention that um it's actually economic and community development and grants and special projects. That's sort of what my role is within the town. Um and so I know you know that, but I I kind of want to remind people that it's a broader sort of role than just uh economic development, although that's certainly a primary function of what we're doing and our goal for the town. Um, as it

004relates to my actual budget, I mean, there's very few changes uh that were requested in my actual budget. Um, that's my year-to-year changes. Um, but there is a request for uh the position that currently is in economic development. That's half time. That's uh GMO currently uh fills that halftime spot. and the other half of her time is in planning and zoning um department. Um we're looking to move GIA to a full-time position within economic development. We're extremely uh busy. Uh there's a lot of business support for our businesses that we could be doing um she can be helping with and and aiding in and she's very interested in and very good at. So, uh, we want to try to make that, um, really a a more robust position. Um, and she's, if she's the person

005to fill it, which we hope she is, um, she is doing an outstanding job and can do a lot more for the town. So, um, the other change to my budget was something that was raised by the board of finance about putting in dollars for consulting to support the mall redevelopment. Um folks know that the study was done. It's not laying idle. Uh it is a very important document that laid out uh a vision, not just a vision, but the underpinnings of all of the research that was needed so that the real estate could be un understood um on that property and the potential of that property could be fully understood. Um that was done. I think most folks probably saw the study and read through it. I know people have been very engaged and

006I appreciate that. Uh then the zoning passed as folks know uh was enacted at you know after that and then the broker listing which many folks and I spoke about it in the board of finance uh came out and if you looked at the broker listing it really talked about everything the town has done to position the property. Um, now you know from your sources in town and and probably from the media that the property has been listed for sale uh since late I would say late uh January. Um, that process is moving forward. I can't speak to uh the confidential aspects of that process, but I can say that that um process is moving fairly uh quickly in terms of you know real estate transactions. Uh we are to a point where I think

007we've reported before that over a hundred formal inquiries. When I say formal, meaning folks had to file specific documents in order to get details on the property listing. Um over a hundred inquiries on the property were made. Uh the property um the debt holders and the property ownership needed to go through a process uh with the people who are filing formal uh bids. That process is underway. uh we can't speak to anything in detail at this time, but uh you know, we're hoping to be able to report more specifically, but I wanted to give you an understanding of where we were in that process. Uh and I think that's as much as I can tell you right now, but there's tremendous tremendous opportunity in the mall area on that property. And we've repositioned uh or

008we've positioned the zoning. we've positioned uh the vision, the the study background, all the depth of information that's been gathered and it's really helped us attract attention uh to the property and you hear how robust the interest is in the property. So, we're hoping to be able to report out in the next I can't give an exact date, but in the next month or two on the disposition of that property and maybe sooner, but where uh where it is and and who will own it in the future and then from there we will talk about, you know, uh what the how the process is going to in unfold. But I anticipate that the new owners will need some time to get their hands around the property and to really uh put forward a redevelopment strategy

009that mirrors, you know, that in concept uh is is sort of what the study talked about and you'll be hearing, you know, more reports from me on this in the coming months. So, I just I wanted to say that and and throw the floor open um to your questions. I'm happy to answer them. There's a lot of other development going on that is co commercial development. Just if I could add just a few things. Uh I hope folks saw that um Hankle is making a major $70 million investment in Trumbull for R&D. That's a huge investment and economic development investment in our town. We worked on this for from the point where we started looking at uh talking about potential sites to the the ri um the groundbreaking that was held a few weeks ago.

010That was a three-year process. So, economic development, investment, and um corporate investment and other things like that, they don't happen overnight. There's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes that's not visible to folks because when folks start paying attention, they they want to see something coming out of the ground or something changing that they see. But a lot happened in the background and that example of Henkle is a very good example and that moved fairly swiftly in you know uh but it took that kind of time. Uh we have the Gateway Commons project which is an 88,000 square foot uh mixeduse development that was approved some years ago actually and got hung up. They they couldn't folks together with financing. Uh that project is 61% in um Humble and uh the balance

011in Monroe. We've been working collaboratively on all aspects of the project and we expect that project to close sometime in um sometime in May uh and get underway and they're ready to do a shovel in the ground very soon. So that will have about about 28,000 square feet of commercial space. Um upstairs are one-bedroom apartments. I think there are four twobs, but the primary uh one-bedroom apartment upstairs on two floors. Folks will remember if they look back at the approvals. Um we do have some new things coming as well. There's going to be in the wetlands this I think this week or or imminently this month uh maybe it's early next month the wetlands meeting um there will be a project introduced uh by uh reservoir and um uh White Plains Road. There's been some

012houses over there that have sat for a long time and there's a redevelopment plan uh that will be coming for those uh th those parcels and you'll hear more about that in the coming months. One tree foil drive which is a potential uh which is the site for a future grocery store is still moving forward despite all of the appeals that keeps being filed to block the project. We're still moving forward um and doing everything we can to uh secure the project for the future. Um there's some new things that we'll be discussing in the coming months regarding the Monroe Turnpike property. There's we're not at liberty to discuss them here now. Uh Cubek is something that you're familiar with. who passed or some of you were on the previous council I believe passed um

013some tax relief but they are in design for their uh redo of their 75 Merit Boulevard real estate uh which is an awesome project um and I think they're very excited about it and we'll be reporting more on that. Those are just a few high points. There's many other economic development activities, business activities going on uh and community development activities as well as grants. So, I'll stop there. Like I said, I was going to stop earlier, but I'm going to stop there and just ask you what questions you have. >> Well, you always come with quite a long list. Thank Thank you, Reena. That sounds u super exciting. Um so, I'll turn it over to the finance committee members. Anybody have questions for Reena? >> Uh, Mr. Sinto, Councilman Sinto. >> Hi, Reena. Uh, my

014first question is what changed before on the original department request until the board of finance meeting where the increases were changed? Why, if you knew this was coming, why didn't you just put it on the initial initial request? I can't hear you. I can't hear you, Tony. You're asking about the >> It was It was the um Can you hear Reena? >> Yeah, it was the um 5220, I believe. Tony, is that you're saying the 50,000? >> Oh, yeah. >> Sorry, it was that one. >> Okay, I'll speak a little louder. >> It was Why weren't your the increases of 85,000 that was done by the board of finance? Why wasn't that put on the original budget request? Well, we were working internally. Can I take Gia's position first and then I'll go to the

015consulting piece? Um, we were working internally on upgrading G's position and we were working with uh Steve Lbrry and his group and we ran into a situation where we were trying to upgrade the job description and it it wasn't allowed within my budget. I don't know. They I thought I can do it, you know. a that I was able to do it through the internal process and they felt that it needed to come through um this process. I don't you know know how to answer it. um we were going to try to give Gia, you know, an increase um through the regular personnel, you know, process, but it really was not workable the way we were trying to change her job description to include other kinds of activities. It just didn't work. Um, so we

016had to do it um as a new request almost um for her position to be upgraded through the town council process and board of finance process. >> So was her job description changed? Is there a new job description? >> It's going to change or has it been changed? >> It hasn't changed. What >> has it changed? Is it written? >> Um, I did draft something. Uh it hasn't been changed or approved yet. Um I have a meeting actually with Steve Lebrandy tomorrow. Uh but it was you know the way we were trying to do it was through her existing administrative three or whatever she category she's in. And we were trying to add the um responsibilities that you know that we feel she she can handle and enhance her job and help to get things

017get to things that are you know we need to to do more of and uh it can't be done through the administrative three very easily or at all. I'm not sure. Um, so we're putting in a request for her position, her economic development side of her position to go full-time rather than a split position. >> So we're funding a job that we don't have a description for. Correct. >> No, we have a description. We have a description of the enhanced responsibilities that would be added to it. I don't have the approval for that. the approval. We were trying to get the description changed under the administrative category, but it really didn't reflect um that category of job didn't reflect everything we'd be asking her to do in the job description. There has been a written

018job description for months uh that would show that enhanced uh students that we're requesting, but we tried to take it through a different pathway. And um it the the roles that she would play are more more robust than what that next step or whatever would allow her to her job description to be changed to. I don't do a lot of you know honestly I haven't I don't have a lot of situations where job positions change within my department. the actual so this is you know territory that I don't really handle a lot they I normally don't get you know enhancements to job descriptions or or people's or positions you know they've been pretty well fixed for years so >> well it it just seems to me that we're just giving her a huge raise for

019doing the same job she's already doing that's all if you don't if you don't create a job description going through the proper process and have her take a new job position and just kind of backdoor it this way kind of seems a little wrong. That's all. But exactly what we're doing is what you're suggesting is is we're going to actually we're not upgrading her position within the administrative category because we could not uh get a pathway to encompass all of her responsibilities that we're going to enhance new things that she's going to be doing to improve, you know, to to just do more services to our department. I thought initially it could be done within the existing structure but we have seen through this process that that it has to come through a full job

020description process. So that's where we are now. So we are actually doing what you think should be done based on what your comments are and we've drafted the actual responsibilities month months ago and there are clear enhancements of what she would be doing um that she's not currently doing but we would like her to do um to to help give more services in economic and community development. >> Okay. Thank you, Reena. Uh, further questions? Um, Mary, Councilman Isaac. >> Whoops. Hi, Reena. Um, just to that that point with um, Gia, I think she will be um, great in the full-time position on your side. Um, I'm not sure if you can answer though. I thought about this after the meeting, the board of finance when they uh, when they switched for GI to the full-time

021position and Abby on P&Z was also placed into a full-time. Uh, is that uh is that other halftime position that was left in PNZ still going to be filled by an admin or was that in combination with her current position? I don't know if you're aware of that or if that's through Rob. >> So, yeah. So, Abby is currently full-time in planning and zoning. >> I'm I'm sorry. I mean, G is half part that is going to be that is that is being eliminated, >> right? Um that has to be uh discussed further with with uh I believe the intention was to add halfime the the missing halftime to GIA and to replace um something in planning and zoning um that would make up that halfime. But there wasn't I didn't get a final uh

022output from planning and zoning and from personnel on exactly what would be handled um and how that would be handled. I think there there's an ability for us to you know have a discussion on does do we need another half time or is the existing position can it absorb more the existing planning and zoning position can that absorb more responsibilities that were with GIA that are no longer with GIA um I Abby is doing a great job but you know I don't know um to what degree, you know, um she's able to take on everything that Gio wasn't was doing for planning and zoning without an impact. I have to, you know, that has to be examined. I I think that they're asking in the budget. I mean, you tell me what the intent was

023with the board of finance that what was your >> Yeah, Maria Maria's up there. The board of finance hadn't mentioned that portion. That's why I was asking. >> Um, >> yeah, I think so. That's not in the budget, is that? >> Yeah, Maria is going to speak to this now. >> So, Gina is GA is currently a full-time position. It's just a position is half being paid out of PNZ and half out of economic development. The plan is to upgrade the position, but at the same time keep the part-time in economic development. That's why there's that increase in the economic development to a full-time position. So, we're still in need of a part-time position unless things change after the uh the review of Gia's new position. >> That make sense? >> Right. >> Thank you.

024And then, sorry, one more. Um, Reena, just to the uh the board of finance were the ones that had brought up the addition of the consultant um seeing how the mall was moving along and I know you said you weren't sure if you were ready at this point and that there was the 23,000 Stantech that was left as well as the 15,000 that's already in your budget for the um correct >> for the the technology and for the um uh uh the uh grant writing. So are those two things sufficient do you think at this point? and if we need to add something midyear or as we go forward um or I don't know what your feelings are after kind of sitting on that if if you believe you have enough resources at this point

025with those two um portions being left in. >> I appreciate everybody's um support of those kinds of things. Candidly, I don't think I with the money that we have in the from Stantech that you just articulated and the other um funding that's in the regular budget, I think that if we had to get started on redevelopment activities related to the mall property in and around it, etc., and the infrastructure around it and so forth. Before then, I think we had some resources to get started. That was my comment I think at the but you know at the hearings but at the same time this process in the second half of this year could start to move faster and we might need to revisit that. You know, I mean, I I I don't I would not

026have made the request this year for that if you're asking me that. I would because we had some resources and you know, the property has to the closing has to happen. The property has to go under contract. The closing has to happen. The um you know, people have to get their arms around this. you know, lots of things have to fall in place before some of the real redevelopment activity gets started. So, I think we probably have the resources to keep us going until, you know, to to move forward and support efforts. Um, and if we have to revisit it this year, revisit it. But, you know, it's up to the, you know, it's up to the elected officials whether they want to invest now. as just in case we need more or if they

027want to wait till next year to start making an investment in that. I mean, I I don't know how else to answer it. I I feel strongly that, you know, we want to keep monitoring this. We want to be prepared. we are and we're going to continue to be, but we do have some resources in place within my budget and within, you know, I think there's the 15 in my budget and I think there's, you know, 23,000 in the Stant budget. So, I mean, if we need things in the interim while the property's closing, while we're getting, you know, people are getting their arms around it and all these other things. I mean, you know, to go into a redevelopment scenario where we need a lot of capacity or, you know, additional capacity on the

028ground. It's going to take a little bit. I know um Paul Tempanelli raised um you know support for the infrastructure and and for you know support to get certain kinds of uh grants and stuff like that put in place. I mean, he makes a good point, but I really think that we've done a lot of this and I think that the property is in a position to sell and to start a redevelopment process, but we're not going to these things don't happen overnight. So, do we want to park money somewhere waiting for that? I don't know. That's a decision the council has to make. If we park it there, no harm, no foul. I guess if we have if we don't use it, we can monitor when we need it. it's there when we need

029it. Um, or we can start with the money that we have and see where we get from there. I mean, I can't answer that. You know, it wasn't my request. Um, >> okay. >> Thank you. I did think the board of finance seemed to be um obviously thinking this was important, but um your point that you weren't at that, you know, at that determining factor yet and that uh the funds are here, I would assume that if all of a sudden things moved at a much quicker pace that um you'd come back for a supplemental and uh so >> right, >> my point. >> Thank you. >> Okay, any further questions for Rita? All right. Thank you very much, Reena. All that you do gave us a lot of excitement. >> Thanks for everything and

030your support. And um I'll be seeing you soon. Take care. Byebye. >> Bye. Bye. >> Do I think she's Hey Nicole, I have I just have a question for you. Um um is Bill Chin joining us tonight? >> I don't believe he was asked to come tonight. I didn't have him on my list. >> He wasn't on the list. >> Any reason why do we know? >> Um did you guys I I think you guys were given the opportunity to give a list. Did you put them on a list? >> We didn't. We We had seen We had gone through the motions in the uh board of finance hearings with Bill, so we didn't have any further questions for him. >> Who? Yeah, but he's supposed to come here. Irregardless, >> he was not on

031the list of people who were asked to come, Tony, that were put together. Um, anybody who has additional questions, we certainly have the opportunity to to have those conversations at a subsequent date or to send them notices, but they were not part of the the list for this evening. >> Well, >> and that was a decision that I made. >> Well, not for nothing, but after 17 years of doing this, I mean, I saw the list was abbreviated. I understand why some people don't have to come, but Bill should have been here. And this thing about, oh, we can go to the meetings and we can go watch the videos. This is what these meetings are for. For them to come here. >> Are you sure we can have him at the full council vote?

032>> No, that's it's too late then. I mean, I got like 45 questions for him >> at least. >> You I mean, you could have not again, not to be rude, but I >> No, forget about supposed to come here. Forget about the board of finance meetings. Forget about all the other meetings. Submitting questions in advance. They're supposed to come here. Why are they supposed to come here? So the public can watch us answer questions. They vote for us to ask them questions. But yet you guys shrunk this list down. Okay. Now I understand why some people don't have to be here. But he should have been here. >> I said I'm exhausted from you guys telling me, "Well, I should be watching the videos." You know, >> you could have just sent the email.

033That's all I'm saying is to say, "I'd like this department or this department or that department." >> I shouldn't have to do anything but come to this meeting. Okay? because that's what this meeting's for. >> Well, >> Okay. If if you would like him to come to the full council vote, we could do that. You could also give us questions that or pose questions to him via email. We can get questions answered. >> It's not too late. >> It just seems like you guys are shrinking this down to rush it through. >> I I don't think we sat through hours and hours of board of finance committee meetings. So >> this is the board of finance committee meeting for here, not the board of finance. That's a separate entity, >> right? >> Okay, forget about

034what happened then. This is now. He's supposed to be here. >> There are a lot of department heads that were not invited to come back tonight. So it is abbreviated and he was not on the list. If you would like to uh have him back for the full council vote, we could do that prior to the vote. >> Yes, he needs to be there. >> Absolutely. just because you show you took him off of this list. Now he's going to have to show up and whoever else I think of should be there also. You can't you guys shortened this down from two nights to one night? >> It's always been two nights. >> No, it hasn't been. It's been three nights. The board of ed and two nights this way. Okay. And I'll go home.

035I got all the paperwork. Don't sit there and tell me. >> I'm not doubting you. I'm not doubting you at all. I just think we owe a little bit of respect to one another and how we how we speak to one another. We are happy to have a conversation with Bill to bring him to the full council meeting, happy to take questions or send them directly to him. Right? There's multiple ways. I'm sorry you're not h happy that he's here. We will get your questions answered before there's any vote. And with that, can we get Stefan? Thank you. is our director for the library. And if you'd like to give us just a little overview of what you've presented in your budget, where you're at, what you're thinking about, and then we'll move to questions.

036>> Thank you. Um so, uh um we've been doing very well this year. Um uh we have a new logo, new signage, uh the new story walk at the southside building. Um uh for new objectives moving forward, uh we are moving forward with uh new programs uh including um uh author programs in including Katherine Newman, a best-selling author who wrote Wreck and Sandwich. Uh also Ethan Rutherford, a local Connecticut author who wrote North Sun, which um is going to be presented in November. Um that one is uh was the finalist in 2025 for uh the um uh national book award. Um in addition to that, um we have a number of projects that we're moving forward with including um that are are already accounted for uh including countertops and security cameras at the branch. uh

037the countertops at the main library. Um the big project that I'm sure that you are here to talk to me about um is the uh proposal to uh move to uh overdue fine free um for the library and how that is going to impact the budget. Um essentially, uh we have u up until this point in time, um the overdue fines that we have collected have been um put back into our collection development budget, thereby allowing us to purchase new books and materials for the library for the patrons to check out. Um a the uh proposal that we are looking to implement in our next budget year would be to remove the overdue fines um from uh from being collected in the first place. There are a number of reasons for that. Um for one

038um it is not a sustainable uh revenue source for us anymore. Um, I do have some, uh, explanatory sheets I can hand out if you like, uh, if you want to take down some of these, so you can follow along. Um, if not, I can just walk you through this. Um, but essentially, uh, in 2019, we collected about $33,000 in overdue fines. Uh, this year, uh, rather last year, we collected $26,000. Um and that is a you know 21% decline not accounting for inflation. Um the big reason behind this is audiobooks and ebooks. Um audiobooks and ebooks are a bigger part of our or digital materials are bigger part of our collection budget. Uh those things are no longer uh those things do not generate fines simply because once they're done they disappear off your

039device. Um and hence no overdue fine. Um there's uh and in addition to that I should note that you know fiction books for instance have averaged 5.8% more expensive over the past year than they were prior. Uh meaning that the you know the amount of money that we're bringing in is continually growing smaller. The amount of money that's coming out is continually being bigger. Um the fines also are not a consistent way of getting our materials back. And this is supported by a number of different studies. Um, basically, uh, most people view fines, these overdue fines, which are 15 cents per item, um, over the course of a, um, you know, a late day, um, to be nuisance fines. They're not, you know, to the extent that somebody's going to be particularly worried about them.

040However, they do deter the use of the people that are most impacted by them. So, uh, low-income families, elderly people, um, the type of, you know, the ones that can least afford to use them and who might also be the most inclined to use the library for the purposes of getting free access to materials. Um, uh, finally, you know, this is something that has been happening nationwide. Uh, Connecticut has um 176 libraries. 147 of them reported having removed uh fines uh as of uh July of last year. Uh we are one of 29 libraries in the state of Connecticut that still charges overdue fines. And to be clear when we say overdue fines, we are only talking about the day-to-day fines that you would generate from uh not returning a material on time. If you,

041you know, damage the book, if you lose the materials, you are still u you know having to pay for the cost of replacement. So there is still um you know a means of returning the materials to us. Um so uh in addition to that u you know there's a psychological barrier that is also component. I'm not going to go into all the details, but by removing those fines, uh, many your libraries report an increase in patron usage, library card registrations, program attendance, um, as well as a notable decrease in the type of negative interactions which, you know, come as a result of having the fines in the first place. Um, the impact uh, again is $26,000. Uh, that is what we're asking. um an increase to our collection development budget um uh from 170,000 to

042196,000 um to ensure that the collection strength remains um capable of delivering the type of materials that the town deserves. >> Okay. And I believe the board of finance added back 16, not 26. Is that correct? >> Uh correct. But the the first selectman had uh included 10,000 initially. Um so 26,000 overall. Okay. Questions? Councilman Foreman? >> Thank you. Can I just uh play back what I think I heard? >> Sure. >> Um so we're going to remove finding people for overdue books. >> Correct. Right. >> And by doing so, we would doing so we would lose some sort of revenue. Is that >> to the tune of somewhere between 26 and 16? Is that sort of what we're talking about? >> 26,000. Yes. >> 26,000. The board of finance is saying, "Okay, well we'll

043give you back 16 to make up for that." Is that am I I'm hearing that we're losing money from finding people because we're going to stop finding people and we need money to make up for it. >> Correct. Yes. >> Okay. >> Got it. No further questions. >> Council member, >> I'm just amazed at the numbers. You said 15 cents per day. >> Yes. >> On 26,000. >> Yes. That's >> we have a lot of >> 200,000 days of >> well there's there you if if you've ever seen some of the families I mean like I've I've watched parents come in with the stroller and the baby in the arm so that they can push all the books in the stroller. That's that's how many books we're talking about. >> Do you know if it's

044the same reoccurring families pushing the stroller or like do you have statistics around that? I just I'm just amazed that two I mean that's 15 cents a day making up $26,000 in revenue is is and I understand it's not um a revenue stream that you could depend on each year but that's I mean you break the rules that's I get what you're saying about encouraging people to to come in but if you're breaking the rules >> we we appreciate that and and and I get it. However, you also I mean there there's there's a bunch of arguments like for one thing you're actively you know you know encouraging people to not do the thing that you're depending on your budget for which is sort of counterintuitive. Um in addition to that u you know the

045you know in well and a lot of additions um you know the fact that this is not a sustainable revenue like this has been something that we've been talking about for a while um you know fine um like these these overdue fine-free proposals have been around for you know good number of years since prior to the pandemic. Um, and at the time, you know, we couldn't we couldn't move and do this type of thing simply because, you know, some other libraries, um, uh, throughout Connecticut and the nation, um, they they didn't gain that money back. That money went back into the general fund, for instance. And so that part of their revenue loss wasn't something that they realized. Um but now we are you know one of the few remaining libraries and there are other

046libraries that are out there that are in the same boat that we are who are now you know looking at a collection development budget that is shrinking um year after year u because of the way that you know these collections have been um you know manifesting with all the digital materials and things of that nature. Um, and it's just not it's not sustainable. And you know, at the end of the day, we're going to end up with less money next year and then next year after that, you know, at some point I will be here just asking for more money regardless of whether we have the fines or not. >> Yep. >> Uh, Councilman Isaac, >> I I have to say I agreed with with what you're saying and after listening um to Stfan, I

047changed my mind. Um, but because I said my kids were notorious for being late with books and constantly c we were the ones there was no stroller, but there was millions of books going in late. But I do agree if the fines are if we're if we're not supporting purchasing the books that we're doing because we're going to be, you know, decreasing those each year anyway because of all the um online items. That is one consideration. But there is the other factor of people that won't go because um seniors or I'm sorry people that are um you know financially um compromised and there is a a point of shame of not being able to return your book you can't pay the fine you're not going to go or you do it you don't go back.

048So I was surprised when I saw that because I thought it was the exact opposite and that we're missing a a little piece of revenue that we should be getting. So, um, you know, thank you for putting the, you know, that across to us, but, um, I listening to you, I I changed my mind. So, >> I just think that the numbers are I mean, that's 200 almost 200,000 days. Like, I'm just I I would just be curious if it's the same people over and over and over. That's just 365 days in a year. That's just a lot of days of 15 cent fines. >> It's pretty universal. Well, we, you know, I'm not going to name names or anything like that. >> Yeah. No, no. I wouldn't want you to I just wanted to

049see a number of Well, unless it's someone in my family. I I But I I do want I I would love to see what >> I can't imagine. It's just I mean, that's just a lot of days adding up. That's just a powerful number. 15 cents a day. >> The vast majority of them are are are relatively low. But you also have to, you know, there's a multiplicative effect, right? So if a if a family or you not not necessarily family but if a person checks out more than one book then those are all multiplied by 15 cents and then for the course of time. So um uh you know if they check out you know four DVDs and six books and uh two more audio books that's 12 that's you know that adds up

050if you forget for a week to bring it back in. Um, and you know, and it's the same thing for, you know, we we we point a lot at the the the kids with the family simply because the the books are, you know, so small that uh or they're so thin that uh they get to check out several of them at a time. But you'd be surprised at how many full-g grown adults walk out of the book out of the library with six or seven full, you know, novels and then go to Vermont for a week and, you know, forget to bring them back. So, >> and so what >> so what happens if they don't they you you charge them the cost of the book rather than the 15 cents a day? >> Well,

051no. If they if they don't return the materials or if they damage the materials and then then they get then they get charged for the full cost of the book. Yes. All right. >> Yep. >> I'm I'm super supportive of this. I just curious if you've given thought for future years in terms of your acquisition costs and how you'll budget in the future. Right. So you mentioned fiction um books, printed materials are rising by 5%. So do you foresee that that's a continual year-over-year thing or do you think it'll tap out at some point? Just I you know I'm not asking you to completely forecast for the future, but I I presume that's something that's top of mind. thinking about how are you going to support um your future acquisitions for printed materials. >> Our

052our our biggest our biggest issue isn't so much the printed materials, it's actually the the the online materials um ebooks and digital audio books. Um it's um at present, you know, it's still the wild wild west when it comes to um the type of contracts and borrowing agreements and all those type of things that are out there. um you you know for for an ebook for instance um some of the publishers have unique uh agreements uh with you. So if you're purchasing for instance a a Harry Potter book um uh that book uh you know comes with a writer that says well you can have this for this amount of time or for this amount of people that will then read it at which point it disappears into the ether. Uh, so it's a temporary

053material. Correct. Um, and you know, and and some of the time, you know, we can say, well, well, we're going to not buy that material, but you know, when it's it's, you know, when it's Harry Potter, you're going to be kind of forced to. So um there's there's a sense there's there's a balance between um you know what we can have control over and with the digital materials it's also one in which it's really in their court still there there still isn't a very a great standard when it comes to these borrowing rates and the the kind of charges that they add on to it. Um, you know, I I think, you know, for for, you know, better or worse, most most people's interaction tends to be with what they see on Amazon. Um, unfortunately,

054the the price differentials and things of that nature that you see there is not really reflective what of the overall market as a whole. Um, and so therefore, we're we're we're still struggling with trying to get to a cohesive sort of economy when it comes to the online materials. Um, that's the biggest problem, biggest hurdle that we have. >> Councilman Foreman. >> Um, so the $26,000, how I'm just I maybe covered it. I wasn't fully absorbing it. Uh, how did you arrive to that estimate? >> So the $26,000 would be the the the current um, you know, projected shortfall. If we were to remove all of the overdue fines collected this year, then that that would be the amount of money that we would not have um you know for the next collection development, >>

055right? Okay. Um All right. In an average year, like how much what percentage of overdue books do you actually think you collect on? Um, I'm sorry, but you >> if you've got, I don't know, a hundred books, they're out and overdue and they've got fines are acrewing on those, >> how many of those hundred books do you think you actually collect fines off of? >> 50 books, 60 books, >> probably not books. probably not that high but uh uh a a considerable portion simply because once again you know at 15 cents a day there's there's a calculation there that you know says I'm not finished with that book and it's only 15 cents a day and I'm willing to eat the cost. So there's there's quite a few people that make that decision. Um uh

056and you know it's it's it's not something that is is causing them the duress that you know the fine is intended to you know provoke in the sense of like I should really return that it's getting expensive. That makes sense. At the same time we can't really if we were to increase the level of the fines then now we are s putting ourselves into a situation where we're actively discouraging people to check out the book in the first place. I was just curious of like of all those that are outstanding from last year, are you ever going to collect on them? Will that will there ever be a collection there or not? >> Um that is uh you know something that libraries have struggled with a long time. Um you know there's certainly people who

057uh you know get fines and never come back. Um, and there's also, you know, I remember 20, uh, 20 years ago, uh, one of the big things was, uh, trying to get collection agencies involved for book fines, which, uh, in my experience at the time was that the cost of the collection agency pretty much washed out whatever amount of money that you actually received. So, >> thank you. I'm I'm pretty sure I owe you like 25 cents or something and every time I go I don't have change on me. >> So that could be another part of the problem. >> All right, I will pay my 25% or 25 cents online. I promise. >> I get there and I look for my change and it's I never have any. >> Okay, >> I'm delinquent. >>

058Any other questions? >> Quick, >> not fines. um just a very small one so I'm embarrassed to even ask it. Um the Zoom account um does the library have a separate Zoom account versus the overall town ones because of I'm assuming for a specific reason. >> We we have done programming on it. Yes. Okay. >> Um but that said, yes, I am in talks with Bill to um uh join that with the town's Zoom account partly because um he has actually also started using it potent sometimes for committee meetings, things that things of that nature. You're chipping away now back at that that amount you just got. So that's good. >> Yeah, fair enough. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Anyone else? >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Okay. I think we have

059Miss Pyres up next. Discuss the tax assessor. I'm not sure you have questions. The only difference in the budget between what the board of finance um did and what the first lackman did was a decrease of 25,000 and the professional services and that has to do with any kind of um additional attorney fees due to the reval the appeals. So the ver the attorneys are planning to uh address those issues in their budget if need be. >> Did anybody have any questions? There you go. Councilman Cinto. >> Hi Maria. Um are the rebal's been completed? >> No, the reval is started. Is it it's a 101 2026 rebell? So they're still working on it. >> So nobody's been notified yet of that. >> Yeah. residents have been notified. >> No. Of the complete reval being

060completed? >> No, there hasn't been a complete reval. >> So, nobody's been because I haven't been notified of mine. >> They send you a a flyer, a form to fill out. >> Yeah, they But you >> and then they're going to inspect, right? So, >> whatever. Nobody's actually completed the rebout yet. Correct. >> No, there it's still in progress. >> Okay. Okay. Any other questions for Maria? >> Councilman Isaac, >> sorry. Um, just one question for the fact that, um, the discussion again went back to we can't get an assessor um, and multiple towns have the same issue. I know it is in our charter for an assessor, but would we be able to look at would a consultant or two consultants, however it's working, um, be able to suffice ongoing? Is that something that

061we can look into or >> we've been hiring consultants to assist us with that process? >> But I mean to just take it out of instead of having the salary line up there for an assessor that we're not going to hire. >> We're we put it out again. So >> So just continue it. >> It's a continuation. I believe there were some candidates right now, but >> Oh, really? Okay. >> That's what I was told. >> Let's hope. Thank you. >> Okay. Anyone else for Maria? >> All right. Thank you. Uh, next up for selectman's office, who would like to uh would like to jump up there. >> Good evening everybody. So, the change that the board of finance made in the first selectman's budget was to add uh an additional $20,000 to my request

062of a communications consultant for my office. I've have not had a uh someone dedicated to that as a professional and with the u changing in the times and increasing our population uh communication is more necessary than ever and so I'm looking to add somebody to help in that uh in that that job. So again, it's it's a consultant job, but it's not a full-time position. I asked for 30 and uh the board of finance thought that that was too low uh for someone to deliver those services. So they added an additional 20,000 to that line. >> Okay. Do we have any questions? >> Council Oh, Councilman Cinto. >> You could be patient. Ju >> just >> you run. You always run late. If I could just if I could just add one thing that I

063shared with the board of finance. Um we did look at some other communities um as to whether um they have communications people in addition to the officers that we have on my the staff that I have in my my my office. Um and looking at uh Fairfield, they have a total full-time budget in their first selectman's office of $665,000. Um, and within that number, there's a a communications director at 106,000. Um, Stratford also um has several positions uh more than we do. Uh, and uh they have a communications uh person in their budget at $110,000. Uh and Monroe also um their total budget is $276,000 and they have a communications person in at $50,000. So we did look at other other talents as well to just do some comparisons for you. >> Thank you, >>

064Councilman Zindo. >> And what would what would this person be doing? >> Working on communications. >> How communications examples? >> I'm sorry. example like you know >> you know talking about economic development talking about uh other things that are happening in our departments getting information out to the public >> I I kind of had similar questions would it be have more of a social media um >> well >> responsibility um >> no well I mean I'm not I can't really pinpoint that probably there would be some of that I assume that there would be you know responses to something that's going on social media, but I don't I've never been one to respond um to social media directly. I don't think it's productive. Uh but there are certainly issues that happened, you know, every day

065something can happen in this town that has to be responded to and it's it's best to have someone who is a professional as a communications person to get that information out to the public. >> No. No, and I and I see the need for it given where I mean printed media's really become obsolete unfortunately and things move quickly and fast and stories uh take a life of their own when there's no direction or official statement. So I uh you know I know people probably are relying on hearsay and speculation more than ever. So, if this is a position that could positively impact that, I I I do see the benefit of it. >> There's there's there's a lot of things happening in in all of our departments every day in this town. And um you

066know, to get that information out there where there are so many different platforms now that communications, you know, there's no longer one newspaper. Sometimes I wish that there was because it be easier to get the message out there in a concise way one time, but you can't do that anymore. So, uh, we are, you know, dodging things that are coming in and and we have a, uh, certainly a lot of constituents that have questions that we obviously answer, uh, every day here. And it would be, you know, to have a actually someone who is a communications professional answering those questions would be an asset to the town. through the chair. >> I also think um that you could look at this as an opportunity, right, not just to answer resident constituent inquiries, to share news

067about what's happening in town to make sure that that residents are up to date, but also as an opportunity to market Trumble, right? And to think about how this gets paired with the work of Reena's department or, you know, the work that's happening um in parks and rack, right? How do you take those things and actually market Tremble both for residential purposes, home sales, etc., but also from a business development, economic development perspective. So, you know, I think about a communications position as twofold. Um, and probably having a far greater reach than we could imagine, but if we're really smart about it, we would link it up with our departments to make sure that we are not just being resident facing, but also community and business facing. Absolutely. And I don't want people to think

068we don't already do that because we do. We have um you know we work together. >> Certainly not implying that. >> I know you're not. I'm sorry. But I'm just saying that we do work with our departments. They feed us information. We push information out. But again, that that role, you know, communications, as we all know, is is is a much a bigger role than it ever has been in in every community, not just Trumbull. And we're not a small community anymore. We are considered a large town. We just won the Democracy Cup in the large town category. So, we're not a small town. We have a, you know, 40,000 people who live here or almost 40,000. And so, that requires us to be able to reach out to, as Ashley said, to our constituents

069and also to push information out to others that um either want to do business here, want to come reside here, and so on. I'm going to go back to Councilman Mecca and then uh Councilman L. >> Yeah, there used to be the Trumbull Times used to print what was called the Trumbull Answer Book annually. Does anyone remember that? >> Well, how old am I? I mean, that's how I got to know where our parks were, uh, elected officials. I It was a uh it was a directory. No one am I the only one who remembers that? >> Yeah. No, >> I don't know. >> It was super helpful. >> Right. So, as a new resident, uh, and though some of that information evolves over time, but as a new resident, it was the place to

070go for basic questions about, uh, who's who in town and our natural assets and what what was offered in our parks. Uh, it didn't it didn't it didn't compete with a website and it doesn't it wasn't uh, you know, wasn't um duplication of it, but that doesn't exist anymore. So, and I feel it's a loss. So, I could see this person g, you know, not just in times of crisis or special events, but I could see this per this position uh pushing out that type of information about where do you go for getting your parking sticker or signing up for stuff. So, I I I do see the benefit of it. >> Council, so for all the reasons that have been mentioned, certainly communicating to the public is very fractured and difficult in this environment.

071Um, I just wanted you to just articulate, you put 30 as your request and you were hoping to accomplish something and you had some analytics that went into that where you were looking at what other towns were doing, but did you arrive at that number just to be fiscally conservative thinking this is the bare minimum and this is what I wanted to do and you know the board of finance in their wise um, you know, uh, consultation thought maybe more is a little bit better and are you comfortable with that adjust? adjusted amount or >> Yeah, I mean it's a good question. It was um my my recommendation was a starting point for a position that we've never had. Uh and I brought that forward to in my budget and the board of finance um

072suggested that it it wasn't enough. There is a communications person on the board of finance and it was based on his opinion that 30,000 wasn't going to get us too much. So that's why it was increased. So, at this point, you're supportive of that adjusted amount. >> Again, you know, not being a communications professional myself and relying on the advice of others, um, that suggested that 30,000 wasn't going to do it that they wanted they suggested we we increase it to 20 to 50 with an additional 20. And I I will say that I think the board of finance was very favor favorable to um economic development and and I think they see the need uh in the community to to really help support that >> that well I couldn't obviously agree with that more.

073we have a lot going on in our economic development and uh that would be an asset to be able to communicate that more efficiently and effectively um because it's you know you know Reena is really basically a oneperson department and um there's only so much that she can do so that would be additional help for for her in that department for sure. Any further questions for our first selectman? >> Thank you. >> All right. Chief Lombardo Police. >> Good evening. >> Hello there. >> Where would you like to start? Or do you just want to ask me questions? Well, I think you'd give us a little overview of where you're at right now and what you know what's important to you in the budget and a brief >> synopsis. Okay. So, one of the things

074that's been um in something we've worked very hard to develop is bringing our staffing levels back to a desirable level. As you know, we're authorized to have 82 police officers, sworn officers on a department. Right now, we have 77. Um we have two officers. One is being deployed in about two weeks for a full year and another is out now for um about a month. So um we've created a position within our patrol division. It's still somebody doing patrol work, so we're not losing somebody, but we've created a wellness dog program that some other departments in the state have. It's something that helps um within the department because we have a peer support team and it also helps out in the community. So, it's been really well received. Um she did uh training at a

075maximum security uh women's prison in New York State for 14 days and the program is called Puppies Behind Bars. And it's been a great experience. We were trying to get her to come tonight with the dog, but she couldn't. she actually had to be somewhere else, so it wasn't going to work. But, um, we've tried to expand some of those things as we've grown the department back to desirable levels. We have, um, put another SRO back in the schools. We did that in September. Um, we're looking to put a third one in for this new coming school year. That's our goal. Hasn't been locked in stone yet. We just have to see where we are, but we're really want to do that. We did have an officer that was working full-time at the mall where

076was the first time ever we had that. And if you remember um a few years back before we ran into all of our shortages, we actually started that program through a grant that was obtained through the um uh federal government of about $125,000 that the assistant chief was able to get for us. Um he was one of the people we had to pull out of that assignment for a while because of the fact of our all of our shortages. The goal was to just maintain our basic patrol functions that we had to do have to do 24 hours a day. So we've been able to reestablish some of those programs. That position hasn't gone back in yet, but that is one we want to do. Um you know, we have officers that are in the

077field, a minimum amount of officers 24 hours a day. They respond to all of the calls, medical, you know, medical calls they go to and whatever may take place. Um, they go and I think they do a terrific job and we're looking to expand a department, not necessarily expand a department right now, but get back to full levels, which is the 82. So, we have a hiring process that is always ongoing um with the HR department. Um, we have two lists now where we think we're possibly going to hire one off of and hoping to get a couple of more off of the new list that was just established about a week ago. And then they have to start their training which is about somewhere between 10 and 11 months of training before they can

078work alone. So even though we've reestablished a lot of our positions, at one point this year we had 11 people in training. So, they were being paid because they're members of our department, but they weren't filling any of the uh shifts in patrol because they they're not qualified to and we can't we can't do that until they're completely certified. And that's close to 11 months of training. So, um some of them have finished their training and they're in patrol by themselves now. And then right now, currently, we have um six people in in training, various uh phases of their own training. So that's the uh the goal is to re really get back to a better level of staffing so we can serve the community as best we can. >> And are you seeing the

079fruits of the pension the reinstated >> Yeah. You our retention has been really good since that that occurred. I'm very grateful to everybody for that. U that was without a doubt we were I'd say a sinking ship at one point because of just the variety of different things that occurred. So, we've seen some of our um recruitment and application numbers go up somewhat. Um and we've been able to hire and we don't continue to lose those people after a few years of training and a few years of working and going to other departments. So, it's been a big help. >> Yep. >> Okay. With that, questions. Councilman Foreman. Uh just along those same lines, do you see uh your overtime hours uh coming down or being less impacted than they were before? You have more

080staff. >> Not this year. >> That's for sure. Because of all the people I mentioned that we had in training. Um this year we're probably going to be maybe a little bit more than what's budgeted. Um next year I hope it to come down somewhat. Um, the one thing I would not necessarily warn but mention about is that um, and I don't know really the impact yet because I don't know the figure yet, but um, we are in contract negotiations with the union. They will get payraises. When they get payraises, their overtime rates go up. Um, so that kind of compounds throughout the years, but we're hopeful that it comes down this year, this coming fiscal year, the the one we're talking about right now. Councilman Wolf. >> Hi, Chief. >> Hi. >> Um, thank

081you for you, your men, Deputy Chief Glenn. Thank you. You always have my support. You guys do a wonderful job. Um, just going back to the mall because I know in the past two months there's there's been a smash and grab. There's been a a gun discharge. There's been fights. Um, how quickly do you expect someone staffed there? And I we know that the mall is going through this bankruptcy procedure. Um are the owners working with you guys and if so how frequently? Or do you expect the new owners when they come in to to to have a better relationship? Like if you could just give us any type of >> Yeah, we actually have a meeting scheduled I think either this week or early next week. >> This Thursday to meet with managers and

082people who are running the facility right now. uh we try to meet with them periodically. I communicate with with the first election's office but also with Reena because she deals a lot with some of the development that might be going on with within there bringing stores in and other retail companies. Um we hope to continue and you know have a good relationship with whoever buys the mall. I don't know who it's going to be, but one thing we'll do is as soon as a purchase is made, um, and we've done this when Namar bought the property a few years ago, we immediately, um, called for a meeting with their leadership. Um, and that included ourselves, Reena, first selectman's office, um, to really um, engage with them as quickly as we could. As you know, security

083is a major issue for us. Um, but I do want to say like that full-time position we had, we do want to reestablish that. Um, but I can tell everybody here that we do have officers that um, we do we make sure that the officer who's in that patrol sector we call it and go through there every day during their shift. They have to get out of their car and do what we call a walk and talk. Get out of the car, go talk to people in the facil in other places too, the schools as well, but get out, go in and speak to the retail owners. What are their problems? what are the things that they're dealing with on a daily basis, quality of life, things that might affect their businesses. Um, and then

084and the and the crime that occurs, too. They address that as rapidly as they can. Um, and that was one of the big things that the officer who was assigned there full-time, his only job was to work at the mall, work with all the retail uh companies and businesses that were there. And it was actually a really good thing because we were able to there were several retail um organized uh theft groups that were coming through. We still deal with them. Um and he was able to pull some of those cases together, make some arrests, do some really good work. And it was it was something that um you know, we look at the mall because it's so large and so many people go there. We look to it like if its own town really.

085Um, and we try to be there as much as we can. It's it's one of the things one of the locations we tell officers, you have to write a report and you're in that sector, try to go and sit there and try to move around in different locations within the mall. So, and there's also times when we hire people um through holidays or if we have information about even a possibility of something happening there, we'll communicate with their security people and say, "Listen, you need to and we need to put additional people to walk through the mall this weekend." Um or or whenever it might be, we'll hire extra people to do that. >> Thank you. And for your >> Thank you. More questions. >> Okay, Councilman Isaac. >> Um, Chief, for the U mall

086officer, do we have a chance to reapply for that grant again? Will that be coming up for another renewal or anything like it that might >> I don't know if it comes up for renewal. It was a it was a one-time grant that would last throughout three years. And because of the salaries and cost of living here, we went through that money within a little more than a year. Um it may it may come up again. It's just it's something that we look for for a variety of different grants whether it's for that or for the like this week we're doing distracted driving um enforcement and we're always looking for grants to help us do those um provide those services without any cost to the town. So we will if it comes up we'll certainly

087apply for it. There have been other grants that we've applied for for the mall for us as a law enforcement agency that were denied. Um, and that happens at times. You just don't get everything you ask for. >> And then the I know for the board of finance you were talking about um that goes towards the special detail, the officers that are um working with the UI resource. Um are you going to be able to try to increase the amount per hour pay or is that something that has to go through the board of finance? I know you mentioned that. looking into it. >> Well, for the car, that is something that I believe in the past uh the director of finance was able to do. >> Sorry, Maria, one more for you. >> So,

088um we can we can have that discussion. The rate that the officers get at the site for them is is separate charge for the car. >> Car. Yeah. >> And then the rate for the officers is um something that's fixed within their working contract. >> That was it for me. Thank you. Okay. >> Oh, actually, one thing. The the speed um around town, the new signs, they're great. I'm constantly going like, "Oops." So, yeah. >> Um there's a lot more. They look great. I did get stopped by one of your officers after discussing that I'm going to turn red. Um I was like, gosh, that was my idea to say like, "Should we get this? You know, we need those speed cameras." And there I stopped. So, it was really embarrassing. >> Um but but

089they're they're out there. So, just in case anybody doesn't know. >> Yeah. And that's another we try to put we tried to get more of those throughout the years for a couple of obviously to slow people down, but it's a calming device without us having to be there. People see it, your foot automatically comes off the accelerator. >> Um I don't know about you, but most of us out. >> I I' I've been called leadf foot by one of your officers. Um, another thing that we try to do is um to re we've just reestablished we for years the department had two people full-time in traffic and that was part of their work was going out and doing selective enforcement in areas and and saturating areas if we had complaints about speeding or whatever it

090might be. Um, we had to take them out also when they were when we had all the shortages and just put them in a patrol function. So, we lost some of that, but they're both back in as of April 1st. The second one went back in. So, they can work on more of those things. >> Yeah. >> Yes. Councilman Sento, >> I have a suggestion. >> Why don't you park a Why don't you park an officer on Forest View in Bayberry >> and write about a thousand tickets a day in the summer for running the stop signs? Especially all the town trucks that run the stop signs, too. You can give them tickets every morning. >> Wow. I got the plate numbers if you need them. >> Okay. All right. >> And there's one violator

091that's just brutal. >> Okay. >> Town person. >> Union. >> So, um just you know the every and because people have complained >> Yeah. >> on that road, especially when the you know baseball's starting now >> and um honestly they should just close the back gate >> in the back when the baseball starts >> because it gets a little crazy >> and just run the stop signs. run the stop signs all day long. >> Yeah. Okay. I'll I'll mention to the traffic people. >> Thanks, >> Councilman Wolf. >> I just just a quick question. Um I'm sorry I didn't bring this up earlier. He kind of reminded me about speeding. I I hate these e scooters, these ebikes. >> Um I hate seeing kids on them. I know Fairfield has a like weekly My parents

092I grew up Fairfield. My parents reside in Fairfield. They get like a weekly email from the police department just about safety precautions. >> Okay. Um, I know you addressed this with us last year that we had the tragic >> Yeah. >> accident down on on on Main Street. Um, >> any any can you give us any updates or any programs that we might be able to release to the public because it's these things are going with kids on them more than 20 mph. >> There's a lot of people out there with especially once the weather broke, you know, for the few days that it did, we saw a lot of that and school was out also for part of that. Um, so we've tried to advertise it. We've tried we've communicated with the school because

093some bicycle safety is not just a law enforcement thing. It's a parent, in my opinion, a parental issue and something that maybe the board of education could help out with education of of people of children on riding bicycles and the safety and the dangers. Um this summer we are supposed to work with um um somebody who's came to us last year and wanted to create almost like a mock community and teach bicycle safety and the ebike. Also we're having national night out which is a a law enforcement initiative throughout the country on August 4th this year at Indian Ledge. And I've already instructed the people that are doing it. I said, I want you to have some processes there where we can have because it's all families that go where people can go with their

094children and spend some time learning some of this. Um it's really we have the officers in patrol that um I think just this evening I actually on my way here um when they see people on ebikes and going too fast or cutting in and out of traffic whatever it might be they're told to stop them. Try to get a hold of a parent and explain to them this is what your child was doing. It's dangerous. Um they need to wear a helmet. whatever it might be. If it's some of the ebikes, if it has 750 watts or more is not an ebike, it's really a vehicle and you need to have a license to drive it. I don't know if everybody knows that. Some of them are aftermarket modified. Um, I would just suggest to

095any family that gets one for any of their children to be extremely careful and you really need to teach them that. And I and and ch children kids do make mistakes. We all did as children and I don't want to have another tragedy in town, but we are working on some training sessions to get out to people and we have spoken with the board of education. >> Yeah. And I think that's the biggest problem is that parents don't understand that once it's a it's a it is a vehicle. You have to be 16 once you're you're over 20 miles an hour or something like that. And and they're missold to to to parents that just don't understand that. So, thank you. I appreciate you. >> You're welcome. >> Yep. >> Okay. Any more questions? >>

096Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you very much, Chief. Thanks for everything you do. >> Okay. >> Next up, Mr. Estrada. >> You've got half the agenda tonight. So, >> Good evening. Uh first I have our directors are all here behind me. If there are any granular questions that you'd like to ask of any of the departments, we can try to address those. Um we worked um extensively with the first lectman's office and the uh finance director as we put together our budget. Um, obviously there are always there's always more that we can ask for, but we recognize the difficulty of you arriving at a final budget. Um, and we try to present something that is um, not too great of an impact from the previous year. Um, and if you notice, you pretty much we

097are status quo. We did not request a lot in this year's budget. Um we calculate everything on a 3% uh cost of living increase uh just because everything is going up. Uh and we base base those things on historic trends. We do a lot of analysis, data analysis to see where we are um and where we project that we're going. Um and pretty much I I'll open it. I'm sure that you have specific questions um to from for some of the departments if anything that uh I can help. >> Um we could go through it department by department. Does anybody you want me to do it that way? >> Go down the list here. Um so public works and then we have we have street lights. Anybody have questions there? Uh highway. Snow removal. Fantastic

098job. Once again, you almost had more today. >> Were you worried at all? >> Oh, yeah. >> It was sleeping on my deck. >> Yes. Councilman. >> Hi. I just want to say thank you. I was at a restaurant with my family and some guy started yelling at me about the conditions on the street and you literally I emailed you I think the next morning and you got back right to me. So, I just wanted to thank you. Um, and I know that street's not on the list, but I And you're doing six linear miles a year. That's the plan until everything's done. >> Um, if if we encounter that, we can give you honorable mentions for streets that aren't on the the list, I guess. But that I just want to say thank you.

099>> Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. >> Anything else there? >> Yep. Councilman Isaac, >> just on the snow, obviously, we spent a lot just because of the nature of the storms and everything. Um and uh supplies. Thank you for getting them all in. Do we have any left at this point or we went to the Oh, we do. >> You did you did even better than anticipated then. >> Yeah, we have our salt supply is about 60%. So supplement that top it off before winter starts again probably September, October. >> Great. >> We do have additional things to get us started for the next season. So, >> Yep. >> So, we're probably one of the few towns that actually has has uh some stockpile. Thank you. Any questions at that

100point? No. Uh, let's see. Building maintenance. Questions on building maintenance? Councilman Sinto. >> Hey, George. Hi. This is a general question about maintenance. All right. Um, it seems from our at least this last three or four months, you've had some uh appropriations for stuff that should have been maintenanced like fire panels and stuff like that. Just as an example, >> do you guys have a maintenance plan >> for for all that kind of stuff? Like, do you have, for example, do you hire I'll just use an example, a company to handle the fire, come in every six months, check the fire, check the relays, check the smoke detectors. Do are you guys having constant maintenance contracts with people? >> There are contract maintenance contracts, standard maintenance contracts. Beyond that um we had in the budget

101and we had to go through the civil service process to um populate the position because it was budgeted last year. There is a an assistant in the maintenance building maintenance department that Dimmitri uh his first order of business was to go building by building. We have we have now we're documenting every model um age of everything. Uh we're confirming we're putting in place the maintenance contracts that may not have been in place before. Uh working with our vendors on recommended uh service agreements. Uh we um by the end of this fiscal year, we should have a thorough plan in place going into the next fiscal year for July. >> Are we maintancing the buildings the same way we're maintancing, for example, the snow plows with the same upkeep, the same stuff? because >> the intervals

102are different. But yes, that that the maintenance on them um our HBAC contractors basically we have maintenance contracts for the buildings for for the each one of them. Uh seasonally they're they come in and they do the startups for the heat, they do the startups for the for the air conditioning. Um the fire panels, we work with the fire marshall on establishing what the intervals should be for those type of um inspections. So, fire extinguishers, fire systems, we we all of that is is an annual um maintenance process, >> right? The reason I'm bringing it up because to lose four fire panels at the same time should never happened. >> It's it should have never happened. I mean, that's just >> I agree with you. It it should never happen, but it's something that even

103through a maintenance, an electronic failure on one of those panels is not something that through a regular maintenance they would have captured. I'm sure in some cases could some of that maybe had been picked up that and anticipated possibly, but um our infrastructure, the age of our infrastructure is just a challenge in general. Uh we had a number of um boilers and furnaces this year that had major issues um and it's just because of their age. So part of what we're doing now is we want to establish a capital plan for that type of infrastructure so that we can plan that accordingly according to age um and usage of of the facility that we could put something in place so we can anticipate the end of life cycle and we can address those things be

104before they become an emergency. >> Thank you. >> Any other questions on building maintenance? Okay. Uh, fleet maintenance. Go down. >> Councilman Isaac. >> Um, probably not not really a fleet, but um, when you'd mentioned to the board of finance um, the gas and diesel had been locked in and then once you get to the transfer I mean the um, public works department to um, uh, to change out the what do you call them? the >> the gas holders, the retaining >> station. >> Yeah. So, um and that you may have to go downtown to perhaps supplement. Um I'm assuming you're trying to do that as minimally as possible or only emergency, but I wasn't since the price is going to be dramatically different than the lock in. >> We're out. We're out. Um the

105bid is out for the fueling station replacement. Um we are working through that. Um, we had a walkth through from that. There are a lot of questions that are generated by those that are going to participate in that bid. Uh, so the plan was to um do that renovation of our fueling um station, town fueling station this summer. Um some of that may be in jeopardy now because we've gone from a um 10 to 14 week lead time on the tanks to a 45 46 week lead time on tanks. So now it's going to be phased that we probably what we're hoping we can do is do the island the infrastructure of the pumps which are what uh have been um challenging the last couple of years to maintain. Uh, and then the following summer

106probably do the the tanks themselves, but we're still working through that with our engineer engineering consultants and the vendors. >> So, gas may be at an all-time low by then. Who knows? >> I hope. >> Okay. You know, I just remember because you were saying how you were going to switch out and try to Okay. Thank you. >> We have a plan. We We have contingency plans should we have to go off site. That's what we've been uh Rich and Fonte has been working on >> because it's so easy. Thank you. >> Anyone else on fleet or fleet maintenance? Maintenance. >> Okay. Recycling center. >> How are you feeling about that 46K that came out? >> Uh we the increases that we have in the recycling center are just contractual. We bid that every three

107years. So there's a three three and a quarter% increase this year. that's factored in. That's that's what the majority of the increases were. Um the tip fee for disposal of the MSW um that that went up uh about 4%. So, um, there was a reduction by the board of finance there, but I think that they based that more on our historical average, um, and taking in and they did take into consideration the increase, um, in the in the, uh, the tonnage cost. So, I I think I think we're fine. Um, I I don't I don't anticipate any any major fluctuations there. >> Great. Councilman, >> did did that get locked in at this point? I know you were anticipating 4%, but you weren't sure what the cost was going to be for the tonnage exactly

108>> for for the tip fee. >> Uh that has not come in as a final yet. >> So, it's still waiting. >> That's usually end of May, I believe, is when that that comes in. >> Yeah, you said that before. I don't know if when you're saying that it came in. >> Thank you. >> Okay, any questions there? Recycling. Uh, inland wetlands com commission. Anything there? >> Okay. Town engineer. Here he comes. Mr. Maher. >> Good evening. >> Inland wetland. >> No. Uh, yes. Actually should have had you there. Yes. So in inland wetlands we increased uh four to cover the um added expenses of lawsuits. >> That's not good. >> And basically the rest of it's all pretty flat on the on the uh the agenda. >> All right. Does anybody have any questions?

109Mr. Sinto, >> hey, how are you? >> Good. How are you? Um >> I may have missed this, but on um your servicesers fees in Clerico went up from 2,000 from the prior year of 6,000. That was that was for the for for the u the the um minutes that have to be translated for court documents. Um we've had quite a few high-profile cases that are being appealed. All right. Any other questions? >> Um, all right. Now, while we have you there, the WPCA, can we move on to that enterprise fund >> WPCA? Um, pretty much flat also except for the increase to the Bridgeport based, uh, 3% increase based on the rate. Councilman Wolf. >> Yeah, just two questions on that because I you guys gave us a tour last year. It was fantastic.

110Um, how are the pump stations, any of them failing? Just want to make sure >> there's no issues in Trumble. >> We are um we're working on the final bid documents for Wildwood. I know if you were on the tour. >> Yeah, Wildwood. >> So, we we should be hopefully putting that out to bid. >> That's the one behind the houses, right? Yes, it is. >> So, we're working on the final bid documents now and being reviewed and we should have probably ready to bid probably in June sometime. >> Okay. And and what um contract with Bridgeport? When does that come due? >> The contract uh uh goes to to July 1st but renews automatically for three years. >> Oh. So, so do we negotiate with them or they they just >> whatever the rate

111is, we pay them. >> Okay. At what point I know it' be a multi-billion dollar project, but at what point like do we have to build our own? Like what what would the break even be on that? >> It's a significant number. It's a >> figure 150 to 200 million. I don't think >> I don't think that's going to >> out of our price range for now. >> I got you. Hey, any further questions? >> Thank you very much, sir. >> Thank you. >> And we have saved the best for last, Mr. Paris. >> Good evening, everyone. >> Good evening. >> Fire away. Um, well, why don't you give us a little give us a little overview? What what's what's going on out there? Where are you feeling good? What's coming up? >> It's spring.

112I hate everything. >> You say I think I think you're being literal. >> I am absolutely being literal. Yeah, this is the this is quite the the time for our department for what is it? Uh, everything everywhere all at once, as they say. >> Uh, everything has to be running. Everything has uh is date sensitive. The weather is not your friend and uh you know everybody is anxious to uh play in our backyard. >> So we do our level best and u you know tap dance wherever we can and not upset and disappoint as much as possible. We got away with uh you know opening day at Little League today. So one down and all right >> 3,000 more to go. >> Okay. Any questions on tree warden? Start there. Yes, councilman. >> Hi. >>

113Howdy, buddy. >> Um, for the tree, I know that there's been a lot going up at Unity and uh, Indian Ledge over the past year. What And I don't know if you guys I know there was some flooding at Madison Middle School last year because we cut some of the the trees down. So, so we had to build the drainage down there. Um, where do you at what point do we say, "Hey, this tree needs to be cut down and then we replace it with a new tree." Like what what are you looking at when when that goes into the determination? Because a lot of the trees at Indian Ledge look like the new ones look like we're just replacing it from the old ones that were there. >> Well, Indian Ledge in terms of

114the, you know, the replacement trees is really a wildly different planting all the way around it. It had uh you know different grades and so those things were going in there to actually tie those grades together around the uh the hillside going up to the artificial field. That's really not a replacement per se. All the trees on the the front side of the gravel parking lot. >> Uh those really didn't exist whatsoever and at some point or another those will help you know Indian Ledge to >> absorb. >> Yes. Exactly. So what we're doing is is doing our level best to limit the the effects of what's what's a natural environmental condition at Indian Ledge. >> What about Madison Middle School when we cut those down? Like were those trees were they dying? Were they

115a danger to >> Well, you're talking about uh in terms of the uh the the uh the right hand side where it goes down into the uh the reservoir. Yeah, >> drainage. >> That's a whole drainage project that this gentleman can give you a little more detail on and then we can tell you what we did with the project as a whole. >> So, the the area that you're speaking of was actually a large detention basin that had basically a dam that overlooked three houses and was in a danger of failing. We needed to go in there. We put underground storage so that we didn't if there was a problem, we're not taking out houses. >> Sure. >> Um, yes, there was a large a lot of tree clearing. Um, but now we have a

116flat field that can actually be a field. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Thanks, Bill. >> Okay. Any other questions for about tree? Tree wing? >> Tree wing. warning. >> Hey, Demetri, I have a question that's not really a budgetary one, but I'm just bringing it up only because it was top of mind. I went on um historical society had a little tour of Abrams Nicholls Park the other day and as the uh Dossent was walking us around, everyone was stumped by a really gorgeous specimen tree and no one knew what it was and I was just like, Demetri definitely knows what this tree is. Um it's as you're going p up the ramp behind uh the barn. Um, and it was very bumpy and everyone there who's part of the historical society would

117love to have like sort of a label on it. And I feel like as though that there's so many great specimen trees in so many of our parks that it would almost be a wonderful thing to have some sort of tour and an arborist's view tour of parks. So >> I don't need more work. >> No, no, no. Not no. I just not for you to do a tour, but for a person who's very educated or someone who's a volunteer who's very who would like to to lead something like that. >> So the the the tree >> I'll bring it to I'll bring it to the parks commission as an as a notion or an idea. But >> your your tree is gymnatus. It's a Kentucky coffee tree. >> Oh, there you go. All right,

118I'll call. >> Sounds like you're the guy, Dimmitri. >> Shut up. >> Kentucky coffee tree. Awesome. That's perfect. Thank you. >> There's two on the property, by the way. >> Where's the other one? >> Ah, >> I have to go look for it. didn't know where he was going. >> No, no. We were just basically kind of it was a view of the historical aspects and some of the backstory about the Nicholls family, etc., etc. that was walking around and >> it's Woods. Woods Woods was >> George Woods is a state. Yes, >> George was well, but George was a was a crazy gardener and that's why >> that was part of what was discussed. Yes. But Okay. All right. Thanks. Appreciate it. >> Okay. Anything else for Dimmitri? Parks and Wreck. Parks department. >>

119Yes. Councilman Wolf. Um, let's start with the farmers market because it's been a full year since you guys took that over, right? >> Two years. She time flies. Um, >> my hair is on the ground, so trust me. Two years. >> How I would love an update. Um, specifically, how many vendors has it grown? Um, how do you staff? It's Thursdays, right? For four hours. >> Yep. if you can give us an update on the >> So, uh, how do I give you this in a short bridge version? We don't want the farmers market to grow in terms of number of vendors at any one given time. We want to have a a specific number that will help uh balance out the capacity of the park or whatever location that it's in. And the two

120fight one another. you know, if we could put a hundred vendors somewhere, we have to find a way to bring in that many more people to address it. So, we're always seeking the balance point. We rotate uh different uh vendors from one week to the next. Some stay throughout the entire seasons, others shift out. Uh we do uh market surveys all the time to see what kind of uh response the vendors are getting from uh the general public. We tried to engage the general public while they're there to see what they like, what they don't like, and see what fits. Uh there's going to be some more changes this year uh down at Twin Brooks. We're going to be uh attempting some new uh methods for traffic uh flow through the park, which we find

121to be uh probably the biggest challenge. Uh one of the things we discovered over the last two years is that because the farmers markets in general are open to you know uh they're regional so anybody can come into the park and people like our parks surprise uh and so much so that uh they are they are disproportionately filling the park up parking spaces and really not there for the intended purpose of the farmers market. Not everybody of course but enough to make it that much more difficult for people to get easier access which was the you know the intended purpose. We want to make it easy for for seniors. We want to make make it a lot easier for people who just want to uh shop smart and uh be able to get fresh produce

122uh you know for their families. And so that was our a number one goal. So we're going to be doing some uh some shifting around there to see if we can improve upon that this year. How how many um how many park rangers usually do you have staff there? >> It changes. So there the park rangers are our uh you know our second hands with everything on any given event at the start. There could be five uh and then they they drift out because we need certain individuals at certain points to be able to bring people in. Uh part of what I was telling you about some of the changes this year is to be able to reduce that number. Uh the park may not be open to vehicular traffic uh prior to the uh

123to the start of the market uh and then it's open. So that will actually reduce the number of people that we're going to need trying to bring people in, trying to bring people out. Uh we're viewing it right now the same way that we do any special event. Uh we would if we had a road race, for example, we would we'd get uh the park down to a quiet state, get vehicles out of it, and then stage it for the road race and then open it up and it's good to go. We're going to do the same thing with uh the farmers market. That much easier to bring the vendors in, to park them, to, you know, to do the loop, to do their setups. It's all very time consuming. And when you have, you

124know, literally hundreds or hundreds and hundreds of people all around, you need that much more personnel to manage it safely. You know, we're going right by a playground. It's like, yeah, I I need somebody over to make sure that the kids are where they need to be, make sure the the vehicle is traveling at a right at correct rate of speed. So, >> do you do we I how do we how do we do as far as cost goes considering salary for the park rangers versus um I don't know how much we charge the vendors for coming in or do we charge non-resident vendors more than than trouble based businesses or anything like that? >> They're they're we we try to encourage uh you know trumblebased businesses but there aren't a lot of producing farms

125proper. So just to be able to meet the the minimum standard of a farmers market, we're bringing people in from other areas. We are looking at this as you know a a public service as much as it is uh a program. Uh when they run uh well uh we're doing the community a service. Uh so we're not looking at it as a profit uh a profit generating uh initiative. It's a community service. But what I guess ultimately my question is is the taxpayer paying for the service? Is there a balance or are we close to a break even for the for the vendors versus uh the staffing? >> I would say uh because I don't have those kind of numbers to to give to you with absolute specifics. Um, it depends on how you want

126to uh frame the discussion. Do I have park rangers on already on staff? Yeah, I'm just moving them around. So, should I count their, you know, their time when they are just there versus being someplace else? I can argue that they're already on they're already on the clock. uh if if it's going into an overtime situation, I would say that that would be in excess. Those aren't the case. Uh all of our staff is somewhere within the system and we're reallocating them to be able to provide, you know, that that particular service. >> So you do you staff more for Thursdays then just for the farmers market? Are you talking about >> all in? No. >> Okay. Um, I'm going to I'm going to move on to just just a quick question out of curiosity

127cuz as you know the the one major youth sports program you guys still run is the the wreck basketball in the winter. Are you guys um the federal government last year is forcing all the volunteers to do safe sport. Do you know if everybody the volunteers are compliant with safe sport? >> I actually do not. I do not know. >> Okay. Um the theater group, does that still fall under you guys? >> Yes. >> How's that going? >> Actually, very well. Uh the uh the the the theater uh arm of Parks and Wreck has really been uh flourishing with their more specific programming. They run a tap dance class and they're they're actually doing programming as well and they're bringing in good numbers. So that's uh that's a very positive thing. Every year though, you

128know, we we try our level best to uh break even or make profit on any of our performances and that fluctuates from one year to the next, but currently it's a good year. >> Okay. So c positive cash flow because I know last year. Okay, >> good. Great. Um all right, let's let's talk a little bit about the you know the fields, the turfs. Um >> fields. What are those? Yeah. Right. >> Um, like you said, we're getting into the busy season. I I guess my challenge, and we've talked about this before, is the town renting fields to non-Town programs. Um, Tri County Bruins. Could you tell me about them? >> I can't because I don't even know where the hell they are. >> Okay. So, just to let you know, they are a semi-professional

129football team out of Derby. And last year it rained so much we had to reschedule several soccer games and we the turf was monopolized by the Tri County Bruins. >> I'm I'm completely unfamiliar with that. I don't know why that would be it. >> It's not the first time. >> It was it uh something that was scheduled in last minute that bumped anything or was it a specialty event as far as >> No, I I I don't know the answer to the question. I know that we had to call friends in Fairfield rent fields there and I I don't I have an issue with our town-based programs. We ask taxpayers for money. >> Sure. >> You know, we it's tough for town-based programs to compete with the private programs, your Technique Tigers, your your your

130velocity, your whomever. >> And then we're telling those taxpayers, hey, you got to go play in Fairfield because we're renting it out to the Tri County Bruins. I I have to say that, you know, I I I drown in the field use policy, okay? And and there are so many, you know, tiers and explanations and justifications and exemptions as necessary built into that thing that our, you know, if if we had scheduled events, whether with any uh in town organization, I find it very hard to believe that it was in just an anomaly that an outside group was taking over any of our field we do uh rent field space. I mean, obviously uh they pay far more money and when there's an opportunity on the schedule, again, I'm I'm not familiar with the specifics

131of the this Bruins when they were there, but at any given time, if they had scheduled something well in advance, there was nothing on the calendar, I think it's it's fair. >> Yeah. But why if we're worried cuz >> always in our conversations we're worried about field usage and and wearing down fields and stuff but I I just don't understand. >> Where were they playing? Were they playing on McDougall? >> No, they're playing on the corkfield. >> That's an artificial field. So there's no wear and tear on a for all intent and purpose an artificial field. >> No, I understand. But it it's very tough to I mean we know that there's issues with with with budgets. trying to cut back board. >> I I I just to make a couple extra bucks. Why are

132we renting out if >> But would you prevent somebody from renting it in advance and hold it on the on the possibility that an in town or >> No, I just think it's wrong that we're asking taxpayers for money to fund these fields and then we're renting them out just to make a couple bucks out of out of a non-town program. But if if a town program didn't ask for it, if it wasn't booked, okay, you I mean, you would have always gotten an first bite at any of these. >> I I understand, but you can't, as you know, you can't control the rain. We just talked about how >> So, would you leave it would you leave it? >> I just wouldn't rent a non Your job is not to rent out field space

133to uh make a profit. Your job is to help the taxpayers, right? I am also supposed to have a a revenue generation for you as well. And I'm not putting one off against the other. I think we're responsibly utilizing uh field rental for in town and out oftowners as much as we can, but we can't control, you know, if there's a an anomaly situation with the weather that an in town organization suddenly had a need when somebody else already had it booked in advance. And that's pure supposition on my part. Everything that I'm saying to you right now, I don't know the specifics. I don't know the specifics, but I'll ask a question. Well, but another followup to that, Christian Heritage, what do we I know that they take up a ton of the the

134time. >> They do. >> What do we get in exchange for? >> A Well, we get to use their facility, which we don't get to use almost anywhere else. >> How often? >> Uh, let me see. The first part of last year, they were there twice a week. We had people there. We can run programs out of their gym. They're They are They are a true >> Why Why not our own gyms? I'm confused. >> Well, I am too. Why don't you bring that up to a different organization you'll be seeing in a day or two? >> Which which which >> the board of education. >> I don't I don't I rent out I rent out gyms all the time. I don't have a pro like why wouldn't we use our own resources rather than

135submit them out to Christian Heritage? >> Christian Heritages is an excellent partner with us. We have it at our availability where I don't have it with the board of education. It's as simple as that. >> Uh that's that's baffling to me. Uh I I don't mind asking Dr. Samuel for that. >> Be my guest. >> All right. Why don't we take this to the point where if you have any more specific questions regarding >> specific field use issues could put that into writing. Give us those questions. I'd be happy to get those to you because I I have a real problem with taking taxpayer money and giving it to non- taxpayers. We beg the taxpayers to fund these fields for >> but I think what I hear Demetri saying is that we're giving them out

136we're not using the fields during our that's an interest I don't understand where we're we're trying to generate re that's not his job his job is to serve as a taxpayer not to generate revenue >> this this I believe should go to the parks and rec commission which is where they do the field policy and obviously Demetri is on that but that's that's where the policies are written and they have that at open meetings and that's where the the the >> tears go did you create that or was that by the >> field use committee. >> That was field use comm. >> Uh last time it was adjusted four years ago. >> When was the original? Do you off top? >> I don't remember. >> 20 years ago. >> No, it's not that long ago.

137Okay. >> But it's evolved. It It's evolved. It It started off before there was even travel programs. That's how far back that goes. So, >> it has to try to keep up with the, you know, with the times and the organizations that are using them. But I I assure you, you know, the the top tiers are for in town organizations >> first and foremost. >> Um sometimes a three, sometimes a four. I get it. Um and I'm sorry if that comes off if anything I said sounds harsh, but but the reality of situation is it's difficult as a volunteer to explain to trouble taxpaying residents. We can't, you know, can't do this makeup game here. We got to kick the can down to Fairfield because we've rented it out to whatever private. >> As I

138said, I'll gladly look into it. Send me any of the the the specifics that you may know or even, you know, even partially know and I'll be glad to look into to see if what actually the details were. >> I would also and I'll put an email just want to see how much revenue is generated from each individual program. I think I requested that last year as well, but I I would love to see like I know how much I pay. I'd love to see each individual jumbo program, you know, just just to see what the revenue stream is. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you, Councilman Foreman. >> I have a uh different question, not about fields. Pickle ball courts. >> Can we go back to fields? Uh I recall I think

139last year there were similar concerns that you know who's using the pickle ball courts, how are they getting onto the courts and how is it being enforced that those who reserve their proper time and reside in the town are getting first priority there. Um is there is are we to refined our process there? Is there a process or is it >> gotten better fewer complaints? Uh talk to me about that >> or more complaint. >> No, there's not more complaints. Uh pickle ball is an interesting anomaly. Um you know we've tried a number of different methods at trying to both generate interest and manage uh the excitement that I don't think anybody actually realized was coming our way. Um it is a social program. Uh most of the people that play in their various groups

140are not playing and I'm saying most are not just playing their next door neighbor or a family member. They play in groups and they come from many different towns. The ways that's accommodated is that a resident can uh book a court or courts. Uh non-residents cannot. Uh so that's the first thing that we're honoring. But it's a mechanism that if they're organized well enough, they can get together and it's like, "Please, by all means, John, John John, please rent if it's available Tuesday and Thursday and we'll come together, but you are the renter." Um, that seems to work for the most part fairly well. Some of the things that we have also ensured is that there's just walk-on free play for residents. So there are courts that unless nobody showed up for any reason, those

141things are open for you to come on anytime that you want and just play. No permit needed, but nobody at the same time is going out there and asking you for your identification, but it is the run of the luck uh run of your luck. um the court uh the courts themselves in terms of the various facilities uh their draw differs dramatically uh whereas Islandbrook is very you know kind of a more neighborly but there is a lot of play there uh Tashua is a free-for-all it's it's it's non-stop all the time and will not stop um and so it's it's really the comfort factor of where people want to play and where they're comfortable playing. But Tasha is is certainly top tier. Unity is is uh probably next and then Highland Brook overall for

142playability. It's really not as bad as it once was in terms of uh the complaints. Uh most of the players realize that, you know, what's necessary for them to get court time, which is really their goal. There's there are no evil people here. They just want to go hit a ball with a with a paddle. uh it's just how they do it and whether or not they all get along when they're out there. For the most part, I'd say they do. And as long as we uh you know, ensure that there's a place for just somebody to go have some fun without all of the hyperorganization of pickle ball or any of the other uh uh online organization, we're good. And I haven't heard otherwise. And if uh you do, shoot it my way. I'll

143be more than happy to look into it. >> Okay. God damn it. >> Well, I've got to go to uh >> Oh, please. >> Councilman Oris has been waiting patiently. >> Sure. >> So, uh Demetri, you talked about during the farmers market the a large amount of traffic that's coming into the park from non-residents as is permitted and allowed, but you sort of implied a little bit of an overflow or individuals kind of maybe getting there before or remaining after. And I have heard from some constituents just generally talking about Twin Brooks in particular, but all of our parks in terms of the number of non-resident people parking and the enforcement of that. And certainly rangers are out there with their ticket books and um one individual told me that he used up his entire

144book in one shift or something along those lines. Um you track um non-resident park um stickers as a KPI in your budget book. Um, and certainly there is like some initiative to sell stickers to people that aren't residents who want to use our parks, but it seems to me just as a casual observer, there's really more people that just show up and just, you know, I'll pay the fine if I get ticketed and just be that as it may, but some residents have complained to me or cons expressed concern that there isn't enough awareness in the general public that res that stickers are actually required and there's signage postage, right, that talks about here's how you get your sticker and here's the season, but it isn't as clear that says a sticker is required. >>

145Well, at the entries of every single park, though it may not be, you know, >> no neon, it actually says that, you know, parking stickers required year round. >> No, but it it doesn't it's it's I was looking at the verbiage. I literally took a photo of it just yesterday. Um it says park stickers available now. New stickers must be in place at this time, etc. And here's how you get them. But it still doesn't lawn. That's >> That's the lawn sign. That's the lawn sign. That's the like additional lawn sign. >> Yes. >> Yeah. So, um, from a budget perspective, I'm just curious. I know the revenue from fines comes elsewhere. It's not hitting your line. It's kind of mixed in probably with fines. You know, Maria, you could tell where that >> it

146doesn't come back to it, though, >> right? It's not your KPI to to measure in your budget. It it's just it's it's just a pain point that people are talking about a lot is parking and >> Oh, yeah. and um if there's a a way to have better more signage or more awareness. We see lots of social media videos out there promoting how great our town is and people are literally posting this is a great park. You should come and they're advertising it to non-residents to come and then their cars show up and then you know people get displaced and upset. >> I get it. I really do. I mean we've been living with you know the challenges of you know the the policy. It's a it's an ordinance actually. uh it's year round uh

147and so at various times of the year everything that you said is absolutely spot-on accurate. People do make a decision, a conscious decision, but what makes it even more challenging is that it's not strictly a binary situation. you come in or you know as a resident or you have a you know a paid sticker or you're you're told that you're not allowed access because with all of our our uh recreational use everybody has a grandmother that's going to come from the adjoining town to go visit their their their their family play baseball. We have to find methods of allowing that while at the same time trying to figure out how to filter something that we may consider to be aberant. Uh it's just people overwhelming uh you know the park system which is the problem.

148>> Yeah, it's it's a it's a popularity problem. Absolutely. I get it and it's a lot for you all to manage and I do appreciate that. It's I was just voicing it from there is a revenue aspect associated with it and I'm just wondering if there's a way to advertise to folks, you know, because it's pretty flat like 11,000 is what you're expecting to get in that revenue line item and if there's a way to encourage more people to either buy their stickers or whatever it may be. >> We we we certainly want to do that. We want to, you know, for example, if we can talk about pickle ball again, you know, that's an odd one where people could actually derive far more uh personal benefit by getting $112 sticker, get them into any

149park, anywhere, and actually just walk on like any Trumbull resident. Uh but they don't. It's a it's a personal choice. And then we're we're left to try to filter it out and u you know issue the fines where appropriate and apologize when it wasn't. >> Right. Uh Councilman Wolf, >> I I probably should have emailed you this back in December. Can we I had complaints about the lights in the winter when we had two or three feet of snow going on. Could we could we I don't I don't know if we can remotely shut them off when there's snow and nobody's using the pickle ball courts. C can we do something about that just so I don't have to hear a nonsensical complaint about lights being on? >> Very important. Uh, Congress, >> listen, it

150will save us tax dollars and if if it annoys people, like if if we can do something to address the lights if their streets fet snow for an extended period of time, I >> we we we just finally just disable them entirely at a certain point. uh we may just simply go into the next season and shut them down early and then we'll have to deal with the unusual 65 degree day when somebody wants to go out and play pickle ball and the lights won't work. >> Yeah, I don't I don't know >> that actually happened. >> If we just know that there's going to be a forecast like this past winter, if we can maybe just >> I'll be more than happy. We used to shut them down entirely, but it was a push

151to we've spent all this money and the weather is uh you know suitable to go out without a parka and get some athletic play. Why are you preventing me from doing so? Uh this year I think like tip the scales to new lows or highs. I I agree with you. >> Sure. >> Councilman Isaac. Um, back to park stickers. Um, I know >> I'm much too popular kids. >> I I know. Well, I won't say anything about pickle ball. Um, I know at your last meeting you were talking about the um either doing and then the issue with budget doing park stickers every two years and what if somebody says, you know, that's not in the budget for the next year. So, issues with that we would never forget. Um, or just doing it sequentially

152versus the license plate numbers. and it it sounded like that seems to be a a nice way to save money. Um and that it would be identified by the park rangers. I don't know if you're going to consider either of those options. Um and then one other thing, I don't know if we can do it, but I looked at the company that prints and I think they can. And again, it's high technology. Um, but if you're able to ding something somehow, if somebody has not paid their um their real estate or car tax that they do not receive the sticker, so it doesn't print it out for them to go with their tax bill. And that just seems because we know over three years um you if people aren't registering their vehicles, they're not paying.

153And we see the board of finance, they just recently had that come out with their agenda. How many, you know, autos were not um paid up for taxes. and we see it happens for that three years till they register. So, I just thought that was also an interesting way to kind of get people I want to go to the parks and come in and pay their uh you know their fee. That was a roundabout. Sorry, I'm tired. I'm >> That's okay. Um clearly the the the parking sticker the park parking sticker uh discussion is far from over. Um it's complicated because of the the physical makeup of our parks. Okay. most a and the ordinances in terms of you know the the directive that the parks commission put in forever ago. This is a year

154round endeavor. Most communities deal with it for three months and many communities charge a fee for that and yada yada yada yada. So we don't have parks that are uh isolated where you have a gatekeeper. We don't staff it that way and we don't have the physical infrastructure to support that. Anyway, so the reasons we have what we have is is is a patrolbased observation from our rangers. That's why they're uh decidedly on the rear. Why are they on the not on the inside? Because the rear window is tinted and you will never be able to see it. And you know, each one of these decisions begets like another silly decision that has a cost associated with it. Uh so we're just looking plain and simple. You should be happy with me occasionally to to

155try to reduce costs on what otherwise is a very seemingly simple little thing, which is this uh rectangular sticker with Jonathan Trumbull on it. We are looking at various ways of keeping those costs down. Uh even if it's a simple change in in the printing and as I think we indicated and you mentioned uh the license plate may not be there but a sequential number would be able to you know be ultimately tied back to the plate the registration at a later date if necessary. So number 14 is TR12345 and we could get that kind of identification then. So we are working on it. >> Just seem to make sense a little easier. >> Anything is a good idea. >> Again, maybe with the tax collector's office that'll help too. >> Um and then a

156separate one which is which is not the question you want to hear tonight. Um so about the fields at Hillrest. Um I know is sorry. Um I know after the ridges face. >> Yeah, I'm not looking over there. Uh so I know that the plan is to start going to those fields for the geothermal and and getting through that after Trumbull Day. Uh is there on the other side of it? Um, is there any opportunity to reduce the field maintenance line? Um, I know that's not top of mind for you. You're thinking about everything else you have to do for rescheduling, but I was just curious how many fields are going to be out at that time and if that might be a way or if you know that's not something you've even thought about

157at this point. >> Oh, we certainly thought about it. Uh, the reality is we're going to lose a lot of fields and then the question is is what are we going to do with what we have left? uh you know there there's no uh you know no uh uh thought that people aren't going to want to play as much as they've ever done before. Uh and that's going to require more maintenance on what's remaining. Now does that >> good point >> does that ultimately mean it's you know apples to apples? I can't say. Uh but there is a number associated with the initial uh proposal of we cut the grass on this field. so many so many days or groomed that clay whatever and there's a number attached to it. We pull out all of

158those factors and then see well are we resotting infinitely more areas you know as a as an offset to some degree. I don't know what that is until this actually happens to be honest with you. Um this could be a big ugly mess. This could be uh cataclysmic or nowhere near as bad as I thought. I think it's going to be a disaster. Thank you. >> And and I and all all all for you doing that. So, um but no, that's a great point. I hadn't thought about that for building the other fields back a lot more uh frequently than they're going to than they're currently being done. But, uh good luck, Dimmitri. >> Sure. To you as well. >> Keep strong. >> Okay. And on that note, any more questions? >> Anyone? Anyone? >>

159Free. Free. >> Thank you very much. You are free. >> Thank you everybody. And do we have a motion to adjurnn? >> Motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> Mary seconds. All right. Thank you.