Board of Selectmen - July 7, 2025 Regular Meeting

001Good evening. Today is Monday, July 7th, 2025. I'd like to call the regular board of selections meeting to order. Linda Grao, Troy Laneir, Paul Marrio, Paul Harrington, Todd Archelachi, Glennius, William Hester, William Po, Selean Perez is excused. Uh just a quick question for our clerk. Uh Mr. Town clerk, that second monitor is not on, right? That's the cable feed and we are continued negotiations with Spectrum to fix that. Okay. Okay. I just saw it and I just didn't want to have the whole meeting. Sorry, Mr. Mayor. I just caught out of the corner of my eye. No problem. Join me for the pledge of allegiance. Pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Item

002three, agenda review. Does anyone have anything? Moving on to item four, the approval of the minutes of our regular meeting on June 16th. So moved. Second. Thanks, Troy. Thank you, Bill. Any discussion or corrections? Seeing none, all in favor? Six. Nothing. Moving on to item number five, citizens comments. The board of selectmen welcomes public comments. Speakers will be limited to three minutes or less and may speak once. Please give your name and address. Who would like to speak? Come on up, Bill. Just hit the red microphone button to turn that on. Nope. There you go. William Hudok, 232 Granville Road. Uh the selectman at previous meetings have discussed the issues arising from the actions of the town clerk to open the office on this Saturday before the most recent town budget referendum for the purposes

003of offering and processing absentee ballots without public notice without communication to the town manager or the board of selectment and communicated only through the Republican town committee Facebook page. The members of Democratic town committee have not filed a complaint with state election enforcement commission but aware are aware that a complaint has been filed. The will investigate and make a determination as to whether sanctions, fines, andor criminal penalties should result from this action consistent with Connecticut statutes. The Democrat Town Committee discussed this matter and are recommending that the board of selectmen take a proactive step in ensuring that the town, its residents, and property owners are protected against a repeat of this action by any town employee, including town clerk. We offer the uh following proposed town ordinance which adds a new article to the existing

004chapter 87 notices and request that the board of selectment send it to the town attorney for review and put it on the agenda for consideration by the board of selectment. If I could just read this please be a new article article two notice in hours of town offices section 87.4 for intent. The board of selectmen see seeks to ensure that all citizens, taxpayers, and visitors to the town of Winchester have equal access to town offices and that any changes or additions to the hours that all town offices are open, including the town clerk and the registar voters are clearly posted on the town website, the town notice board and all of the town social media and public notification accounts at least five working days prior to the change or addition of the hours of operation

005unless greater notice is required by state or federal law. Such notice shall clearly state when the intended or changed hours shall commence and end. Section 87.5 submission of proposed changes to the town manager and publication. The town manager shall be responsible for approving and publishing notice of all changes or additions to the hours that any town office is open. Town employees and selected, excuse me, and elected officials shall not transact or process any business outside of the hours that have been approved and published in accordance with this ordinance. Section 87.6 Six effective adopted regulations to ensure equal access to town offices to all citizens, property owners, and visitors to the town and to provide timely public notice of the changes or additions to hours in which town business can be transacted. ensures that all citizens

006and taxpayers have the same opportunity to transact town business to vote and to participate fully as outlined in state statutes and the town charter. So that is what we have developed. Um if I could just say parathetically I was taught that you should never come with a problem without a solution. This is something that we view as a solution. So, we offer it to you. We hope that you will uh send it to the town attorney that you'll put it on your agenda for consideration. Thank you. Do I give Thank you. Who else wishes to speak? Good afternoon. Um, no. I'm Cheryl McGlin, 61 Wetler Avenue, Winstead. Uh, there are two things I'd like to address. One is I'm here to support this proposed ordinance. I think, um, clarity and transparency are really important, and

007I know that the members of this board understand that they represent everyone in the town of Winchester, not just those that they feel will vote for them or vote on the way they want. So, it's very important that we have clear rules. This was very disturbing to find out that that only certain people were given notice of a town office being open and that the town clerk would not tell anyone why and who told them to do it or suggested it. It's not the transparency that this board should be seeking, you know, and that's not the transparency that the town people want. So, I would ask that you take serious consideration. It's a fair thing. It gives us guidance so that we don't have any confusion in the future and everyone has the same expectations.

008The other thing I'd like to bring up just briefly and I don't know whether to just taking this to Paul directly. I've been on the lake last few Sundays and we're having a serious issue after five o'clock with um wave runners and boers speeding. So breaking the door wake pool big time. I was trying to go out on the paddle board and had to get off because I couldn't enjoy that time. So I don't know if the because there's no patrols after 5:00. So maybe there can be patrols. We gauge that just so that you know if you kind of regulate it sporadically, people will stop doing it. But that's all. Thank you. Was that during the week or on the weekend? No, that's on Sundays at 5. No way. Okay. Thank you. My name

009is Harris Dagel and I reside at 304 East Wakefield Boulevard. Um I'm aware that uh the town has um sold or gotten rid of some properties, six or seven or eight properties around town. Um but my concern is that um there are a lot a lot of these postage size as you call them postage lots 50 by and so forth. Um that are all over the place. Um I was interested in some of these lots. Um I put in uh the paperwork a request for it a year ago and nothing's come of it. I don't know if if the board is is on board with getting rid of this. I mean, to me, you're sitting on hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I know there's always projects coming up that, you know, that you could

010use the money for or keep the taxes a little lower, but that's another thing. But, um, I I just don't know if, uh, if this is something that the board of select will want to continue with. Um, it's an easy process. You take a vote, say, but yeah, let's get rid of them and and that's the end of it, or or not. Um, so that's all I have to say. It's been a year. Um, so I just keep waiting a little longer. That's it. Thank you. Thanks, sir. Anyone else wish to speak? Stephen Plumbley and Holly Atinson, 152 Granville Road. I'm here to follow up on an email that we sent to uh everyone here on the board, which was uh forwarded from a submission we did on June 20th to the state DOT after

011their presentation on June 7th. It's very long email so I won't repeat all the points here but um just want to make the one essential point which is that the it's critical that at least one lane of the bridge I'm talking about the grander road bridge project one lane of the bridge remains open at all times not just as an because it's inconvenience but because there's I think serious safety uh hazards and also uh for ourselves and for nearby neighbors and also uh closing that bridge would really kill our farm business which is located 300 feet up the hill from that bridge. I don't think any thought was given to what happens to the folks to the south of that bridge. There was some mention to folks to the north of that bridge. Um not

012sure of the process going forward but just want to reiterate that that one lane that it's critical that one lane remains open. on June 20th itself in in the kind of the forward I described a kind of situation and actually even this week we have uh Danbury quarter road being closed which is also can see the traffic and uh up on Granville Road because of that and other kind of situations going on there. So imagine that happening for an entire year. I think it's pretty significant disruption. So again not sure the process going forward but I thought I heard at the PNZ meeting that it was coming here next perhaps and Uh, it's a DOT project, but just wanted to make you all aware of that followup email that we sent out June 20th. Thanks.

013Hello. Um, I'm Maryanne Marino, 631 Vera Road. Um, I am here to speak on my own behalf. Um, I have submitted an application for one of the open seats on the inland uh wetlands and water courses commission. I served on that commission from 2020 to 2023. Um, recently within the last year, I joined the Highland Lake Wershed Association board. I've been the liaison since I joined High Lake Wershed Association to inland wetlands. I worked very closely with Jamie Jantanio until he stepped down. Um, I am currently an alternate on ZBA and um, there is precedent, I'm sure you are all aware, um, for individuals to be on two boards. Willie Platt is on the water level commission and planning and zoning. Up until three weeks ago, George Clawson was on water and sewer and planning

014and zoning. Ryan Horbe is on tax assessment appeals, and this board appointed him to a second board, which is ZBA. Um, I've spoken with the chair of Wetland, Stephen Molinelli. He's in support of uh me getting back on the commission. Um, and I believe two additional letters of support were sent from other commissioners to this board from Gary Paganelli and Russ Davenport. They're two seated commissioners who I served with the longest. Um, I was here at the last meeting and I ran into selectman Lamir and selectman Poso out front and selectman Lamir shared that he believed there might be a conflict of interest with me being on both ZBA and wetlands. So, I did a little research. I looked through the town charter. I looked through the state statutes. I couldn't find anything um that

015stated there was a conflict. So, I reached out to attorney Nelligan and he confirmed that there is no conflict of interest um of me serving on both of those boards. I have my printer unfortunately failed so only have three copies, but I'll pass them out. These are uh copies of the email thread between myself and attorney Melligan. Um I did email it to you select. So, um, as I know you guys are on the vetting committee. Um, so I think that's my spiel. Um, I would appreciate your support. Um, and a yes vote on my application. It's a deep draw down year. There are two empty seats right now. They could use the help. Um, I've done it before. I I know how to do it and I'm uh ready to get to work and

016to volunteer for this town that I care so much about. So, thank you very much. Anyone else wish you speak? I don't live in Winston anymore, but I'm from Torington 44 Rock Loop. Uh, I didn't think I'd be able to speak tonight, but I guess I hope you'll allow me to say a few things. Um, it's about the banners uh on Main Street. Um, we put him in the park and it was very successful thing and very patriotic and I just feel patriotic going there and u we got so much response after people saw that that they want to they want their relatives and veterans mother fathers and uncleles to also be have a banner and we'd have to put them on Main So, I came to support um the veterans and ask that we

017can allow the banners to be on Main Street because there's a lot of interest in that. So, what do I do? Can you discuss that or uh we can add it to a future agenda or during selectment comments and reports we can talk about it in the future? Yep. Okay. Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak? Moving on to item number six, town manager report. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Bear with me. I'm out of order, which is unusual right now. Okay. Uh this is between the time frame of June 16th to July 7th. uh start off with if you haven't been uh up that way on uh Route 44, also known as Main Street, that the DOT has finally began the lane dieting uh project that we had talked about for many, many months. What

018you'll see out there right now is a very rough sketch of, you know, what eventually they're going to come in uh and and narrow those lanes down. It is going to be done with paint, as I've stated for several months. Um what this is going to do is to either show that it is going to slow traffic down with these lane dieting ideas um or it is not and hopefully it does prove that lane dieting on our main street does work and that the state then comes in and puts real money into it and and recreates the road down the one lane in lane dieting. So happy to report. It was funny when I was writing this report uh end of last week. They had said that they were very close to coming out and

019then I get a a call from the mayor that says they're out there today as I'm literally writing the report. So they are out. They hope to have it done within 7 to 10 days of when they started and hopefully that will wrap up this Friday and we'll see what it all looks like. Uh moving on, the Winchester community survey looks like this very big report. um is now final and the results have been published on the town's website. I do want to thank everyone who took the time to share their thoughts and feedback with the town. Your input is being used as we put the uh Winchester's future uh together. Um please take a look at the results if you have a chance. The few comments that we did receive uh on social media

020was that residents were unaware that we were doing this survey. And I sat back and and I and I listen to every comment and every comment's a good comment. that I don't look at as a as a comment of being negative. Um, we promoted it very heavily on Facebook yet, you know, we're getting comments on Facebook that they didn't see. In fact, we went back and we posted it over 21 times on Facebook um to take the survey. We had, you know, QR codes around town hall, QR codes in different businesses. Um, we obviously on our website as well, but I will make this guarantee that the next time we do a survey because we do hope to do it yearly, we'll try even more ideas. And because of a select woman, uh, we have

021a wonderful new connection at the radio station. We'll promote it on the radio even because that seemed to work with the budget. So, um, I hear you. I want to let the public know that I I do read all the comments. I don't look at them as, you know, you know, you're attacking. I look at as this is how we get better. So, I promise you the next time we do a survey, um we will promote it in more places than we did the last time and hopefully we can even get more people to participate in the uh in the survey. Moving on, um if you haven't, we sent out our first Everbridge alert last week uh with a frantic running around and me in the back office trying to finally push out and it's

022the first time I was able to uh push out a message personally myself. Um, we did launch our first everbridge uh text message, email, and phone call that Danbury Quarter Road was going to be closed. I put this in my town manager report for a few reasons. One, if you haven't had the chance to sign up online for our alert system, if you look at the screens and of um you'll see right down here, there's this little button that says uh I should look at my screen. Emergency alert system signup. Click on that. Um, and then right now if you don't uh have a username or an account, you would just go down here and don't have an account and just click the sign up button. Okay. If you do have an account, this is

023something I I I'm going to give our residents a little homework with because we've gone in and we've fine-tuned our Everbridge account. You can now go into your account and you can now select certain alerts that you wish to receive or not to receive. and we broke it in by department by department. So maybe you don't want and I'm just not going to take a you know a shot at any of our departments, but you don't want to receive anything from our parks and recck department. You can uncclick that box, but you want to receive everything else, whether it's roads, whether it's emergency management with town manager's office. Um you can now go in and select what alerts you want or don't want. So if you've registered, uh great uh and thank you. I ask

024that maybe you spend a couple minutes, go back into your account and select the items that you wish to be notified. Make sure the settings are all perfect. If you haven't registered, please take the three minutes, maybe two minutes to go in. You saw how easy it was. You're just going to go right to the homepage of our website. Click on that button. It's going to bring you over into this page. Just at the bottom, don't have an account, sign up. It's going to ask you a couple quick questions and you'll be you you you'll be informed in all the things that are going on in town. And again, we hope that we never have to use this in a life or death situation. But this is a way we're going to communicate. If you

025remember back and why we unlocked this particular program is when we ran out of water um and we were getting uh a couple comments that I didn't know, we didn't have social media. I didn't go on the website. This is a way for, you know, my office, emergency management's office, our public works office. This is a way for our staff to communicate to all of you. And one thing we all know is if it's on this thing, we're we're more inclined to, you know, obviously read it. So, take the few minutes, get yourself an account on Everbridge and and stay informed of all the fun stuff that's going on uh uh in town. Hey, Paul. Yes. For all of us that signed up for Everbridge earlier, do we have to go back in and sign

026up for everything or if we already signed up, we'll get everything? That that is a great question. So, I did notice and I talked to one of our select uh people over the weekend. I think it was actually Thursday. I said, "Did you receive the actual uh text um or alert?" And the individual said uh they did not. So, I happen to go into the back office of the account. When that individual signed up, they actually didn't click anything. So, here's what I'm going to recommend everybody to do. If you have an account, go in and see what exactly is signed up for. You may have signed up incorrectly and didn't check the box to be informed. You just created the account. Take the two minutes, go in again. You can now pick and choose

027what alerts you want to sign up for. But it's a great question, Troy. Um, take the two minutes. most people and we have, believe it or not, over 8,000 people signed up for Everbridge. We were able to take from the Demis uh state of Connecticut uh database and upload them into our system as well. So, if you did sign up through two or uh through uh uh the Everbridge through the state of Connecticut, we were able to grab those accounts and bring them over into uh Winchester's uh Everbridge account. So, that's exciting. It's why we have 8,000. Um I can tell you though, Unfortunately, when we sent out this uh last alert, last and only alert so far that 1,200 uh accounts did bounce. So, we have some incorrect information. So, take the two minutes.

028Life and death situations, but you'll also know about all the fun things going on in town as well. So, and it is very simple to do. Troy, if you registered, go back in. Excuse me. Uh Selectman Lamir, go in and uh and I did receive the dam quarter one. I'm not sure I got another one, but we only sent one so far. We only sent one. So, Did you get the phone call, too? I I was on the phone with the mayor and uh I said, "Did you get?" And I was all excited because I got mine and I said, "Did you get it?" He goes, "Yep." And then he goes, "Oh, and now the phone's ringing." And now I got an email. And then uh few people in the office, I didn't get it,

029Paul. So, then I go in and I and I check our database. They never signed up. So, um just informal. Um the the board I know I think everybody everybody Mr. Marino I don't think you got it. I did not get you did not but you do now because I went in and and and put you did you update me? I updated Yes. I updated a few of the select people because I think it's important for for you all to obviously know what's going on. I got I didn't get the phone call or the You can go in and select what you want as a you know way of communication. The voice I the mayor did get the voice as well. It does leave a voicemail too. So, um, okay. Uh, moving on. Uh, some

030excellent news. CT DOT section 5310 compliance. Uh, it's great pleasure informing that we have completed our review with the CT dot uh, section 530 5310 site visit for the senior center. Uh, just a little background on that because this may be the first time you're hearing about this is uh, it's designated that um, we receive 5310 funds from the state. Uh and to fulfill the responsibility, CTD DOT conducts annual site visits and desks audits with section 5310 guarantees. These audits allow Ct to meet with grantees, monitor compliance with program requirements, review documentations, and perform a visual inspection on all the vehicles. I want to absolutely thank the senior center for their dedication uh and their high standards because we flew through this audit and they came back with just a couple of questions. We had

031it back within days and we have gotten the green light. So, congratulations to our senior center. I was there for the audit on the first day. Um simple things of things that we have to keep in the van uh and in placards that need to be displayed. Um, you know, all of that stuff is looked at and I'm happy to report that we are full compliance with the money that we get. If you remember, the 5310 allows us to go out and buy those senior vans. Um, at a at a huge they pay 80% of the van, we pay 20%. So, exciting news that, you know, we've checked all of the boxes in terms of that. Um, update on the bond. Uh, if you were unaware, we went last Wednesday for the bond sale. Uh

032happy to report that we uh the winning bid was uh uh Raymond James at 3.72% with a premium of $344,990. That was on the $8 million that we had talked about uh a few months ago. We have officially closed the bond. The money was actually wired into our uh accounts this morning just over obviously $8,344,990. Um, so the road uh roadway infrastructure uh bond work can continue to go. Um, so that's exciting. What's really also exciting is that we had 10 quote unquote banks bid on our $8 million bond. Um, when we look at bond sales and and you go into the offices and you see everything, you know, there are towns that are out there and even uh uh uh states and they're going out and borrowing 40, 50, 60, $100 million. And here's

033here's Winstead with an $8 million B. We had 10 offers. That was awesome to see at real competitive rates at 3.72. we were we were punching at that percentage rate where some of these larger communities with a little higher credit rating wanting to borrow 50 $60 million our interest rates were coming in at that amount. So it was great to see again I think a lot of that has to do with when we went to the ratings call and we we talked about all the excitement in town. So, officially the bond has been closed. And since we're talking a little bit about uh finances and bonds, happy to also report that all of the budgets, that's water, that's sewer, and also the town's 2526 budgets are all loaded into the system um and ready to

034go. So, we're both on a revenue and an expense uh side of things. Um walking around town hall, they say, Paul, that may be the first time in a decade that all three are done. Typically, water, sewer would not come in until October. for November, they wouldn't have a budget. Obviously, we know some of the budget lows we've had on the town side as well. So, great work by the team. Obviously, all three budgets approved and now loaded into the system. Moving on, mirror update. Uh, fortunately, my my time serving on the mirror board has come to an end. As required by state statute, effective June 30th, per state law, mirror has dissolved at the end of June. We managed to move the Essex town into a private option, but the Torington transfer station ran

035into a lastm minute snag. A quote unquote rat was slipped into the final day of legislative sessions in Harford, derailing the plans that Meera had. DAS has now taken over the transfer station and will work with the NR. The dust completely has not settled and we're still sorting out what that all means for Winstead. There are less expensive options out there and as always, you know, every penny matters. I'm expecting this thing to twist and turn a few more times. Um, but it's not resolved as of yet. So, that's Meera. Quick little uh Torque Museum Civic Summer Camp. I was up there and I know the mayor was up there on the first day of camp. they have eight or 10 uh younger uh adults uh taking a civics camp and this year is what

036it's be what it means to be an American. Um while I was there I invited them all the town hall and of course they took us up took me up on the option. We spent a good morning here. We toured them in all the offices and then we came in here. I let them sit uh in your seats. Um they felt very uh uh privileged to sit in the seats and then they interviewed me. So, uh, great to see our youth of our town getting involved in in civics and in government. And last but not least, and the reason this is up here is one, I wanted to show everybody how to sign up for Everbridge, but what you're looking at now is our our current website. Um, it's hard to read. It's hard to

037figure anything out. So, one of the things that I've been working on in some of the free time that I have is that we've wanted to revamp our website. Um, so do this right now. This is just a a a startup version. You can start to see that things have gotten a little bit clearer. Um, the text is going to get bigger. This is just in the background, but you'll see you have pay your taxes, apply for a permit, meetings, and agenda, legal notices, and get notified, which is going to be that Everbridge. I'll just click on it, and I'll show you exactly what it does. um it'll bring you right to the ever and and this is not a live link. You won't see this website yet because we still have a lot of

038work to do on it. But um the cool part is what we've done is we've made it easy to find things. So we've added this search uh bar and you can type in anything that you want. Um and for example, uh milrate history. I don't know why I looked that up, but I'm going to click on it and we'll hit search. and you'll see all the articles of that can be talked about with the mill rate. So, we're adding a search feature so that you no longer have to hunt to look for the information. Maybe just type it in the search bar and it might bring you right to where you need to go. But I want to go down a little bit further. We have a little Winchester is where home is more than

039just a place. But now we get into the announcements and the news and you can see that it's much clearer pictures. It it draws you in a little bit better. And you know, here's the here's the Danberry quarter uh road closure. So, you can click on it and you can see that it looks exactly the same, but we've made our website a little bit easier on the eyes. You have your upcoming meetings. As you can see, July 7th, we have a board of selectment meeting. Um, and then down here we have recently held meetings. Um, if you want to click through and and and and see what was recently held. Now, this is the cool part and and and this is where I really wanted to talk about, you know, Winchester and what we have

040to offer. So, we have Enjoying Winchester. Um, and you can click on these and find a fun event and our website provider and I don't think a lot of people knew this was they're going out and they're talking with our area businesses to find out what exactly is going on in town and these businesses are then putting these events under our website. So, today we have youth civics challenge um going on. It's for 13 to 18 year olds over at at the tort law. Um, and you can click on different dates throughout the calendar. You can submit it uh an event. So, if you have an event going on in town, this is a way that you can involve more of the community. Then, of course, you go down and and you still can, you

041know, um, subscribe to notifications. If you want to get an email uh, every morning at 9:30, you have that. Just a work in progress. I thought it was important that I just at least showed you all that we're working on a newer, easier to find website. And last but not least, this came up at a board of selectment meeting a few weeks ago. We're going to see it twice. Uh we do have new signs. Uh we have one obviously when you first come up the stairs. We also have one uh by the elevator of the uh of the police station. Uh we had those, you know, those those letters that you stick in. Things were spelled incorrectly. We went out and as a, you know, a resident did come in and and and and say

042we didn't really put our best foot forward. Happy to report that um the signs have come in. We've hung them up. Um and we and we definitely uh make it look a little bit better. The the neat part is is these things just slide out when we can replace, we can move them around. So, um that's all I have. I'm going to turn it back over to you, Mr. Mayor, or open it up to questions. Any questions from the board, Paul? So, two questions really that came from public comments tonight. Can we get a detailed list of the so-called picnic lots? I think that's what was being referred to the and these are all those small picnic lots that are up around the lake, I presume. Can we get a listing of the ones that

043we own and maybe a GIF of the location so that we can potentially entertain publishing that list and and selling off those lots? It's been talked about forever and maybe we should look at seeing how many there really exist. Uh we can definitely do that. Yes. And my second question from again came from public comment is do we have a policy or is there an agreement with the town attorney in terms of can any resident call the attorney at any time and bill us for the time? There is no set policy from my office and I do not believe there is a set policy from the board of selectment. uh to you're talking engaging the town attorney. Do we need to do something about because I can imagine that 11 or how many thousand people

044could pick up the phone and um we could have quite a bill. Uh what's the board's I I I know this isn't on the agenda. Um I can propose a few things. Uh I've seen it done two different ways uh in the town. I I've seen the town attorney uh be open to all boards and commissions. Um, and I've seen that the town attorney has everything has to go through either the mayor, first selectment or town manager. Should we get it on the agenda for our next meeting to discuss in terms of what the policy should be? Bring options. Great. Because I know we kind of brought that up once before I think when we first were elected and uh there was too many different department heads were actually reaching out to the town attorney

045without going it was out of control without going through the town manager first. So I wasn't here at the obviously I wasn't here but That's fine. Um, okay. Other questions? Yep. I I actually have one about this the uh lane dieting in the painting. I was actually coming down Main Street and it looked like a bunch of graffiti. Um so those little lines, those are just temporary, right? Those are temporary. Those are um the the draft lines. You know how when they pave a road and then they come in and they just, you know, do the and then they finally come in with the the the big machine to do it. That's just temporary as a guide to where the lack of a better wider uh lanes or wider lanes will end up being. Yes.

046So that's that's a pretty big open space. Yeah. No, and it'll it'll be done a lot. Yeah, it'll be done a lot better. Yes, it does look like a considerable social media commentary on the lines already. Just a tad. Just a tad. Um what's the story about the light pole that got damage in front of the town hall? Still waiting on Eversource to get back to us and when it's going to be replaced. So, it's an Eversource poll. It is an Eversource poll. Yes. And And it's And it was Eversource's crew that knocked it down. Um, so it's going through all of the insurance and it's it's not a good look for television. No, it's not. Especially the one right in front and I and I have to look at the American flag in our

047closet. Um, you know, standing up. We have it propped perfectly, but I have to look at it every day and uh out my window and it irks me. So, I've probably placed at least uh probably a half a dozen calls of trying to figure it out and it's still stuck in their proverbial, you know, claims. I think I'm going to make a little complaint myself. There you go, Linda. Um, banners. I think I have in by saved documents that there was a proposed ordinance about banners. I mean, I think we should probably pull that up and discussed that again at a meeting. And is this the time that we can bring up the public comment about the proposed um new um charter change notices about for the town clerk for hours probably be in selectman's

048comments selectman. Okay. I don't want to step on you. I did want to say something about the banners. Um, so with the banners, um, thank you, sir, for coming tonight. I think first of all, I want to thank all the veterans that, you know, served and and I what I'd like to do just so I can do a better job with my board is maybe sit with a few of you to say, okay, what policies do we have for the banners? You know, how often are they replaced? What happens when they're torn? Because what I don't want to have happen is all of a sudden now it's it's onto the town. We have limited resources. You know, my public works, you know, uh crew is is already down two or three, you know, people right

049now. I want to be buttoned up in that. You know, we're going to we're going to pay respect to our veterans and and I'm all about that and I'm sure everybody in the town is, but I got to button up to make sure that we're putting be the best display out there as well. So, if they're a tattered banner, what goes on? you know, what if somebody can't afford to pay for that banner? What goes on? Because those questions are probably going to hit me first. Uh, and I'm okay with fielding any question, but I also don't want to be caught flatfooted and I want to be able to have the answers. So, and I I have your name because I wrote it down. So Doug, I if if you can get with me, maybe

050two, three, four individuals, we can set a meeting, we can at least start to talk about, you know, this particular, you know, uh, policy, you know, who gets on the banner, who doesn't get on the banner, what happens if the banner, you know, is is is torn, what's the rotation schedule? Again, I want to support this, you know, uh, any which way I can from my office. It's ultimately going to be the up to the board of selectment. But I think the board's going to have some questions. Perhaps our residents are going to have some questions. One of the reasons why I took the American flags and proposed to this board that I wanted the town to do it because now I just get it done and it's easy. Well, it's not easy because well,

051it's easy for me because I just call Jim up and say, "Jim, can I have the American flags done?" But um it's to a point when one's tattered. I I feel confident that it's our property. I can send out our public works crew. They can take the American flag. They can replace it. These banners aren't going to be our property, which gives me a little bit of like, okay, you know. Um, so if we can meet, and I'm I'm looking at you a lot because I think you're involved in it. If we can talk maybe tomorrow, set up a date, bring in a small committee of three, four, however many people you want, let's start defining it and then doing what Selectoman Grappo says. Let me bring back a policy or an ordinance, excuse me.

052be an ordinance um of what do we want to do with banners? Does that work for everybody? Absolutely. It's good. Can you say something? It's up to the mayor. Go ahead. In regard to taking them down and putting them back up, that's a lot of work. I've been going through towns in New York State where these all started and those painters are very well made. I haven't seen a brick one yet. They last a long time being up all year long. Shouldn't have to do that. That's why we need So we can leave them in the park. There's talk about rotating every six months, but that's a lot of work. If we can start, you know, there's a lot of interest in this. If we can start doing it on Main Street, then uh you

053can leave them up all the time. Okay. And there's a set thing about what's on there. It's it's short and simple, so people aren't going to be looking to try and read everything. They're they're very strict about what went on there. put all their metals on. They're beautiful. The town I live in also does it. They're beautiful. They are. Yeah, they're definitely But I I you know, as we go down this this avenue, um I just want to make sure that, you know, my office has all of the answers, you know, and who who you know, who do I get a call and you know, somebody wants to put their grandfather, their father, their uncle, who do I reach out to, you know, um what if they can't I didn't. So, you know, all questions,

054but all things that if you guys want to meet prior to us meeting, coming up with some policies, that would be great. And then we can talk about it and then we can go from there. There's um the VFW, the Elks Club. Um they're all supporting it and and putting money towards it for people that can't afford it. Most of them are individually owned by the family member. Um and if there was some damage, the family member would be responsible having it reprinted. So, at a discount cost. Okay. It's gonna be less. Oh, good to know. But the family members aren't hanging them, right? No. Okay. I hang. Okay. Any other questions? Seeing none. Busy. Moving on to item number seven, correspondence. At the last meeting, the board requested we send a letter to the

055registars's office. that is included as well as a letter from the registars's office to us on the um voting machines. They will be coming in at some point to give us some demonstrations for the new tabulators um but they're still receiving training on that was state required. Item number eight, boards and commissions. The belt, correct? Belt. So, tonight we have no uh reappoints, no resignations. Um we have four applicants for consideration and no actual nominations. um consideration. Matt Smith, planning and zoning Republican would be an alternate. We have Jamie Kooligan, Water and Sewer Commission, unaffiliated uh full-time member. We have Maryanne Marino in the wetlands commission, Democrat, uh would be a full-time member. And the fourth one, Brista Malanka, planning and zoning commission, uh unaffiliated. So, we were going to put her into uh consideration

056to move from alternate to full-time member. Uh but I'd rather just make a motion tonight to just move her forward to an appointment seat. She's been seated on that commission for quite a while. Second. [Music] Go ahead. Do you And I'm not trying to stop it. We just When you make that motion, do we have the term? Good point. I do not have the And you could just a suggestion. You could subject to I believe that would be taking Mr. Clawson's spot subject to whatever Mr. Boston's term was. We could, you know, and then do it that way. Again, I I think filling that board is a is is a is a good idea. It's a busy board, but I didn't want the record to not reflect the term. And if you motion it to

057take over the term of Mr. Clawson, I think you've checked all the boxes. So, I will amend the motion to include uh the term to end the same as Mr. Clawson. I think when Mr. Clawson resigned, his term was in the email, right? So, which should be with me? I can pull it up. [Music] It's not in our minutes. Send 610. I'm looking at uh the letter that Mr. Clawson sent. This is this is written as my letter of resignation from membership of planning and zoning commission. I've been a member for a number of years. I've enjoyed working with the commission members. I don't want to get into the personal reason, but it does it does not list um his date. We didn't want to put Mr. Clawson's business out public. We could do it

058just the way we're doing it. Yeah. Somewhere we have the date. Oh, we definitely have a date. So, just as long as it's used at I can I can read the uh expiration date in at the following meeting. Well, not if you're going to vote her in tonight. I'd prefer to vote her in tonight when you get that seat. If you go to boards and commissions Oh, yeah. He won't be on there anymore. I don't think planning and zoning and pastor members. You had you had it. Everyone is there. Uh we're very thorough here at in in in town hall. We we we've removed them. Okay. Yeah. What was her date? Her date as an alternate was January 16, 2024 through October 1st of 2029. Um Grao had it, but Word wants to indulge me.

059I'll walk down to my office and I'll get you the date. I think that's great. Take two minutes. Should we have a two-minute recess, Mr. Mayor? Meeting is in recess till time clock. had it. You had it. I was like, "Oh, what? We're just too efficient. meeting is back in from recess. Just in case you want to do the three considerations then move on to uh oh we don't need a vote for the considerations at just so we have a motion on the floor. Yep. Any other discussion on Ra Malanka? Just just amend that motion to include a term end date of October 2027. Okay. So we have an amended motion and amended second for Mista Malanca to move from alternate to member of planning and zoning commission. No further discussion. All in favor? Unanimous.

0606 nothing. So before we move on, um, Miss Marino spoke earlier and I think that she is more than qualified for inlands and wetlands commercial. I think she would be a great member of that commission. I do pause and have concern with her being on two boards potentially that overlap and hear the same cases. Um because in theory that gives one citizen say on any project two times and that I have concern with. One of the things that I've long had concern with with many of our boards and commissions is we have too few volunteers that serve on too many boards at the same time. And the charter did recognize as uh someone pointed out earlier that you can't be on planning and zoning and zoning board of appeals, which makes sense, but the charter

061doesn't call any other commissions that overlap. And that may be something that at some point we need to look at because you shouldn't have two votes on the same project, at least in my opinion. But I think she's more than qualified to be on inland and wetlands. Um, so that does give me some concern when we move this uh into the next step past consideration. Anyone else before we move on from boards and commissions? That's all I have. All right. We still have several open commission seats. They're all available on the town's website. Openings. Moving on to number nine, unfinished business. We have no unfinished business. Item 10, new business. A, public works and roads update. Town manager Harrington, public works director Rollins. Mr. Ron, let's come on up. Before you start, I I thought

062it was important um I did a little bit of uh looking at items uh today uh and over last week in preparation for this particular meeting. Um we do a lot of talk about the roadway infrastructure bond package. It was roughly $24 million. on our website if you type in uh you know the infrastructure package you'll find that each of the projects are listed um and you know there are 18 road projects and I'm I'm going to read them quickly case Elm Street phase one Elm Street phase 2 Hannifan Road Holler Holler A Hubard Street Lake Street Indian Meadow Road Marshall Street more in Roberts a Newfield roadale a old cobber road south road spring street upland Road, Wahani Road, West Wakefield Boulevard phase 1, West Wakefield Boulevard phase 2, and Whiting Street phase 2.

063Um, I'm happy to report that one, two, three, four, five, six, seven of those 18 items are completely done. I'm probably stealing some of your limelight, but I spent a lot of time researching this today or over the last week. Um, bridge projects, you have Case Avenue Bridge, uh, over Mad River, uh, Grantville Road Bridge and West Wakefield Boulevard bridge over to Taylor Brook. And then other projects, you have the fire department ladder truck, Highland Lake Wershed drainage and sidewalks map. I'm happy to report obviously Case Avenue Bridge is done and the West Wakefield Boulevard bridge is done. Grantville Road, we're in the process of uh, getting that started very, very soon. On top of the $24 million that we go out that we went out and asked the residents to borrow um to complete

064those projects, the town funds roughly $400,000 a year. Um it's been said at this board that it's literally a million dollars a mile. And what I'm going to stress to the board a little bit tonight and to our residents that if we want to see massive roads being paid, we're going to have to up the budget line item. Um because simply put, the $24 million, well, there's your list of projects here. $400,000 a year in in paving doesn't get a whole lot done. I don't mean to, you know, be doom and gloom, but Mr. Rollins and I meet often and discuss uh roads often. Um and we would love to pave everything. We just need the money to do it. So I'm going to turn it over to Jim. Um with that, Mr. Rollins. Yeah.

065Turn on the mic. Oh, so as is typical, I'm following the same format that I typically do when I do the road work um update. Um, but I was asked to present something a little bit different tonight. Um, you know, the request was for an attack plan of what we're going to be actually, you know, what's planned. Um, so I broke it down into, you know, several different categories. The bond projects. Um, Paul touched on the projects that are complete. I'm going to do the projects that are, you know, with that have some some movement. Um, and as is typical, the the black font is the project name and the most recent update is in the red font. Um, just to keep it simple, I I kept the same format. So, um, starting with the

066bond projects, Old Co was essentially done with the exception of the last 100 feet and that was because we had to do a covert in that area. So, our mission is to get out there and finish up that last 100 feet. Um, the first time we get the million paving contractor in, that's on the list. It'll be sometime either during the summer or in the fall. Um the Oakdale drainage Oakdale Avenue drainage and paving project. This has been this and Hallebert Avenue right below it have just become a really tough challenge. Everything is coming in way over budget and we keep trying to find better alternatives. Um I've looked at scaling the project back and then we find another option that we think might get us the whole thing. So, we're we're just still putting,

067you know, a lot of time into that. Um, the Highland Lake drainage projects. Um, couple of things that are, you know, going to be happening between now and fall time. Uh, at the bottom of Forest A, there are several basins that we had to replace a pipe down to the lake. Now, we want to replace the basins that feed it. Um, 817 to 825 East Wakefield. There's some under drains and um a private water course issue. The under drains were on our list. The private water course issue is what's really causing the ice um over there in the winter. It's on private property that was, you know, that was thrust upon us by the wetlands commission approval of our drainage project. Um so again, Mission Creek always complicates everything. uh 225 to 305 West Wakefield,

068roughly 400 feet of under drains to try to capture all that groundwater so it doesn't bleed up to the surface and cause ice on on that corner all winter long as well. Um I have four projects that have been let's call it an engineering challenge mostly because they all need surveying and the engineering firm surveyors uh surveyor doesn't have a have the bandwidth. We contracted with another surveyor who just recently died a few weeks ago uh before we had contracts signed. Um so now we're looking for another surveyor. they're interviewing and asking around trying to find anybody. Um, so that's, you know, unfortunate. Uh, we've lost three local surveyors in the last three months. Uh, so it's it's a tough there's a big shortage of that, shortage of engineers, but a even a bigger shortage

069of surveyors. So, we're we're struggling in that department. Um the Grantville Road Bridge, we had a public comment meeting just a couple weeks ago and all the public comment from the meeting and then some stuff that's come in later has gone back to the design engineers. Um and that will be evaluated and put into the final design. Um South Road um get a lot of complaints on South Road. Uh the drainage is being, for lack of a better term, being designed this summer with the intention to install next summer. Uh Wani Road, uh that's one that one that's that's that's a project with a time schedule. Uh we have to get that road done ahead of the Ashley Road bridge that DOT is doing. Uh we've gotten the bid results back for all the drainage

070and they're being evaluated now to figure out who is the winning bidder for each of these projects. Um and the plan is to have that pave, you know, reclaimed, drainage done, reclaimed and paved by, you know, by this fall. Uh similarly with the sidewalks, we put out the bid. uh we only had one bidder, so we're evaluating that very closely to see if the prices are comparative to, you know, past pricing to see if it's something that we can take or if we have to start over. Um New Field Road, about all we're doing with that is we're starting to plan the drainage improvements this fall. Um nothing will really happen on that. Um mostly it's just a bandwidth issue. So, those are the ongoing bond projects that are still on the list that have

071had some action or are recent or soon to have some action. Uh so, the second part of the request to have me here tonight was the fiscal 26 uh capital improvement. You know, what's going on with that? What are the projects? What's the time frame? So, going through those, there's really four projects um on there. Price Road. Um, that's the that's the road that feeds the industrial park. So, a lot of heavy traffic and the road is just worn out. Uh, the basin tops have all, you know, deteriorated. But the basins themselves and the piping are all good. So, the plan is to replace the basin tops, there's like a dozen of them, and then do a 4-in mill and pave. Um, the hope is to get that done by fall. um guide rail that

072was I think it was a 50 or $75,000 uh capital line and that should be enough to finish the Taylor Brook road. We did half of it last year, want to finish it up this year. It's a a steep windy road um with steep banks off to the side and we had a lot of complaints on that. We had a car go off a couple years ago. So, sneaking up doing more and more of those. Uh, and this this should finish that off and then probably leave a little bit for some other places. Uh, Chapel Road. Um, that was Chapel Road and the one below at Dayton Road were both part of last year's um projects that we just weren't able to finish. Uh, ran out of time, ran out of money. So, we added

073a little bit of extra funding in this year's capital to finish those up. Um, Chapel Road from Platill into where it changes to dirt is is complete. The other side where the plow turns around has to be paved. That's that's a constant nightmare. And then we would like to expand. There's two areas there that are very poor drainage and some real pavement issues. Uh, one's about 100 feet long, one's about 200 feet long. We want to we want to hit that while we're there just to save the mobilization cost and get it done. Uh Dayton Road, the top 650T or so is terrible. There's a lot of bedrock, so you can't reclaim it. They don't really want to mill it. So, it's just going to be remove the pavement, do a fine grain and pave.

074Um so, those are the fiscal year 26 new projects that we um are attacking, you know, ASAP. Uh there's still some previous money unspent from previous fiscal years in the capital improvement budget. Um the White Street Bridge is one of those and again similar to the uh the Grantville Road Bridge. Public comment uh occurred at a town hall meeting and the public input is being evaluated and implemented into the final design. uh the Hurlbut Birds All intersection. Um the intersection itself could stand some improvements. The the biggest issue there is there's a sidewalk with a fence that has kind of fallen over a deteriorating retaining wall. Rah. And then there's also just this god-awful ugly town-owned lot right in that intersection. Um, so we've got some money from, you know, past capital to do do

075some design work, but our intern is going to be doing the design work. In fact, she's pretty much done with it. Uh, and the uh wetlands application was submitted, I think, today for this uh seven the meeting on the 17th. Um, and we're going to turn we're going to take the drainage that's a problem on uh Birdsall Street comes down to the Hobbit intersection. joins into a drain that runs all the way down Pratt Street and overwhelms that cover uh that's existing. We're going to capture that water, keep it out of that culvert and put it into a constructed wetland assuming we get approval and clean up that, you know, make that bank so it's less less steep and more maintainable and try to make it a little bit better looking. Um the Risha Beach

076intersection, the our intern again is picking away at the design on that and trying to make the parking bigger, the travel lane smaller, the intersection more of a right right angle, shorten up the crosswalks, and just make it a lot more user friendly and slow. Um I like the design she's come up with. Um probably won't make any progress on building it. Um, but the design is is definitely creeping forward and uh happy to see that. It'll take care of that that big puddle that drains in there. It'll take care of that basin that drains into the lake. Um, so it's it's it's a nice improvement for that area. Uh, Rockwell, Superior Ridge, and Spring Streets, they're all kind of up on the hill over there. the gas company put a gas man in there

077and our job now is you know so we get a fee in lie of to mill and pave that after they're done but we haven't gone ahead with that because the basin tops are so bad so we're going to be replacing all those basin tops and then doing that uh paving uh spring street especially has to be paved by uh by winter because it's kind of become unplowable. Um, so we'd like to do all of them, but again, bandwidth always plays a part in, you know, this this is my list of things I want to do. We'll see what we actually get done, but this is all on the list. Um, so then the other question that comes up frequently is the annual road maintenance budget. Everybody thinks that's our road paving budget, which it

078sort of is. um they call it the $400,000, you know, road annual road maintenance budget, but it's actually $485,000 because we get $85,000 of lots, lowip lots money that we put right into there. So, every year out of that comes roughly $150,000 for crack seal and chip seal, roughly another $150,000 for tree work. Um that's just hazard trees that get called in by residents. We put them on a list and we, you know, take them down. Um, we always have to do guide rail improvements beyond what we've allocated in the capital. There's always guide rail that comes up. Line painting, that's another $20,000 a year we spend. Believe it or not, you know, with all the complaints we get on road condition, we spend $30,000 a year just in asphalt patch to go into potholes

079and shimming of of bad sections, which aren't actual road repairs. So then the $135,000 that's remaining has to fill in the gap for all the other projects. And most of the projects that are on this list and there's more, but these were kind of the ones that stood out. Uh there's a section of Homes Drive about 300 ft that's just got a base failure which has caused the uh the pavement to go and the base failures because of a drainage problem. So we want to do that. the top of Mountain Road where we put the drains, the flat section of Mountain Road. We put drainage in there last year, but we didn't do anything with the pavement. So, the water just sits in those ruts, freezes, and just keeps getting worse. We want to mill

080and pave at least one lane of that and make that so that it's much more plowable and much more uh driver friendly for the winter. Danbury Quarter Road. There's three crossover pipes on that road that we want to get done, have to get done before they build the bridge because they probably wouldn't hold up to the uh the heavy loads. Uh one of them was done today, one's going to be done tomorrow, and then the 60-inch one, we haven't figured out how we're going to pull that off. Um Oak Street, uh got a problem with a a curb and a sidewalk over there. Um, it's mostly labor, not a lot of cost, but it's on the list. Orchard Street, we did a bunch of uh drainage to resolve a uh a terrible icing issue over

081there. Uh, so the drainage was done last year. We'd love to mill it and pave it and get it just really dialed in if we had the time and the money. Uh, Morningside and Brookside drainage that was put into the capital budget. It was requested. It's much needed. It's if it doesn't get done, it causes problems to neighbors property. Uh there wasn't the financial bandwidth to include it. So, it got cut. If I can find the time and money, I will do that drainage because we have to do the drainage before we take the gas company's money and do a pave. So, that's that's really high on my priority list. Um Oakdale Avenue, we did some drainage. Um some drainage work there, but we've got to go. So Oakdale is kind of two sections. You

082got the the steep section going all the way up the hill. Once you get to the top, it kind of curves. We did some of it above the curve. We got to do the rest of it down to the curve. Then the bond project is from that curve to the bottom. So there's we're just trying to sneak it in somewhere somehow. uh Sunny Ridge, we had some uh drainage that we did, I think it was the year before last, and we'd really like to get that paved up, too. Um and then there's always miscellaneous catch basins and crossover pipes that need to be repaired and replaced. Um there's dirt road repairs and then whatever else comes up. Uh so there's a lot on the list and Oh man, I didn't include the last page. Oh,

083there I did. Yes, you did. Um, this is the last page is just a newspaper article. I I just stumbled upon it reading a a trade magazine this weekend and I just thought it was kind of interesting that I would hand this off because it really communicates a lot of what's going on with, you know, road work in Connecticut. And in one spot it it states that between 2022 and 2024 material and labor cost to do road work in Connecticut increased by 45%. So just remember that that's coming from somebody other than me that is, you know, complaining about not being able to come in on budget all the time. You know, this this is this is a trade magazine from Connecticut that, you know, really highlighted this. I just thought it was an interesting

084thing for you to be aware of. Um, so that was it. Tried to make it quick. Hopefully I didn't overwhelm you, but you've got the the document you can look through at your leisure. Questions from the board? Yes, I have a question. Uh, on Hubard and John Street, they tore up two brand new sidewalks. Yes. And then driveway apron. Driveway aprons. And then on the corner of uh John and Hubard, it looks like they did the four corners, some asphalt dug up. Was that contractor issues or Yeah, we weren't happy with it's I can either go give you the short the quick story or the long story. It's up to you. Uh I'll give you the quick story and if it's not enough then you can ask for more. We were unhappy with certain segments

085of both Elm Street and Harvard Street. Uh there was three locations where the concrete was just too bad to keep. There are some areas that it was pitted but not terrible. Um, and there was a few areas where the asphalt was poorly done and so we just made them come back and redo it. Good. Story. If that's if that's enough, we're good. If not, you can Good. Yep. That's enough. Okay. That's what I was looking for. Just why? So like the cuts that they made in the asphalt are going to deteriorate quickly because now you have water penetrating through a cut. So why did you make them do the whole intersection? Because that's their fault. If the if the if the asphalt was bad when I when I do it in my town, they fixed

086the whole thing. They ain't fixing just that was certainly discussed. There was a lot of They're bonding for that. I mean, that was a $2 million road, which to me was a waste of money because it's a untraveled road and we put granite curbing. We're not You've made that statement several times. So, yeah, this is not Greenwich. Yep. This is Winston. There's things that need to be done. Look at the the bridge at Highland Lake at the spillways. You can't even There's people can't walk. They're walking in the water in the spillways because of a wood deck bridge that didn't get fixed. Well, that was too when that was denied. So, you know, oh, let me add that to what I'll try to do in my unallocated time. I mean, there's been a lot of

087stuff go a lot of time that's gone through the summer. Here we are uh midway through July and nothing's getting done. Most towns have their pavement projects done already unless they can't get the paver because it's in another town. Yep. So, we need to start moving on stuff like this. Yep. Got it. Got it. Hey Jim, is there a uh sorry is there first? Sorry. Quick. I I just did two questions on on roads. Jimmy, uh you have one road listed. Um which I'm familiar because it's I travel it all the time. Um it says reclaim and pave in the fall. Drainage. I understand at bottom of that like we're losing real estate on that road. Um the steep part. You say reclaim and pave. You mean right down the dirt and completely repave or

088you're going to try to mill and pave that road? So milling and reclaiming are different. Milling is when you just take off the top couple inches or all of it. Um but what we're do what we're proposing is a reclaim and I didn't get real specific, but we're also intending to add So you reclaim it. You grind the asphalt down into the gravel underneath. We're also more than likely, we haven't dug our our test holes yet, but we're more than likely going to also supplement that with inch and a quarter crush rock. So that adds to the base. So you grade it, you reclaim it all back in, you grade it, it gives you a better base and, you know, provides a much more structural integrity under the pavement and then pave on top of

089it. All right, that that was my question because that that road you're aware is is bad. Um, second quick thing, sidewalks. Um, you're evaluating bid results. I noticed you had start with Park Place. Um, is that still the intent? Because I spoke with actually two business owners up there today. I spent that the morning up that of the town that are that are having a tough time with those sidewalks basically from the main street intersection right up. So we plan on that that is still your plan to get those first on the list. That's our that's our first target. Okay. Y um Nope. Oh, do you want to go into the We haven't named the yet. We Okay, let's wait. You want to wait? Yeah, let's let's finalize it. We We are working on a

090a sidewalk plan. Uh Jim, uh excuse me, Jeff, uh Mr. Green, Mr. Rollins, myself, and we even bring Tom in. Um as you know, our ordinance states that, you know, the the resident or andor the business that owns is responsible for the sidewalk in front. We are looking at what what is similar to what we use as a clean and lean sim similar situation. In fact, uh, Attorney Nelligan has been brought into it a little bit as well in that we go out and we start repairing these sidewalks as well, um, and putting it back onto either the homeowner andor the business and stretching it out over 20 years or something like that so we can start addressing these sidewalks uh, as need be. We're uh, we're finalizing that program, but you know, in order

091to create a walkable main street, it needs to be walkable. Um, so we're we're meeting often about a sidewalk program. Um, we're 90% there. In fact, we have the letter. I think we're about 95% on the letter, but um we we we're happy to come back and talk to you'all about it. We're just not at 100% of it yet. Yeah, I would like an update on that before. Yeah. But it's exciting. Uh we the teams met and uh we've come up with some creative ideas to start addressing these sidewalks. Um which as you know, you all know the ordinance states it's either on the resident hand or the business owner or the the building owner. So we're we're looking at it all. We understand that, you know, the last thing anybody wants is an additional

092expense. So is there a happy medium in between of stretching it out over 5, 10, 15, 20 years? But we we need to create this walkable main street that we all, you know, want. And this is one of the ways we're thinking we can we can do it. Go ahead. Did you have more? I did have more. Well, then you can finish. My next question is what what's going on with the beach? Um up there uh since winter there's been um uh hay hay uh straw bails in in the road for drainage protection which I don't understand what hell that is and stone all over the side of the road. There's people that go that I mean this is a busy time of year for the lake and we just left a big bond there

093on the corner. I mean what's going on with that? And that was supposed to be paved before the people even got there. Correct. Holland Beach is guess the easiest way. We had a pretty limited amount of money to try to make improvements to that for the recck department. So, we did the best we could with what we had and a complicating factor came in which I kind of expected but it proved to be pretty challenging. There was some just massive boulders in one section. we just couldn't lower that level to the level that we wanted to work with the elevation of the pavement that we have. Um, so as Mission Creek happens, since that parking lot had to come up, if we were to pave that out, all that water would run across the road

094and out towards the lake, which is not what we want. So the next step is, okay, now we got to bring the road up. I didn't budget for that. I didn't have the resources for that. So, we're working on, you know, trying to figure out how to fit all of that in. Now, we do have Highland Lake drainage or Highland Lake West Wakefield Boulevard money. I don't really love the idea of fixing that road because we do have to do a water mane under there, but we're at least five years away from that and that it just can't wait that long. So, we're going to have to we're going to have to do that. I think if you look at that, it was on the second to last page. Um, we're looking at bidding that

095one out through the the crog bid or an easy IQC. I don't if you're familiar with either of those. Um, that way we can get away with without having to get a full engineering plan for it and work along with the contractor and kind of get the biggest bang for your buck. So, soon as we can pull it off and get it done, but would it have been nice to have it done? Yeah. What's going on with the with all that stuff in the road. You can't fix that part. At least get that done. I mean, you go around the road. I could and then I would and then I would chew it back up when I go to go to redo it. And if there's anything that people really hate because when you do

096something and then you dig it up, you redo it. So, I I really try to avoid that. Right. But, I mean, you got drainage stone in the I'm saying clean that if you're not doing get that out of there because I mean, people with boats and everything, people with cars, it's I go there all the time. It's a big pain in the butt to get through there. Okay. Yeah, we'll clean that up. I mean, it's doing nothing, so Okay, on you. Thank you. So, Jim, um, first of all, this is the least favorite job in town, I'm sure. Right. Because this is 30 years of neglect. We're trying to figure out how to fix. I think it's more than 30. But it's no surprise that in the survey that we got back from the town

097that number one on the list by far was infrastructure and roads. People are screaming non-stop about roads and we've got to figure out I get the budget parts of this and and we're working on budget issues all the time. But when I I hear you constantly talk about we don't have the bandwidth to do it. We don't have the ability to do it. And and the question I have is how do you decide when to sub things out to and and what does that do to the budgetary process? But what can we do to think outside the box of what we've been doing and speed this up because the residents want to see progress and we can't keep saying it's engineering or we don't have the bandwidth or it's being worked on. You know, so

098many of these bond project roads are still in haven't even been started yet. That bond was was done, you know, how many four years ago now. So, what can we do to try to sub some of it out and speed this process? Is there can you know any any new ideas that you can come up with, Jim? That's the calculus, right? That's the that's the challenge. You know, believe me, I hate the fact that it's dollars and bandwidth that get in the way of everything. And believe me, I'm exhausted trying to do the impossible with the inadequate. Like, that's my that's my dayto-day. We are going into a budget or a a bond project that was a five-year plan. We're four years into it. So, some of these roads were not scheduled to go yet.

099Some of them were. We're ahead on some. We're behind on some. Uh but again, let's go right back to this this statement. This bond was priced out prior to this 45% increase. So, we're trying to, you know, trying to do this when when your costs have gone up 45% and trying to stay on track is with time and dollars and with you can't get a survey to design something. You can't get the engineers and the engineers can't get inspectors. I try to get my guys to do most of the prep work to get ahead of it. I can't keep my guys because they keep going elsewhere for better pay. So, think outside the box. I try every day. If you got better ideas for me, email them to me because I'm doing everything I everything

100I can come up with. I think when we I don't know, a year or so ago when we all started having these conversations, it was Jim, if there's things you need, let us know, right? If there's things you need, and we can't wave a magic wand and and make sure everything you ask for you're going to get, but right now, other than this update that you give us every month or so, I don't know what you need or don't need. I don't know what would help or not help to to get the results. You know, I want to call him every Monday morning and scream the magic words, "Pave something." I think you do, right? Pave something. Um, we got to get results. Some of most of us. So, yeah. Because we're getting yelled at

101constantly. It's the number one issue. So, I know you yelled that everywhere I go. I'm sure you do. So, so how many miles of road do we have? I'm sure it's in the back of my head somewhere. But there's 80 miles of road. 80 miles and all 80 need work. Well, not all 80 anymore, but so it's a million dollars mile is 80 miles. And hang on. So there's 80 miles of road. That's something, right? It's a lot. Most of our work isn't in the road. It's on the road sides. And we have 160 miles of those. So the job is a lot bigger than people think. And the stuff that people complain about are the roads themselves, right? They want to drive fast and they want to have no bumps. Can't fix that without

102the drainage. That's another thing they don't see. So, and that's the expensive part unless there's water and sewer under it and that needs to be repaired. Now, you have to it and you have to you have to plan these jobs 5 years in advance with the other utilities because that's just how you do it. The gas company, the electric company, the water company, sewer company. So, logistically there's a lot to it. So it's a shortage of surveyors, shortage of engineers everywhere I go. Every every trade show, everybody's having the same issue. Can we sub more out? Sure. Get more money. Right. Well, I don't know. I I was going to ask what's the difference between having our crews do it and subbing it? A lot different. We a lot there. Well, depends on what it

103is. Some things we can do a lot cheaper in house. Some things we can't because we don't have the equipment, right? Uh sometimes we borrow, sometimes we rent. Um but every time they're doing that, they're not doing something else. And the biggest problem that makes it hard to work is if you put something out to bid, you have to have a set of plans for it. So you need an you need them to be engineered before. And to Bill's point, you can't get you just can't get the the bid documents. And then if you do, you know, it it's just time, it's money, there's bandwidth. Um, and it's not just our bandwidth. It's the engineers, the surveyors, the contractors, right? And I'm aware of the budget issues, right? We can spun. But if there's bandwidth

104issues that we can fix, but you can't fix it without money. And we've gotten a clerk of the works. He's the reason we got the two bids out. He's deciphering them now. you know, we got we brought an intern in at minimum wage and she's probably saved us $50,000 of engineering. So, we're trying to think outside the box. I think that's great. So, do we need more of those people? Do we need more interns or, you know, now at the same time, the intern doesn't just show up and make stuff happen. That pulls bandwidth away from me, Bart, Gabe, you know, to help her do her job. So nothing's free like it there's a price to be paid for every single thing even though it's moving you in the the right direction. It's either time

105or money or both. So you can only squeeze so much out of the resources we have and that's time and manpower and money. So Jim, one question I guess maybe it's not a criticism, it's it's an understanding. So when we first started this and we said let's do the roads and whatnot I discussed engineering because again we spent millions millions in engineering um are every road we're doing we have to engineer that or or I mean even though we're not 100% sure like if it's not a state requirement we have to engineer it can we just put some of these drains in um we're not going get 30 years out, but will we get 15? Um, well, no. So, the answer to your question is yes. And so, the way we structured our sidewalk bid

106and our drainage bid is for that to solve that exact problem. We put them out for unit prices. So, this driveway detail, this curbing detail, this handicap ramp detail, this drainage detail, this, you know, crossover detail, this each has a price attached to it. And whoever, you know, you look at a job and it's got seven of these details and 12 of these. Whoever had the lowest price for that mix gets that job. And this is a three-year contract. So now we can do some of that stuff now. But that means we have to go out there instead of an engineer. Gabe goes out there, says this is the sidewalk detail we need here. This is the drainage detail we need here. But before that, Phil has to go out and examine them to see

107which ones are good, which ones are bad. So all of that stuff, time and, you know, and bandwidth. Yeah. I was just curious, not not necessarily even the the immediate downtown area, but we have some roads that are and those are that are out there that like part of part part of South Road I think was on your plan for this year for the beginning half of South Road. Y there's extremely minimal drainage on that road. That that road's about as flat and just a little crown. Y um you know, again, we So we're not having an engineer look at that road, I would assume. No, that's one that we're planning on designing in house. Um, and that and that can be constructed with the bid that we just got back. And so, you know,

108my opinion, I I I have a lovehate relationship with engineers because I use a lot of them and I too I'm spending millions of dollars with these engineers. Um, which is great. The amount of money this town spends with engineers and again, is it hard to hire people? Yeah. I I understand pees are expensive. I I I mean the guys are close to 200k a year to in my mind again something for future budget if we're spending one and a half to three million a year on engineering we're starting to get in the weeds I'm just saying back on track but again to understand I remember you know a year and a half ago sitting with you and and Troy in the town manager's office having this conversation about why why don't we you know

109hire more people and buy more equipment and do this stuff in-house and save money. Well, headcount, employee headcount is a four-letter word. That's why. Do I think you could save a ton of money and serve the public better? Yes. But every time headcount gets put in the budget. So, so Paul, I'm trying I'm trying everything I can think of and I pay attention to the public works list serve to get the ideas that other towns are doing. I take comments from my guys and I listen to the people screaming at me when I when they pull up next to me at a light. So if you got better ideas like send them over because yeah I just again it's not even so much and I know the budget is a concern and we're we're concerned

110about this 40% increase and what's going to happen with the bond and and you know will we even have the money we the projects done we've put the bond out for. But it's it's more about the bandwidth thing when you say listen I don't have enough help to get the job done. That's interesting because maybe we can ring out a few pennies. Maybe there's a savings somewhere and we can get the people on board that you need because we're trying to play catch-up here and it'll be forever and literally that's not what the public wants to hear. And let's pave the big ones, man. Whatever you got ready that's mill and pave, let's get the guys out there and do that because that shows progress anyway. I get the engineering and the drainage, but if

111we got some nice easy mill and paves, let's do them. There's not a lot of easy mill and paves. Almost everything needs some drainage work. And again, that's was the whole point of this drainage bid. And it's a complicated bid and we're deciphering it and we want to start awarding that and getting it going. Um, one other thing we're trying to thinking outside the box, virtually all the drainage jobs or all the paving jobs you see, even DOT, what's the first thing they do? They pull those concrete catch basin covers off, put new ones in and repave. I hate those things. The concrete does just doesn't hold up. So, we're looking at going at just all cast iron. They cost more. Availability is tougher, you know. So, we're trying, you know, if we can keep

112them in place and not have to, you know, not have that eight inches of concrete around the, you know, the grate fail, then you can just now you're not going to have there just so many problems associated. How long do the concrete ones last? Five to 15 years. Yeah. If you're lucky, you know, and the cast iron ones, you know, we got some of those up up in the manner. They've been in there for 50 something years and, you know, they're starting to fail now. So there's, you know, they cost a hundred bucks a piece more, but in my mind, it's worth it long term. So again, another way we're trying new things and just But even something new cost you more upfront, right? It's a better value long term. Kind of like granite curving

113cost you a little bit more upfront, but holds up so much better than concrete. and asphalt. Yeah, at least you can fix asphalt. But um yeah, it's a just the expense. It's it's that initial expense, you know, it's 20 25% more than the other way. But if I was to give you any advice as a colleague, it's slow and steady wins the race. Stick on one project, finish the project, go on to the next project. Yeah. Because if you try to do everything all at once, you're going to get yelled at. So I get yelled at no matter what. I know, but I mean 40% of the 20% of the people think wait till the meeting's over it ever happened. 20% think it was the best and I right and 60% didn't know anything happened.

114Like that's just the way it is. Well, I've noticed in my town as long as I finish the project, the yelling goes down a little bit and then they move on to the next one. Yeah, there there's some truth to that because I only have five guys anyway. So, but I mean that's that's what I do. I try to try to finish one project from start to finish and then move on. Yeah, I I there's some wisdom in that for sure. Thank you, Jim. Thanks, Jim. Thank you, Jim. Thanks, Jim. Moving on to item B, update of social services at town hall. I promise it will not take as long as the uh the roads update, but I wanted to take just a brief second to just talk about the social services. Uh, as you

115all know, we don't have a social services director, but we did bring in the outside agencies and were able to bring them into town hall. Unfortunately, for whatever reasons, the TV's turned off. But I will let you know that if you're on our town's website, um, and you go to government and you click on the social services tab, it will bring up, um, the hours that these outside agencies are actually in town. Um, I'm saying this publicly because maybe you don't need the social services, but maybe you know somebody that does or maybe you come across somebody that may need them. So the more information that I can put out there for you know the army to to to disperse the better. So really quickly uh on Mondays from 9 to 4 we have Macall

116behavioral health network. On Tuesdays from 9 to 4 we have CHH housing navigator. On Wednesdays from 9:00 to 4:00 we have Western Connecticut Area Agency for Aging. On Thursdays in the morning from 9:00 to 12 we have New Opportunities. And from noon to 6:00 we have the Youth Services Bureau. And then on Fridays from 9 to 11, we have Greenwood Counseling. The other item that we took some time over the last two weeks or so is on the social services tab of the website. We list everything um from domestic violence, energy assistance, farmers market, the fire department, food, the Salvation Army to CT food share, harm reduction, uh housing, Chestnut Grove, Laurel Commons, uh Susan MB Perry Apartments, the Glenn, uh landlords complaints going to and we keep going, renters rebate program. We list all

117important numbers that if somebody that needs help, please either help them with the information that we have put out on the website or direct them to the website. We spent, you know, a couple of hours just fine-tuning this because there are people, you know, I'm hearing it every single day. The need is increasing, so we did want to spend some time in in making sure that the information is readily available. Um, hopefully nobody in this room needs it, but if you can help us spread the word that the resources are there, these outside agencies are in our offices every day. And the great part about all of these outside agencies, they're all talking to one another. So, if you do show up on a Monday from 9:00 to 4 and you may need something for

118a senior citizen, they will pass that information along to our Wednesday uh agency, which is, you know, Western Connecticut Area Agency of Aging. So, I wanted to take at least three minutes, five minutes to just let the community know that social services is alive and well. These outside agencies are thriving in there and there are resources available. We've made it easy. I'm going to stop and open it up to if anyone has any questions. Questions from the board. It's a good resource. Um, are these resources on the website? Yes, they are. So, I I I literally um printed this two pages from our website. Um, so I'm I I don't know why the TV's turned off. I didn't see anyone hit the buttons, but I'm looking at our our website right now and I'm looking

119at the exact and Paul can he can look over my shoulder. He can see it's all right there. Uh, just at the top of the page, government uh tab uh social services and these two pages will will pop up. Uh we are advertising them on our social media channels as well, but uh the resources are available. Um we've we've we've packed it all together. So others Thank you. Moving on to item C, zoning board of appeals discussion. Selectman Hester, Selectman Marino. So I'll take this one, Mr. Mayor. As liaison to the zoning board of appeals, I have witnessed and I'm aware of inappropriate conduct by a zoning board of appeals member, Mr. John Pollock. This conduct is not unique to one meeting, but has happened on multiple occasions. Therefore, under article 16, paragraph6001 of the

120town of Winchester charter, I move that we schedule a removal hearing under the terms of paragraph 16001 for Mr. John Pollock to take place at our next regular board of selectman meeting on July 21st, 2025. Grounds for his removal to be included in his notification letter are as follows. Mr. Pollock has shown a definite and continued bias against development within the Highland Lake District. Mr. Mr. Pollock has a record of voting his bias not only with the Winstead zoning regulations or not with the Winstead zoning regulations or Connecticut case law as he's obligated to do. Mr. Pollock has committed repeated willful miscomuct by discussing ZBA applications outside of the public hearing and Mr. Pollock exposes the town to increased levels of potential litigation. Anything from the board? Motion needs a second. Second. I'll second that

121motion. We need to notice him according to that um to that paragraph 1601. I don't know how that notice gets done. Paul, I wish Not the charter. Nope. Got it right here. I brought one. Bring it to every meeting. Article 16. You said general statute by the So by the authority which appointed him provided him, he shall first be given notice in writing of the Pacific crowns. So it is silent on who notices them. Obviously, I have no problem noticing them or if the mayor notices them, the appointing authority notices them. I think it's the board's pleasure. Um, just tell me which direction you want to move in and um I'll make sure it gets done or depending on how the motion goes. Do we want to have it come from the mayor? How many

122days notice? So, what it states is that uh and I'll uh provided he shall uh be given notice in writing that the specific grounds of the removal and an opportunity to be heard in his own defense uh personally or by council at a public or private hearing before the board of selectment said hearing shall be held not less than five no more than 20 days after such notice. So I believe we have to notice and then it can't be no less than 5 days but no more than 20 which our next meeting should put us in the window. So if you knew let's just say if we get a notice out by the end of the week our next meeting's the 21st if you're counting even weekends obviously that's you know a week you know

123seven eight days um depending on how quickly we get the notice out. Let's say we we get the notice out by he receives it on Friday of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight days. You can't count the ninth day would be the meeting. So, we're within um the charter window of definitely noticing them. If I'm writing the letter, I would just ask I I try to write quickly, but I want to make sure I get the letter right, but let the board decide um which action it's going to take or who's taking it. I think we can have you write the letter, Paul. I I'll provide you with the grounds as stated in the motion. Other other discussion? Just one, Mr. Mayor. Um, I am not the appointing authority. I have no problem

124crafting the letter. I would think it might be better being signed by the mayor because I am not the appointing No problem writing the letter. Todd can provide input with it, but I I I don't have the power to appoint at least on ZVI. I do have some on some of it, but um so we'll draft a letter that will come from the mayor. I can do that. I'll work on we'll send it up to the board before we send it. Um I know come come to Paul's office to see Yeah. I I caution that that um if you send it out, you're you're holding a meeting outside of public purview. Um right. So if the letter does go out, there can't be responses um regarding the letter. Um because then you're you're holding a

125meeting outside of public input to Paul. Give the input directly to me. Um but please, I've stated this on several emails. Don't hit the reply all feature. We're not going to I'll I'll provide to you the the motion and the grounds so that you'll have that for the letter. No other discussion. All in favor? 6 nothing unanimous. We'll work on it tomorrow. You available? Yes, sir. Back and forth. Moving on to item 11, citizens comments. The board of selectman welcomes public comments. Speakers be limited to three minutes. Uh, I may speak once. Please give your name and address. Who would like to speak? May of the board of selectment. I'm Aubrey English, 97 Hinsdale Avenue. I'm the chairman of the zoning board of appeals and I'll do my first two minutes as EVA chairman, the

126last minute as a private citizen. So, I was notified well, first of all, I want to thank Selectman Marino for notifying me four hours in advance uh to this meeting as to uh the actions that's being discussed as far as one of my members goes. Uh, I did happen to hear about this from different people around town within days beforehand, too. You know, I take my stewardship on the ZBA very seriously as a um as a service to the town as I think as any one of our members and alternate members do as well too. I also know too that removing a member from a board, which is the right of this board to do, is one that should not be taken very lightly. Not knowing all the facts before going into this hearing, I

127will hope that this board will, you know, not use any type of like, you know, personal uh personal prejudice or whatnot again or or because they may not like a decision one of my members has taken because of that. we start doing that, you can start removing other members. And we don't have a line of people as we see tonight that want to be sitting on these boards and commissions. Okay? We only have so many people who want to who who who will do that. These are positions to be filled and it's very important to the town. So keep that in mind when we want to discuss removing uh board members. And um I also would appreciate also as chairman being given a little more notice as to you know any concerns with my members

128as well too. I I take my service uh with them very seriously as well too. Uh the second thing I will uh mention to as a me as a private citizen I will just add on to what Mr. Hurock mentioned earlier about this proposed ordinance. I'm just going to add this. In this day and age people are really questioning how our elections are being run. Okay? We want to be sure it's being done right. Okay. Any question of any legalities, improprieties, everything that can cause um that can cost a town a lot of money, a lot of headache, we want to be sure that we conduct our elections with as very minimal few flaws as possible. So I would again highly recommend and would s and would would plead with this board please seriously take

129a look at this proposed ordinance and it's for the good of uh making sure our elections are or are done properly correctly and fairly. That's all I have. Thank you. Bill Hudach, 232 Grantville Road. I just wanted to comment about something that the mayor had said uh regarding whether a person can serve on two commissions and wanting to avoid the conflict which I agree with completely is important in this instance. However, having served on planning and zoning commission, zoning board of appeals, uh, conservation commission, and inland wetland commission in another town. I recognize the fact that inland wetlands in particular is not very discretionary and that is it is primarily focused on ensuring that the applicant is consistent with state statute and regulation. So, for that reason, I'm not sure that there is as much

130of a conflict as you might otherwise expect. Again, I really appreciate your thought process. I appreciate your judgment on this, but thought that adding that one bit of information might be helpful. Thank you. Somebody over here wanted Holly Atkinson, 152 Grantville Road. I wanted to talk about the Everbridge um service and actually timely and kind of hilarious that the day that I received my Everbridge alert and it was the first one on the Danbury Porter road closure, which we had literally just written about um the the safety and and problems related to that. So, the timing was funny and that was also the day that we had wicked storms throughout the state. Okay, trees down everywhere. That was July 3rd that that Everbridge went out at about noon. Um, so hit me and very funny

131timing um on the Everbridge thing, but I I originally wanted to speak because I had an idea I guess for Paul or whomever. Um, you might use the Everbridge uh outreach as a way to get learnings that you could then apply to things like the vision the next vision survey and stuff like that. So, lots of ideas and I'd be happy to work with you. You could do workshops. You could do open house at town hall town hall. You could do canvasing, have somebody show up at the senior center AM. Um you could do um the uh schools messaging app maybe. I don't know what the rules are for that, but like all the parents are on on some stuff. So there's lots of creative ways you might be able to get folks to sign

132up for Everbridge. Use the town socials. Um you know, tag a friend kind of stuff. Simple simple things that I'd be happy to to sit down with whoever you know, Paul, and whoever works with you on the town socials to get that done. It's really important. And I think um services like that especially going forward um are really important and it's great to have the choice too to unsubscribe from parks and wreck and and sign up for the thing. So anyway, I'm got lots of ideas and I'd be happy to share them. Um and just wanted to again make a note that it was very funny that we received ours on July 3rd and that storm we could have been cut off in both directions. Um, so need to definitely get that issue moved along

133with whomever is making the decisions at the state department of uh transportation on the bridge. Got to have a lane open just to reiterate what Stephen said um before. But I'd love to work on the Everbridge thing and you could use the learnings. You could sort of say here was where we're starting here are the numbers and then let's see how many people we can get people talking in town. Oh, and the EDC, maybe the EDC could just we could have a graphic and they could ask, you know, Carrie and Rooted and folks to either post it or throw it on their socials. Hey, sign up for this epic bridge. Um, I could go on with the ideas, but happy to sit down with whomever and talk about it. I'm sorry. I know it's public.

134I get excited when when people want to volunteer. So, um, can and I don't want your your number now because it'll be public record. Can you call the office tomorrow? Let's get a meeting. I love when people we're going to have so much fun together. Um, so openings on boards of commission. Hey, hey, don't take my volunteer away from me. Look, please call. Let's sit down. Love it. Sorry, Mr. Mayor and board. Okay. Hi. Um, Jen Pergo, 378 East Wakefield Boulevard. Um, I was just when you started the public works discussion, you were talking about the projects that had been completed and maybe we could use the new website to highlight those because there really has been some success. I I feel when I'm driving around I I notice the ones that are complete. Um

135and then there were some comments um about the lots that the town owns and a lot of them are up at Highland Lake. And so I just want to remind the board that in um the last two iterations of the POC um there was a recommendation to reserve those lots for conservation. Um they're really protective of Highland Lake. Um, and there could be some opportunities to generate income for the town by selling them for conservation. There might be grants out there to do that. So, we might be able to preserve them, but also generate income. And I just um am pretty sure that there is um no sewer line for a lot of those lots. Um they're on these paper roads that don't have maintenance or plowing. Um, I heard from one person, I don't

136know if this is true, that it can be really hard to get a mortgage because it's a not really a road. Um, and so for protection of Highland Lake, I just want to take some of those things into account. Thank you. Anyone else? Seeing none, moving on to item 12, executive session discussions and updates from the town attorney Kevin Elligan. Taking with us attorney Kevin Nelligan. And item B, discussions regarding selections of a site for the lease, sale, or purchase of real estate. And with that bringing us realtor David Cedarano, you just mentioned Connecticut General Statue Connecticut General Statue 1-26D. town manager. We're going to be including the town manager and the town manager. No. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. All in favor? Thank you. Car. Yes, please. Uh, you you may want

137to It is 10:01 p.m. We are back from executive session. We have no action to take. Moving on to no action was no act. Moving on to item 14, selectman's comments and reports. Anybody have anything? I do. Oh, Linda, go ahead. Okay. Yeah, I I do think we should address the um uh the addition to chapter 87 notices that was discussed in citizen comments. I'd like to make a motion that we move it to the town attorney to review so that we could proceed. I think the board needs to have a meeting to look it over first before they send it to the attorney for changes. Otherwise, be sending it to the attorney twice. We haven't seen it other Okay. That was the first time any of us Yeah. So, okay. So, maybe make a

138copy. We can put a put it on the next agenda or the first agenda in August and we'll get this out to the board members. Okay. Then the second thing um last meeting um I had made a a comment about um oh the historic commission uh chapter 15 or chapter 15 of sectionif 50 chapter 50 section three about membership that it was outdated and it really needs to be corrected. Did you said it had been changed last year? I I am uh so happy you mentioned that. I know you're in selectment comments. I have to say that select that when it was changed. Um it was changed, but all of the members do need to be residents. You were right when we looked at the ordinance and the changes that were made under Bob Guyger

139that the members do have to be residents. They have to be residents. But it said all members shall be electors. Electors or voters. Voters. That needs to be removed because you said that at a meeting you decided that they did not have to be electors. They could just be residents. So what happened with that is I think selectwoman Perez mentioned that it was changed. It was not changed. So, does the board want to bring up that ordinance and remove electors or keep it as electors being on the uh historical commission? You do have a member that we'll have to address. You have two members. Two members. Excuse me. Two member. Thought it was one, the one that we put on last week, but there's two now. I was almost positive we changed it um at

140a meeting. I agree with you. There was I remember I thought we did too because we took on homage, didn't we? He was not a he was not a member, but yet he has a wealth of knowledge about the historical commission. So I and I'm going to tell you, we referenced the the meeting minutes from that board of selectman where the ordinance change went into effect. It makes no mention of them not being electors. I'm just letting you know what the minutes I was not there, but the minute wasn't the ordinance put into writing at some point? It was and and and it does as it's like when McGrapple read, they have to be electors. Electors meaning they vote in town. Correct. They don't have to be residents because we obviously have a lot of

141folks that are not residents that do vote for budgets and what have you. So I think that was the intent. As I remember when we changed it, we were looking to make it electors so that effectively a non-resident could be a member of that board. Then again, this is something you need to check with attorney. Uh we go through this all the time with boards and commissions. There's a difference between residents and electors. Well, we did try to change that in the charter and it got squashed and charter revisions that we as we know are very difficult to get done. Okay. So, to get back to this, we have two members that are on the board that are not they're not voters in town. You could be a voter in town to vote on the

142budget, but you're not a registered voter. You vote other in other towns to vote for your presidential correct or any election. So, there's a difference. So, that needs to be clarified. And this the wording needs to be corrected on E in E code for the ordinance if yeah it becomes so we looked at the minutes from the board of selectment meeting and it stated what's in e-code and e-code actually went in there was a change and it should say revised if it was changed this is it this is the copy So amended 1 12 2024 and 4:15 20204. So it's right before I was the meeting right before I came on. So e code did change and that's why the intent and my microphone's probably not the intent it it said electors it it did

143not strict that and we went back to the board of selectment minutes and it didn't change that. So, so what? So, the two the two are actually um not qualified to serve per the way the ordinance is written and not just written but passed. Okay? Because you look at the minutes of that board of selectment meeting or you know of the ordinance and it was just moved. It wasn't like somebody it was a typographical error or anything like that. Those two members are are per the ordinance are not qualified to serve historically. So it needs I guess we need to check with well we should probably check the three meetings before that because I know that we discussed Hamish's membership on that. I remember that clear as well too and we were very careful to

144differentiate the the the difference between what we thought we were differentiating maybe we didn't clarify it well but residents and electors I think we thought they were not one and the same they are that's correct they are not one and the same they are two different thing resident resident and elector are two different things but yet a resident can vote for town officials for example An elector cannot vote for if you're a resident. If elector elector means voter, but what's the difference between a resident and an elector? A res I don't think nothing. A well, you may have a residency here and one in New York where you vote in New York for all of your stuff. I think we should get clarification on the definitions first of all because I think the intent was

145that you didn't have to be a resident to be on that board. I think that's what we were trying to get to. Correct. And if we need to redo the wording based on the um definitions, then that's what we need to do. Okay. So, you're going to reach out to Kevin to 100%. Just for just for that board poll, we determined that that just it was it was unique to the historical because we were trying to get more people with a wealth of knowledge to be able to be on that board. I think as I remember Yeah. Because there's people out there that spent many, many, many years here, but don't actually live here, right, anymore, but they have a wealth of knowledge about the town. So why would you exclude them? And I think,

146and I do apologize because we looked at this the next day and why it didn't come back over into this meeting, but the historian, the town's historian does not need to be a resident in the town. Is that what the ordinance states? Um, let's see. That rings a bell, too. Yeah, that's the one. So the historian does not need to be in either e either an elector or resident or it could be the same thing. But we got to get the definition. If I remember correctly, you're not going to get a good definition either. Great. I think some of it was say anything about that. I read I got when I know my marching orders that commission came on the same time as the uh cultural. Thank you. And the cultural, I'm pretty sure they

147decided it didn't have to be a resident in this town because there's some business owners that could have been part of that cultural division of that commission, too. So, I think that's might where some of that fall in there. We uh we scratched our head when we looked at it the next morning after. I think I think the gentleman we put on last week does live in town. He just moved here. He owns a house here. So, that gentleman does live here in town. He's a resident, but he's not he's he's not a voter. Um he's a resident. He lives I think that's something they also have to look into. And I always thought actually lived in town. The other guy I thought always lived in town. So let let me look on his application.

148It just said resident. Yeah. But if he if he lives here, he's a voter. he was vetted. You would find out whether he was registered as a Democrat or Republican or unaffiliated. You know, I didn't vet him. I'm I don't know, but he didn't have a party. That's not a big deal. Well, we just have to get the definition and then we all know what the intent was. So, we just have to clarify that. If he's a resident, he's automatically a voter, I think. Right. Uh he's not registered. Well, unless he's not registered to vote. I mean, maybe some people don't choose not to vote, but that shouldn't keep him off of commission. It should if it's said if if the ordinance I actually think that he just didn't want anybody to know what his

149party affiliation was. That's why he did residence. I think that was his choice. But if it was vetted, you would have found out his party. That's all I can say. whether he was a registered voter or not that um but that's part of the vetting process I to check register voters most people put their designation on the floor any other comments yes um so I wanted to um address what you spoke about regarding um Maryanne Marino's application and full disclosure, you all know she's my sister, but um having served on ZBA for a number of years, the vast majority of applications go before both of these boards. They go before Inland Wetlands and they go before ZBA. you know, uh, William Kudok spoke in his second public comment saying that he worked in a town

150or was in a town where they were able to do that. We're unique because of the lake and at ZBA and clearly at wetlands, the vast majority of all the applications are at the lake. So when you talk about a conflict, you're giving one person the ability to vote twice on one application. And I don't care, and I would be saying this if it was anybody else applying for it, you know, not my sister, but to me, it's it's uh it's hugely inappropriate for one person to get two bites at the apple for a resident who wants to come in and do a project. And believe me, if you went down and looked at all the applications, it's probably 90% of the ZBA applications are at the lake. And of course, 90% of the inland

151wetlands applications, if not 95% are all at the lake. It's rare that you find a wetlands application for somewhere else in town that happens to have a little wetlands on on the property. So, um I I would urge you to consider that when we get together in our next meeting to um move her to the nomination stage. I think if she wants to resign from ZBA and go back to wetlands and if the need for the town is we have a bigger need at wetlands because particularly this is a uh a deep draw year and the load for inland wetlands is going to be huge. If that's the case, uh, I, you know, and she wants to resign from ZBI, I think she'd be great on inland wetlands, but I don't believe anybody should serve

152on those two boards because they are very interconnected and you have essentially only three boards that control development at the lake and two of them would have one person on them. And I think that's wildly a conflict. So, um, contrary to what Mr. Kudox said about having it worked and out of the town. What makes our town unique is the lake and the amount of applications that come across for development up there. Anyone else? Uh before we leave, I just wanted to bring up uh something that Mr. Warner had said earlier when he spoke about the veterans flags. Um, if there is a backlog of people interested in them, we do have other appropriate places that we could hang them in addition to the East End park. We've got Soldiers Monument site dedicated to soldiers.

153We've got George Dudley Park. That's where the Korean and the uh I forget the other monument in that park. And we also have Forest View Cemetery where all the veterans graves are uh where we do all the veterans ceremonies like Reese Across America and the Veterans Day ceremonies. So there are other places that would be appropriate I think to put veterans flags. Uh more stuff that we can talk about when we put the ordinance together as we move forward with that. Um I just want to add to that. Um all those places were looked at but there's nothing to anything on. So something would have to be manufactured that would hold the banners and I mean there was discussion of you know a wire with two poles and I don't know how attractive that I

154think the hanging them off the light poles with the brackets is very attractive. helps make it look halfway decent. And that's that was the need to not go unless we want to install light poles in those parts. It's a possibility too. Yeah. There's always there's always work around that. Motion to a jury. Do we have a second? Second. All in favor? Good night.