MINUTES
WATERTOWN TOWN COUNCIL
PUBLIC HEARING
SWIFT MIDDLE SCHOOL
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2002, 7:00 P.M.
PRESENT: Elaine Adams
Lee Archer, Chairman
Raymond Hebert, Vice Chairman
Robert Kane
Raymond Primini
Paul Rinaldi
Paul Valenti (arrived at 7:25 p.m.)
Richard Wick
ABSENT: Jean King
OTHERS PRESENT: Charles Frigon, Interim Town Manager
1. Convene Public Hearing - 7:00 P.M.
Mr. Archer, Chairman, called the Public Hearing to order at 7:10 p.m.
Mr. Kane read aloud the following Notice of the Public Hearing for the record:
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING
TOWN COUNCIL
TOWN OF WATERTOWN
APRIL 17, 2002
The Town Council of the Town of Watertown will hold a Public Hearing at Swift Middle School, 250 Colonial Street, Oakville, on Wednesday, April 17, 2002 at 7:00 p.m. to consider the following proposed ordinance:
An ordinance appropriating $2,000,000 for acquisition of approximately 198.7 acres of land on Bunker Hill and Middlebury Roads for open space and recreational purposes, including but not limited to athletic fields, and the site planning, design and engineering costs for such purposes and authorizing the issue of bonds and notes to finance the portion of the appropriation not defrayed from grants.
Copies of the proposed Ordinance are on file with the Town Clerk of the Town of Watertown. Eligible Voters and affected persons will be heard at the Public Hearing concerning the proposed ordinance.
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
April 17, 2002
Page 2
Dated at Watertown, Connecticut this 11th day of April, 2002.
Charles A. Frigon, Interim Town Manager
Town of Watertown
RETURN OF NOTICE
TOWN OF WATERTOWN
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING
I hereby certify that on April 11, 2002 I left a duplicate copy of the attached Notice of Public Hearing, Town of Watertown, Connecticut with Virginia Stewart its Town Clerk to be held on April 17, 2002.
I further certify that on April 11, 2002, I caused a copy of said Notice of Public Hearing to be published in the TOWN TIMES, which newspaper has a substantial circulation in said Town.
I further certify that on April 11, 2002, I caused to be set upon the signpost or other exterior places nearest the Office of the Town Clerk and all other places and signposts designated by the Town, a written copy of said Notice of Public Hearing signed by the Interim Town Manager of the Town of Watertown.
I further certify that all the above acts were done at least five (5) days before the holding of the Public Hearing on April 17, 2002.
Dated at Watertown, Connecticut this 11th day of April, 2002.
Charles A. Frigon, Interim Town Manager
TOWN CLERKS CERTIFICATION AS TO
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING AND RETURN OF NOTICE
I hereby certify that the attached Notice of Public Hearing and Notice of the foregoing Return of Notice of Public Hearing are duly recorded in the records of the Town of Watertown, Connecticut, and that Charles A. Frigon was Interim Town Manager on the date the Notice and Return of Notice were signed.
Dated at Watertown, Connecticut this 11th day of April, 2002.
Virginia Stewart, Town Clerk
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
April 17, 2002
Page 3
Mr. Archer: I know some of you were here last time we did this. On March 25th we had a Public Hearing, and Informal Public Hearing (inaudible). This is in response to citizens call for more ball parks, a solution to those problems that were brought forward. By the way, for those of you who were here last time, this is more or less a presentation of the last time. This is in direct response to a Public Hearing that we had on January 7, 2002, about between 60 and 80 came out on a cold night to tell us about the dire need for more ball parks space in Town. We just want to let you know that we did hear you and we have a solution to offer and well get to that in a minute.
What did we hear? We heard that we need more ball fields, more open space for kids and families to play and enjoy. Veterans is the only large facility we have. We need to restore and maintain our existing fields. Many of us spoke about the deplorable condition of all of the fields in Town.
Here are some of the things you said and I think its important to read through them because they really did hit home:
Teams from other towns arrived for games and are (inaudible) condition of our fields are embarrassing (baseball coach).
These are from the January 7th Public Hearing.
The demand for fields has skyrocketed as the Town has steadily grown and more people, kids, and adults are involved in athletics, but the amount of open space has stayed the same (inaudible).
We have too few fields for all of the Towns teams. The fields that we do have are overused and abused and (inaudible) and are never given a rest. (Inaudible) during half time cause (inaudible) is truly a hazard.
Our team did not play one home game last year, not one. Frankly thats embarrassing, cause there was simply no field space available. We literally practiced in parking lots.
Two years ago (inaudible) more and more kids want to play and I dont know how were going to accommodate them.
We should have bought the (inaudible) property in Town when they were for sale, because all of the potential parkland has been developed. We cannot afford to lose any more (inaudible) open space.
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
April 17, 2002
Page 4
So we heard you and so now what happens? (Inaudible) concerns were very real, you were very adamant about the needs (inaudible). I want to show you the solution. There is one caveat to this though, and that is that we cant solve all of the problems at one time. A lot of things we talked about was condition of fields and I want to make a distinction between there are school maintained ball fields and there are Town maintained ball fields. Examples of school maintained ball fields would be right in back of this building, which is what was mentioned a lot at the January 7th meeting, and then there are Town maintained ball fields. An example of that would be Veterans, which is very well maintained facility. The response from a lot of people when I told them was that that doesnt make any sense, why do we have two different people working on two different sets of fields? And theanswer to that is I dont know. Its obviously been done that way for a long time, and does it make sense? Probably not. It is something that probably should be looked at (inaudible). The poor ball fields are simply that the school budget, there just is no money to work on the fields. That is part of the fallout from having the budget (inaudible) year to year. There simply is not money to maintain the fields. Also, just from an efficiency standpoint, it would seem to make sense that you have one group to maintain the fields. Thats something that we would like to work towards. Its not going to be an easy thing to do. There are different labor unions involved. It will take awhile and a lot of careful negotiation to see the benefits of putting the maintenance over to one group or the other, and make sure that everyone in both of those unions are made whole. No one wants to take work away from anybody, or takehours away from anybody, but it is clearly something that needs to be addressed; it cant be left the way it is now. This particular solution is not going to immediately solve that problem. Its probably (inaudible), I would imagine.
What were suggesting here this evening in response to your request is a 199 acre park setting, and to just give you an idea of where this is, Middlebury Road is here, this is Bunker Hill Road, a couple of hundred yards to Route 63. This here is New Wood Road which meets 63 down here, right across from the new Stop & Shop. This is actually made up of two parcels. The northern end up here (inaudible), a parcel that we refer to as the Sperry property that is 76 acres. The portion down here, the larger portion, is the Paparazzo property (inaudible). This is 123 acres down there.
The plan for the park is to first acquire the land. Theres a lot of talk about what will happen after that, how come we dont know that? All of that is probably moot if we dont have any land to (inaudible), so the first step is to acquire the space to actually build the park on. On this map here, the lighter green areas are areas that have been determined that are suitable for leveling and turning into fields. These shapes up here in the left hand corner represent the relative size of different types of ball fields. The reason why we put them up here in the corner is because we didnt want anyone to think that we were already planning out what fields would go where. That is not for us to decide. That will be decided by the Parks and Rec Commission, and the sports leaders of the various groups. What we wanted to do is just be able to show you the relative size so you can see that wereally do have the ability to plunk down quite a few ball fields here. Just by my count, I came up with 10 which is (inaudible).
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
April 17, 2002
Page 5
The idea would be to do this in 3 phases. There is some State money available that we can apply for, for this, and the red dotted line indicates areas (inaudible). This is Bunker Hill Road, this is a potential road that could be put in. About a year ago, some of you may recall, the Council (inaudible) purchasing this property. At that time it was only the lower half of the property, this portion down here. This section here where it says (inaudible), because of the topography, the actual shape of the land, this area here would not have been acceptable with just the single parcel on the bottom. With the addition of this western section the topography actually allows us to use this portion up here as well, so its not only the additional property and what was being planned before, but also actually makes the previous proposal even more valuable.
Sort of a conceptual plan here. These yellow lines to the site here indicate walking trails, probably offer decades of public service projects for the local scout troops. Why is this important? There are 3 primary reasons:
1. Putting 10 fields on this property is going to go a long way, if not completely meet the need for additional ball parks. In addition to that, theres an awful lot of open space left, even after those fields are put down.
2. This has a positive fiscal impact. Ive aid this to a few people and they wait a minute, were spending a lot of money on this (inaudible). I want you to consider this for a moment. This graph here indicates sort of a relative (inaudible) of what a homeowner pays in property and automobile taxes versus what it costs to educate their children. This one is actually representative me. The blue bar here represents about $3,500 which is what I pay in property and automobile taxes. I have two children. They actually go to St. Johns in Town, but if you divide up the school budget by the number of students in the school system it comes out to $7,500 per student, per year, to educate them, so its $3,500 in, $22,000 out. Where does the difference come from? Again, everybody cans see that (inaudible) but how does buying property benefit us? Residential development, (inaudible) subdivision, and plopping down 35 houses is a financial burden on everyone in Town. TheSperry portion of the property, the 76 acres, has an existing site plan to put 35 houses down. Assuming each one of those homeowners has, say the house is assessed at $200,000, they will be paying essentially the same that I do in property taxes, and if they have a couple of kids, they will be costing the Board of Education school system $15,000 per year, which is a great disparity between what theyre putting into the system and whats coming back out. And what happened to the costs (inaudible)? Am I saying that we should chase builders out of town? No. Am I saying that we shouldnt allow anybody else to move to this Town? No. What I am saying is that any time we can buy a piece of property like this, (inaudible) and also essentially pay for itself time and time again. It should be essentially a no brainer.
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
April 17, 2002
Page 6
The other thing is that I talked about some open space, preserve the Towns quality of life. We live here for a reason. Its a town with all the modern conveniences, but it still has a New England small town flavor to it. We dont live in Bridgeport because we dont want to live there. We dont live in Waterbury because presumably we dont want to live there either. We live in this Town because of its rural character and the fact that the properties get gobbled up the faster that character disappears so it certainly deserves our quality of life.
(Inaudible) have questions here. They are questions that came up last time at the previous hearing and I (inaudible) go ahead and address them (inaudible). What is the cost? There are two different transactions here cause theyre two different property owners. The Sperry property which is 76 acres is $494,000. The Paparazzo portion is 123 acres if $1,350,000. Now the (inaudible) includes the Paparazzo property is considerably more. The Paparazzo site is considered industrial currently which makes it more valuable per acreage (inaudible). Also included in the potential referendum is $100,000 for site design. In talking to some of the parents and the sports leaders, one of the things that became clear is they didnt want us to buy the property and then have it essentially sit there for 5 years without anything happening. So to get ajump on obviously before we get bulldozers on and start leveling the field, we have to have a site plan, so we incorporated $100,000 for a site plan. Legal fees to complete the transaction are estimated at $50,000 which brings us to a total of $2,000,000. Its a fairly good deal. The land is currently valued at $2,500,000 to $3,000,000, so were getting it for well below market value.
Another question that was asked was, isnt this property actually going to be a high school site? The last time the previous Council was pursuing this property that was a questions that came up and there were a lot of rumors and letters in the paper about that. The quick answer to that is no, it is not going to be a high school site. Frankly I wouldnt be expending as much energy on this as I have if I thought it was going to be. The simple answer to that is no, it is not, and I guess, you know, people are going to think what they want, but all I can do is tell you as honestly as I can is that that is not true, there is no secret agenda attached to this purchase. Also The Trust For Public Land, who is involved in this process, they have actually negotiated these prices with the owners and have done a lot of the preliminary work to get to this point, and topurchase this land knowing that there would be a school on it is completely against their stated mission, which is to preserve open space throughout the country, so they would not be involved in this, they frankly couldnt be if they thought there was going to be a school on it.
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
April 17, 2002
Page 7
You may have gotten a survey phone call or you may have seen flyers around town and wondered gee, I hope our taxes arent being spent to put these things out. They are not. All of that has been paid for by a group of citizens whove gotten together to expend some of their own energy and time to make this project come to fruition. They are the Watertown/Oakville Coalition for Parks and Open Space. The telephone survey was done to determine what the level of support was in Town for this project. People are donating their time to this project and energy, working the phones, handing out flyers (inaudible) so we can know what theyre working for as (inaudible).
A big question is will we be losing tax revenue by purchasing this parcel? Yes, we will. It is not a tremendous amount. The Sperry portion is $191.00 per year in property taxes. The Paparazzo property is $14,880.00. Is $15,000 a lot of money? (Inaudible), but in the scheme of things, for the benefit we get from this and the positive fiscal effect it pretty much (inaudible).
Is The Trust For Public Land being paid a Commission by the Town? They are not. The Trust for Public Land exists through charitable contributions. That is where they get their money for operations, thats where they get their money for assisting the Coalition and putting together flyers, getting this map done, things of that sort. They are not being paid a commission by the Town, they are not getting paid a consulting fee. The Town has expended zero dollars up to this point.
Is the property contaminated? You may recall the last time the Council was pursuing this, there was some contamination found on the property. The answer to that question is yes and no. There was a section of it that was found to have contamination in it, I believe it was dry cleaning material, degreasers and dry cleaning materials. Those were located roughly in a 16 acre section down here, you see the black lines here. That section plus what was considered to be an adequate buffer was sort of cleaved off from the rest of the property, and the Town would not be purchasing that property. The current owner, Paparazzo, will retain ownership of that section and I imagine probably sell it to one of the commercial (inaudible) that are backed up.
Is the property developable? This (inaudible) to what I was talking about (inaudible). The Sperry portion is zoned residential, so at any time a developer can come in there and start putting up houses. As I said there is a distinct preliminary site plan for that property for building a subdivision.
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
April 17, 2002
Page 8
How much will it cost to the Town to develop the parcel? This has probably been the biggest argument that Ive heard, the most fervent argument against this project, and that is that its $2,000,000 to buy this land, but what do we do now? How much is that going to cost? Where is the money going to come from? Are we going to maintain the fields? We cant maintain the ones we have now? Thats sort of the run on question. The simple answer is I dont know yet, for a couple of reasons:
1. We dont know what were going to put there. As I said, Im not the person who gets to decide which ball fields go where and how many of them go in there. Im the last person in the world who should be given that job. That should be done by citizens and the Parks and Rec Department, sports leaders and engineers and people much brighter than me. What ball fields we put in and where we put them will have a tremendous effect on the costs (inaudible). There are things that go along with that. Depending on what fields we put in, which ones need to be lighted and does it need irrigation? We need to assess the bathroom facilities. Depending on where the fields go wemay need more or less asphalt to make roads to get to them. The positioning of the fields will determine whether we need larger parking areas. So there are really just too many chapters that go into something like this to know what the costs are now. Is this going to cost money? Yes. Are ball fields cheap to build? No, they arent, but if you dont take this particular step, all of that conversation is essentially moot. The January 7th Public Hearing told us loud and clear we need to do this and the first step in that is locking up the land.
Now there are State grants available for recreational needs. There is one (inaudible) grant called the Economic Assistant Program. We are doing a lot of research on that and how to get that put through as quickly as possible. Theres a fair waiting list for that, but it is out there and it is useful. There is another grant already that we have instructed the Town Manager to apply for and the heavy dotted maroon border indicates a section that will be left as untouched open space. Its wooded, some of its kind of marshy, great for hiking trails and things of that sort, but not really suitable for ball fields. That part we have instructed the Town Manager to apply to the Department of Environmental Protection for an Open Space Grant. Based on the size of the acreage and the percentage that they (inaudible), 50%so what happens this is a 67 acre section, and what happens is those 67 acres are appraised, and then the State chips in 50% of that (inaudible) of the cost of that particular section. Just a quick total on the calculator, we came up with between $175,000 to $200,000 that the State would kick in after the purchase of it. (Inaudible). (Tape #1, Side A ended, may have missed some.)
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
April 17, 2002
Page 9
There was 200 plus acres, that was prior to cleaving off this section down here, the 16, sorry I couldnt get to the (inaudible) here. (Inaudible) 10, maybe 11 ball fields in there. We have Veterans which is sort of in the northern section of the (inaudible) it would be great to have something in the opposite corner as well (inaudible). It would provide what we heard we need. We need a lot more ball parks, thats clear. Its a bargain, its not something, a term I use lightly on a $2,000,000 purchase. (Inaudible) fair market value of that property youre going to have $3,000,000, thats roughly a 26% to 38% discount over fair market value. Those dont come along every day; we should jump on it when it does. As I said, State grants will reduce the cost and the approximately cost for this per household,per year, is about $20.00. Im ready to fund my $20.00 for it because I think its more than worth it. Its a future investment in our Towns quality of life. Its something that I think our kids will thank us for. Last time we were here, someone I cant remember who it was, stood up and said 20 years from now well be playing with our grandkids (inaudible) park and well look back and remember, gee, remember that night in Swifts Auditorium when we decided to do something good for our Town, for our children and our grandchildren. And thats really true. Id frankly love to be able to do that, to look back and say you know what, its a good thing we had the vision at that time. At this time we have Public Participation, like a Q & A session, so if anyone has any questions, this is the time.
2. Public Participation
Colin Adams, 18 Hadley Street, Oakville, CT 06779
Mr. Adams: I just think this is a terrific proposal. It shows some insight of some long term plans for the Town. Being a past member of the Planning and Zoning Commission, were fully in support of this and I just hope that the Town approves it.
Robert LeBlanc, 78 Highland Avenue, Watertown, CT 06795
Mr. LeBlanc: I have a couple of questions. Can you tell me where the entrance is, where the road is, where does it come from?
Mr. Archer: This right here, where the arrow is, would be across from Davis Street Extension, which runs from Route 63 to Bunker Hill, right here.
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
April 17, 2002
Page 10
Mr. LeBlanc: There was a map put out by the Council of Governments for the last (inaudible) and it had all the wetlands. This shows wetlands, severe wetlands all across this property so you cant cross from Bunker Hill Avenue, Davis Street Extension. I just cant understand how theyre doing that with this road, with this severe wetlands and this map was put out by the Council of Governments for the last deal with the Paparazzo property. That will just give you something to think about.
Mr. Archer: Right. The Davis Street Extension ends right here, which is actually inside the dry portion of the land.
Mr. LeBlanc: But how will you cross the wetlands? This is prohibited wetlands, not even wetlands.
Mr. Archer: Im not an engineer, Bob. I know that P & Z . . . .
Mr. LeBlanc: Something to think about. Second of all Id like to know, someone keeps mentioning the 35 homes that could be built on the Sperry property and (inaudible) site plan or something. Who has that site plan and how would they enter that land to build those 35 houses?
Mr. Archer: I couldnt tell you about how they entered the land cause I havent seen it, and I believe its (inaudible).
Mr. LeBlanc: So in other words no one has seen this 35 house site development?
Mr. Archer: No.
Mr. LeBlanc: Well maybe if you havent the Freedom of Information we could get (inaudible) land youre trying to buy.
Mr. Archer: Sure.
Mr. LeBlanc: Could you possibly answer how they entered that to get on that property?
Elisabeth Moore, The Trust For Public Land
Ms. Moore: The access I believe is off Middlebury Road.
Mr. LeBlanc: (Inaudible)?
Ms. Moore: There is a wetlands (inaudible).
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
April 17, 2002
Page 11
Mr. LeBlanc: There is a wetlands crossing (inaudible)?
Ms. Moore: I know that there is wetlands crossing.
Mr. LeBlanc: Theres a wood bridge. Is that what youre talking about?
Ms. Moore: When I walked down it (inaudible).
Mr. LeBlanc: Okay, all I can find is the wooden bridge, and I dont believe they can develop a road there, but thats my opinion. Secondly I like to know how the Land Trust gets involved in this? You say that you do not make any money from this at all?
Ms. Moore: (Inaudible).
Mr. LeBlanc: No, The Trust For Public Land? They dont make any money?
Ms. Moore: No, we dont.
Mr. LeBlanc: But in November of 2000, your Land Trust was selling the land to the Town.
Ms. Moore: No, we talked about that proposal in January, 2001.
Mr. LeBlanc: I have in my possession a real estate sales contract. This agreement made a certain day of December 2000 between The Trust for Public Land, a non-profit organization having a place of business at 383 Orange Street, Town of New Haven, Connecticut, County of New Haven, State of Connecticut, hereafter called the seller, and the Town of Watertown, hereafter called the buyer. Now this is signed by your Council.
Ms. Moore: Yes, yes.
Mr. LeBlanc: I cant understand how you can sell land that you dont own.
Ms. Moore: Because we have the option on the property. We are acting as an agent on behalf of the Town to acquire the property. We have negotiated the purchase price and (inaudible) required to (inaudible).
Mr. LeBlanc: So you people have an option.
Ms. Moore: Yes, we have an option.
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
April 17, 2002
Page 12
Mr. LeBlanc: So how does that work, you buy it and sell it to . . . . . if the deal goes through?
Ms. Moore: We would probably just convey it directly to you.
Mr. LeBlanc: Is Paparazzo getting the money from it, or is that donated?
Ms. Moore: No, the money is going to Mr. Paparazzo.
Mr. LeBlanc: On this deal. What about in November of 2000?
Ms. Moore: Same thing.
Mr. LeBlanc: Same thing, well as I say the way I figure it, that contract was a little nebulous to me. Secondly Id like to know how you came about the amount of wetlands on the Paparazzo/Sperry property? Did you have some kind of a survey done on the Sperry property, number one?
Ms. Moore: No, I actually had it calculated by the engineer who did the design for this. Its the same (inaudible) who did the design for the Berry Farm, and excluding this section, its 25 different wetlands, and you can see that a majority of the wetlands are in the open space component.
Mr. LeBlanc: Im talking about the whole property.
Ms. Moore: 25%.
Mr. LeBlanc: How come Im coming up with a different figure? When this calculation was done by HGLY and (inaudible) Inc., there was a survey done for the summary of wetlands of Heritage Park, Watertown, CT. They came up with 21.8% of wetlands, thats just the Paparazzo property, but they left out 25 acres, they didnt figure it in.
Ms. Moore: Well give us the question to the engineer, well be happy to have you talk to them.
Mr. LeBlanc: No, I just want to give you (inaudible). On their report, the area in central and southern ponds were not included in the site calculations, which was 25 acres, and now if you calculate that 25 acres of pond area, youll come out with 36% of wetlands.
Ms. Moore: Well for one thing there is not as much wetlands on the Sperry piece, and as I said, youre most welcome to contact the, I actually had him calculate that today and it was 25%.
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Public Hearing
April 17, 2002
Page 13
Mr. LeBlanc: So that 25% and the 36% . . . .
Ms. Moore: 25% on the entire 199.
Mr. LeBlanc: As I say, I dont have those figures and I think (inaudible).
Ms. Moore: Id be happy to have you talk to the engineer.
Mr. LeBlanc: Secondly what is the price you said, $495,000, (inaudible) and now its coming out to . . . . . $495,000?
Mr. Archer: I believe 494 (inaudible).
Mr. LeBlanc: (Inaudible)?
Mr. Archer: Yes.
Mr. LeBlanc: I cant find that right now but Ill get back to . . . . . Lee Archer, page 4 of the Minutes of the last Special Meeting that they had, it says "the addition of 75 Acres (inaudible) added to this were able to (inaudible) an additional $350,000."
Mr. Archer: That doesnt surprise me. The first time I went through this presentation there were a lot more people here and I think I quoted a lot more numbers than I did this evening, so if I made a mistake, my apologies to yourself and the Town. However, we did make available the blue brochures which actually had the correct figures on it. That was an Informational Public Hearing. I made sure they were absolutely correct tonight.
Mr. LeBlanc: The reason that comes up is when I calculated the price of the land my calculations were about $4,000 an acre for the Sperry land and $11,000 an acre for the Paparazzo property, not counting the whole thing. I think it would behoove the Town to (inaudible) Sperry property (inaudible) ball fields out of it. Never mind this other one (inaudible).
Mr. Archer: Thats a question we heard from a few people. And I guess the answer to that would be the only access to it would be off Middlebury Road, which is a residential street. The street is neither wide enough nor has the property site line to have an entrance there, so although its not such a bad idea, the frontage on the road for a park . . . . .
Mr. LeBlanc: Well (inaudible) it would behoove the Town to buy it because of the million two or three, and develop that site, it would be a lot better than (inaudible) $2,000,000. I appreciate your talking to me. Thank you.
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
April 17, 2002
Page 14
Elaine Creen, 27 Harper Road, Watertown, CT 06795
Ms. Creen: I have lived in Watertown since the day I was born. Granted my son probably wont benefit from all of this, but I hope my grandchildren will and I hope his children will. We have grown so fast as a Town, I cant believe that this is the Town I grew up in, but one thing that hasnt changed is what we do for the people in the Town, and I dont believe we do enough as a Town. I think that our schools are overcrowded, we invite all these people into our community and they call this their home, and they give them nothing back in return, and I think its time that we did this. Its not just the children that are going to benefit, its the adults and everyone in the communities, so I really hope that this is something we can get off the ground. Thank you.
Mike Montambault, 45 Straits Turnpike, Watertown, CT 06795
Mr. Montambault: I figure you guys would decide what youre going to build on that land before you buy it and maybe more people would be behind this, because if you dont buy the land, at first then you have to find out what youre going to build there. If you plan on what youre going to build there and tell the people before you buy it (inaudible) save some money there. Thats basically it.
Mr. Archer: In order to do a complete site plan as you saw in the totals that I showed you, we put in $100,000 for initial planning and engineering. In order to be able to show you the plan of exactly what would be in the park now thats what we would have to spend. Its not in the current budget, and I dont think were likely to squeeze it in. The idea was to do essentially, Veterans Park was owned by the Town before a field was ever put up, before it was designed to put fields on, but at some point we had the vision to go ahead and start planning that out, and thats actually a park thats not complete. Theres another baseball diamond being added this Summer. But I think thats the last thing they can build up there, if Im not mistaken.
Mr. Frigon: (Inaudible).
Mr. Archer: So I think its kind of a bold move, yes, theres no doubt about it, but at some point, (inaudible) repeat something I said at Mondays Town Council Meeting when I spoke about the plan as well, ultimately the big question is what kind of Watertown do we want? Do we want one that other Towns seek to emulate? I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation that some teams have come here and gotten off the bus and looked at the bus and said they wouldnt because its dangerous and not up to standards for a proper game. Obviously they have fields that are.
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Public Hearing
April 17, 2002
Page 15
Many of you have said that other towns have gorgeous fields, like for example the ones at Veterans and Deland. We want a high quality life, good schools, smooth running roads, we want our large (inaudible) homes to appreciate in value. (Inaudible). They dont happen (inaudible). Many of them happen step by step. Veterans Park is a good example of that. It didnt just happen all in one day. They take some time, some planning, year after year, its going to take a dogged effort on the Towns part and our State Representatives part to push the State for funding. Its not something, we cant know the entire plan for this thing up front, and if we did, by the time we finished, this particular piece of property may be gone, and I sort of hate to see that happen given the price were getting on it (inaudible).
Mr. Montambault: Have there been any (inaudible) building about on that land?
Mr. Archer: Well Im not the person to decide which baseball fields are needed. That is really up to the Parks and Rec Director. Thats for her to meet with the various sports leaders, the people who run the Little League, who run Pop Warner, and do an inventory of the fields and what it is that we need and in what order they should be built in. The idea is to do this in phases so that we can maximize the State funding as much as possible. If we take them in smaller chunks and get State funding for each one of them, the burden on the Town should be less. Its just simply not practical to plan out the whole thing ahead of time, but we have been in touch with a number of people and in response to that, that is why we put in the $100,000 for the initial site plan so that everyone is aware that we are, assuming we send this to Referendum and it does pass, that we would have some money in thecoffers to move (inaudible).
Mr. Montambault: Okay, one more thing. If the Town does buy this land, I hope they put in a skate park because theres been a lot of (inaudible) about the new skateboarding thing. I know were not allowed to skateboard on Davis Street or a bunch of other places.
Mr. Archer: (Inaudible) I hope everyone who wants to get something out of this park does. If that means putting a skateboard park in, that would be great too. There is someone on the Council who is currently working pretty hard on the skateboard park issue that we hope to get some progress on further.
Mr. Montambault: You dont need any more baseball fields. Ive been to every school here, and they have a lot of baseball fields and Im sure there are other parks that have baseball fields, basketball fields, and football fields, and pretty much every other kind of sports fields that I can think of anyway.
Mr. Archer: Well again Im not the expert on that; Ill leave that to the experts.
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
April 17, 2002
Page 16
Bill Merriman, 319 Thomaston Road, Watertown, CT 06795
Mr. Merriman: Last Fall a group of us walked here and we wandered up through this part here. I dont think you could put ball fields there, but its great for a nature trail. Up in here theres a pond, there might be two, but I know theres one (inaudible) and she went in and we had to get her out. We wandered around in here and got back to this point. Ive never been up in here at all. (Inaudible) where Panilaitis Farm is.
Mr. Archer: Panilaitis Farm is actually right here. The building itself is pretty much right about (inaudible). The arrow here is right across from Davis Street Extension and then theres a slight ridge here and then the barn is right here.
Mr. Merriman: Down here, if you look at it from the road, it drops down quite a bit, and then up in here, going up the hill again, you have woods, your building up in through here and you have (inaudible). Would your road go in through here, or would the proposed road go down in here somewhere?
Mr. Archer: The proposed road is the heavy black (inaudible). It would have been (inaudible) for the engineer to cleave off this whole section down here, but this little tail was left so there would be access across from Davis Street and that actually has been already engineered, because it was done years ago when it was intended to be an industrial park (inaudible). Yes, it does rise back up pretty rapidly here. This section here is (inaudible) is actually the high part (inaudible). Thats the part that I was saying was inaccessible in the previous incarnation of this, because the topography around here is too steep to access that area, but with the addition of the Sperry property up on top, you can come right onto the road and access it from this end, theres a little more gentle slope.
Mr. Merriman: My big problem would be down here. If this is contaminated down here with old liquid, is there any chance that this stuff will float up in here? Has any of this part here been tested?
Mr. Archer: It has. Elizabeth?
Ms. Moore: It actually has been tested. That is exactly how this line is determined. If you go there, you can see that the topography this is where (inaudible) topography for the (inaudible). There is low level ground water contamination, (inaudible). It was found in this vicinity and the point of doing the line right here is to be a significant buffer between the Towns land and the land thats (inaudible). This area has all been tested and its clean. The point was this is Wattles Brook, and in here also.
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
April 17, 2002
Page 17
Bill Donston, 105 Dunrobin Lane, Watertown, CT 06795
Mr. Donston: A lot of talk tonight about the wetlands, and my understanding of how the government works is the final say in any wetlands is the Army Corps of Engineers, and we can all see the hoopla thats happened in New Haven Harbor after many people were against that project the Army Corps still came in and approved that project. Army Corps can override the Zoning or Mr. LeBlancs map there, they will bisect a wetlands area. It happened in Thomaston within the last year. (Inaudible) a member of the Wetlands Board up there, so the Army Corps of Engineers can come in if its shown that its not going to do serious irreparable damage to the area, they will grant a bisection of a wetland area, and a road, depending on how wide it has to be for Zoning, I dont know the exact numbers, Im sure the Army Corps of Engineers is pretty much favorable to open space and things like that. Thats where yourState Legislators and people like that come in.
I applaud the young gentleman for getting up and speaking his mind. I wish more young people would do that. And the young lady over there, I appreciate the fact that youre here at the meeting tonight, when you could be home watching TV. Youre very civic minded, we need more young people like you.
As far as the field situation, Lee explained doing it in 3 phases. What it basically does is it allows the Town to grow with the park. 15 years ago Soccer was mostly prevalent in the High School. Now weve got how many different leagues in Town that are not affiliated with the schools, and now were hearing about Lacrosse, were hearing about Field Hockey. They start in the schools and then graduate and get older, and I agree with them. Maybe to say ahead of time there will be 10 ball fields, and later on some of those athletes who wont ever use the ball fields for Baseball because theyre going to be a Lacrosse player or a Field Hockey player, and maybe people in Track, whatever. Thats why I think its a sound plan to go in phases, and as the Town and the population dictates the need to add additional fields, because it may not be another hardball field. It might windup being two Field Hockeyfields, which the dimensions, being rectangular, are a little easier to fit in more than a baseball field. Doing it in 3 phases definitely allows the Town to dictate what it needs in the future and not doing it all now. And Skateboarding, yes. Kai Leszkowicz played ball for me last year and Im in tune to that, and I agree with the young gentleman about skateboarding. People are given a small area which makes it nice for some of these areas which arent really suitable for a ball field.
And I think our Park and Rec Department has done a great job in a situation like this. Take Veterans for example. There was a need for another basketball court, and they found a place to put it and added it in. The Bocce League lost their field down here, (inaudible) particular avenue or venue is, and they were added in at Veterans, so weve proven in the past that we can take something thats given to us and work with it and improve upon it. Thank you.
Watertown Town Council
Public Hearing
April 17, 2002
Page 18
Mr. Archer: Anyone else wishing to speak? Going once; going twice. Well Close Public Participation.
Mr. Archer, Chairman, Closed Public Participation at 8:12 p.m.
Mr. Archer: The last thing I want to say is a lot of people have come out and said we need to do this and we have responded and came up with a, and I want to thank everyone who has been to the various Public Hearings, but the big thing that has to happen is that everyone has to, if we want to do this, weve sort of done our portion of it here and at this point its up to the Town. (Tape #1, Side B ended may have missed some.) Pester everyone you know, talk to all the parents with kids on the sports teams, just keep harping on this and get them to support this because its up to the citizens of this Town to make this happen at this point. We can only bring the proposal forward and take it to Referendum, but then you guys have to do the work (inaudible). Thank you all for coming out and were going to set that (inaudible) consider setting the tape (inaudible). At this time Ill Closethis Public Hearing.
3. Adjournment
Mr. Archer, Chairman, Closed the Public Hearing at 8:14 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Lee Archer, Chairman
Town Council
Approved: _______________________________
Lynn M. LaForme, Clerk |