Watertown, CT - 08/19/02 - Regular Meeting

MINUTES
WATERTOWN TOWN COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
POLK SCHOOL LIBRARY
MONDAY, AUGUST 19, 2002, 8:00 P.M.

PRESENT:   Elaine Adams
                        Lee Archer, Chairman
                        Raymond Hebert, Jr., Vice Chairman
                        Robert Kane
                        Jean King
                        Raymond Primini
                        Paul Rinaldi
                        Paul Valenti (arrived at 8:04 p.m.)
                        Richard Wick

ABSENT:                        None

OTHERS PRESENT:                        Charles Frigon, Interim Town Manager
                                                               Frank Nardelli, Assistant Town Manager/Finance Director

1.         Call Meeting To Order

Mr. Archer, Chairman, Called the Meeting to Order at 8:01 p.m.

2. Roll Call

Ms. LaForme, Board Clerk, executed the Roll Call.

3.         Pledge of Allegiance

            Mr. Archer, Chairman, led the Pledge of Allegiance.

4.         Public Participation

            Doug Leach, 100 Woodruff Avenue, Watertown, CT 06795

            Mr. Leach: To the Members of the Council, I'm here to express my disgust on the recent budget defeat. You as the Council have done the best to your ability and in your power to get this budget ready and go to vote, but unfortunately a group in this Town thinks they run and control the vote on this budget, and they succeeded again in getting just the noble out. And they don't care that they caused the Town to digress and hamper our abilities as a community to progress. I hope that people at home who may watch this recording later on get the message to vote. The people who don't go vote are stronger than the group in Town who wants everyone to vote no, and what boggles my mind the most is the members of this no group all sent their children to our pubic schools, and I'm sure their grandchildren are going to our schools also, but now they feel it isn't necessary, or that any other child in this Town has the privilege and the right to get a good education while their families received and are receiving an education, and that the rest of our Town has to suffer just of a certain few. I wish the residents of our great Town unite and stick together and get out and vote at every Referendum. As a registered voter in this Town I think it should be automatic that you go vote, but just go out and vote. Let's change this Town to the place it's supposed to be, successful, proud, productive. We didn't ask for a lot, but just to let our Town go forward, not backwards. Thank you.

George Valaitis, 647 Linkfield Road, Watertown, CT 06795

Mr. Valaitis: I had a long speech but before the meeting I had talked to Acting Town Manager and a few things were clarified. I also serve as a Vice Chair for Inland/Wetlands and Conservation Commission. In this past week I had received a lot of calls and some very, very much disturbed me because the people were also right, because on account of the Echo Lake and all the development that's going, and I'm only going to zero in on one item, which I think this Council should get involved. There is on the west side of Icehouse Road and the Echo Lake, the Town owns the property. Development is going on the opposite side of the Icehouse Road, but the treatment for water that's going to run off from that development is being put in a big tank, and discharged right in the lake on the Town's property. Seems like nobody knows who authorized that. Am I right? Not only that, but they're only going to take the sand and anything else that comes down during a storm or in the Spring time and let it settle out in the tank, but there's no provision made how they're going to take the salt that dissolves in the water and does not get discharged in the lake. And that's really the problem because nobody wants to stop the project. They're going to redesign, put a lower tank, so it's going to be easier to construct, they don't have to go that deep right next to the lake, but they have not come up before the Conservation Commission for approval. Even right now the continuation is continued going on and in one area I went up and I looked up, if you're going to have a rainstorm there's going to be washout because the silt fence is not there, there's no hay on there, and that's going to come right down the hill and right in the lake.

Friday before noon me and Moosa, the Enforcement Officer from Wetlands, went up in there. He said well I was told to stay away from it. I didn't ask by who, and I don't want to know, but he says that would you go, since you're on the Commission with me, so we got in the Town's truck and we went up. Sure enough there's a 2 foot diameter pipe right next to where the silt fence, but it's outside the silt fence, not on the development side, that any water coming down, there's an (inaudible) in the ditch to hold that water that would be coming down during the rainstorm, go in that 2 feet diameter pipe, right across the street and right in the lake. We insisted that the developer put in immediately bales of hay on it to protect that one. And I checked later on Friday night, the bales of hay were there. The silt fence was not doing much so I checked on Saturday, they had put another silt fence in the water. That was okay until Saturday afternoon, Sunday, part of that silt fence was also submerged.

I have two pictures. The ones that came in Friday and the ones Sunday of the second silt fence, and the second silt fence is doing nothing. I'll pass that along. This is the first silt fence. As you see the chips and everything else there's shrubs and the cutting and the roots and everything else is on both sides of the silt fence. Yea, it's protecting some, but then what's on the other side in between the water is not protected at all. This one will show you right here on top where the silt fence does not join the edge of the lake to block off anything that goes in. Now that's really the lake is being attacked by the developer and I think that should be looked into it, why the developer has to go across the road, in the Town's property to put the treatment, not on the site. Who okayed it, that kind of engineering in Town and who okayed to use the Town's property to put that in? That's all I have to say on it.

Mr. Archer: Thank you very much for bringing this forward. I'm no expert on construction sites or how silt fences are supposed to be placed, but it doesn't, I don't think it takes a (inaudible).

Mr. Valaitis: I'll leave those photographs for the record, so you can see it.

Mr. Archer: Thank you. I don't think it takes a genius to figure out that that's not accomplishing anything the way it's put in. The issues that you've raised are issues for Planning and Zoning and Inland/Wetlands, however I don't want you to go to Planning and Zoning and Inland/Wetlands and have to repeat all of this, so Chuck, if we could make sure that the portion of the Minutes of this meeting get to P & Z and Inland/Wetlands and we'd like a response, I think from them on this, on these issues.

Mr. Valaitis: Like I mentioned before I did give him more details so that he would be aware of what's going on. The thing is not to look at who's at fault, the thing is is to correct the problem and to stop that it does not happen before. I'm not looking to put any names to it.

Mr. Archer: No, no, no.

Mr. Valaitis: Okay, and just develop some sort of understanding or system of which some sort of thing that does not happen again, because this is happening second time on that lake.

Mr. Archer: Right. Thank you very much.

Lori Lacaria, 163 Oak Drive, Watertown, CT 06795

Ms. Lacaria: I came here for the first time and I was first to Town Council Public Hearing on July 10^th and was very impressed by what I saw. I think it was a great effort on the side of the Board of Ed and the Town Council to inform our community as to our budget referendums. I am the mother of 3 children so obviously the educational issue is a very important one to me. I just changed my kids from parochial school to public school 2 years ago here in Watertown and I was very impressed with the quality of education that my children received and that's compelled me to be somewhat of an advocate for your education budget. And the reason I say that is seeing what I‘ve seen from different types of educational systems, quality educators, they cost money, but they are worth every penny because a child's educational experience is critical to their development, and I saw 2 different types of ways that can impact a child, so I'd like people to think about, when they talk about diminishing the educational budget, you need to pay for quality educators.

You also have quite a large group of people that have to go in to educate each one of our children and hopefully they'll be citizens that will help one of us when we're old and gray, and I think that while every faction of our city has their reasons for voting one way or another, I would like to find a way to help the city have supporters on the line of education because I think there are so many, that's a large population of people, and I find that we're constantly getting, I've tried to make some efforts to advocate for it and find there are a lot of ordinances and reasons why you can't do this and that, so I'm trying to find a way to help that situation. So you could get my name down there and if there's a way that I can help get this get passed, I've called a few people who are willing to make phone calls. I actually want to just even just be available in our PTO's with information to tell our parents, where they have to vote, maybe they don't know where to go, maybe they aren't remembering to mark it on their calendars. Our educational system should mark it and say there's a referendum going on. Is that acceptable? Why not? That's a part of educating our people as to the voting registration I think I'm (inaudible) and I don't know about this. This is new to me. Now I'm becoming an advocate because my kids are involved so I would like to find a way that I would help to get that across. I don't consider myself politically correct type of individual. This is totally new avenue for me, but I just want to see that people see that we get the facts down and that we don't disrupt the educational system for our kids. There's a lot of people to get involved in special education. My kids are in special ed and needed 5 or 6 different educators involved in one child's individual educational program. That's a lot of money and costs in there, but it's for a good cause because this kid could go one way or another that's our society. So I just want to say to get out there and vote and for the parents, grandparents, and everybody to be heard, and if I can help in supporting that let me know.

Mr. Archer: Thank you very much. I would think that putting the date of the referendum on the school calendar makes sense because we do have an obligation to teach the kids about the democratic process so it seems like a good place for that to be.

MOTION: (Mr. Kane, sec. Mr. Hebert) to Approve the Regular Meeting Minutes dated August 5, 2002 as presented.

Mr. Rinaldi: Through the Chair to Lynn, do we still have the tapes for this particular meeting?

Ms. Adams: The Guernseytown Road reconstruction, Route 6 to Eastwood Hall, we submitted our response to D.O.T. who's wetlands concerns on July 1, 2002. We are now finalizing slope easement acquisition with Taft School and plan revisions required by the D.O.T. We should make our final design submittal by the end of August.

The Steele Brook improvement project, we voted on this back in November to appropriate the funds to hopefully get the study done so we could do something about that brook that also floods. We have selected the engineering consultant for the review of the design engineer's work to date. The scope has not been finally negotiated yet, but following preliminary discussions with the firm selected, the estimate of the work for the independent review is approximately $45,000, $15,000 more than the $30,000 originally estimated. The State is prepared to provide their 30% plus or minus share of the additional cost which would be about $5,000, and we need to indicate whether we are prepared to provide the balance of about $10,000. So I believe Phil was going to talk to you, Chuck, and (inaudible).

Ms. King: On the Guernseytown Road project, are there sidewalks in that project?

Ms. King: There weren't at one point. I wondered if they might have miraculously reappeared.

Ms. Adams: I'll ask. The last one I wanted to report on was the Hamilton Avenue/ Artillery Road safety project. If you remember at the last meeting Mr. Carr was here and he was kind of upset that we ere going to be taking out a curb and he thought traffic would be going faster, but this hazard elimination project is State/Town funded; 90% State and 10% Town being designed to reduce the number of accidents that occur at the curve in the vicinity of Old Baird Road and Artillery Road. It consists of cutting back on the roadside slope on the inside of the curve to increase line of site and converting the Artillery intersection into a 4 way stop. That right there as we've heard, that stop signs are not used to slow down traffic, they're used basically more for site lines. That right there would provide for a 4 way stop on Hamilton Avenue. Even though we don't use stop signs to slow down traffic, that would be a place for stop signs to be.

Mr. Archer: As we go through this budget process an awful lot of people have come forward with their reasons for why they didn't vote for the budget. A lot of people talked to Mr. Kane about it and some people have approached me as well, and a lot of their reasons for why they voted no for the budget, or didn't come out and vote for the budget, are simply incorrect and in some cases just wacky. I thought that what we would do is just try to address some of these. Also I wanted to address some items of misinformation in my favorite publication that comes out every week, my favorite reading for the week.

One of them that actually someone approached me this week on was they said gee, if we have all these budget constraints, why are we spending all this money to fix the intersection at Middlebury Road and Bunker Hill Road. For the record that particular construction project is a $750,000 project and is being paid for 100% by State funds. It is not being paid for by Town funds, and not a dime out of Town funds, so we're getting a significant road improvement at a dangerous intersection and it is not coming out of the Town budget.

Some of the things that have been printed in the paper are interesting. One where logic would dictate that 2 Referendums at a total cost of $16,000 were totally unnecessary, and just so that everyone is clear on it, according to our Town Charter the method of approving a budget is not by Referendum necessarily. In order to bring it to Referendum a petition has to be signed with signatures, I think it's 200, so I guess in effect yes, they are totally unnecessary. The Referendums have been brought about by a group in Town who wishes to bring it to Referendum. While I am completely supportive of their efforts, not their efforts but their right to do that, as the Charter allows, I think to lay off that cost on the Town Council is just a misrepresentation and I felt that that needed to be cleared up.

This is a quote "on the education side they would have kids pay for play along with several other cry wolf ploys to put scares into the parents of schoolchildren." Anybody who has been following the papers lately has seen that a number of school systems, I believe Seymour, Region #15, are seriously considering, I think they're actually voting on pay for play school systems. These are not scare tactics; they're actual fiscal realities. If we don't approve the budget, then you have to go to a pay for play system. If you use it, then you pay for it. That's simply a fiscal reality of the budget situation that we find ourselves in.

"Twice ignoring the taxpayer's wishes, our Council questions two failed Referendums by discussing among themselves how hard it is to understand what voters wanted." Well everyone wants roads and everyone wants the schools and everyone says gee, our infrastructure is falling apart, but nobody wants to pay to fix those things. Everyone wants to complain about it but nobody wants to pay to fix it, so I guess that's what we were scratching our heads about.

"Now they waste their time trying to sell a budget they were told twice no one wanted." We're not really trying to sell a budget to anyone. And obviously we're not trying to sell a budget that people voted against, because every time we come out with a reduced number, so we're not trying to sell the same numbers again. If we spend an extra hour here talking about, I don't really consider that wasting my time, particularly since I'm not getting paid for this. This is a volunteer effort. I don't know how many people who watch us regularly at home know this, but this is an entirely volunteer job. We're here to try and make a difference in the Town, not to spend your money foolishly.

This person also mentioned that I made some snide remarks, and I just want to make a note that this person who wrote this letter was not actually here at that meeting, where I supposedly made some snide remarks, so it's some sort of telepathy I guess. It's fascinating.

The same writer in another point talked about "all this including 2 recent budget referendum defeats is probably what prompted Rosalie Loughran's apparently angry remark. If they continue to listen to a group in Town, the Town is going downhill." Apparently angry? Now Webster's said apparent means obvious by visible observation. Again this person was not present when this comment was made; I was. Mr. Valuckas was there because he got it in the paper; I guess he can vouch that this person wasn't there as well.

This is another writer – "obviously frustration over losing several tax and spending mandates she either initiates or supports through taxpayer referendum prompted Rosalie Loughran's angry, off the cuff statement." Again, how do we know it was angry? We weren't there. These writers weren't there, so it's just fascinating, fascinating.

Then it says "accusations that this group is a negative force in Town and that they never have any constructive suggestions is just not true. Over the years we have made suggestion which obvious to us were put in the round file without a second thought by local officials." This is probably the most fascinating comment of the past couple of weeks in the paper. The idea that people come forward with suggestions and we simply round file them is absurd. In fact, a group in Town who regularly opposes budget increases has suggested to us that there should be a senior tax break in the form of a mill rate freeze at the age of retirement as dictated by the Social Security Administration, and whether you agree with this or not, this is a group that has come forward to us and suggested to us that we bring this to the public in a Public Hearing and get some input on it, and their idea is no less valid than the group that came to us in January and said we need more ball fields, and we did exactly that. We took that to the public and the public said no we don't want to buy land for ball fields and that was fine. Now this group has come forward and said we really want to bring forward a senior tax reduction plan in the form of a mill rate freeze, and our response was great, let's do that. We don't necessarily support it, we all have our individual opinions, but let's take it to the public, and their response to date has been no thanks, we don't want to work with you. And their reasoning is that we're bitter over the failure of the land deal and that we're bitter over the failure of a couple of budget referendums. Now this is us taking, we didn't round file this idea, we said let's take this to the public and see what they think. Let's run it up the flagpole and see what happens. And their response was no thanks, we don't want to work with you. Anyway I thought that was the most fascinating of the items in the recent press.

Mr. Archer: I've pretty much covered anything that would come under the heading of Other, so we'll move on.

Mr. Valenti: I know several months ago we talked about the status of the Swift plans. I now the last Council had approved some funds to do some design work, and I think if my memory serves, but that you would form a group in part with the Public Buildings Committee . . . . I'm asking for an update.

Mr. Archer: On that particular topic I don't have one. Let me see if I can catch up on that and we'll get it next time.

A. Consider Appointments to Boards and Commission

The terms of various boards and commissions have expired or are expiring. Appointments must be made to fill these vacancies.

Ms. Adams: I know that the Democrats still have some to fill on Public Buildings, and I know there are problems with Public Buildings in getting quorums sometimes, and they can't meet. Can you . . . .

Ms. Adams: Good, cause they're having problems and it's tying up, it tied up us, myself, Ray and the other one was we were supposed to meeting with them and they had no quorum.

Mr. Archer: I know that a couple of meetings have been held up by not having a quorum, meetings specifically about the disposition of Baldwin and Griffin Schools.

After hearing the recommendation of the Finance Subcommittee, the full Council must formally approve budget cuts totaling $120,000.

MOTION: (Mr. Hebert, sec. Mr. Kane) to adopt the budget cuts totaling $120,000 as recommended by the Finance Subcommittee.

Discussion: Mr. Kane: I will say this again, that I think the budgets that we have proposed to the Town have been correct, fair, and appropriate. We have heard from the voters that they wished (Tape #1, Side A ended – may have missed some) and abiding by their wishes we have made cuts. Just to talk about fallacies, we have no intention of hurting anyone or any particular group, but if people keep voting no, then cuts are going to have to be made. So my suggestion is to approve this Motion and for all the people in the room to vote yes on the next budget.

Ms. Adams: Just a suggestion – next Tuesday is the Budget Referendum. Should this budget not pass, with school starting the following week and cuts will be made again, that this Council meet on Wednesday evening and to go ahead so that the Board knows what they've got for the next Budget round. If we have one, I'm being optimistic we won't have to do this, but we meet Wednesday and make the next round of cuts so the Board knows what they're going into before school starts, and what they're going to have to do, and the parents know, everybody knows the outcome of a no vote.

Mr. Archer: If that makes sense to you, Rob, if you could tentatively schedule a meeting that would be great.

Mr. Kane: Sure I'll just have to go through Frank and his office to make sure what other meetings are going on and what meeting place or time we can achieve.

Ms. Adams: I just don't want the Board of Ed hanging out there and wondering what's going on. I think we have to go in and make the cuts before school starts.

Mr. Archer: For the record, Rob, on this list of cuts, did we cut anything from the Senior Center?

Mr. Kane: No, as I mentioned in the Finance Subcommittee Report earlier we were able to keep $16,000 in the Senor Center, well actually it's under Public Works, but it's for the Senior Center, the roof project that is in dire need of repair and we were able to keep that in thanks to the Committee's efforts, as well as $10,000 for the Library which of course we all know there is a beautiful renovation here in Oakville, so we were able to keep those kinds of things available and we had to take it elsewhere, I'm afraid, but if we have to cut again I don't know where we're going to do it, but it may get worse. I hope not to again, as I said, this is the right way to go so I believe that the people can see that this is appropriate actions that were taken and will vote yes this coming, the 27^th.

Mr. Archer: And just for clarification we are at a third of a mill increase, correct roughly?

Mr. Kane: Yes, .35 is the exact figure. A 2.64 increase in the Board of Education budget and a 1.33 increase in the Town's side, giving a total of 2.11% increase overall.

Mr. Rinaldi: I have no problem whatsoever with the budget as a whole; I do have a problem, again it's a matter of opinion. I think that based on a previous Referendum we should have cut a little more from the Board of Ed. I think that's what the voters told us to do. And I think if we want to get this thing passed, we're more or less going to have to follow their recommendation. I strongly believe that; that's all. I'll leave it at that.

Mr. Primini: The thing that concerns me the most if we do make cuts as Chairman of the Facilities Committee, the thing that bothers me the most is that maintenance is the thing that gets cut over and over again. We start to make some headway over the past couple of years over some improvements on buildings, most notably the 3 school roof jobs and also the Police Department. We tend to have a lot of these projects, if they get cut, they're only going to snowball on us. It's only going to cost us more next year. A good example is the Police Department roof. We waited too long, and then we had to replace ceiling tiles plus carpeting has to be replaced because it got water damaged. I'd just like everybody to take that into account. It's going to cost us more next year if we let this go, but I'm hoping it passes and whatever we can do, because the next round of cuts, I'm afraid it's going to get more into all the facility repairs that we've been doing, we've been making some good headway the past year so I hope we can continue with that.

In Favor: Ms. Adams, Mr. Archer, Mr. Hebert, Mr. Kane, Ms. King, Mr. Primini, Mr. Wick

Town Council consideration is being requested by the Director of Parks for extending a formal two-year contract presently in force for the preparation and installation of cart paths at Crestbrook Park Golf Course for one additional year. The original contract was bid in March 2001, Phase I of the project was ordered in May, 2001 and Phase II was ordered in the Fall of 2001. The third phase will be ordered for Fall 2002 construction at the same unit prices as offered in the original 2001 bid. The Director of Parks is pleased with the workmanship and cooperation of this contractor.

MOTION: (Mr. Hebert, sec. Ms. Adams) to approve the extension of the Contract for cart paths with Grasshopper Lawns.

Discussion: Mr. Archer: I Just want to mention again for anyone who is watching this at home, or here in the room, is that the, you know, here we are in a tight budget situation and we're spending money on golf cart paths. Just a reminder again that Crestbrook Park is entirely self sufficient. It runs entirely off of dues and fees it collects for use of the course, so that is not just sort of a pork project that we throw money at.

D. Consider Lease Agreement for Mosgrove Field in Watertown-Oakville Little League

Town Council consideration is requested for approval of a (10) ten-year lease agreement between Watertown – Oakville Little League Inc. and the Town of Watertown for Mosgrove Field. The Little League organization has been leasing, as well as providing improvements on the field, since March 1951.

MOTION: (Mr. Hebert, sec. Ms. Adams) to approve the Lease Agreement with the Watertown Oakville Little League for Ten Years for Mosgrove Field.

Discussion: Mr. Hebert: The only question I have is the length of the agreement, only 10 years?

Town Council consideration is requested for the approval of an appropriation of $3,275 from the water Extension Fund to cover the costs of Change Order #1 for water main work on Colonial, Davis, Cobb and Morin Streets. These appropriations were approved by the Water and Sewer Authority at their last scheduled meeting.

WHEREAS, the Watertown Water and Sewer Authority approved a contract for a Colonial & Davis and Cobb and Morin Streets water main project; and

WHEREAS, unforeseen construction delays and additional work has resulted in additional costs in the amount of $3,275 under Change Order #1 to this project.

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Town Council appropriates $3,275 from the Water Extension Fund Balance to cover the costs of Change Order #1.

MOTION: (Mr. Hebert, sec. Ms. Adams) to approve the Resolution authorizing the appropriation of $3,275 from the Water Extension Fund to cover change order costs for Colonial and Davis and Cobb and Morin Street Water Main Project.

B. Consider the Appointment of One or More Ordinance Enforcement Hearing Officers Pursuant to Ordinance #04-15-02-248

Mr. Archer: The same two items are there from a few months ago, so we could probably move past that, if there's no further comment on Old Business.

MOTION: (Ms. Adams, sec. Mr. Kane) to enter into Executive Session at 8:41 p.m. to discuss pending litigation and personnel.

                        Elaine Adams
                        Lee Archer, Chairman
                        Raymond Hebert, Jr., Vice Chairman
                        Robert Kane
                        Jean King
                        Raymond Primini
                        Paul Rinaldi
                        Paul Valenti
                        Richard Wick
                        Charles Frigon