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MINUTES
WATERTOWN TOWN COUNCIL
REGULAR MEETING
POLK SCHOOL LIBRARY
MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2002, 8:00 P.M.
PRESENT: Elaine Adams
Lee Archer, Chairman
Raymond Hebert, Jr., Vice Chairman
Robert Kane
Jean King
Raymond Primini
Paul Rinaldi
Richard Wick
ABSENT: Paul Valenti
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 8:03 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
Valerie Petrillo, 41 Parkman Street, Oakville, CT 06779
Ms. Petrillo: I want to personally thank you for the time to participate here this evening as well as extend my personal thanks to Mr. Archer. You may have read last week's Town Times issue where a petition had been circulating around Town, members for Griffin School to house a community center, something that I spearheaded a little over a month and a half ago. Mr. Archer, I want to thank you for what I viewed as positive comments in your statements in the Town Times and recognizing that the public needs to participate on such an important issue. That's really why I'm here today, to go on record to personally ask for such a time and place to take place for the community to come and voice their opinions and support for this issue.
The petition started among myself and just friends through people that I've been exposed to in doing play groups for the Rec Department as well as just friends of mine here in Town. What came to my attention is that many people wanted to sign the petition but they didn't know where to do that, so that's why this had to become public. I went to 15 businesses and each and every one agreed to house the petition, and as the article stated, they didn't necessarily endorse it, but it will say that almost everyone did and right now I have with me 860 signatures that shows the support before even the businesses house the petitions. They are not all collected from that; it's an on-going effort, but I think that kind of speaks to the fact that people out there like the idea. I won't go into the multitude of reasons why I think a community center will benefit the Town except that it would form a cohesive unit for this Town. One of the big things my mother used to say to me when I was a kid was go outside, get some fresh air, go outside and play, and it's something that we, unfortunately we don't have the luxury to do that these days so this would provide a place for our youngsters to go, both young and old, provide some things for our seniors. There's just so many very educational reasons that we could have, it's located right near Swift School for instance, the library is right across the driveway, and again, I don't want to belabor this, except to ask for some time to discuss this issue and have some public support. Thank you.
Mr. Archer: The thanks, I think, goes to you for being as involved in the community as you are. We need more of that. Shortly after the first of the year we will be holding a public hearing on what everyone feels the best uses of those two buildings are, since there does not seem to be widespread support for a Town Hall at this time.
Anthony Fusco, 192 Bunker Hill Road, Watertown, CT 06795
Mr. Fusco: Good Evening. I'd like to speak on or ask what is happening with Swift project, if it's going to go forward? If it is going forward, I hear a lot of talk about it, and I think we should go forward, and I think this Council has it in their hands to go forward because we're, I guess the State is going to give us 57% of the money, and if this Council doesn't do anything about it, it's going to go by the wayside in June, and as everybody knows, the extension has already been there. So June is the end of the road. I, being on the Buildings Committee, also was involved in that earlier and I'm back on the committee again and I'd like to see that project go forward if possible. I understand there's a study already, the monies have been appropriated for the architects to come in, and I think it has to go to Referendum before June, so I strongly recommend that this Council support it and go after it. Now I know that if we do the Swift project, like everything else, we have another building that's going to come up empty, but in my way of thinking the buildings that are empty presently could be utilized and utilized for the best interests of the Town. We all work for the Town, I mean as far as boards and commissions, and I think everybody should get together and push forward on this. Now you have Baldwin School which we were on that Committee that we listened to the study that was done by Mr. Whittaker. Baldwin School was okay to put a Town Hall there, but you had to put so much into it that it wasn't worth putting that money into it, so the parking was great there, but the building itself was not readily accessible like a main street, so we had concerns about that as a Building Committee, so that's why we shot that down. We talked about making it elderly housing. As you know it could be made elderly housing, but I think as I said before the elderly housing is up around 200 applicants right now, so I thought Griffin School would be an accessible building, outside of what the lady said about the youth center, which is okay, I'd go for that too, but if you sold Baldwin School. And I understand that Taft School was interested in the Baldwin School building, so if that was sold to them, it would go back on the tax roll I would say because now you would be collecting taxes. Now even if you made Griffin School elderly housing that also could go back on the tax roll because as you know elderly housing does pay taxes to the Town for their elderly housing that they have on Buckingham. Me being on the Housing Authority for about 18 years I knew that we paid taxes, and education to me is the root of anybody that comes up in their ages to learn. You have to have education and if you educate the children well and have a good school system they'll come out good in the end and it's just like a fruit tree. If you don't plant it today you'll never succeed in getting any fruit, so I think that we have to start somewhere and this is where you would have that Swift project start off and we could have more than one project going.
It doesn't have to be just one project at a time. I mean the Baldwin School could be sold. Once you sell that, the monies that come out of that you can do something with Griffin and you can put them back on the tax roll. After that you have Heminway Park that's going to go empty when you have the project at Swift. Now the Heminway Park could be utilized for the school department and we can take all of the people out of the Depot Square Mall and put them in the new Town Hall as Mr. Whittaker stated that if the Library in Watertown plus the area where the library is, there's about 5 acres of land there. That could be all utilized for new Town Hall from what he said the library could be built as a Town Hall and you would have the Munson House, no Town Hall Annex, I'm sorry, Town Hall Annex be knocked down and refurbished the parking lot so you'd have plenty of parking, so that's my recommendation and I hope everybody thinks about this because that to me is the only way you go and if you keep on sitting on it, we'll never get a Town Hall. It's been 40 years people are crying about a Town Hall, but we have to start somewhere and that's my end of my talk. Thank you.
Martha Kellogg, 7 Woodbury Road, Watertown, CT 06795
Ms. Kellogg: A couple of months ago I had an occasion to meet with Chuck Frigon, the Acting Town Manager about a project that was somewhat stalled. I was very impressed with the man. He had great interest in the project, his knowledge of the history of the project was vast. He was very cooperative, his enthusiasm for the Town was very evident, and I'm just wondering why he isn't being considered seriously for the post of Town Manager; in these days the finances of it seem reasonable and I just think you should take a good, long look at that man, cause he seemed to be a great fit. Thanks.
George Valaitis, 647 Linkfield Road, Watertown, CT 06795
Mr. Valaitis: I have one thing to bring to the attention of the Council, but it might involve not only the Council but the Planning and Zoning too. Briefly it's pertaining to the development on the west side of Route 63. What prompted me to come before you people because I think the Town Planning is running wild. I'll try to base some of these allegations on figures and examples.
First I want to read a couple of paragraphs from the Farmland Information Center. What actually prompted me to follow. It says:
Functions and Purposes: Communities pay high price for unplanned growth. Scattered development frequencies cause traffic congestion, air and water pollution, less open space and increased demand for costly public service. This is why it is important for citizens and community leaders to understand the relationship between residential and commercial growth and land conservation in their municipalities, bottom line."
The study that was conducted had brought a couple of things to our attention that a lot of people believe certain things but they're not true, one of them being residential development will lower property taxes by increasing the tax base. That's actually most of the time not true, and I'll give you the figures. Farmland gets an unfair tax break when it is assessed at its actual use for agricultural increase of its potential use of the development. I can give an actual example of what happened to me involving some committees in this Town. Open land including production farms and forest are interim uses just waiting to be developed on the highest and best use. Based on that and based on the figures, I took the figures to educate a child in Watertown is $6,000. It is actually more, but I took that one as a base, cause let's say we're going to spend less. The figures for what is on your assessments for real estate I took the examples from two developments that are probably a little bit more than average what it is in Watertown.
One of them is Deer Run and the other one is Wattles Brook, off Platt Road I believe. I had taken at random the homes that are at least over $200,000 or more, I omitted deliberately on it and I averaged out, and based on those calculations and based on 2 children per home, and that figure is from the 13 town study that was presented I think to you people a year or so ago. Based on that, it takes tax mill rate was used 24.91, I believe that's what it its current, okay, so Deer Run was averaged out $280,000 a home. And the Wattles Brook was bout $220,000 but I did my calculations on $200,000 so actually I'm being very conservative and the figures that are going to come out will also be conservative.
All right, 2 children per house, $6,000 per year, $12,000 per year. That's what it's going to cost for education, never mind any of the other services in Town. The taxes on the home will be $4,982. That's what the home will pay so actual net loss for the Town is $7,018 for each home per year.
Mr. Archer: That sounds about right.
Mr. Valaitis: The education in Town is not 12 years, it is 13 years because you have preschool. So when you look at those figures, $7,018 times 13 years, $91,234 net loss for every home that's going to be built and have children in there. Now let's say the couple is around 30 or so and that could be either way, they will live in Town probably 35 years before they retire. How much will they pay in those years $174,370. The 13 years that's costing is $91,234, but the net $83,000 you're not going to see it until 13 years after, that's going to start paying some of it back. Now we're looking at the property and if I mentioned the name it's out of the public record. On Route 63 what side is proposed 70 home development. Planning and Zoning sent it to the Conservation Commission because well they could buff it back and all that. Well I'm the Conservation Commission Vice Chair, that would be nice but you have to realize I like the project or I don't like the project or good or bad, person owns the property he's entitled the best use for what it is. He paid taxes, he is entitled to get the most he can. I like it or I don't like it, but that's what the policy is.
Mr. Archer: That's correct.
Mr. Valaitis: Now can Town Council and Planning and Zoning and the Board of Education get together on this? Yes. This is a high point in Town, elevation-wise. It's just south of Watertown Fire District well field. Being on Water and Sewer and serving with one member on it, so there were certain things that had come up for another probably water tower, plus living out in the country and trying to okay through wetlands some of the ponds with the dry fire hydrants also ideal place to have a substation for the firehouse because if there's a fire on Litchfield Road, where Hebert's gas station used to be, and now different, to get a tanker up that hill it takes a long time, so I looked at it and the developer, the owner of the property had mentioned some figures, dollars and cents in Planning and Zoning, and I won't mention that one, what he was looking to make on it.
That's his business and if he wants to make more, that's fine, but I was in real estate and I believe some members or one or two members may be on the Town Council are also in the real estate business so they could verify the cost actually very easily. 70- lots and the figure in there and I had inquired, at Morgan Stanley how much it would be to float a bond for a little bit more so after you deduct the commission and service of the bondsmen the balance would be enough to pay the figure that came up was $3,00,000. That was not good enough. I said wait a minute. What is the rate to have a triple a bond and insured so nobody will lose money regardless who gets it? They said the going rate right now is around 5% and he said you will net $2,500,000 for 10 years. Based on that the bond for 10 years every year you would pay about $150,000 a year which would be I believe twice a year, right, half of that, so it would be $75,000 which say okay on the budget roughly would be $1.5 mills. That's what it would cost. Now when you look what it would cost if you don't go that way, 70 homes, 140 kids, or children, that is 5 classrooms in a grammar school, 5 classrooms in middle school, 5 classrooms in a high school and there have to be teachers in there too. And I figured very conservatively. I only figured $6,000, not $7,000 plus, so each year this about quite a few thousand short little bit, but based on that the figure was that the expenses for education for 13 years would be $491,260 and that's based on $6,000 per student, not $7,000. You subtract $150,000, what your bond costs, so you come up very close to $350,000 and that's being conservative. If you factor in your $7,000 instead of $6,000 it would be over $400,000 so now you're looking if you buy the land you pay only 1.5 mills, but if you don't buy the land, you're going to pay 5 mills in taxes. Okay?
Not only that, say well you put a development, you can't change it. That's where the Planner and the Planning and Zoning just fell asleep at the helm because they could pull all the development to halt and re-plan the Town because they have not looked in 95 Town proposed plan that was approved by the State and that was supposed to be like school and something else, not homes in that area, according to that plan. But I think they allow every 10 years to revise, okay?
The second one that I said experience where I had a lot, 5.5 acres, which stayed back in 67 approved to raise Christmas trees and after the Christmas trees were cut that half of it would be forest and I signed the papers not to sell with the roots and he says you will plant one row of Christmas trees, one row of whit pines, and the pines later on could be cut for timber. In 99 in evaluation they said the best use is a home, not a farmland. I went before the evaluation, and I appealed, and he said no, that's not good enough. He said you're not selling any product, but I can't sell until it is, so when it came down and I received the taxes and the taxes were going up, I sold that land. They put a home. There's 3 children. Well the Town will lose about $13,000 every year for the next 13 years on that deal because how can you argue against appeal when the attorney is sitting across the table and says sign it or forget it and he says we're not going to approve it. I asked for a paper and I'm still waiting for it.
Another thing that I would ask servicing on two commissions, it is very hard, and I think it should be a Council policy change, that any attorney that is representing the Town and serving for the Town that once he leaves that post that he would not be allowed to come up before the commissions at least for one year. Because let's face it, he was just working with you against the developer not to put that one in, and two months later he is with the developer working against you. I think that's a very sort of gray area to take for any commission because they know what's in and out. I'm not talking about any criminal thing, I‘m talking the ones that come in for the Commissions for the ruling on. Okay? If you have any questions on the figures I'll be glad to . . . . by the way this is not a novel thing. If you had talked somebody to a neighbor in Bethlehem, they had a case, they made very good study on that, they have come up with the (inaudible) $150,000, they came up with $175,000 and it's only on 24 homes. And I think right now they should be very much in a hurry, you people, to say wait a minute to Planning and Zoning, lets stop development, let's hold it for 3 or 4 or 6 months and let's look how, what we plan, what we go and where we go because if that goes in that's 140 students, another development that probably will go in from what it looks like will be another 50 or 60, so you're looking at 200 children within 2 or 3 years. You're going to be needing a new school. Besides where are you going to put it in because the land that would be on the 63 for school, water, town and police substation don't exist anymore.
So and as far as Baldwin and Griffin Schools are concerned, the Town Planner should have advised you people and had the plans already on the table of what they're going to do with those two schools because so far from what I see from the resident's point of view, you're losing money for 2 years, and maybe 3 years and nothing is being done and I don't blame either party. I blame both parties because you're not working for people, I don't know if you're working for yourself, but it is tough. I'll tell you why – when you look at it – I'm retired and I look at it this way, when you pay $2,449 for a small house, for a residence, and actually you get nothing because you're subsidizing something that's not right in Town. So I mean you know it's Christmas, get together and get some little planning to do, you know, brainstorming, it would be good. Thank you.
John Bongiorno, 1254 Litchfield Road, Watertown, CT 06795
Mr. Bongiorno: Thank you George. (Inaudible) I've been going to Planning and Zoning and Inlands/Wetlands meetings for over a year. Not necessarily just against a particular development or such but more in line with the rationalization that no one pays any attention to what's going on in any of the committees and planning has just become non-existent. I sit and listen to one group talk, and then I go the following week and I listen to the next group talk, never do any of these groups ever sit at the same table.
Developers are allowed to present their plans to both groups at the same time without approval from one who demands approval first from the other. They go round in these giant circles, not fair to the developer, not fair to the public who come to these Public Hearings hoping that they'll gain information, good or bad, to help them live with the decision that's made by something that's not quite in their control, and I find that there is absolutely no planning. I've sat in meetings where they've said they have absolutely no plan for water on the end of Town that George was speaking of, the 63 end between 10 and 15 years period, not in the Town Plan, not going to be. But then in the same breath I hear these people say I know in a 5 square mile radius, yea it looks like there will be about 220 houses and it's all ground water fed. It doesn't take much to think that eventually you are going to have a problem. Now I understand that State mandates, local mandates, water is free. You got it great, you don't too bad, drill again, if you don't get it too bad. Not necessarily right which puts the onus back on the Town to step up and plan. Ground water fed? 250 houses? No aquifer? No, can't happen. You're pulling all that water off the surface and putting it someplace else. You're certainly assured that someone, especially on top of a hill is eventually going to run out of water or deplete the supply that's there so that you get 2 gallons per minute, instead of 10. (Tape #1, side A ended – may have missed some.)
It saddens me to think that we go on and on and deeper and deeper in trouble. I watched at least 7 developments approved, for at least a total of approximately 180 houses within the last year alone. Now I know for a fact that some of these people have gone to build their houses and had trouble with water and all you can say is boo hoo, but we've crammed houses in, we allow them to the minimums of Planning and Zoning.
Now Planning and Zoning redid their regulations in 1996, they approved them. They made mistakes. I think it's time now that we step back, and Planning and Zoning, Conservation, Town Council, you sat at the same table in a big room with a couple of basketball referees and got on the same page because you have to slow it down. The Board of Education is going to go to Frank, the Board is going to call up come calling when they don't want their budget to go through they're not at these meetings. If they sat at these meetings and listened to George's figures, they'd be yelling at you for this.
Mr. Archer: W.O.T.A.?
Mr. Bongiorno: Yes, this is the problem in Town, this is what's happening. We are getting so many people here . . . .
Mr. Archer: If I can interject, I sat with them on numerous occasions earlier this year and explained exactly those figures that George came up and explained, almost to the dollar.
Mr. Bongiorno: It didn't work?
Mr. Archer: No, it's like trying to soak up water with a stone.
Mr. Bongiorno: Well you know what then? Pull the shade. Unfortunately it's bad. If you cannot look at dollars and cents and figures and be reasonable, then all you want to do is complain and I guess you have to pull the shade. It's sad that you were not able to get through to them with legitimate figures that are State-wide, almost New England-wide. My wife and I have, and Tommy back here and people have tried all different sorts of methods, contacting you know the DEP Conservation Commissions, different versions of, they give you different monies depending on the types of land, you know, we have offered these things to the developer to be told no, I'm getting my money out of it. He has every right. The sad part is that we really need to somehow pull the horses back for a little while and look at some of our zones and how we zoned them. You can't stop people from making money with property, but I think some of our zones were just left to be too developed. We should take some of our R-70's and just make them R-90's. We should pull the reins back, slow some things down for a year and look at some of these areas before we run out of land. He has an excellent point. There's very little pieces of property left, you're going to build anything. So your school is going to be in Waterbury, Morris or Bethlehem cause you're not going to build it here unless you wreck down a neighborhood and that makes no sense.
So I guess it all ties back originally, no planning. There's none. We allow, and our Regulations, we try to stretch them, we try to do what we can to try and do the right thing, but these Regulations were written on the assumption that everyone is ethical and everyone agrees what the right thing to do is, and unfortunately in business today that's not true. So you almost have to take the ball down the chute so to speak and literally steer them exactly where you want them. We don't do that today. We kind of have these broad Regulations and they hire our ex-Town Attorney and they pick them apart one by one until they can get their, exactly what they need in there by rule #X, Y, Z on the back page in small print here. I know where that is and that I think is part of his question. I believe that after you're in public service for 1 year, you shouldn't be allowed to represent anyone for private in these Town Council meetings because you have a huge conflict of interest. You can go visit anyone you just worked with, put your arm around them and get a letter signed, and that's a problem. That's a big problem. It looks bad and it is bad.
Mr. Archer: I think everyone up here agrees with that. In fact I think that was something that the Ordinance Subcommittee was going to look into so when we get to subcommittee reports I'll ask whatever happened to that. Can I just address some of the things you said, both you and the gentleman before you. As far as halting development, according to State Statutes, cause we looked into this, we can halt development for up to 90 days, and that's it, and it has to be done with a specific goal in mind of offering recommendations to change the Zoning Regulations which is what you're saying. I know that, I was on P & Z before this and there was an effort to up the zoning, I know that was just done, I think it was 95, and there was an effort to do that again by restricting the amount of, the ratio of upland to wetland that can be developed. And this room was full of screaming people and that issue, just backed off of it basically.
There are two ways to do it: One - you can halt development or try and slow it in that way, and the other way you can do it is you can add to the commercial and industrial tax base of the Town to offset what the increase in the houses is doing. Now there is a perception on the street, and you can ride this train or not, that P & Z is anti-development and anti-business and anti-industry. In order to look into that issue about 2, 3 maybe about 6 weeks ago we formed a subcommittee to look into that. Mr. Kane is in charge of that and he's had a couple of meetings to that effect. It would be good if you and other people of like mind could come to one of those meetings and get these things on the record for that as well. The ultimate goal here is to streamline the process for businesses to come into Town because that, of course, is a big part of this as well, is to balance that tax base. Right now it is very residentially heavy so you need to balance that better.
As far as purchasing land so it doesn't get developed for residential use, we all know how that went back earlier this year, and that may have been a poor PR job on our part, that issue maybe needs to be trumpeted a lot louder than it was, so definitely take that under advisement.
Mr. Bongiorno: In some of these developments I would like to see some of our Regs changed. I feel there are a couple that come to mind and since Mr. Kane is dealing with P & Z some of these ideas might come to head. I remember back when I started it, Phil Deleppo had written a letter stating that it's great that you have all these developments, but I don't have enough people nor will I in the foreseeable future ever to support the developments, the detention ponds, the swales, the drainage, whatever, nor will we ever clean the storm drains, etc. for all these developments that you have imposed upon me. I commended him for the letter, but then he turns around and signs off on all the projects, so I know he has to, by Regulation, the drainage is okay by Town managements, etc. but I find it interesting that we know as a Town, planning-wise, we can't support the development, and we don't seem to have a way to manage that, you know, 5 houses you get, we'll approve your development but you can only build 5 houses this year, sir.
Secondly I also feel that it's important that a lot of these developers come to Town, they made $1,000,000, $2,000,000, they leave, or even if they stay here they made their $1,000,000 or $2,000,000 and leave the Town with 5,000 feet of road, 15 storm drains, etc. There's no cost to them. There's a cost to the taxpayers every year from then on but they leave with their money. We have to redo our plan, we have to re-account for their development and they're gone. They just can leave. I mean there's a lot of things that lack responsibility and I think that adding a responsibility, just a bond to complete your project, well of course I want to get it completed, I want to get paid, so the bond is great but after that I believe there should be a fee or sum paid to the Town for the next couple of years to allow the budget process to pick up these developments, to allow for these developments to be put into the tax base.
The first couple of years not only do you have the loss that he talks about, you've got to have Police go there, you've got to have fire extensions, you've got more kids in the school immediately. You did not have time to plan for any of these, it just happened. And some of these developers, the modular homes, they're up, they can have 12 houses up in 6-8 weeks. That's a school year. You added those people in a school year, you had no time. So without that package you know of these people paying for some of this, it is not residential development unfriendly here. It is quite well known everywhere we go that Watertown is the place to build. Most contractors will tell you that except for the guys that are mad about the sidewalk fund, and if we had called that something different we'd probably be a lot better off, like this. You're paying for us to plow the roads in your development for the next 2 years because it's not on the budget yet.
I think you very much for listening to me and allowing me to take up some of your time, and I'd also like to say that in any dealings, anyone I've ever spoken with that's called my house with regards to some of these developments and anything they had to do, Charlie was absolutely fantastic in helping them, so should you ever come down to your decision for a Town Manager and it's very close, please pick Charlie. Thank you.
Mr. Archer: Thank you, some good ideas came out of that. That's very helpful.
Mr. Archer, Chairman, Closed Public Participation at about 8:45 p.m.
5. Minutes
A. Regular Meeting Minutes – December 2, 2002
MOTION: (Mr. Kane, sec. Mr. Hebert) to Approve the Regular Meeting Minutes dated December 2, 2002 as presented.
Discussion: None
MOTION PASSED UNANINOUSLY
6. Sub-Committee Reports
A. Town Manager Search Committee
Mr. Archer: In Executive Session tonight we'll be discussing the compensation package which is pretty much finalized, and following Executive Session we'll continue with Action Items, and if there is a God we will be appointing a Town Manager.
7. Chairman's Report
Mr. Archer: I'd just like to thank everyone for their service to the Town by sitting on this Council, and if you could pass these around this is a Town Council survival kit. I just wanted to give out some kind of token Christmas gift to thank everyone for their service over the past year.
There were two things that I wanted to get updates from Mr. Frigon on. One was the sidewalk fund. Mr. Deleppo, of course, is leaving at the end of the year and I just want to get an update of the status of the sidewalk fund and the construction.
Mr. Frigon: A & N Consulting Engineers had been contracted to prepare the design for the sidewalks along Main Street. The base maps are completed and prior to moving forward with this project, we will meet with A & N Consulting, myself and the Town Engineer who has just been appointed, Roy Cavanaugh, who is starting on the 27th of this month and we will review the base maps and review the conceptual drawings that they want to eventually put out to bid. We expect that meeting to take place sometime the first or second week of January. Designs should commence immediately following that meeting and we should be out to bid with that project in the Spring.
Mr. Archer: Okay, so it's reasonable to assume that by late Spring we would be . . . .
Mr. Frigon: We would witness some construction, yes, the start of construction.
Mr. Archer: Excellent, I look forward to it. And the other one was the meeting with Fletcher Thompson. I wonder if you could give me an update on that as well, I was unable to make that.
Mr. Frigon: We did meet, the Public Buildings Committee, 2 members of the Public Buildings Committee, 2 representatives from Fletcher Thompson, 1 from Fusco and myself and 1 from the Board of Education last week to discuss the outstanding issues relating to John Trumbull. The meeting was very informative. Most, as far as I can tell, every outstanding issue was put on the table. Some of those issues need to be looked at again in light of some of the discussion that we had, and I have asked that Bob Porter, representing the Public Buildings Committee, to report at the January 6th meeting to the Town Council regarding that and a few other projects that they have on their Agenda.
Mr. Archer: So they'll give us the full results of that?
Mr. Frigon: Yes.
Mr. Archer: I have a couple of facts and/or fallacies. There's a letter in the Town Times by Mr. Walton of W.O.T.A. This is great, so I'm going to read this.
"Copes Rubbish removal has been a necessary part of Watertown for more than 70 years. Moving from limited facilities on Commercial Street to a new location with extra acreage in Town will afford immediate modest expansion and allow the possibility of growth in future years" As I said, business friendly. "Always a good neighbor with dependable and economic business practices, Copes Rubbish has become almost an invisible enterprise on the Watertown scène. The list of church and civic non-profit organizations that this business services free is too long to list in this letter. An obvious example is the dedicated free trash removal by this community oriented business is familiar to anyone who visits Veteran's Park or Deland Field. In no way, shape, or form or manner should any restrictions be placed on this necessary trucking operation. Taxable business that demands minimal Town services should be begged to stay on and expand, not banned or harassed. Our tax base needs business badly and every effort should be extended to this firm to ensure their continued expanded operation in our Town. Our Town Council, to its credit, has recently taken this project under their wing and should continue efforts to allow Copes to occupy its proposed new location." I can imagine that Mr. Walton is referring to the Business Development Subcommittee that we began recently.
On the flip side, I'll just read a couple of excerpts here from a letter:
"It doesn't require much imagination to understand the Council leadership's anguish with W.O.T.A.'s existence and subsequent comments relating to our tax dollars." Later on in the letter is says: "They're positive they know best and the great unwashed should not question their grandiose tax and spend schemes regardless of economic conditions. This minority within the Council feels they were elected not to serve the will of the majority but instead to dictate to them"
This is kind of confusing. Well first of all going to the first item I read, I applaud the existence of W.O.T.A. I think we need more people, citizens to come forward and voice their opinions no matter whether they're popular or not, we need to come out and voice their opinions and we heard many of them tonight. That's the key. This is representative government, democracy is advanced citizenship. We need more people to come out and be involved, so I think the existence of them is great, however, I'm kind of confused by the second thing about how we don't do what the, we don't want to listen to what the citizens of the Town want to do. In June of this year, after the first budget failed at referendum, we called for a second public hearing to get ideas and opinions from the public regarding what services would be cut in the budget. And actually as budget hearings go it was fairly well attended, there was about 75 people there and actually a couple of positive ideas came out of that hearing. Also at that hearing Mr. McHale berated us for wasting time and having another public hearing, and if we would just do the job we were elected to do we wouldn't have these problems.
So my question for Mr. McHale is, do you want government by the people or not? You can either ask for people's opinion or not. We've asked for people's opinion, but he apparently wants it both ways. He ends the letter by saying: "with our economy still in a freefall, our Council and the Board of Education should hold the line on speeding until and if our fortunes change". First of all our economy is hardly in a freefall; if you look at the economic indicators it's actually doing quite well. Even the stock markets are up 30% over the last 2 months. Given all this, though, we do have a long way to go and as he suggests we will hold the line again and introduce a fiscally responsible budget this year as we did last so I agree with him there.
I'm just curious why he said if our fortunes change. I don't know that anything positive that ever came out of rampant pessimism. This country was really founded on optimism. People got on ships and sailed across an ocean that was barely charted and people walked across this country to start farms and ranches all in the interest of things being better when they got there. And certainly we all go to work every day and not only so we can buy things for ourselves but so we can make our kids lives better than our own, hopefully in the future. All of this is based on optimisms, It's really the engine that's driven this country. And I think I can safely speak for every member of the Council when I say I choose to be an optimist, not a pessimist.
Ms. King: At our last meeting the Town Manager reported to us on a number of capital projects and their progress which related to the fact that we are basically trying to pave over places of roads in this Town in the Winter and or can't, and I'm struck by that. Like many people I drive up Echo Lake Road every day and noticing that probably that road is not going to be that great through the rest of the Winter with temporary paving or whatever it is. The question that I have that I would like to know is whether some of these projects, which are taking place late in the year, granted that Winter threw itself at us early, but even that seems late in the year, is the reason that these projects are late is because we passed a budget late? Is it we were unable to start implementing projects that should have been started in the Summer because we didn't have a budget passed and therefore this is a spillover from that? And there may not be an answer to that right now, but I think it's something that people should know as we go forth in considering a budget in the future if these are implications, if projects can't get started then they can't get finished because I'm sure we're not going to hear, we will hear from people again who are unhappy about roads in this Town that are kind of a mess in the Winter so that's the question.
Mr. Frigon: There are indeed residual effects to having passed a budget late in the year as opposed to early. The one road specifically that you referred to, Echo Lake Road, that is funded by a bond issue and not our budget process. And it is unfortunate that it is being dug up and paved so late in the year. As you saw we were pulling out 6 and 7 inches of frost to get that temporary pavement in. It's been a painstaking process. We didn't expect the harsh weather that we did receive so early on in the year, however it did happen and we're dealing with it as best we can.
Mr. Archer: It would seem it does. Logic says that if we get started late . . . .
Ms. King: Well I just think it's important for people to understand that as we go forward, that it isn't just like somebody didn't want to do the work in a timely fashion, but when you don't pass a budget and the money isn't appropriated then you can't do the work.
Mr. Archer: Very shortly hopefully we will be taking action on appointing a new Town Manager, and I said God willing. Many, just about everyone knows we've been without a permanent manager for just under a year. During that time Mr. Frigon has been filling the bill as our Interim Town Manager, and Chuck, I'd like to say that I think you've done a fine job doing that. I concur with many others who have noted that you have been a careful steward of the Town during this period and you've received high marks and praise from many of our citizens, and on behalf of the Town Council I'd like to offer you my sincere thanks.
Mr. Frigon: Thank you very much.
Mr. Archer: There's been some public discussion, public and private discussion as to whether or not Mr. Frigon should have been appointed as the permanent Town Manager, and I can say only this, in fact this is even in today's newspaper. The Manager Subcommittee of the Council, which as I said is all of us on the entire Council, voted upon and set in place a procedure for selecting a Town Manager. This procedure is not unlike that of any company or organization in this country in hiring a Town Manager, and Elaine can concur with that, of course, because being in an H.R. Department, you can obviously agree with that.
Ms. Adams: No, not quite, but go ahead.
Mr. Archer: The job is basically what happens, any company or organization they advertise the job, they post it in appropriate places where candidates will see it, candidates indicate their interest for the position by applying for the job. A fairly simple cut and dried process. Chuck, Mr. Frigon, however, for reasons of his own, chose not to apply. We discussed this last week, as early as last week and you agreed with that. It's been suggested by some people that Chuck was never asked about his interest in pursuing the position. The opposite is true. While the Council has never made a formal overture to him regarding the position, at least 4 different Council members at various times have discussed this topic with him. At this point we have negotiated in good faith with our final candidate. Any abrupt turn from this direction we've been going in at this point would likely open the Town to potential litigation. It wouldn't be unlikely for someone to do that. I don't know of anyone on the Council who is willing to do that. If they are I certainly would suggest that they shouldn't be occupying any of these chairs, so I hope that puts to rest some of the endless and sometimes frankly ill informed speculation on that topic.
Ms. Adams: I'd like to add something to that, about what you said. You're in error when you say he never expressed an interest in the job. The first time we talked to him about being the Interim Town Manager, I asked the question of all the candidates, are you interested in this job permanently, and his answer, and the only one who said, was yes.
Mr. Archer: Do you think it's kind of appropriate to speak about someone in the third person when they're sitting here?
Ms. Adams: I'm not talking behind his back.
Mr. Archer: That's true. So how am I in error? I said that he was spoken to by at least 4 different times? How am I in error?
Ms. Adams: I think by proceeding on with, when we knew, we were all informed that Chuck was interested in the position, that by proceeding on with the search, we basically told him no thank you.
Mr. Hebert: That's not true either.
Ms. Adams: That's my opinion.
Mr. Archer: Well that is what is is, with a capital O; it's unfortunately not fact but . . . .
Ms. Adams: In your opinion.
Mr. Archer: Facts are facts. As I said the Council put in place a process that they wanted candidates to follow. That was the whole Council. It was not a particular subset of the Council, it was all 9 members that put this process in place, and that was the process applicants needed to follow. Mr. Frigon, for his own reasons, determined that that was not for him. And that's not an opinion. Assuming we're done we'll move on to Action Items.
8. Action Items
A. Consider Setting Special Town Meeting Date, Time, and Place for an Appropriation to Fund the Purchase of a Senior Mini Bus
The Town of Watertown has been successful in obtaining a $35,000 grant toward the purchase of a new senior center minibus. The Town must initially fund the entire purchase amount of $70,000 and will be reimbursed $35,000 upon delivery of the vehicle.
MOTION: (Mr. Hebert, sec. Mr. Kane) to set a special Town Meeting for the purpose of considering an appropriation in the amount of $70,000 for the purchase of a senior minibus on January 6, 2003 at the Polk School Library at 7:00. (changed to 7:45 p.m. – see discussion below.)
Discussion: Mr. Frigon: Can I make a suggestion? The Business Development Subcommittee wants to meet that evening as well. I was hoping that if you were able to schedule our meeting at 6:30, 6:45, and we have the Meeting at 7:30 or 7:45. I don't believe it would be too lengthy of a meeting.
Mr. Kane: You want to put us at 6:30 and make this 7:00?
Mr. Frigon: 6:30, 6:45 and make this 7:30, 7:45.
Mr. Hebert: Is 15 minutes long enough?
Mr. Frigon: I can explain the process - is the Town was awarded a $35,000 grant from the State of Connecticut for the purchase of a new minibus. The State has forwarded the agreement to me as recently as last week. In order to finalize that agreement, actually cut a formal purchase order for the minibus, we would appropriate the full $70,000 and realize an additional $35,000 in next year's budget. So I don't believe the meeting should take too terribly long, but it's your call.
Mr. Hebert: 7:45 p.m.
Ms. King: Even before we bring it to a Town Meeting, there is no money in this year's budget for the other $35,000. Is that what you're telling me?
Mr. Frigon: That is correct. It is not in this year's budget. It was originally requested in this year's budget. We took it out feeling that the State would not be making an award prior to next year's fiscal budget.
Ms. King: So we will be taking the $35,000 for the Town's side out of the Fund Balance, that is correct?
Mr. Frigon: That is correct, yes. Actually we'll take all $70,000 and then realize the $35,000 in next year's budget.
MOTION PASSED UNANINOUSLY (Tape #1, Side B ended.)
(Item 8 will be continued following Executive Session.)
9. Public Participation
Leo Buonocore, Capewell Avenue, Oakville, CT 06779
Mr. Buonocore: I still want to congratulate the Council for doing a good job, but I'd like you to look into some of these $35,000 studies that we're doing in this Town that are coming up zilch. When commissions get a job to do, by the Council, give them this, come back with an answer, they should come back with an answer, yes or no, not come back with we need a new Town Hall. We knew that before the study was made. They could have given you that answer right away. |