North Stonington Weekly Update 6.25.2021- Vote Monday, Highway Updates, Vaccination Clinic and More!
Happy Friday North Stonington,
Another busy week comes to a close in our beautiful town.
Monday is the referendum on the 2nd proposed budget. The budget being voted on represents a mill rate reduction from 29.5 to 28.6 mills and an increase in taxes of 1.59%. For those who did not get a chance to attend the Town Meeting where the budgets were presented, please consider watching the recording here:https://www.northstoningtonct.gov/home/pages/special-town-meeting-june-15-2021. Polls are open 6am-8pm at 298 Norwich Westerly Road.
Town Hall will be closed Tuesday June 29th at 1pm for our employee appreciation event.
Also, on Tuesday June 29th a Town Meeting will take place. We will hold a “State of the Town” where we will review town updates, finances and more and allow for questions and answers. We will also plan to discuss the American Rescue Plan funding the Town is receiving. Additionally, at this Town Meeting there will be a request for an appropriation from the general fund to pay for maintenance, utilities, and expenses at 298 Norwich Westerly Road (the Education Center). As a reminder for those who may not follow this closely, last year (2020) when we constructed the budget, we had assumed we would have someone renting the building out and thus the expenses would have been offset. The Town always had anticipated renting out the two story wing of the building and having our own central office occupy the center section. In March 2020 we did not realize how the pandemic could affect our plans with the building. Thankfully, we had this space at the building available for “swing space” and our own school was able to utilize portions for some classes so we could have our students do in person learning at a time when many schools did not. Due to this and a variety of factors we did not get the building leased out and thus did not bring in the revenue we had hoped. This has resulted in a shortfall for the bills that are necessary to keep the building operational. This meeting will be to authorize these funds since any unbudgeted expenditure over 20,000.00 needs to go to a Town Meeting for approval. We hope you can join us for this meeting at 7pm Tuesday June 29th at the Media Center or via Zoom. As a reminder, anyone attending a Town Meeting remotely must register by noon the day of the meeting so we may validate voter registrations.
Next week will be the last week for our Planning Development Zoning Enforcement officer Juliet Hodge’s last day working full time for the town. Juliet has been a dedicated Town employee and helped us to shape the community we all call home. She will be missed, and we wish her well as she moves on to new adventures. She will remain on staff through September working in the office on Fridays. Once we have adopted a budget, we will begin the process of finding her replacement.
In Highway news, the crew remains busy with tree work, mowing and paving throughout Town. As mentioned last week and over the past year we have been embarking on a four year plan to repave the roads in the Kingswood/Meadow Wood/Cedar Ridge neighborhoods using the State Bid List for contractors to be sure we have a highly qualified company completing the job. If you remember in phase one, we completed Meadow Wood, Raven Wood 1, part of Pinecrest, and Pond Road. Next week as part of the plan Raven Wood 2, Starlight, Sharon & Pinecrest will be repaved. We had initially planned to first do Cedar, Kingswood, Hickory, and Oak as part of our matching STEAP grant award from the State. Since we have yet to receive our authorization to proceed from the State those roads will be done sometime late summer/fall once we receive that authorization. Once authorization is received, we will also be doing Cedar Crest and Forest at the same time with State LOCIP funding. That will then complete the entire Cedar Crest neighborhood roads and leave only a couple of roads in Kingswood/Meadow Wood for the following year thus completing the project. If you are in these neighborhoods, please drive safely around the workers.
Our Recreation camp has started off with a bang seeing the highest participation on record! Great job to our Rec crew, councilors, and especially camp director Lori Umphlett for continuing to grow this fun program for the Town.
Finally, during the vote on Monday outside the building is an opportunity to get the Covid vaccine. We know there are still a lot of folks who have not received it. Please consider this opportunity to receive the vaccine right here in Town. Ledge Light Health District will be there administering it. It is free for everyone. Recent data shows only rare instances of any issues with it and also shows people who are vaccinated either don’t get Covid or if they do their symptoms are mild. Those who are not vaccinated continue to risk severe symptoms, hospitalization or worse. Spread the word about this free opportunity from 9am-1pm or 3pm-7pm Monday June 28th at 298 Norwich Westerly Road (the Education Center).
That’s it for today. Have a great weekend!
Mike Urgo
First Selectman