North Stonington Weekly Update for 11-6-2020- Thanks to our poll workers and registrar team, COVID-19 updates, congrats to newly elected and thanks to Kate Rotella
Another busy week comes to a close here in North Stonington.
A record amount of voting took place here in 2020! We would like to give our sincerest thanks to every poll worker who came out and spent the day in a pandemic assuring democracy in our community. We are so grateful for their time. We especially need to thank Gladys Chase and Joan Kepler, our outgoing Registrars of Voters, who managed everything flawlessly in this very unusual and challenging year. Between the new location and the virus we certainly had our share of challenges but everything went extremely smoothly. Thanks to all who were involved!
We would like to congratulate our newly elected leaders and returning ones as well. We look forward to working with Senator Heather Somers and Representative Greg Howard in the coming years on important initiatives for our town and region. We also have a new Probate Judge Beth Ladwig Leamon and Joe Courtney remains our Congressman. Finally we welcome new Registrars of Voters Amy French and Connie Berardi. We would like to express a sincere thanks to Kate Rotella who worked hard for North Stonington during her tenure in the House. We wish her the best and sincerely thank her for her service to our community.
Monday we had another bit of weather with some high winds and some outages throughout town. State and local crews and emergency management were busy keeping everything clear and safe. Thanks to everyone for their efforts.
In highway news we continued crack sealing on some roads throughout town as well as additional tree trimming. As a reminder the Transfer Station and Town Hall will be closed next Wednesday November 11th for the Veterans Day holiday.
A bit earlier in the week we had a great time with the first annual North Stonington Halloween Light Parade! Thanks to all who participated and watched it and especially Jen Strunk the organizer of the event. Hopefully this will be a new annual tradition!
For those who trick or treated or handed out candy this Halloween, we hope you enjoyed yourselves in a safe and fun way this year. We truly look forward to a more normal experience in 2021 as we move past COVID-19.
Speaking of COVID-19, as expected we saw a rise in reported cases this week here in our town as results from the testing days we hosted here last week. We are happy to report though there were a couple of reported cases within the schools, protocols and procedures were followed which limited any additional has spread within the schools. One of the major goals with all of the rules and guidance we are following is to get our kids in schools for the sake of helping them get the best education possible. Please continue to do your part to protect your neighbors and stop the spread. We appreciate everyone’s continued patience and adherence. We know it is getting old but for the sake of one another we must continue as long as it takes to keep one another as safe as possible from this threat. Remember according to our health sources, spread is happening mostly by people gathering with friends and family where they feel “safe” and not in places that protocols are being followed such as schools or retail stores. The best protection for you and your neighbors remains to wear a mask when distance can’t be kept. In addition this, the Governor has asked people to stay home between the hours of 10pm-5am. Here is the most recent guidance from the State. https://portal.ct.gov/DPH/Press-Room/Press-Releases---2020/DPH-Issues-New-Public-Health-Advisory-for-All-CT-Residents-Amid-Rise-in-COVID-19-Cases?fbclid=IwAR3JNmua0bNDpWWNI78Gc1GCrghFtz1rIu93f4ipD_twk4smJbxEYmRNg_k . The Town will look to have more testing sites here in North Stonington as resources allow. There are currently only a limited number of testing teams and they are being managed based on the highest needs first. For a list of local free testing sites see this link... http://seccog.org/covid-testing?nocache
That’s it for today, have a safe and happy weekend!
Mike Urgo
First Selectman