North Stonington Weekly Update 12-4-2020- Last day of Sheets Family Forest fundraiser donations due by 5pm, John Dean Gallup House discussion Monday, congrats to North Stonington Schools and more!!!
Happy Friday North Stonington,
We hope everyone had a good holiday weekend all-be-it a different one this 2020.
Today is the last day to contribute to our Sheets Family Forest fundraising initiative. Our goal was to raise $22,500 so we could get the maximum match on these funds of $7,500 from SustainableCT. This forest is a great asset to the town and with Avalonia’s planned purchase will protect it in perpetuity so generations can hike and enjoy it in all its natural beauty. If you are able, please either donate online or call Terri 860-680-2569 to make a contribution. We must have all contributions in by 5:00pm today to count toward this goal. To donate online, please visit www.patronicity.com/sheetsfamilyforest or you can also mail a donation to Avalonia Land Conservancy, P.O. Box 49, Old Mystic, CT 06372 Memo- Sheets Family Forest. If you choose to mail a check please call Terri in advance to be sure the conation can be counted. Avalonia needs these funds to complete the purchase of this town treasure.
Monday the architect who was chosen to do an analysis of uses for the John Dean Gallup House at Hewitt Farm (using grant funds) will be hosting a zoom meeting to facilitate community discussion about the property. We hope you might be able to attend and share your feedback. We will record the meeting and post it on the towns YouTube page for those who cannot make it. Dial In Number: (646) 558-8656 | Webinar ID: 820 0807 6883. Please consider attending if you are able.
This past week new rankings came out for local school districts from niche.com . We are elated to report North Stonington ranked 31 out of all schools in Connecticut which is fantastic! Congrats to our entire North Stonington educational team. We are truly blessed to have such a special system here in our town. https://patch.com/connecticut/across-ct/these-are-cts-best-school-districts-2021-new-report 
Covid cases locally continue all around us although North Stonington is now one of the towns showing a reduction in cases and are now yellow on the most recent COVID map the State puts out https://portal.ct.gov/coronavirus/covid-19-data-tracker , We must continue to be vigilant and care for one another by wearing masks and keeping our distance. So long as we do these two things we can go about our lives fairly normally. Those who are at higher risk should consider extra precautions. We will get through this together in due time.
Things continue to progress with the future occupancy of 298 Norwich Westerly Road. We are in the final stages of negotiation for a portion of the old middle school with the new tenant planning to make a substantial investment of their own funds into the building. The other portion of the middle school is being listed with a realtor to help best market the property. The two story portion of the building received zoning approval to be leased and now we will proceed back to the Selectmen for further action on renting that space. We have done some basic work to help get the property in shape to be occupied including some painting in the middle school wing, an assessment of our heating to be sure we are operating as efficiently as we can be going into the winter, and some minor roof repairs that needed fixing on the parts of the roof that were not replaced last year. There is still more work to be done and we continue to be thoughtful about expenses as we did not budget this fiscal year for costs associated with the unoccupied space at the building.
This past Monday we had another weather event which disrupted power and took down trees in some areas. As always we owe thanks to our emergency responders including Troop E, North Stonington Ambulance Association, North Stonington Volunteer Fire Company, Emergency Management Director Gary Baron, & our always reliable Highway crew. Wonderful job to all keeping roads clear and everyone safe once again.
Speaking of our Volunteer Fire Company, you may have read their Santa Run is being combined this year with another light parade on December 12th! We are so grateful to our Volunteer Fire Company for continuing to keep in contact with the big man up north to visit our children here in North Stonington. Combining that with the light parade and we are going to have a spectacular new celebration. The organizers are looking for people or businesses interested in being in the parade. Please email them NSLightParade@gmail.com or check them out on Facebook at North Stonington Light Parade to get involved.
We are so humbled to have been once again recognized a SustainableCT community and to have received bronze recognition. This could not have happened without a lot of peoples help, mainly our chief volunteer Alexis Kahn. On the SustainableCT website https://sustainablect.org/ you can see the few towns who took the time to strive for this in 2020. It was a difficult year for so many reasons and a truly special accomplishment to have reached this year. We also would like to mention the video they put together of the local towns who received the recognition. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gbLfsxYm_-VC5HZpIKDwbaPk6R1vJrRT/view . In this video we talked about one of the many special things that were accomplished over the past year- our trailmap! This map was more important than we could have realized it would be having come out right before COVID-19 hit. It helped many hundreds of hikers from town discover our trails and provided many smiles when there was not much else to do. Thanks to Bill Ricker and the conservation commission for their work on this map. https://www.northstoningtonct.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif4806/f/uploads/north_stonington_trails_give_away_map_2020.pdf
The group Rediscovering History was featured in an article in The Day this week where they talked about their next project helping to clean up some North Stonington Cemeteries after the recent cleanup they did in Salem. Check out the article here and call them if you would like to get involved!...https://www.theday.com/local-news/20201127/kindness-in-real-life
We are so thankful to members of the North Stonington Garden Club who took their time to put together the beautiful wreaths and decorations around our town village area. We are truly blessed to have such dedicated volunteers even during this pandemic time.
Besides the storm on Monday the highway crew was also busy catching up after the long weekend. The Christmas tree is up in the Village Green and the Town Hall is decorated. Fall cleanups happened throughout town and some painting took place. Next week more cleanups and crack sealing will continue. Additionally we will be closing the swap shed once again at this time. Should you have items you think are reusable please consider one of the local area charities to donate them to.
That’s it for today, we hope everyone has a great weekend!
Mike Urgo