Tech Park, Grader, Fire Truck Dropped—

Council Adopts Five-Year Capital Plan

By John Voket

The town’s five-year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) moved forward after a four-and-a-half-hour Legislative Council meeting March 5 with several million dollars in proposed spending being at least temporarily removed. The council agreed to carry forward several recommendations made during previous selectmen and finance board meeting, including the removal of $530,000 for a replacement pumper truck for Sandy Hook Fire & Rescue.

During a brief commentary, Fire Commissioner Kevin Cragin said while the CIP reflects a regular schedule of apparatus replacement, various town departments often work to sustain the equipment beyond its expected obsolescence. This is the case with Engine 441, which may be reinserted in the CIP in the next fiscal cycle, if required.

During discussion on his area of the capital plan, Public Works Director Fred Hurley said plans to bond a new grader have been withdrawn. Mr Hurley said his department is now planning to explore acquiring a smaller scale grader, which may be included in a future operational budget.

Captain Joseph Rios was on hand representing both the police department and the emergency communications director. He fielded questions and reasserted his request on behalf of Chief Michael Kehoe to keep a $200,000 capital proposal to fund a study and design phase for a building improvement and renovations project.

Capt Rios said with the town hall move to Fairfield Hills pending, the department is now incorporating the possibility that the police headquarters might also relocate to the town-owned campus on Wasserman Way. Acknowledging that the existing facility is “tired,” the captain said if a planned study indicates some facility expansion at the current site at Main and Sugar Streets is more appropriate, the department will move forward taking that contingency under consideration.

He added that the study will be completed in six months to a year. On behalf of the communications department, Capt Rios asked the council to keep money for an analog to digital radio system remain intact.

He explained that the current supplier, Motorola, has advised all its clients that it will no longer stock parts for its analog systems, and the state police and other area departments are already moving to the digital system.

Parks & Recreation Commission Chair Ed Marks was in attendance, reviewing how his agency is moving forward with renewed plans for a combined recreation and senior center at Fairfield Hills. Mr Marks said his commission would work closely with representatives from the senior center to craft a facility that would work well for both groups.

He then asked the council to consider reinstating two phased capital construction allocations for $3.1 million in each of the 2009 and 2010 fiscal cycles. That brought a comment from finance board chairman John Kortze, who said that capital request would likely require the Board of Selectmen to either push out, adjust, or reprioritize other existing projects to accommodate the $6.2 million and still keep borrowing ratios below a self-imposed debt cap.

Mr Marks also requested the council keep $300,000 in the CIP to fast track the installation of lighting at the 90-foot baseball diamond at Fairfield Hills. He said that despite original plans to build two or more fields at Fairfield Hills, the current field with lights will satisfy his department’s needs for new outdoor playing space.

The major cuts to the capital plan, totaling more than $2.8 million, came from the removal of all but a one-time $125,000 grant for development of a tech park by the Economic Development Commission (see related story in this edition). Council Chair Will Rodgers said he hoped the removal of the capital funding would send a message to both the EDC and land use agencies to come together and return with a request that will reflect the best compromise between the two agencies.

The council learned that plans to develop a maximum buildout contingency at the Commerce Road location are apparently encroaching on property formerly intended as a buffer between planned industrial and commercial buildings and the Class A trout breeding stretch of Deep Brook, which runs along one border of the development parcel. The removal of this capital project came with the blessing of First Selectman Joseph Borst, who was on hand for the meeting.

Several representatives of the school board were also in attendance, reiterating information already presented in defense of maximizing a high school expansion. Mr Rodgers asked Superintendent Janet Robinson to make clear to project supporters that if a referendum specifically supporting the appropriation for that project does not pass, the project will be dead.

“We don’t want people thinking this can come back with adjustments like a budget referendum,” Mr Rodgers said. Later in the meeting he also recommended educating high school project supporters that turfing the football stadium, adding a “green roof,” lightning suppression and a choice of interior surfacing are in the expansion plans as alternates.

As such, any or all of those aspects might face being dropped or downscaled if overall bids for the project come in above the amount approved in the bond resolution.

Moving on, council member Po Murray moved to eliminate open space funding from the capital plan saying, she wanted to have questions answered about how many building lots are being blocked through a long-range open space acquisition program that is funded at $2 million per year in the CIP. That motion met with uniform opposition, including council member Joseph DiCandido, who has been among the most critical of the program.

“You want the money in the plan if you need it,” Mr DiCandido said. “That’s what this plan is all about.”

At the beginning of the meeting, Mr Rodgers addressed a pair of e-mails that were sent out by school board member Lillian Bittman. The first, dispatched to about a dozen PTA and school advocates, called for a volunteers to show up at the meeting to support the high school project.

Her e-mail conveyed that she expected a vocal group of seniors to be present advocating for their new center, and hoped an equal number of school supporters could be mustered. The e-mail conveyed that if the senior center was included in the CIP, it might force a cutback in the high school project to keep the plan’s spending under the aforementioned debt cap.

A second e-mail, dispatched to the same recipients a few hours later, indicated that information in the original email had been clarified, and that the inclusion of capital funds for the rec/senior project would not compromise proposed borrowing for the high school.

Ms Bittman told The Bee later that she knew the original information was not completely accurate, but as the school board’s lead advocate for the high school she was anxious because plans for funding the project seemed to be in jeopardy.