First Selectman Prepares For

Future Fairfield Hills Decisions

By Kendra Bobowick

Welcoming First Selectman Pat Llodra to the Fairfield Hills Authority meeting on October 20, Chairman John Reed said, “Pat wants to put before us some things to think about. ‘Think’ being the operational word….”

“Actually, there are a number of items, some of which will require deliberations over a period of months ,” she said.

The engineer’s house, capital improvement funding, security, and campus management were among topics she raised earlier this month.

Looking to the town’s Capital Improvement Plan — a five-year funding plan for capital projects outside the scope of annual budgets — she mentioned infrastructure, trails, and demolition projects included in years 2011-2012, 2013-2014, and 2014- 2015. Costs range from $275,000 for Danbury Hall demolition to $400,000 for Norwalk Hall demolition, for example.

“Maybe the order is not what you would prefer … the amount, in part, is what guides decisions.” The CIP is a “work in progress,” she said.

Also on her list of “longer range goals” is taking the campus from contracted-managed to town-managed. DeMarco Management currently provides security and day-to-day oversight at Fairfield Hills. This proposal “is not imminent,” but conversations are increasing.

Also “on the table” are talks about security. Officials have looked at benefits and drawbacks of contracted security, which is now in place.

The engineer’s house — the residential brick house at the campus’s main entrance across form Reed Intermediate School — may lose Fairfield Hills clerk Mary Jane McNamara. Could Ms McNamara join other town staff at the Newtown Municipal Center, which is less than 100 yards away? “There has been consideration,” said Ms Llodra. “However, I am not certain it’s the right thing to do.”

Should the town close the engineer’s house? “It’s a thorny issue,” she said.

The “most imminent” topic on her mind, which came up most recently at this week’s Fairfield Hills Master Plan Review Committee meeting, is discussion of the duplexes. (See related story). Referring again to the CIP, which includes funding to bring infrastructure to the buildings, she also mentioned a grant the town has on behalf of Kevin’s Community Center to rehab a facility for the free community health clinic’s use.

“Costs to strip and rehab the building would be covered, barely,” by a $500,000 grant, she said. She needs to know if the community center directors are ready to “take on the task before we invest in infrastructure.” Her discussion this week with the review committee — again just conversation — explored whether or not the duplex area would best serve the community as a social services hub, where the Newtown Youth & Family Services facility could also relocate, or if the area would be more valuable as an economic development site, viable to newcomers if duplexes are razed.

She told the Fairfield Hills Committee, “We want some guidance.”

Chairman John Reed said, “One of our major goals is to make Fairfield Hills an integral part of Newtown, and not a standalone entity.”

Mr Reed concluded, “[Mrs Llodra] is asking us to think about it …”

The initial $21 million bond approved in 2001, which enabled the town to purchase Fairfield Hills, conduct soil remediation around the buildings’ foundations, build a new baseball diamond, renovate Bridgeport Hall as the new municipal center, conduct infrastructure and demolition work, has been exhausted. Additional work that officials had anticipated would come in from lease arrangements on several buildings has not occurred, prompting items such as demolition to fall into the CIP.