Town Council - Special Meeting

United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And a moment of silence for the men and women in the armed forces, our first responders, our veterans, those fighting the good fight in Ukraine, and those suffering from the military conflict in the Middle East. Thank you, Taylor. nominate.

I thank you.

Like to read the warning from special town meeting this evening. The electors of the town of New Milford and those qualified to vote in the town meeting are hereby warned and notified in a special town meeting will be held in personal in the EO Martin room upstairs in town hall on Monday, April 13th at 6:30 p.m. to consider and act as appropriate upon the following agenda. to vote to expend up to $566,000 with the funding to come from the waste management settlement fund to create three pickle ball courts with expanded parking at Petty Bone and expend up to $155,000 with the funding from the waste management fund to create a toddler child bike track at Pettybone dated at Newford the 7th day of April 2026. And Jack, if you could kind of give an overview a little bit concerning the pickle ball courts or Chuck, I'm sorry, and the bike toddler bike uh track. Good evening, mayor, town council. Chuck Balor, design engineer for the town in New Milford. And uh just to recap, our our department was asked and tasked with putting together some estimates and concepts of uh what we could do for recreation down there. that that would include a pedal park, a pickle ball, and some parking lot rehabilitation. So, as far as pickle ball courts, we're looking at three courts that includes a seating area, lighting, fencing, uh some connectivity that includes sidewalk access, uh parking lot um rehabilitation, and some better access for parking. Uh we'll increase the spacing and parking lot by 26 slots. Um we'll alter some lighting down there um and just make it a better space for for parking for access and getting to these new courts as proposed. Um some features that'll be included will you know septic abandonment uh some in-house work as

well as some outsource uh constructed work um survey work etc. Uh the parking lot again, we'll be adding approximately 26 spots, some ADA improvements, uh some new lighting um along the the existing uh roadway that's going in and out, uh crosswalks, uh line striping, etc. And then when it comes to the pedal park, this will be for uh the the younger uh under 15 we're looking at. Um again, this is about a/4 mile or so in total. It'll be kind of a a light gravel surface. There'll be about 14 features we anticipate being able to purchase with these funds. Um, so it'll be some elevated structures, some type cones to maneuver around, a tunnel to go through. All this stuff will be uh constructed uh shipped to the site, installed by a manufacturer. A lot of the prep work will be done in-house by the highway department. Um again this will this is just a a stone dust path carved through the existing site with minimal alterations to the site itself and then these features will just be placed and embedded into the existing turf. So um the the there'll be minimal alterations uh for the pedal park the pickle ball side uh just some minor grading work. Um already reached out to zoning. We've had some uh initial conversations, you know, so there is some permitting to go through, but it seems minimal and we've reached out and had some initial discussions as well as septic work uh abandonment. We've already taken care of that. So, uh as proposed, um we we came up to a total of 721,000 for both projects as one. And if anybody has any questions, I'd be happy to answer that.

Thank you, Chuck. Uh just uh for the minutes just for those that are watching uh now and also for uh memorializing them these funds would be coming from the landfill settlement fund waste management fund. So these would not be coming from the taxpayer as far as operational or capital. This uh falls into the use of the landfill settlement fund for recreational purposes as per the charter. So again, these are not taxpayer uh monies that are coming from our operational account nor our capital accounts. Do we have anybody that would like to speak public participation? Yes, we have five.

Starting with Arthur Hopkins, please um come to the lectern and state your name, address, and your five minutes.

Thank you. Uh, good evening mayor, um, members of the town council, esteemed engineer that did this proposal. My name is Arthur Hopkins. I live at 18 Cambridge Circle in New Milford, Connecticut. Um, I've been here for living here for the past almost 42 years as a taxpayer. Um, I'd just like to say on behalf of the pickle ball courts that there are no um designated pickle ball courts in the town of New Milford, um, we do appreciate on behalf of the other pickle ballers that are here. Uh we do appreciate that you did line the um two tennis courts down at Young's Field some time ago for pickle ballers, but again we compete with the tennis tennis people down there that um have some conststonations at at times. Um in the w in the winter time in the cold weather months uh here in New Milford, we do play at um uh three inside courts at uh Walnut Hill Church and uh two makeshift courts at the gym at Petty Bone when times are made available. Um many times those time slots are filled um so people can't get in. But um I would just like to say that we have many pickle ball players. It's one of the fastest growing sports in the nation. We have many pickle ball players from surrounding towns, Brookfield, uh Sherman, uh New Fairfield, um New Town. We even have uh pickle ball players that come in as far as Prospect, Woodbury, um all over. So they come to this town to play pickle ball with us. Um, so it uh would be really great if this proposal would go forward. Um,

last year Brookfield and Sherman both opened uh courts, outside courts for pickle ball players. I don't think there's any good reason why this great town of New Milford cannot also designate some pickle ball uh courts for our town players as well. Thank you so much and I hope this proposal goes forward. Thank you. Next we have Paul Stalls.

Hello everybody. My name is Paul Stalls. I live at 14 Chinmoy Lane here in New Milford. I've been living in this town since 1983. I'm a I'm an ex athlete that wants to continue like along the lines of recreating in in the best ways possible. Uh to date we've been kind of like like like art we've been hodge podgeing the opportunity to find places to play. That's the closest thing that I can call it a hodgepodge right just trying to mix and match how we can find play. And and lately we've been glomming on to Brookfield. Why? because we made a huge network of friends in what is a a community-based activity that grows like you friendships and opportunities to to learn from one another as we're getting all getting older. So, what what I'm here to tell you is that we've been now glomming on to uh uh Sherman, which put up some beautiful courts. Um Brookfield put up some beautiful courts. I'm I'm thinking that this town is is is ready for this in a big time way. Why? Because I I've I've been around sports my whole life. I played basketball in this town, tennis in this town, um soccer in this town. Really, a little bit of everything. But but but this this pickle ball, it really is it's it's I I would call it like 70% fun and like 30% competitive, right? I don't know how I don't know how anybody else

but but it but it's along the lines of building relationships and growing community. We're all getting older. We want something fun to do in this town. This town has been a fun town but you can't have you can't have enough activities that grow enthusiasm like pickle ball has done. So that's that's all I want to say and I just hope you guys make make the greatest decision ever. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. Howard Wendro. Wendro. Wendro. There we go. Please state your name, address, and you have

I am Howard Wendro. I live at 25 Sullivan Farm here in New Milford. Um, haven't been up here 40 years. I've been here about six. Um, so my wife saw, this goes back about five years, could join up for pickle ball. I had no idea what pickle ball was and I signed up for pickle ball. And since that time, I know Paul and Art combined stole my speech. Basically, it's it's a great thing. The town of Sherman, as we know, and Brookfield put in courts. Okay. Um, and they've expanded because of that. people. There's a couple towns you left out.

Lichfield, Washington, they come from a distance to play to play with us and we could use the help and the courts um immensely. It's it's a great sport. We've a lot of camaraderie as Paul uh alluded to. Um and I we hope that this passes. Okay. Um, Brookfield is is a great spot and they they also cleaned up the area for their kids. Um, it's a great playground area. Um, and right by the town hall there. Um, hopefully we can do the same thing at Petty Bone. That's what we're looking forward to. So, thank you all. Thank you.

Uh Carl Dvau.

There's nothing left to say. What can I say? My name is Carl Dvau. 23 Candlewood Vista. I've been here almost 50 years. I got them all beat. Uh I'm a senior. retired in this town after teaching for 43 years and playing pickle ball is my life right now. It's really great to do. Uh I previously served as the vice chair of the building committee, school building committee in New Milford. Spent six years of my life dedicated to the kids here. Um, we did the elementary schools and the middle school and I know what it's like to sit in your seat and have to make decisions of expenditures. And at this point, this is more of a senior citizen, but there are a lot of young people that are coming out and playing too make our games very challenging. But it's a really a senior thing that's happening um throughout the country. and uh great courts would really help this town grow. Uh I know it's the biggest town in the state, 64 square miles, and uh I think that it's time for us to help our senior population. I'm just speaking for myself too about that. So, thank you very much and uh let's move forward with this if we can. Thank you.

Thank you. and Ollie Karp. State your name, address, and five minutes. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Oolie Karp, 45 Sullivan Farm, New Milford. I know you've seen me up here with different hats on in the past, but tonight I'm here as an avid pickle ball player and I'm here with my crew from Youngsfield. Stand up, ladies. Not everyone is a senior citizen.

And and tonight you see a a smattering of the pickle ball community here, but we use a a an app called Team Reach. And if you looked at that app, there's over 500 people on that app, just here on that app here in New Milford that are associated with pickle ball. 500 over 500 people. So, you're only seeing a smattering here. So, when I had occasion to talk with the mayor about the possibility of what we're considering this evening, you know, I get to be a little bit of a dreamer because I'm with, you know, I'm economic development focused and I think of what this could possibly be at Petty Bone and we see these advertisements come through through our pickle ball community for M's tournaments in Farmington, in West Hart, in other communities where people are traveling from here up to there to go view these tournaments. And I'm thinking, well, why couldn't we do that here, mayor? Why couldn't we have this here? Why couldn't we have food trucks out there? Why couldn't we have a pickle ball tournament on a weekend down at Petty Bone School? So, that's how I look at this. Not only for us here in New Milford and our crew here, which we're we're really excited about because now we don't have to worry about was that ball hitting the white line, the blue line, the red line, the yellow line, the green line. This is going to be so wonderful for us to have dedicated pickle ball courts here in New Milford. But I'm a bit of a dreamer and the mayor knows that and I think the town council might know that also. But I see other opportunities for us to showcase our community within the context of what's happening with pickle ball here in Connecticut in general. So I look forward to a positive vote this evening, a wonderful development down at Petty

Bone School, and thank the mayor, the town council, the parks and wreck, the town engineer, Jack at DPW for having the foresight to getting us to tonight. So thank you very much. AND I RECEIVED A COUPLE OF EMAILS. THIS one is from Lois Shine. I've been a resident of New Milford for 40 years. I'm also an avid pickle ball player for 10 years. Won't be able to make the meeting tonight, but want my yes vote. You can't vote in absentee, but she can uh give her her uh give her give us her opinion. Uh yes vote. and account and asking you, our mayor, to vote yes and help us get the new courts in our town. Uh, I emailed last year begging for these courts and would like you to know we are the only town in Connecticut without pickle ball courts, lower 58 Bear Hill Road. Then we have uh Maryanne Tarby. Dear Mayor Bass, uh I am a Sherman resident but took my first lessons and started playing pickle ball in the Milford three years ago. as Sherman has no lessons or a place to play at all at that time. The team reach app we used to book play sessions during the summer outdoor play months had under 75 members for the NE Milford group at that time which was 2023. As of today it has 549. The sport is clear clearly exploded. Although Sherman now has four new beautiful courts to serve a much smaller population than New Milford, the groups I enjoy playing with are mostly New Milford residents. So I continue to play at Petty Bone, where I'm also a pickupball weekend volunteer, and at Walnut Hill, both indoors. The condition of the courts at Young's Field and even to Milford High School are quite poor with uneven services and a mix of pickle ball and tennis boundary lines and nets

that need to be modified for both sports as the height is different. Youngsfield really cannot satisfy the population of pickle ball and tennis players that try to use two courts. I unfortunately unable to attend tonight's meeting in person, but would like to express my strong support for the proposal to allocate up to 566,000 from the waste management settlement fund for the creation of three more pickle ball courts and expanded parking. Uh then she also asked not mandatory be wonderful if a drinking water source could be included. I'm in fully favor this long awaited project and hoping the letter can serve as a yes vote. Uh Maryanne Tarby, she's from Sherman, Connecticut. Can't vote in a town meeting, but she can give us her opinion. Anybody else that would like to speak to the town meeting? Okay. The next process just for the minutes, Stephanie, is this was approved at the town council meeting prior. Uh this was also reviewed by the board of finance. The next and last step in this process is we are now going to vote. Uh those new Milford residents uh can vote in the affirm or vote negative and that will be the final step in this process. So I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the request of 5 66,000 uh to come for the out of the waste man waste management settlement fund for three pickle ball courts with expanded parking and expend up to 155,000 with funding from the waste management fund to create the toddler child bike track. So move

thank you. Any discussion? All those in favor? Any opposed? Seeing of the unanimous vote. And now carries. And now we're going to be working on pickle ball court. Thank you for everyone coming tonight for this town meeting. And it is now make a motion to adjourn. All those in favor? Thank you. The next meeting is a town council meeting at 7 p.m.