Town Council - Regular Meeting

indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

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. May we also have a special concern and a special memorial for those that have passed through major weather events both here in our country and in the South Pacific. Thank you. Say the American creed, Katie.

The American creed by William Tyler Page.

I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people, whose just powers are derived from the consent of the government, a democracy and a republic, a sovereign nation of many sovereign states, a perfect union, one and separable, established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and community for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes.

I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and defend it against all enemies.

Thank you.

And Diane.

I hope you would like to speak this evening.

Sir, this is Anthony Bogson-Marco. Anthony, could you please go to the phone again, tell us your name and your address, and you have five minutes.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Anthony Abbott-Marco. I live at 6 Carlson Ridge Way here in New Milford. And good evening, Mr. Mayor and Common Council members. I'm here concerning a request for the town of New Milford to help veterans out with the tax exemption that is on the books. Unfortunately, Okay, as a decorated Vietnam War veteran, I have found New Milford to be a very friendly veteran town. And I know you guys help out wherever you can. I would like to point out the House Bill 05491 in its original form gave a 100% property tax exemption to veterans with service-connected permanent disability ratings. as deemed by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. This was modified a year later. requiring a 100% disability rating, dropping the permanent disability clause, which took away that benefit for many veterans. This is a benefit offered and taken away, which is one of the reasons why Connecticut is listed as the lowest veteran-friendly state, and I can show you the paperwork if you'd like it. To make a point regarding addressing this issue, the VA also has a very complicated system on how they rate people, okay? Personally speaking, I am rated at 90% with unemployability. However, if you look at all of the disability numbers that I have, I equal 180% disability, okay? It's just my personal situation. The only reason why I bring that up is because the way the Veterans Administration does it, I'm at 90%. It's about virtually impossible for me to ever reach 100. simply because of the way they do their math. For me to attain the 100%, you look at my 90% rating right now, okay? If I were to get an additional rating of 20% for another disability issue, the way they would figure that out would be I would get awarded 20% of the remaining 10% to reach the 100%. which would then bring me to a 92% level, okay, there would be no increase in benefits. And the VA has added benefits in the last couple of years that say that I can get those benefits because of illnesses that I have. I just won't go for it because it's not gonna matter, okay? Military service in a combat area has caused great physical and mental health issues for many veterans and we have lived with it for 55 to 60 years due to exposure to Agent Orange and our experiences in country. In my case, I was a whole 19 years old when I was there I ask that the town in New Milford consider giving New Milford veterans a 100% tax exemption based on the VA paying a veteran 100% benefit for having been deemed unemployable due to service-connected disabilities, as the town of Wallingford and some other towns do. Pardon me? Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you. Oh, okay. This could be done based on Connecticut General Statute Title 12, Chapter 203, 12-81 of the Connecticut Municipal Assessor's Directory. Those of us who have served in the military have not always been given respect for our service. This is an opportunity for Milford to set the pace to right the wrong. I thank you all for your consideration to my request.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your service. You said you had some documentation about Connecticut being the least friendly to vets. Would you send that to the town council? Sure. Thank you.

Okay, next we have Thomas Wilkes. Thomas, if you would go to the podium, tell us your name and address, and you have five minutes.

Good evening, Mayor Bass and town council members. My name is Thomas Wilkes. I live at 79 Dorwin Hill Road, New Milford, Connecticut. I've owned and lived at a home in this address for the past 35 years. I am a proud Vietnam War combat veteran. I'm asking the council to extend the town's property tax exemption to qualifying veterans whom the US Department of Veterans Affairs rated totally disabled based on individual unemployability or TDIU. The federal government recognizes a TDIU rating at the same compensation rate and the same scale of disability as a scheduler 100% rating. Our local tax code should mirror the standard to ensure equitable and fair treatment. Taking this step will ease a heavy financial burden as well as afford recognition for those who have sacrificed their health and livelihoods for our nation's freedom. Please extend this exemption to eligible TDIU veterans and give them the same measure of security and respect afforded to other totally disabled veterans. Thank you for your time and consideration and your support to New Milford's veterans.

Okay, next we have Irene Scriballo. Name and address in five minutes. Thank you.

It looks like how I feel. Hi, Irene Scriballo, 205 Pumpkin Hill Road. Before I get started, I have something for Mr. DeBella. I had a question back on July 27th. There are phone numbers there you can text me when it's uploaded somewhere. I appreciate it, thank you. People have questions about ALPRs or automatic license plate readers. According to Deflock, a site out there on the internet, two sites in New Milford slash Gaylordsville have these devices. It seems that the mayor has told folks that they are CTDOT installs. I submitted a FOIA request to the DOT. The camera at Cedar Hill and Church Street is on a CLMP post and it's apparently a frost weather device used to monitor flooding and road conditions. According to Lieutenant LaFond, I don't know. No, he's not here. He was very nice and got back to me very quickly. This is accurate. This is not a DOT camera. The devices at the intersection of 7 and 55 are CT DOT installs and are go-through cameras, not flock-type cameras, which are collaborative. When I was working, I like to tell my users it's in the cloud, so it's not locally on their computer. Cameras like Mobotix, which is a German company on Route 55, could act as LPRs if upgraded, and this can actually be done remotely. You won't see anyone shimmying up a pole. CTDOT in the past has cooperated with state and municipal police. If the DOT passes this data on, the data's out there, and no one has control as to where it actually goes. So why is this concerning? While red light and speed cameras capture images when a crime is committed, ALPRs capture the plates of every single car that goes by, no matter what. This info can be aggregated, creating a digital tracking system which undermines traditional privacy. So where's this information going? Is it being sold to third parties? Can it be used to do more harm than good? Many new Milford residents and beyond are asking these very questions. On the state level, there has been legislation passed regarding these issues. We had SB4, an act concerning consumer privacy, which passed in the spring. It prevents the selling of your geolocation data collected by LPRs. Brian Fazio, who's running for governor, voted no. He's okay with selling your data. SB397, an act concerning use and retention of data derived from ALPRs, goes into effect on October 1st. It limits ALPR data retention to 21 days absent a criminal investigation. So guess who voted no on this? I'll give you a hint. He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows if you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good. Yes, New Milford Santa, Bill Buckbee, voted no. He's okay with keeping your data indefinitely, as well as Mr. Harding, Callahan, Bushbaum, and the candidate for governor, Mr. Fazio. Aggregating vast logs of vehicle movements creates a 24-7 digital tracking system that undermines traditional privacy. This is uncharted territory. Connecticut is the Constitution State, and New Milford should uphold the highest laws in the land and respect the right to privacy under the Fourth Amendment until the state decides to catch up. This isn't a right or left issue. Libertarians are firmly against, well, true libertarians are firmly against this. This has bipartisan support of the people. Mayor, I'm going to address you directly. You should look out for your constituents and their privacy. Buck the trend of your party. I believe you when you say there are no ALPRs or flock type cameras in New Milford. So I'm going to make a suggestion. Towns like West Hartford, Milford, and Norwalk are struggling with how to respond. If there are no cloud-processed or even closed ALPR systems in town, be proactive and stand up for the Fourth Amendment and privacy of your citizens. Ban automatic license plate readers. And by ALPRs, I mean, I don't mean flock, I mean all of them, Motorola, Vigilant, Axon, Rector, Burkata, and Quorum, and there are probably more. say no to surveillance and in the meantime i'm going to ask all the people in new milford to document these cameras specifically at the town line approaches on 7 south 7 north 202 northeast and southeast don't automatically assume they're an alpr do a little homework reach out to the dot don't harass lieutenant lafond i don't want to bombard him with information we have about 200 miles of roads in New Milford that's a lot to surveil if you see something let the mayor know and we can do this together by pulling together as a town now to those who say if you have nothing to hide you should be fine I'll answer arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say now I got the technical information for all the cameras on seven and fifty five and i also have the upgrade for the license plate reader for the moto bix i guess i'll leave it with okay thank you for your time thank you perfectly timed next we have jackie eaton

Hi, everyone. Jackie in Redwood Lane in Milford. I'd like to thank the 9-11 Committee and the VFW and our fire departments for another beautiful 9-11 ceremony. I practice Never Forget every day in my job, with my friends that I work with who are there, and kind of everything I do. And I wanted to be sure that the town of New Milford is aware of the free 9-11 curriculum offered by Tunnel to Towers. I sent the BOE an email with the link, but wanted to mention it tonight as a resource for all homeschool families as well as for anyone interested in eyewitness video accounts and vetted firsthand stories. It's a very robust 9-11 curriculum that's free via download, and there's a million resources that go behind it to support anyone who's interested in teaching about 9-11. The Tunnel to Towers 9-11 Institute, I work for, Offers full scripted age appropriate curriculum units for educators. All units are based on non-fiction accounts of the day and include multiple lessons, learning activities, and background for instructors to ensure ease of implementation. Units have been developed by experienced educators within the 9-11 community. Our lessons meet learning standards and teach children about the day while also teaching an important skill. We also have a virtual tour link to our traveling 9-11 Never Forget mobile exhibit that I encourage you all to go check out. It's a virtual tour inside of our 1,100 square foot mobile museum, which is fascinating, and the tours are given by our FDNY eyewitnesses. And also there's links to our 9-11 speaker series and 9-11 stories that's available to anybody. So all you need to know is on t2t.org under the 9-11 Institute program. And I'm happy to answer any questions. And if anyone wanted more information or if the Board of Ed or anybody wants any more information, it's all really easily accessible. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. And lastly, we have Adrian Bigelow Kern.

Mention your address and you have five minutes. Thank you. Thanks.

Good evening. Adrian Bigelow Kern, 76 Second Hill Road here in the Milford. Tonight, I just wanted to start by talking about this wonderful book. I got this at Honeybee Books and Tea. If you didn't know, If they don't have the book you want, you can order it. So that's why I wanted, that's a new thing that they have there. And I thought that was important to share with the community. And this book with all the little cats on the couch, just read a little bit from the back. There's always room. is a gentle, joyful story about kindness, friendship, and welcoming others with open paws. With bright, imaginative scenes and a message that hugs you right back, it's a heartwarming read for cuddling up at bedtime or sharing again and again. Perfect for curious readers, thoughtful gift givers, and families who believe everyone deserves a seat. So especially in times like this, I thought that was a great book to talk about. And then one of the reasons I wanted to share it because change starts at home and knowledge is power. So one of the first times I came here, I asked about our funding for our library. And once again, I'm curious what our plans are for the future of New Milford we have our wonderful library that has been upgraded so in these times we need to have our eyes wide open as to what's happening in our country and how it could impact this town Our own Connecticut Attorney General, William Tong, had to join the coalition suing to stop the dismantling of federal agencies that support libraries. And the coalition did win. So let's just pause for a moment to realize that our federal dollars had to be sued for to support our libraries in Connecticut. And then, since the last time I was here, and also speaking of libraries and an amazing supporter of reading, Dolly Parton passed away on August 25th. We had the flags lowered for her. We lost an absolute legend, not just in the music world, but across all walks of life, from entertainment to charity bringing joy to millions, she touched all of us in some way. She grew up in poverty, never forgetting her roots. Her net worth would have been well over $1 billion, but she, it's estimated, gave away more than half of that through her life. And I won't go through all of them. We don't have time for all of it. We don't know all of it. She did because she didn't do it for the attention. In 1988, she launched Dollywood Foundation in Tennessee with the goal of increasing the number of high school students graduating in the county. Then in 1996, she started the Imagination Library, which gives children a book every month from birth to age five, starting locally in that county, and now it's international. My family and I were lucky enough that it was still available here in New Milford, so one of the books that my daughter got was Dolly Parton's I Am a Rainbow. And just, have you ever been tickled pink, green with envy, or maybe just plain blue? Celebrate the colorful variety of feelings we all share with the legendary Dolly Parton. And then each book had questions and things to talk about. So, but it's just kind of a time to reflect, how can we all be more like Dolly Parton? So a couple of ways, show kindness, gratitude, humility, and generosity in her honor. Remember that you're not the most important person in the room, no matter who you are. Share, keep only what you need and give the rest to those less fortunate. And Dolly wouldn't want us to be sad about her passing. She'd want us to go out and make sure her legacy lives on. One quote from her is, If I'm remembered a hundred years from now, I hope it will not be for looks, but for the books. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Tom Kepsiak. I live at 94 Long Mountain Road. When Attorney DiBella raised the issue at the last meeting about a noise ordinance, I took some time to try to learn a little about the issue. In the interest of minimizing the negative impact of inappropriate noise on nearby workplaces, public facilities, and residences, My sense is that the town will be in the best position if it creates a process that allows it to be proactive rather than reactive to the issue of disruptive noise so that the incidence of such disruptive noise is minimized and the impact of it is mitigated where it cannot be prevented. To that end, I recommend that the town establish a permitting process to regulate and manage the occurrence of potentially disruptive noise that is similar to the process for the permitting and oversight of other regulated activities in the town. It is important to note that the town already has the beginnings of an overall process that I am suggesting. Section 6 of the town zoning commission's performance standards addresses noise issues. Chapter 25 of the town's charter describes the process for the enforcement of regulations where a violation has occurred. It would seem to be prudent to build on what we already have as regulations and process and make adjustments as needed to improve what is currently in place. The areas of potentially disruptive noise that warrant regulation would be including the construction, renovation, maintenance of an industrial, commercial, or residential facility, or the related site work where the town would include in its review of the facilities that are proposed or actively under construction or maintenance, A confirmation that the operation of the facility or the necessary construction, renovation or maintenance, repair and replacement will not contribute to unacceptable noise to the area adjacent to the facility before the work or certificate of occupancy is issued or a permitted renovation is given final approval. Where the noise is anticipated to be limited to construction renovation or repair maintenance, the permit could be conditional, limiting the time of the day and the days per week of the noise. Where the anticipated noise is expected to be an inherent part of the operation of the facility, permitting would be contingent on the owner complying with the town's noise regulations. The second category would be group gatherings or entertainment events that would include the use of amplification equipment to broadcast music or spoken word. The the next section is the construction done by contractors engaged by the town where the contract for the work would specify the days and times during which the word work would occur. And then finally, was the issue of emergency work undertaken in response to a natural disaster or an accident that threatens the community's well-being, which would include the removal of debris, from and the securing of storm damaged structures and residents to allow them to be at least minimally functional. The restoration of utilities serving the community and the repair replacement of roadways and other municipal structures such as bridges, dams and the stream containments. Where needed, the response to an emergency could be managed under the emergency declaration from an appropriate municipal administrator, which would include the description of the work that can occur free of constraints on noise volume or time of day that would otherwise apply to non-emergency settings. Just one minute. Okay, non-essential cleanup and restoration work would be governed by the normal constraints. I suggest that unpermitted disruptive events be managed under the existing breach of priests, beach of priests regulations, avoiding the police involvement where possible. I suggest that the town council form a temporary committee to review the areas where the regulation of noise is needed and to develop a required set of regulations which will be consistent with the town's other regulations and procedure. I expect this effort will be more complicated than simply creating an ordinance, although an ordinance may be part of the regulations that are ultimately adopted. I'm sorry this is such a dense thing to talk about. I will send you all a copy via your emails. Thank you. Thank you.

Katie.

Okay, I am for A and B. I'd like to move that we approve both. They have the prior minutes and the tax collector.

I have a motion. I have a second. Thank you, Tom. Discussion?

Yep. I have several things to say.

It would take a while, so I'd ask for everyone's patience with that. For one thing, there were two meetings on August 24th. There was a special town meeting, and the minutes were not included in here, so we'll have to bring that next time, I guess.

Those aren't approved by the council.

Do they get approved by anyone, or...? The town. Just the town doesn't? Okay. All right. Second one is in Section 3. I'd like to request that my written statement be included in the record along with the other written statements because I felt like the description of my statement was a bit understated. So I'm just passing that forward.

Which meeting is that?

That's for the July 27th. meeting were these given at the meeting that was i i did verbally out loud i'm just asking that the transcript be included july 27th 2026. is that allowable you can submit it as an active file good sure thank you okay um In section 6B, again on July 27th, 26th, it says that it was a Freedom of Information Act request by Hillary Ram and Councilman Rosenberg. It wasn't my Freedom of Information Act request, it was hers. And so the words and Councilman Rosenberg should be stricken from the record at that point. Further, because the record currently reads that the mayor, quote, stated that the town was not aware of the issue until notified by the state of the FOI compliance complaint, I would ask that the record also include the email chain beginning January 7th, 2026, from me to Mayor Bass, attaching Ms. Ram's FOIA request.

Was this talked about? Is that what you're saying, Eric?

Yes, it was talked about.

Just as it's written here?

Yes, we can attach that to tonight's meeting minutes, but it should be a matter of public record that the mayor was informed of that FOIA request as early as January 7th, and he responds in that email chain to me on January 8th, saying, hi Ari, thanks for the email, this will be on the January 26th town council agenda, have a great rest of the day. So he clearly received it on January 8th, regardless of what was stated on July 27th. I would also ask that the official meeting minutes from the January 26th meeting be included in the record for tonight's meeting. Those minutes include not only my statements about Ms. Ram's FOIA request, but also statements from the mayor and the town attorney who affirmed that the mayor must acknowledge receipt in four days, which the mayor did not comply with. Anyone who watches the video from January would be unable to deny that the mayor was well aware of the FOIA request. As I said before, the people of this town are intelligent. They will not be gaslighted. They will see what's in the video if they want to look at it. In section 10B3, It states Ms. Francis motion to approve $74,069.77 for the New Milford Police Department to purchase a new vehicle out of the town surplus funds. It should be revised to add that the motion was seconded by Diane Claife by phone and that the motion was passed unanimously. That's not in the meeting minutes, but it should be in there. In section 10B4, regarding spending $300,000 of surplus funding on a plow truck. It should not read that Mr. Rosenberg abstained. Rather, it should read that I was opposed. I wanted the funding to be set aside to bring down the mill rate in the next budget. I voted in favor of several expenses, but not that one. um in section yeah she says so listen to this uh on recording sure you said that you did i was opposed you opposed yeah yeah and i used the word opposed when i said it okay so easier to find thanks similarly in section 10 b 4c regarding spending 120 000 for an undercarriage vehicle wash system it should not read that mr rosenberg abstained rather it should read that i was opposed because I felt it was a frivolous expense. In section 10B4C regarding a discussion and possible action on Councilman Rosenberg's request for DPW Director Jack Healy's credentials, my name should be stricken from that motion. I did not request that to be part of the Town Council agenda. It was the mayor's unilateral decision to bring it to town council and to waste over half an hour in a highly politicized public display of such uncivil behavior as town council members pointing their fingers at me, making personal attacks at me, And the mayor himself threatening to FOIA me if I didn't reveal who asked for Mr. Healy's credentials. It's all on video. It's precisely that kind of uncivil behavior on the part of the mayor and his friends that made his comments about eye rolling so obviously hypocritical. The record should record that council member Rosenberg stated, quote, I feel intimidated, as anyone can see in the video. In section 10B5D, regarding rules and procedures, I just want to note that the first person to violate the motion banning the reply all was in fact Ms. Francis the very next day, followed by Mr. Rankowitz, followed by Mr. Murphy. Further, the minutes should reflect what is meant by item one. It stands in violation of town charter section 404F, which mandates that quote, said agenda shall contain all items submitted to the mayor by any member of town council. It is clearly not within the mayor's sole discretion, nor must it be submitted seven days in advance. And while we're at it, seven days, exactly seven days. So if it were submitted eight days in advance, it would not be included.

Excuse me?

What I'm saying is that where it says item one, it should be specified in that section because it's not clear. It is attached deep, you know, it's a really long meeting minutes. The attachment is in there later, but it should have the specific wording in there.

We'll take that there, but then the other. items that you're opining on?

There are, yes. The meeting minutes should not state that I abstained from the motion. Rather, it should acknowledge that I was the one town council member opposed to it, as anyone can see on the video recording. Likewise, the record should state that I was opposed to the reply all rule. Subsequently violated by the one who made the motion and the others who voted to support it. Similarly, the record should say that I was also opposed to the motion that the rules and procedures refer to the mayor as the chief executive officer. Town council rules and procedures should neither violate the town charter nor be redundant of information already contained there. They can only add to what is in the town charter to the extent that they did not violate it. And lastly, regarding the August 24th, 2026 minutes, it says a future agenda item was proposed concerning automatic license plate reader cameras. It should state that it was proposed by council member Rosenberg, and it should have been on the agenda tonight as the public was led to believe by the mayor that night. Why was it not on the agenda tonight?

We're still getting more information on the cameras because people, as was talked about today, are thinking that their LPRs, ALPRs, are already here, and they are not.

But we could have a moratorium before they're here, could we not?

Well, I think we want to get all of our information, Ari, before we make a decision such as that.

Well, I mean, I have enough information right now to know that I want a moratorium, but ALPRs, and it's not just me. There's a lot of people in the moratorium here.

And the grandstanding, can we please move on with this?

You do know a lot about grandstanding, but you're interrupting me, and I'm having a conversation right now. Mr. Rosenberg, can you reconstruct yourself, ma'am?

I'm sorry, I can't hear you, because I'll speak in. This is about the minutes of a meeting that you're asking to abbreviate or to change. This isn't about asking about things that are going to be on an agenda.

Well, I would ask that it mention that I proposed it. Every other motion gets named who proposed it, and I think that it should. Thank you.

Thank you.

Do you want that to go into the stuff you were talking about?

Do I want, no, these are just my personal notes here. Thank you.

Okay. All right. So we had a motion and we had a second.

Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Any abstentions? Thank you.

Item 5, I'd like to move for a reappointment of Corey Linder to the Board of Finance as an alternate, term being September 14, 2026. I second it.

I'm sorry. I'm so confused.

Did we approve the meetings as they were written or as amended with those changes? Wait.

You're talking about what you started before? What do you mean? Did we approve it?

It was, there was a first, there was a second, I asked for changes to be made. Are the changes going to be made? Or that wasn't clear.

I acknowledge your changes. I don't make them. They just, in the next minutes, there'll be all the changes that you asked for. So they will be in there. They don't get changed, physically changed in the minutes. It'll be the next seven minutes.

you okay all right item five again uh term september 14 2026 to january 31st 2027. thank you thank you any discussion all is in favor aye opposed any abstentions thank you mayor's comments thank you i'd like to start off first with uh as was said before very eloquently uh

wonderful 9 11 ceremony wanted to thank tammy reardon and the entire committee for putting on the ceremony special thank you to dan sullivan who's been chairing that 9 11 committee for many years so a big thank you to dan as well i want to thank all our first responders including our new milford police department honor guard chiefs ruda who is leading us in the pledge of allegiance i want to thank the boy scouts and retired marine veteran warren hengel and the vfw and american legion for the flag ceremony that we had during the 9 11 ceremony also want to thank retired colonel jerry monahan the retired navy commander mike erickson with the presentation of colors also wanted to thank deacon gambone for the invocation thank you to congresswoman hayes uh state senator harding state representative buckbee state representative callahan and bucksbaum for their words as well And I wanted to thank the committee for allowing me to say a few words and also lay the wreath at the ceremony. And as I said before, not only at the ceremony but here as well, this is something we should be telling our younger generation who some have not even lived when 9-11 happened about that fateful day. I want to also say Saturday was National Women Law Enforcement Day. So I want to thank you to the men and I want to thank the women of the Milford Police Department, past and present. Matter of fact, we have Lieutenant here as well for all their efforts in keeping our wonderful community safe. A special acknowledgement to Officer Francis, called Franny, Alex, who was the Milford Police Department's first female police officer. She served in Milford Police Department for 29 years. Those who knew and worked with her described her as upbeat, cheerful, and having a wonderful spirit. That's for sure. And she was a true testament to New Milford. And we thank her in memorial and to her family. I want to congratulate the New Milford High School varsity football team for their win over Harding, 49 to 6, opening up the season with a nice win. 49 to 6. Congratulations to the New Milford Bulls 9U and 13U for their shutout wins. Another great job by all of New Milford cheer as well. Go Bulls. I want to congratulate the New Milford High School Marching Band and Color Guard for their second place finish and their win for best music caption in the Class 4 Open at Bunnell High School as well. I want to congratulate the Milford High School varsity field hockey team as they defeated Pompadour last week, one to nothing, starting off their season with a nice win. Also, this past weekend, a big, huge thank you to Tom and Bob. They did the car show for Wheels for Wheels and also Front Fest. And that was in honor of Sean Quigg, who started Wheels for Wheels and that. is a wonderful organization that helps those in need especially adaptive those in wheelchairs access he did a couple for a couple of restaurants on railroad street to allow for those and it's keeping sean's dream alive so thank you to tom mia bob and the entire board and the athletes were amazing that were there performing at the skate park adaptive Also, the Cub Scouts, PAC 467, did their rain gutter regatta here on the green. And it was a great event to see the young Cub Scouts actually building their regattas and working as a team. And it's great if you do have a young child that's interested in the Cub Scouts. Check out PAC 467. They're always looking for youngsters to join them. Big thank you to the I know Paul you're part of that the Irish American Litchfield Irish American Club for a very successful Irish festival big huge. Thank you, and that organization has given over 150 thousand dollars to Community members in need so a big huge. Thank you to them I want to thank a chamber president Patty Ohlberg and the entire board last weekend they had their chamber clam bake at Canterwood Valley Country Club and Thank you to the sponsors Bakewell and Mulhare, New James Wine and Spirits, Nicholas Tobin Insurance, and The Country Club. It's great. It's a nice place for business owners and managers to get together and network. Also, New Milford's own Savannah Banana, Jackson Olsen, will be one of the contestants on this 35th season of America's Dancing with the Stars. They have two premiere nights, which is going to be tomorrow night and Wednesday night, September 15th and 16th. They're pretty certain that his dance partner, Emma Starr, and he will be performing tomorrow night. The airtime is 8 p.m. Make sure on Tuesday night you vote for Jackson and Emma. And he's just such a wonderful young man, big star. Savannah Bananasi comes back. and pays back to the community here with the kids especially, those baseball and softball kids from the Milford Youth Baseball and Softball Program. He also donated the scoreboard to the softball team down there. So a big, huge thank you to he and his entire family.

Can I ask how you vote if you're watching it on television?

I believe you call it in. I mean, there's numbers you can call in and get a call. Really? Like a telephone? Yep, call or text them in. Okay, all right.

I don't watch it, so okay.

I want to thank Victoria our grant writer we were able to this year get over 21 bikes this year with grant funding to help children who need bikes those in need especially we did some for our special need kids this year which is great officer big congratulations to officer cab he is our employee of the month And while he was off duty hiking with his family out of state, he heard someone calling for help on the trail. A woman was calling out looking for help for her brother who's having a heart attack. 911 was called it was over 30 minutes before the medics arrived officer cab monitored the patient's vital vitals helped guide the emergency personnel to the area due to the rugged terrain that they were at the patient was airlifted to the hospital and officer cab was credited to saving this person's life so a big huge thank you to him to true spirit chief to your department and to our wonderful town I want to thank the Western Connecticut Coalition President, Rudy Marconi, who is also the Selectman in Ridgefield, also the Executive Director, Allison Fulton, and the entire Board, as I was presented with the Carl Bagley Community Asset Builder Award. For those who don't know what Western Connecticut Coalition does, it's a data-driven, evidence-based prevention model developed by Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services. uh they access their they assess their prevention needs based on epitological data they build a prevention capacity for entire area they have developed a strategic plan they implement effective community prevention programs policies and practices evaluate their efforts and outcome Their mission is to promote behavioral health and continuing care and to enhance the quality of life at every stage. And New Milford is part of their 44 towns that they serve. another thing that they do that I think is extremely important is they do a survey of our students here in New Milford and that survey tells us a lot a lot of data tells them about what is concerning to them what's on their minds how they perceive our town their parents themselves it's something I know the board of ed uses as well as our town through the youth agency so a big huge thank you to Allison and the entire uh board for that uh i spoke with chief ceruto today we had our weekly meeting and our weekly statistics are as follows motor vehicle stops we've had 2 713 for the year so far motor vehicle accidents in the year 2025 was 634 119 were in parking lots so far this year we have 630 106 in parking lots we are down uh four year over year i remind you last month when we talked about it our numbers were still a little higher than last year that was due to all the weather related but those numbers have come down due to their vigilance enforcement also We, as drivers, with our self-awareness, self-responsibility, and also education, I think all those are driving some numbers down, which is very positive. Our car crash, our crash car is currently at Addis Park for awareness, and that will be moved all throughout the town so it shows people what happens can happen to you if you get into a car crash. We also continue to offer pedestrian and bike safety vests. Fatality so far in so far in 2026. I'm knocking on here is 0. So we'd like to keep that way for the rest of the year. That would be tremendous. also at zero was fatalities or drownings on our lake and river courses so a big huge thank you to our nemo for police department also to our park rangers also to our park and rec team also to our fire department our first responders to see those numbers down, which is great. Restaurant week kicks off on September 23rd at 19 Main from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. We're having our Sip and Savor event. That's where 10 restaurants will compete for best appetizer and cocktail. That starts at 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. There'll be a raffle there also to benefit our New Milford Food Bank. And for those that may have seen, here on Main Street, North and South and Railroad Street, Connecticut DOT has installed traffic counters, and they count cars as they pass. The data will be used for future traffic studies, including traffic light syncing. So if you do see those on those signs, that's what they are. Also, some of the events that are going on in town. But before I do that, first light is beginning. They're going to be beginning their drawdowns on our lakes. So starting off with Lake Lillanova, Lake Lillanova, beginning on October 26th, they'll initiate a drawdown of Lake Lillanova at the Shepard Dam to conduct its annual maintenance and inspection activities. The normal summer operating range of the station is from 200 to 195.5. The drawdown will target an elevation of 190.5. The drawdown will lower lake levels to a minimum pond levels and aim to return to normal operating levels November 4th as the river conditions allow. All homeowners are encouraged to remove structures, boat lifts, and docks from Lake Illinois to prevent ice and flood damage from occurring during the winter months. All work planned to occur along the shoreline requires prior permitting from First Light. You can contact them at www.firstlightpermits.com. Candlewood Lake is the operator of the Rocky River pumped hydro storage station. Most of us know they're going to initiate their deep drawdown season. And that also includes Squants Pond. And that'll be from November 1st as weather continues. And usually the drawdown has typically been initiated between December and February with the exact start date determined by weather patterns and planned maintenance timelines. The trend toward warmer and wetter winter weather, widely attributed to climate change, has and many continue to push the drawdown to this later timeframe. The deep drawdown executed in consultation with the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Canterwood Lake Authority will be completed with water levels returning to normal summer operating ranges prior to Memorial Day. A deep drawdown is scheduled for this year. The normal summer operating range for the station is from 429.5 to 427. And the deep drawdown will target an elevation of 418, with a two-inch winter operations pumping and generation range from 418 to 420. This is due to unknown weather patterns. Homeowners, again, are strongly encouraged to remove their structures. Boat lifts docks from Canoa Lake before the winter season to prevent damage along the shoreline. Again, you're going to need a permit for any kind of work that you're going to be doing along the shoreline. Go to www.firstlightpermits.com. Also, things that are happening in town. is beginning this week is we have September 17th 6 30 p.m we have our last rock the block of the year the band is struggle month monkey the rain date is September 24th if you haven't been to these it's a wonderful event uh bring a lawn chair Bring something to eat, or there's plenty of restaurants that can satisfy what you're hungering for, and it's a great time to be with family, friends, and enjoy a great concert. Youth Football Night is September 18th at the New Milford High School for the Green Wave Home Game. It's against Bristol Eastern. On September 20th at 1 p.m. at the Big Y is the Walk a Mile. This is the fundraiser. Where you can go and purchase non-perishable foods and you have the opportunity to either walk from Big Y all the way up to the First Congregational Church parish house or you can leave them in a bin and they can be driven up or you can drive them up. and this is all to help the New Milford Food Bank. September 24th, 5.30 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. at the library is Lawyers in the Library. These are scheduled 20-minute sessions, pro bono, so if you have some legal questions, these lawyers can help out. September 25th, 7 p.m., Green Wave, the next home game. This is Staff Appreciation Night. It's New Milford High School versus Bassick. September 26th and 27th at Bank Street Theater is the Manhattan Film Festival, and thank you to the Milford Film Commission as well. Then on September 26th, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., the sixth annual in the Milford Apple Festival and Apple Bake Off. also on the 26th is the annual quaker sale and that's at pettibone october october 3rd 8 a.m to 4 p.m at pettibone is the hrra hazardous waste collection day so if you have some old paints some hazardous wastes that you want to get rid of you can do that there riverfest is on october 3rd from 10 a.m to 6 p.m on young's field and then the merwinsville gala is at marinesville hotel 6 30 p.m to 8 30 p.m so lots of great stuff going on some other things too as well was there's been a lot of conjecture concerning uh our meeting uh i know film part of a clip was uh brought out by social media and also in the newspaper when it came to concerns that I know I had personally with really the negativity that's been going on in town. Also talked about how we as a community can behave with one another. And maybe I was a little too passionate when I was talking about it at that time. And that passion sometimes gets the best of all of us. But tonight I'd like to take a few moments with at least this part. I know it was pretty much a, to the council, the big thing wasn't so much of Robert's Rules of Order or how we conduct our businesses as a community in a business-like manner, but people took to the term eye rolling. And that was kind of the whole vernacular of how this thing was entailed, is eye rolling, is you can't stop me from eye rolling, or there's a problem with eye rolling. So tonight, there may be some on your chairs there. We're going to start a little bit with Robert's Rules of Order. And Robert's Rules of Order, if you could pass these on, Kate. Robert's Rules of Order. I never made up Robert's Rules of Order. This is just how our council meetings are functioning, right? I've also put in the procedures according to our town council for our council as well. So if we could kind of take a look at that. if you need if i'm not bringing them all out please appreciate that and then as you can put in the minutes too is our uh as ari had mentioned before here's our council rules and procedures so if anybody needs one of those just let me know so definitely for kind of a quick guide for um our policies and our procedures it talks about orders of business We have a call to order. We have a roll call. We have a pledge of allegiance that we do here, approval of minutes, presentations, proclamations, public participation and comment, which we absolutely want. And the reason why I was so passionate is I go to a lot of events. I go out quite a bit. You may have seen that on some of the social media. And what I hear time and again from people is that they're afraid to come here. They're afraid to get involved. They're afraid if they get up here on this podium that they're going to get heckled. They're afraid, especially on social media, if they talk about it, they're going to get slammed. Some people can be very, very helpful in a border commission. And they say, Pete, this stuff that's on social media is crazy. All the negativity, it's horrible. I'm not going to get involved. I don't want to get involved. So my passion was more of hoping that New Milford would kind of stay out of the fray of what's going on nationally. Unfortunately, it's crept into our town. And we should get back to being more civil with one another. We should get back with having a dialogue, difference of opinion, absolutely. one of the things I want to bring forward to the attention of the council is talks about bringing business forward making amendments voting requirements and it talks about the common parliamentary motions in a cheat sheet and you go to page two it talks about council member decorum and it also talks about public participation in gallery rules if you go down to the bottom where it says gallery and audience conduct Now, this is not me. This is Robert's Rules of Order. That's what we follow here. And the Robert's Rules of Order say booing, clapping, cheering, shouting, or vocal outbursts from the gallery are strictly forbidden. Mass nonverbal disruptions, coordinated nonverbal demonstrations, such as mass turning of backs, synchronized eye rolling, collective silent hand gestures or holding up disruptive signs are treated as active disturbances that disrupt orderly proceedings. So it says that exactly in Robert's Rules of Order. And you can see the footnotes and references. It wasn't me that said that there should be no eye rolling. That's what it says. And I also say just common sense. If we were listening to someone giving a book report or if we were in our own business and we were talking about town's business, would that be the kind of behavior that we would want? I don't think so. So that was one of the things. When we go to procedures from the charter itself, It says all meetings of the town council for the transaction of business shall be open to the public when in session and all regular meetings shall afford to provide the electors of the town an opportunity to address the town council with suggestions. I brought this up at the meeting after the first meeting when I was being very passionate. And one of the things I wanted to commend the council was that we want to hear from everyone. So appreciated that fact. But the procedures of the actual charter, which has been talked about here prior, that's what the procedure said as well. Also our policies and procedures. We've all got a copy of that. You've seen that they remain kind of silent when it comes to these two things. But I am hoping that we work in a very business like fashion. Hear everyone and move forward. I think that's super appropriate and important. Next, I'd like to move on to the next one and we talked a little bit about it was mentioned during the. adjustment of minutes was FOI and about who saw FOI, who got FOI, how does all that FOI work. It was also brought up and it was in the other minutes that we also have Dave Watson is here, he's helping me with IT because we're going to open that up in a minute or so, about how somebody can say that they saw something but if it's not from the actual person and we don't see it unless it's in a spam account, that's difference. That's a difference. But then you talk about, well, geez, I put in an FOI request and it's taking forever. How does all that work? Well, how it works is that when FOIs come in, depending on what office it goes into, it then has a process. So if it comes to the mayor's office, there's only three of us there. There's me and there's two admin that are there. Now, not only on top of FOI requests, but we have to help with everything else that we do. So FOIs does state during course of business, am I correct, Randy? That it does not impede course of business, is that correct, FOI?

It has the same priority of other businesses.

Correct, correct, but it doesn't stop you from doing- No, we don't do anything. Correct.

We conduct business.

Right. So one of the things that I did is for the public to understand how many of these we do get. Dave, can you pop up? We are now putting up on our website the FOIs. So you yourself can see them. So this will be on the town website. Now we're building these out. So we have some on there now, but you'll be seeing more and more go on as we put those, as we are putting those on. So Dave, you could tell everybody where they're going to go. They're going to go to government.

Yeah, so I just navigated there, but I can do it again real quick. From the homepage of newmilford.org, you click on government. And then on the left-hand pane, I zoomed in so you could read better. Awesome. Over here on the left-hand side, we have FOIA. And here are the requests, including a picture of the request, a link to that document that's the original request, as well as the name of the requester and the approximate time spent by the municipal employees on that request.

Now, there's the link that will take you to the actual FOI request, you'll see, as we'll be billing those out. So you, the public, will be able to see that. Now, what else we put on there, too, is the man hours it's going to take for these requests. Now use about I think it's we're figuring out things like 2966 or if you want to round it out $30 per hour. To satisfy these requests. Now that's taking time away from what somebody else could do or whatever else they do, but there is a numerator for these. And we will be continuing to add those. We just began and started this and building this out. So you'll see many more of those. And they come in all sorts of flavors, all sorts of different things. But you, the public, will be able to see these FOIs, when they came in, and how much they cost. Because there's a true cost to that.

Yes.

So these are sent to your office and from your office.

They could be sent to my office. They could be sent to public works. Right. They could be sent to the police department. They could be sent to zoning. They could be sent to the town clerk. They could be sent all over the place.

And will they be all of those be here? Yep.

They're all going to be housed on this site. And that's why it's going to take some time as we're getting all this to build this out so that you the public can see that what they are and then what the cost is going to be in man hours what's the cost today when they're completed you can just come and take a look yeah i would suggest you just come and check them out as we put them in there is this the status quo or this is the uh this is what's in the system no there's there's more we're building it out so there's going to be many more they're going to go that's why i was asking retroactively to get something and we're also yep So you're going to see more as we get them.

She sent us to Hartford not once, twice at least. We have all that.

We have different, everything will be on there. I think it went to Hartford because it wasn't the answer.

I'm also making a statement.

So right now, excuse me, right now I have the floor and we're going to continue on with FOI. Next. Thank you, Dave. I appreciate that. So everybody knows you can go town website, click again where, Dave? Under the government tab on top. And then you can click down to FOI and you have that.

Simple and easy.

Simple and easy. That's right.

That's great.

Now, the next one, which was FOI. And it was FOI'd by two people. One was FOI'd by Mr. Joe Baker, who is the head of the Democratic Town Committee. Also, he is one of the Democratic State Central Committee members for this area. So Mr. Baker wanted to see my expense report. So good news, all you guys. We were able to pull it all together, and I have it all for all of you to look at. Also, I believe it was Mrs. Delancey, and she had requested similar stuff as well. So I compiled them all together, what everybody wants here. And I'm going to hand this out to the council. Also, you're going to have for the minute so you guys can see it. And what I'm going to do moving forward is now we've got this all prepared. So now it's going to be very easy. So starting, I started now for this. Then in January, I'm going to put them out again. So every six months, I'm going to give to you, the town council, my expense report so that you can see it. So Joe Baker, he can then look it up here, or the Democrats in Hartford can look it up in here and see what it is. So a little bit of light reading. So I'm going to hand these out to the members, but I just want to kind of go over that. Do you have this, Dave? Everybody could see this? Okay, what's on the, what do you have on the screen? Just that?

The three PDFs that you read off previously.

Okay, perfect. All right, so you're going to see the credit card statement, and when you do look at these, we only have one credit card. We don't have like 50, we have one. So on here, you're going to see stuff from my office. Some of them, believe it or not, which was on social media, I think a couple people opined on it too, was that shirts. My own troops. They're on. I'm representing the town has any business person you've been in business or if you work for business. I'm representing a town in the middle for I'm going out every day. So yeah, I spent shirts absolutely. There's conjecture that the town councilman expense shirts on the town dime. That is absolutely 1 million percent false. They paid out of their own pocket.

When that city today pulled out all my invoices, every shirt, every jacket I've ever bought on my credit cards, nothing to do with the town. And if I hear on social media or I see on social media again that somehow I'm embezzling funds from the state or the taxpayers. I will file a formal legal suit against that person.

I see you looking at me. I have never suggested that ever. I've commended you on your shirts. I like them very much. I asked you where you got them and I asked you how I could get them also. So that wasn't for me.

Sorry, I'm not addressing you. I'm addressing a woman that was out in social media today claiming that the mayor bought my shirts. No, he didn't. I did.

I believe you.

Anyway, you'll also see on here. Some of the things, obviously, I have working lunches, dinners, breakfasts, wherever I can talk to people, do things. I'm all about that. You'll also see opiate settlement accounts. That was for Narcan. But they don't have a credit card. The company wanted payment with a credit card, so we use the credit card. So you'll see that on there. You'll see the IT department, Dave's right here. There are some that won't take a check. Am I correct, Dave? Yes, sir. So you need a credit card. So you got a credit card here. Public works. right they need uh uh different items can only get it with a credit card my right job so you have the credit card credit card there uh also we have let's see what else we have on here too that's one month uh the youth agency needs a buzz sprout that was twelve dollars needed your credit card so you have that uh let's see what else we have uh Town clerk needed Quicken Books for something. So that's on there as well. So these are all in here. If you have any questions, please let me know. Be happy to go through all of these for you. So here's, I'm going to pass these all out. So here's for you.

This is one packet. Ari?

I commend you for doing this. I think the website's a good idea. Thank you, Ari. Have you considered adding the responses as well as the requests onto the website? We could do that, absolutely. Sure.

Great. Can we also do one more thing, if I can add? Those that were withdraw, because some of the FOIAs we have in the past, it was started and then it was said that someone withdraws the thing. So can we have that information too? Because the town still has to spend people's- Can you have the what? The withdrawals. Oh, yeah. Because we have those cases too, right? But you still have to prep for this thing, so people have to work on this. Absolutely. So that's a public amount of spending, something that actually goes nowhere. Yep.

Okay. I love transparency. It's great. I'm going to hand all these out.

You can just give me a minute.

Here's all of them. So we have that one. Okay.

Just for the disclosure, I have three shirts too. I bought them like five years ago. I figured it's a good thing to go to local business.

So each shirt, I don't know how much it cost me,

Individually, but it was about 115. I think it's a good thing to do.

I got about $400 tonight.

Okay, so Paul went hay wild on this thing. I didn't do it that way. So I figured 115 is a stretch.

I like your shirts very much. Are there particular businesses that you would promote?

I haven't finished it. So I think it's a good thing if anybody wants to spend some money on their local businesses.

Would you say which businesses?

The Fat City.

Was it Fat City? Yeah. Great.

Heather, she's great.

She's very good, yes.

I think it's very important when you're out in the public that the people can walk up to you and recognize you as a town council person and ask you questions and get the man on the street It's problem solved. Yeah, absolutely.

Just don't go, you can beat Paul if you want to go 500 bucks, but I won't do it. Okay, don't put it in the minutes. We're not going to bid for the shirts here. I think that's everybody, right?

No, the whole packet.

That's the packet.

That's the whole packet. But some of it's outside the clip. It shouldn't be. I don't know. We'll clip it.

No, it's a whole packet.

Yeah, I thought it was individual. So this is part of this packet? I guess so. I think so, yeah. So I'll just pass it down. Okay. Are there more copies?

Does everybody have a copy?

Okay.

No, they're coming.

There you go.

That's one packet. Okay. Now.

Got one for me?

Also lastly for me is Randy I know we talked about and we're going to be getting into the ordinances.

One of the main focuses of our ordinances, right, that I don't see on here this time is the veterans, is the 100%. If you could talk a little bit about that, Randy.

Brian and I are working on that. Brian is our assessor. He's done a great job. Compiling the information to craft a solid ordinance and we have looked at Middletown weather and he's on vacation. So when he gets back we anticipate been able to get that done pretty quickly.

The question was brought up to me today is the grand list is certified October 1st. Do we still have the ability we only have one meeting left is there a way that we can retroactive something like that.

The next meeting effective such as such a day, even though you it's good that you have to declare effective upon passage. OK because don't forget the the car requires the 21st day of the publication. But you can do that by way of the town council's legislative body determination that it will be effective on passage.

And I know hearing from some of our council people, I can only speak for myself, but it's the least we could do for our veterans and those that, you know, due to the VA, the way they do things over there, crazily kind of, still need, if you are disabled, you still should be able to get all of those benefits that are due you. So we're gonna continue to go with the process. We didn't forget. we're moving forward. Can you that's what I got. Thank you right day, but in that leaving out. They thank you and lastly just real quick is want to thank Dave and the entire team you may see now our new podium. So, Dave, could you talk a little bit about our podium that we have now?

Yeah, absolutely. So our old podium was essentially just a stand-up lectern, and most of the technology existed in here. The problem was when someone came in and wanted to project, oftentimes they want to bring their own computer. They're comfortable with it. They know how to get around it. and they would unplug our computer to project and then they would walk out of the room and the next person to try to present was a heck of a pickle because they hadn't the first idea of what they needed to do so now all of our technology is safely behind locking key inside of here and up on the top not only do we have as you can plainly see the microphone but we also have connectivity options in here so if they bring in a thumb drive and they want to plug in for their presentation as we just did simply plug it in on top they can also bring their own hdmi cable plug it in or we handily have one here with some adapters as well they plug in it takes over the screen with whatever they've connected and the moment they disconnect it it brings it back to the computer inside here So less anything else I haven't foreseen, they should be able to come in here and smoothly presents and just be able to go about the meeting without thinking about the technology, because that's the goal of my department is for no one to even think about the technology in front of them.

In order to talk about it so people can hear it. Do you have an extension for that microphone?

Do I have an extension for that?

Well, we have small people. We have people from Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, kids from school. And many people do not project their voice. So it is impossible to hear it on the recording. Is it possible to have a longer, larger, whatever?

You know, I'm genetically predisposed to having quite the voice. Anyone who knows, knows. But with that said, I would imagine we could probably figure out some way to facilitate that. Yeah, because there are people watch the videos and absolutely listening now they can hear you and I know the team responsible for these also has a number of other microphones about the room. So in the meantime, I'm sure they could jump in with any of the other offerings that we have.

Dave, thank you.

Thank you.

Great job and thank you for helping me out tonight. on your time for kind of doing that.

My pleasure.

Next, we'd like to move on to some great news from our pension chairman, Mr. Pilla.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the council, staff, and members of the public. My name is Tom Hiller, chairman of the Pension Committee. It's been 25 years that I've had the honor to serve on the Pension Committee. The committee also has great members. Walter O'Connor, Walter Baer, Dave Lawson, as well as the former members were very dedicated. They want to thank you for attending various pension meet committee meetings, your financial acumen has been very helpful to the committee. The town finance director over is the also the plans administrator does a great job. HR director Greg bolero and staff also do a great job maintaining the personal status of the pension plan. Keep in mind is 831. people involved with the plan those that are currently employed those that are collecting a pension and those that are deferred they're not eligible yet but they will get a pension so to manage 831 people that's a lot of work and this november we will get an update from our actuarial every late october november we get an update unfortunately if someone passed on god forbid Those that came on we get a census report. So to keep track of that is a lot of work. And all go like I said does a great job. Principal financial angel pension. The investment advisors and the experts. Oba informed me on Friday, this past Friday, that our pension assets hit a record high of $91.2 million. Ninety-one. In May, your meeting in May when I gave you a presentation, there were a little over $87 million. So, in a four-month period, we grew about $4 million in asset value. Over the last eight years, We go back to 2018. I have all the records. I got files that go back a long time. But the records, 2018, the asset value of the plant was 61 million. So eight years later, we're at 91 plus. So it's a $30 million increase over that eight years. That's 50% of the asset value of that time. It's unprecedented. I'm going to look once we get the results from the actuary. This November. I'm going to look to see if we can reduce the park contribution. It's a budgetary contribution. Actual recommended contributions call ARC. See that we can reduce that which helps us see what your budgetary needs and pressures on the budget. As you're aware. The town on July 1st, 2022, went to a 401 plan for all new hires, except for police, dispatch. The pension committee is also trustees of the OPEB trust. Other post-employment benefits, which is police, retirement. I'm very pleased to present these numbers to you tonight. I'm very proud. The committee's worked very hard over the years. We had a meeting this past August and the results are phenomenal. So I'm proud to bring that to you tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. That's just amazing to see it go up so much. How do you, what do you attribute it to? Why are we so wildly successful?

Well, it's our type of investments. We have international, we have national investments, we have real estate, fixed assets. We have a variety of investments. So we don't have it all in one pot. And they all grow. And Principal Financials are great. They've done a great job. Prior to that, it was John Hancock. Back in 2014 is when we changed and we chose Principal and Angel Pension because we interviewed, I don't know, a dozen companies, and we chose them. And it was a wise, wise choice because they've done great. And like I repeat again, I'm going to work very hard to try to get that arc down so that I help you with your budgetary need pressures. Thank you. The President Thank you very much for your sacrifice.

Great job.

Thank you, Tommy. Next, Chief.

Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, Council and members of the public. Very happy to be here tonight with Officer John Legan, our community outreach officer. And John works with his canine partner, Alamo, to help people within our community with different issues they're dealing with. John's primary focus is to understand people's place and where they are now, to provide them with support and resources within our community and region. and john often helps people within crisis and it's very important for our department and our community outreach officer to understand people before the crisis because then it could lead to a more positive outcome so john's here tonight to talk about the different ways he helps people within the community and uh to discuss a little bit about the successes that he's had helping people here so john thank you very much thank you for the introduction once again

I'm Officer Legan, K9 partner Alamo is just gonna do his thing right here. So I was born and raised here in New Milford. I attended New Milford Public Schools. This is a community where I grew up, celebrated many milestones here, and I have more in losses here as well. So when I decided to become a police officer, I knew there was really only one place where I wanted to serve, New Milford. I've now been a New Milford police officer for more than eight years, and it truly is an honor to serve my hometown. Since I first started on patrol, I've always been drawn to the community side of policing and finding ways to help people beyond simply responding to calls. Over the years, I've served as a child passenger safety technician, safety seat technician, and as an advisor to our wonderful police cadet program. I've had the opportunity to work with Special Olympics athletes and neurodivergent youth in our community, and I've participated in programs like our annual toy drive, shop with a cop since its inception, food drives, and many other community events. Then February 2025, I was paired up with my partner Alamo. Alamo's a two and a half year old English lab who serves our department as a facility dog. He was raised through Puppies Behind Bars, a program where incarcerated individuals help raise and train service and working dogs. So Alamo spent approximately the first year of his life being raised and trained by inmates in a prison. That program eventually got him to New Milford with me. His primary roles with our department are officer wellness, community outreach, and victim support. In the year and a half that Alamo and I have been together, we've had the opportunity to attend countless community and school events, visit preschools in our senior center, spend time with residents throughout town, and assist people during some incredibly difficult moments. Alamo gives us something you can't necessarily teach in a police academy. He makes us approachable. Dogs have a natural ability to break down barriers. Sometimes a person who might be hesitant to walk up and talk to a police officer has no hesitation walking over to pet a Labrador. And very often that simple interaction becomes a conversation. That conversation builds familiarity. Familiarity builds trust, and that trust can make a difference when someone needs our help. In June of this year, I was assigned to the community outreach officer position. stepped into the role that was shaped by my predecessors that you all know officer torah monitas and officer schneider both made valuable connections throughout new milford and helped build this position to what it is today i'm fortunate to have the opportunity to continue that work while also looking for new ways to expand it in the community when people hear the title community outreach officer they probably think more about the visible side of the job Those are programs many of you are familiar with, the Citizens Police Academy, National Night Out, Coffee with a Cop events, Shop with a Cop, school visits, community events, and the many other opportunities we have throughout the year to interact with residents outside of an emergency. Those programs are important. They allow residents to get to know their police officers as people, and they give us the opportunity to build relationships before someone ever has a reason to call 911. there is another side of this position that isn't nearly as visible and in many ways i believe it's the most important part of what i do community outreach also means working with some of the most vulnerable members of our community they may be someone experiencing homelessness it may be someone struggling with drug or alcohol addiction or mental illness It may be an at-risk young person, an elderly resident who no longer has the support system they once had, or simply someone who has reached a point in their life where they don't know where to turn for help. Police officers encounter these individuals regularly, but an arrest, an emergency room visit, or simply resolving today's immediate problem doesn't necessarily address what caused us to meet that person in the first place. That's where outreach becomes so important. A significant part of my job is connecting those individuals with the people and organizations that may be able to provide longer-term assistance outside of that emergency call. I work closely with many of our town agencies and community partners, and in no way is this list inclusive, including Social Services, the Youth Agency, the Health Department, Northwell-New Vance, Loaves and Fishes, and the Senior Center. Together, we share concerns, identify people who may need assistance, and work to make sure that someone doesn't simply fall through the cracks. That cooperation extends beyond New Milford as well. I work with regional and state organizations, including Protective Services for the Elderly, the Department of Mental Health, and Addiction Services, Catholic Charities, and AHRQ. The Homeless Shelter Coalition, and more recently, Councilman Rosenberg, through his work with AHRQ, have also done a tremendous amount of work helping provide shelter and assistance to members of our homeless population. The police department cannot solve all these problems alone, and we're not supposed to. That's what we have the community support for. What we can do is recognize when someone needs help, build relationships with the organizations that can provide that help, and make sure those connections actually happen. To me, that's what community policing is supposed to look like. It's not just being present when something goes wrong. It's being part of the community every day. Alamo and I also work at least part-time out of the police department annex down at the railroad station. When we're there, we try not to spend too much time sitting behind a desk. Quite often you'll catch us walking around downtown, talking with business owners, visiting with residents, and doing foot patrols throughout the area. Those simple interactions matter too. Every conversation, every handshake and in Alamo's case, probably every belly rub is another opportunity to strengthen the relationship between our department and the people we serve. I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity to serve in this position, and I'm excited about what we continue to build moving forward. New Milford isn't simply the town where I work, it's my hometown. And being able to give something back to the community that helps shape who I am is something I don't take for granted. So if you see Alamo and I walking around downtown, please stop and say hello. I can pretty much guarantee at least one of us would be happy to see you. uh like to thank you for your time and thank everybody for their continued support of the milford police department and the work we do it's a great community you deserve a belly rub also thank you chief

Mayor are we on to the next item? I'm very happy to have our team from Sightstream here tonight and they're going to give a presentation on school bus enforcement and safety They're a company that provides cameras for our school buses and I believe that this program is excellent for the safety of our children. I know that we have the support of parents who are very concerned about the safety of their children getting on and off the school bus. Our school bus drivers, very important people also support this. I support it because it offers accountability. It offers education, it offers a deterrent. 90% of people study say that are caught in one of these camera stops don't reoffend. So it's very important that people understand the importance and how dangerous it is at a school bus stop. this program offers us the opportunity to keep our children more safe so mark thank you for being here tonight I appreciate you giving an update to the community to the council on this program sounds great thank you so much Alamo is a tough act to follow

Everybody feels good when they see Alamo. Just take me a second. This is the smoothest transition to presentation I've been in a long time, thanks to your new tech. That's great. Mr. Mayor and Council, thank you so much for allowing me to just take a few minutes of your time this evening. My name's Mark Bedard from Sightstream, as Chief had mentioned. I'm with my colleague Adam Salina as well here in the back. And we just want to take a few minutes to talk to you about the school bus stop arms safety program. There's got to be a better way of saying that. But we have just 5 to 15, 10, 15 minutes or so just to go over some of the basics of it. Have you understand what the system does, how it works, and what it doesn't do. That's also important too, especially in today's climate. So I appreciate you doing that. We're somewhat local to you here. We're a New England company. We're based in Beverly, Massachusetts, which is just north of Boston next to Salem. I'm a little bit closer. I live in the Worcester area, so I'm not too far. So we're New Englanders. We feel like we're local to you. And so we're excited to be having this opportunity to work on this program with you and the police department. Although it's me here presenting with Adam, we are part of a much larger team, a much larger group of industry experts that have decades and decades of experience with these types of programs. And I know we've already been in touch with a number of your staff, has already contacted a number of our staff as we're getting this program up and running. So you're in good hands. We're gonna be providing you the Ritz-Carlton service that you deserve, that your city does, your town does, and the community as well. And we're excited about it, very grateful. You might be new to you here in New Milford. We're not new to the state of Connecticut. We've got a number of customers that we work with on a number of different types of enforcement applications helping our public safety servants, whether it's school bus, stop-arm cameras, or other aspects of photo enforcement that the state of Connecticut has been taking part in over the past few years. It's not something, like I said, new to the state of Connecticut. So we're excited to have you as part of the fold. Not only do we have those listed here under contract, we also have a handful that are very close to signing on officially as well that we're excited to be announcing in the coming weeks. About 20 years ago, when these programs were first being discussed amongst DOT officials and state officials and technology advocates and technology professionals, I remember distinctly being in rooms not much larger than this. And these discussions were happening of how can we put these cameras on school buses to prevent these stop-arm violations. And I was speaking to the lieutenant earlier. I thought it was a dumb idea. I thought it was the worst idea. I had never seen, in my experience, anybody going around a stock barn. Never. And I said, why are we doing this? This doesn't make any sense. It took me about two weeks of speaking to some of my local colleagues, my hometown bus drivers, and I said, do you guys see these violets going around the stock barn? And they're like, yes, every day. Every day we see it. And I was like, whoa. fast-forward unfortunately today across the country there are tens of thousands every day that uh... that occur uh... sadly and and the reason why we we have these in programs in place now thankfully because they are making a difference and uh... and i think it's gonna make a difference for you guys to hear In terms of what the technology's gonna look like and do on your buses here in New Milford, we're gonna install two cameras in one housing, which is what you'll see there, just near the red stop light, stop sign. So there's two cameras in that one housing, one's facing the front of the bus, one's facing the back of the bus. The other camera is going to go above essentially where the driver would sit on the outside, kind of where his mirror is or her mirror is on that side of the bus, catching kind of a 180 view of that side of the bus, ideally capturing those violators. As the school bus comes to a stop, slows down and comes to a stop. The stop sign extends out. The stop arm extends out. The lights are starting to flash. The camera is now activated and looking for anything that's going to go past that camera's eyes. The camera is looking for pixels. It sees pixels still. Unless something comes in the field of view of that camera, it moves those pixels, changes its color. That's what the cameras are looking for, that movement. It doesn't know what it's moving, whether it's a bird, whether it's a car, whether it's someone holding a sign, whether it's someone walking by. It doesn't know what it sees, but it knows it saw something. And so at that point, our system provides what we call a watermark on that video. It goes back to base, gets offloaded from there, and then our team back up in Beverly take that data and look for those watermarks to identify what changed those pixels. Was it a bird? Was it a vehicle that was illegally passing? Or was it nothing at all? And if it's nothing at all, it gets deleted. Those pictures that show that a vehicle violated, We then take the video and break that down, human does, to view the back of the vehicles to identify the license plate, the make and model of the vehicle. It's a white Ford Bronco, ABC123. We'd look up the license registration, the owner of the vehicle, and then package that up to present to the police department. The police department then see it in the queue, and they say, look at it, and they say, okay, this is actually a violation. And if they agree it's a violation, it comes back to us, back up in Beverly. We'll actually print the citation, mail it out to the violators. And that typically happens within a couple of business days, from the time the violation happens to the time someone receives the ticket in the mail, the citation in the mail. On the inside of the bus, there's a DVR which holds the data from the cameras that are happening, the camera actions happening throughout the day, and there's also a cell modem. So once the violations on that bus, once those watermarks are put on the DVR, it's pretty much offloaded very quickly because the cellular technology today is much more advanced than it was 20 years ago when we were first talking about these systems. So we get the violations pretty quickly in our queue. The next business day, the police department's going to get them in their queue to look at and look at to determine whether the violations occur. What we're not doing is scanning every plate or tracking every plate or looking for plates at all. Like I said, the cameras are not built that way. They're not designed that way. It's not their purpose. That's not what we do. So this is just a picture, an example to explain to you what our system's not doing. Our only purpose is to find violators that are going around school buses with the stop arms out and the lights are flashing. I've got a couple of examples to show you. All safe, near misses, nothing that's gonna be scary or anything like that, but stuff that you unfortunately see, we see every day. That's one scary part. The other one is just a few seconds later, mom and child are coming across the way there. So fortunately, about three and a half miles up the road, that guy was pulled over. He was operating under the influence and obviously speeding and going around the stop arm. So very, very close near miss. Things that we, unfortunately, like I said, see every day. Not ideal. Here's another one. So traffic's coming, so you can see the student there waiting for, I guess, traffic to stop. And he finally makes his way across the street safely.

And he had to run.

He had to run, yeah. He was nervous. Unfortunately, he was well aware of his surroundings to be able to see. But that's not always the case. And there are, unfortunately, very tragic videos that we unfortunately have to see every day to help deter some of these actions that are taking place. In terms of what the violators receive, the first 30 days of your program being up and running, it's going to be a warning. That's going to be the first picture on the left. It's going to have your city crest, information about the state law that's in place. It's going to have a still photograph from the videos of the vehicle violating the stop arms. It's going to give a username and password for you to log on to our system to be able to see the same violations that our first processors saw, the same violations that the officers saw to make the determination that the violation did occur. So it's all the same information. The first 30 days are a warning. There's nothing to do with that time. Day 31 goes into full effect. It'll be an actual civil infraction since citation takes place. They can go on at that point. log onto the system with the credentials that we give them, username and password, and then pay for their citation at that point. Put in their credit card. A lot of people still pay by check. We also take PayPal and Google Pay as well. So it's pretty straightforward. Part of what we do that's very important to us is giving good information to not only you, the council and mayor, but also the community as well. So we do a lot of print materials. We'll help with website design or information for the website to be able to provide information on what this program is, how it's going to work. We have a lot of information on that, some of the benefits, some of the rules around the state law that is required to be known. So we'll put that in place for you. We'll put it here at Town Hall. Wherever print materials you'd like to have in place, we can do that for you. So we're gonna work with your Public Information Officer. We also take part in some of your local fairs. We were at Hamden Fest a few years ago, taking part in some of their activities. We'll set up a booth. We'll hand out some shirts, some Frisbees for the kids. We typically do that on all the events. There was one event a few years ago that had a 5K. So one of our members took part in that, which I have right here. Yep, so we had Hamden Fest there. It was a half marathon, 5K, so we took part in that. Had a booth. We talked to the local radio station as well. The guy on the left in the white hair did not run the 5K. The other guy did, just so you know. And I always say that because every time I show this slide, it gets pointed out to me that I set the booth up next to the Sunday truck. May or may not have been strategic, but in any case, we take part. This was at Wethersfield Fireworks earlier this summer, which was kind of a rain out. In any case, we like to take part in the community to make sure that there's a good understanding of what's coming for them. And it's mostly very well received, to be honest with you, especially these programs where we're talking about kids' safety and the safety of the community. Everything that gets done within the back of the system is done in purpose for audit trail. So we're tracking every movement from the watermarks that get placed on the videos to the videos being uploaded to the police department, the police department accessing and touching it, which officer did it, which officer approved it, which officer sent it back to us. who printed it on our side, when it was printed and mailed, when the violators received it, when they were able to log onto the system, when they paid it. All that information is audit tagged. These are small, boring details that we put into our programs to keep these programs built with integrity and safety first around them. So it's very important to be able to account for these types of things, especially when we're talking about the community. All of our customer service is in-house. It's at our office in Beverly. So we have a full team of call center there. People call in. They want to ask about their tickets. They sometimes want to understand what their responsibility is. They want to get more information on how they can access the website. So we have our team that's there basically business hours, Monday through Friday, to be able to facilitate those calls. We take them all in-house in Beverly. So it's localized. It's not something we sub out. One of the really great things that we do that we're really excited about, and you will be too, is our Safe Teen program. So every twice a year, actually, we give back some of our proceeds that we get from your program to the community. So 1% of our proceeds goes back to you twice a year in the form of a check for the ability for you to make use of improving team safety around driving so we'll hand you can see here this was done uh recently out in ohio one of our customers got one of the check the first one they got is the the big check you can see there like you see on tv the second ones and and further are mostly just a bag transfer but the idea is you can use those funds to for driver education This particular community had a fund already for driver education for teens, but they needed help with car seats. A lot of the community didn't have safe car seats, and so they bought a good slew of them to be able to help new families with young kids with some car seats. So this is something we're excited about, and again, you'll be too. There's another community we just gave $6,500 to, Hunting Valley, yep. So that was earlier this summer. So we're excited to be doing this for you. We wanted to give you a little bit of an idea of what the technology does, what the technology doesn't, and obviously be available to answer any questions if that would help you. There's a lot that goes into these programs, these small boring details that I mentioned, stuff that we take care of and look after very seriously. A lot of our team members are in this type of industry for personal reasons. They've had experiences themselves, family members that have had tragic incidences that have caused them to try to give back in ways that the average person can't. And so this is one way we can do that. So I do thank you for your time this evening and allowing me to come and present for you. I hope this was a help, and I'm happy to help answer any questions.

turning over to you just for those who may be watching the audience and on tv there's obviously a lot of uh talk concerning lprs right what differentiates this particular uh the way the technology that you're doing with bus safety cameras versus a standard lpr

So the standard LPR, or even a non-standard LPR, any LPRs that are out there, that is their only function. They're looking for, in their field of view, backs of vehicles and license plates. Not only that, but they're trying to identify what's on those license plates. So they're trying to identify the numbers, and then they're storing that data and using it for whatever purposes they were asked to store it for. Our systems don't do that. We're looking at the back of a scene. We're looking at the scene of, in this case, a stop school bus stop. And the cameras are automated in that they're looking for those pixels to change. So again, they don't know what causes those pixels to change. They can't identify whether that's, you know, like I said, a vehicle or whether it's a bird or anything else in that view, only that's something moved in the view. So it can't track or identify anything per se, another vehicle or license plate in the same way that those other camera systems are. Great. Does that make sense?

Yep.

Katie?

Okay. In the picture, the stop arms, they have flashing lights.

Yeah.

Are you supplying us with those? Because we don't have those. Flashing lights?

Yeah.

All the bus stops have flashing lights. I watched somebody run through the stop sign today, actually, today's Monday, and there were no flashing lights except on the bus itself. So you're saying we do have them? Okay, good. And the other thing I thought of was the stop. Oh, I know. What causes the stop arm to come out? Is it the driver? Okay, are they putting a brake on? because I see a lot of times people, and I know this isn't right, but they probably think it is, they would be coming this way, and you can tell that the bus has stopped, their lights are going, but then the arm comes out. So how do you take care of that? I mean, do you see that?

We do. So a violation doesn't occur unless... Stop arms extended. The lights are flashing. The bus is doing zero miles an hour.

So the bus is zeroed, sitting there, but the arm isn't out.

If the arm's not out, it's not a violation. So we would see it in our watermark videos. We would see it, and then we would dispose of it and say it's not a violation. Thank you.

The stop sign is out, and it's not a violation? The arm has to be out?

The stop arm has to come out. The sign comes out. The lights are flashing. The bus is at zero miles an hour, a full stop. And then if the vehicle passes at that time, it's a violation.

So the driver is making that come out, though?

Correct.

Not the stop of the vehicle, the bus. So if it doesn't happen the way we want it to, it's because the driver might not be doing it soon enough? Yep. Well, that answers my question. Sure.

Thank you for your presentation. Great job. When this was presented to us, we were all on board because obviously safety is our number one priority, especially kids. But I do have a question because one of our neighbors in town, I saw a post on social media about The school buses are stopped because at that school, the school buses stop on the road, on the actual road. This is on Main Street.

Okay.

And the stop is out and the arm is out. But the bus driver is telling the drivers they could go by because this is a one-way road and there's a traffic light right there.

Yeah.

And then people are complaining that they're getting these tickets mailed to them. How do you go about-

I'm not sure.

I know that's not your company because I didn't see the town on there when you presented, but you know, you answer Katie's question, which was, you know, I had that same question, but how do you go about, how do you go about determining whether the tickets get sent out or not in that situation.

If all of those indications are in place, then it's a violation. If they're told the bus driver waved them on, then that's going to be something we would follow up with the police department and say, look, this is a trend or an issue that we're seeing. Please follow up with the school department. So if it's an enforcement issue, that would have to be handled through the police department.

Thank you. Yeah, I've seen it. Excuse me for interrupting. I've seen it where the school bus has it flashing, but they're in a very congested area and they don't put the arm out until it kind of clears.

Yeah.

then the arm comes out and the kids can safely get off the bus. That happens a lot here on Grove Street. Those are the proximity to.

I feel like sometimes, it happens in my small town as well, where the bus is at a stop, the lights are flashing, the arm's not out, and the driver's waving people around because traffic's either going to get bottlenecked or they're trying to do good by people waiting, going to work. They're trying to get them out of the way. And so it's that fine line where the driver's making the determination, like, okay, I'm just going to let these people go and keep the kids safe on the bus, so it wouldn't be a violation in that occurrence, yeah.

Thank you. Anybody? Just one more question. So let me understand this. So you have the camera on the side of the bus. Yeah. Someone is passing by, and everything is out, stops, and everything else. So you said you have a DVR in the bus. Yeah. So as soon as that happens, the data goes to the DVR. The antenna is in the bus. You send the data where?

So the data goes back to our headquarters in Beverly through a cell modem. So the DVR, and then it's a cell modem. If there's no connectivity, it would come back to the port where there's Wi-Fi. We can offload from there.

For how long do you retain the data?

So we're required by law no more than 90 days. Once a violation occurs, and let's say somebody receives a violation in the mail, two days later they go online and pay for it. Once that's done, it gets deleted immediately. Otherwise, it's in 90 days, it's retained.

Is it DVR and whatever is being sent, or just- one of them for the 90 days because you have a data in dvr and you're sending somewhere to the database in your location yes there are two places we have data the data would the data does not stay on the dvr it gets taken off the dvr sent to us back to headquarters so it doesn't doesn't um store on the dvr you have to store for one day how about in the case of a action or fatality

Are you holding that evidence more than 90 days?

Only if we're requested by the police department to set it aside. Otherwise, no. So if there's something that occurs and we see it in our field of view because of those pixels that have changed, then we would notify the police department.

Chief, if it's sent to you, do you hold that for more than 90 days? We are bound to follow the law.

Also, as soon as the ticket is adjudicated or otherwise handled, we would have to... Make sure that information was no longer in history. If there's a case where somebody's appealing that ticket, it might be held a little longer, but no case more than 90 days.

Yeah, but if somebody was really hurt, they don't know what the evidence is.

That would be a different story. That's a different story. Evidence of a crime.

And it might be more of a court order. I got you. Thank you.

Anybody have any other questions? One comment, and it's kind of a question to you. How long have we been talking about this?

It's been quite some time.

I mean, my memory's starting to go. We've been here so long, but we've been talking about this at least a decade.

They were on the buses a long time ago, and then they had issues, I guess, with the technology at the time. And then, you know, we've heard from quite a number of bus drivers. About the safety, I know the chief has as well. Also, especially the after and before care enterprises, especially on Route 7. That's a tough one. They were talking about how people were just going right through the bus stop.

Well, a lot of people come over the top of that hill. And don't recognize the bus there. We had this conversation multiple years ago how we wanted them to really drive behind, but there was a reason they didn't. But that's a very tough spot.

Yes, that's where I see it all the time.

You literally come over the hill, still rivers on the right, and there's a child care center on the left.

Yep.

Kind of an indentation in the road. It kind of lowers down. And you don't see it until you're almost right on top of it.

So the driver is responsible for when the arm goes out. Even though I can have my foot on the brake and the lights are going on the bus, I still have to whatever.

Mechanism. Push the button. Yep.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Great to see you. Thank you very much.

Very good. Appreciate it. Yes. All right. Okay. What are we doing? Recycling. Recycling.

Okay. Item nine, I'd like to move that we accept the, oh, action two. Yeah, we're accepting $4,000 to resolve the town's claim for property damage at the recycling center. Thank you, Rolando.

Thank you.

Any discussion?

This was sent to the council, but Randy, could you talk a little bit about it?

A vendor damaged the fence, damaged the gate to the recycling center. And the vendor's insurance company is paying to have it fixed. So it's a $4,000 resolution. The mayor can't sign this without town council approval.

Okay. Any other discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Any abstentions? Thank you.

Item number 10. I'd like to move that we approve the acceptance of $64,000. This is a backup appliance replacement. It's $64,000 from the state of Connecticut Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. and that's to replace the backup appliance, which is scheduled to reach end of life in February 2027. The funds will be deposited into an account designated by the finance director. As the replacement will occur mid-fiscal year, the grant represents a direct cost avoidance to taxpayers by offsetting an otherwise necessary capital expenditure. Do I have a second?

And a big thank you to Dave Watson and Victoria, the grant lawyer. They were able to obtain this. Good job to them. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Any abstentions? Thank you. I have a question. Yes.

What is the appliance?

What are you trying to make?

The back of the appliance. It's what?

The back of the appliance. What is it?

Yeah. It says a backup appliance. What is a backup appliance?

It would be like, I'll have Dave, rather than giving you a generic term, I'll have Dave give it to you, but it's part of our system when it comes to, I don't want to tell you the wrong thing. Emergency management.

It's an emergency management system. It's a backup that's part of emergency management system that we have. So we can't tell you because, you know, it's an issue. But I'll get Dave.

Diane, I'll get Dave to send out something to everybody. That's why it says emergency management.

It's a $64,000 windfall is what it is, so it's great.

That's it don't look 64 grand. OK, so item 10 B. I'd like to move that we also accept $8000 through the state of Connecticut Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. And this is for software that will enhance the town's password reset workflow by preventing end users from using passwords known to be compromised. The funds will be deposited into the account designated by the finance director and a big thank you again to

Second, I can tell you.

It's not the result. Okay, we have a second from all those in favor.

Thank you everyone.

And item 11. I'd like to move that we accept the following donations. It was $150 from Gallery 25 for Merwinsville Hotel Restoration. Item B is $25 to the 9-11 committee from Kathy Reynolds. okay thank you any discussion all those in favor aye opposed any abstentions thank you okay now page three and we have road closures i would like to move that we approve the following ready that i'm putting them all together okay the town of milford is requesting a road closure for church street from the intersection of main street to the northwest corner of the town hall parking lot This will be from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and the southern crossover from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. This will be September 26 for the Apple Fest. And on item B, New Milford Parks and Rec is requesting a road closure from Main Street Crossovers, Church Street, Bank Street, Whittlesea Avenue, Boardman Terrace from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. on October 25th, 2026 for trunk or treat. They also, is that okay? Yep, I thought somebody was talking. Okay, item C that we're going to approve, hopefully, the request for the road closure from church street to the intersection of maine to the northwest corner of the town hall parking lot and this is going to be from 10 p.m well i'm sorry 1 p.m to 3 p.m the southern crossover 9 a.m to 3 p.m and that's october 31st for halloween on the green and finally item d i'd like to move that we uh approve that senator buckbee is requesting the road closure of youngsfield road from 9 a.m to 12 p.m. on November 28th, 28th, that's 2026, for the Santa Run, Santa Run.

Second.

Second.

All right, we got Rolando. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed, any abstentions?

I think you have 5 times okay, I'm not a 13 public works. I'd like to move that we approve an easement acquisition for the Wellsville Avenue sidewalk and roadway improvement project lots of project number L 0, 9, 5, 0, 0, 3, 2, thank you to jump and judge the patiently waiting.

Thank you. Just could have done the job.

The public to follow design engineer for the town of Milford. here today to talk about the easement acquisitions needed for this roadway and sidewalk rehabilitation project. Ultimately, there's retaining walls that are located on essentially private property, mostly right now, and there's 12 of them total for total property impacts. What we want to do through this project, and it's a requirement through the funding, is that anytime we build a new piece of infrastructure, it has to be either on town-owned right-of-way, or there has to be an easement to place said piece of infrastructure on private property. So these 12 easements represent the area needed to not just place, but construct these retaining walls, and replace the retaining walls that are there, essentially private property. So these easements are in various sizes and square foots. They represent permanent defined easements for the permanent placement as well as construction construction easements that are temporary during the process. So each value is a little bit different based on square footage and size, you know, of permanence and temporary easements on there. I, you know, also want to thank the residents that, you know, it's been a long process to get these 12. All have been, you know, very supportive of this project in general. And we do look forward to moving this project forward. So this is step, pretty much the final step before final submission.

Great. Thank you.

Ms. Francis, do you want to add the total dollar value to your motion?

There is no dollar value.

The next page.

It's not on my agenda. I don't usually read what's in the paper. Oh, okay, Chuck. All right, so I will add to the motion to approve the easement acquisitions and the total For the properties number 21, 31, 33, 37, 39, 41, 43, 45, 99, 105, 121, and 123 for a total of $4,331.53. And we have a second. Thank you. Any other discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? I am.

Were those numbers that you just read off, were those house numbers? Yes. Okay.

Well, there's something there on those numbers.

Okay. So how far down Wellsville did we go?

Well, the project itself for the sidewalk goes to the condos, the Aspatuck condos for the sidewalk. So the retaining walls are spaced out amongst all those properties in various locations. That's great.

Well needed. Yeah. Thanks so much.

This would be a great project to spend a long time in the making, but it's finally getting resolved. Absolutely. That's wonderful.

New sidewalks, new roads, new drainage.

So once we have approval tonight, then that authorizes the countersigning of the formal document to be filed with the clerk's office. So as soon as we have your approval, I'll start hammering out those. It should probably take a couple weeks to get all these property owners into the clerk's office to sign and notarize their piece, countersigned by the mayor. And then this will get wrapped up into a final submission package back to West Cog, which is Connecticut DOT. They give final approval and authorization to advertise after that. So turnaround time by DOT big picture. Sometimes it's three months, sometimes it's six months. The signal project was a fairly quick turnaround time by them, which was nice. So conceptually we could advertise this maybe late winter, early spring, and still have this done in next construction season. Most likely, yeah, it would be a, if all goes well, I'm anticipating this to be a summer project.

Any other questions for Chuck? Thank you, Chuck. Chuck, thank you. Thank you, Chuck. Appreciate it. Great news.

Item 14, update from the finance director. They already did. Everybody already voted.

I don't think we did. Take a vote.

All those in favor?

Aye. Opposed? And then somebody asked me to read something that wasn't there. Okay. 14, finance. Okay.

These are from Olga.

Oh, this is the private duty.

Good evening, members of the town council, members of the public. I am here to present.

Wait a minute.

We've got to make sure everybody has one.

That's the third item that she's going to come to. Okay.

We started with the financial report, so the report that is being presented tonight is for the first two months of the fiscal year. So starting off with the revenue, not much to report. We are showing positive trend across multiple accounts. Our performance is on par with prior years. Are kind of slowing down now that the first installment was due, so we will see a slow down until January when the second installment will be due and then the motor vehicle supplemental bills are going to come out. Just to point out, building department is showing a very strong performance for the first two months. Future isn't predictable, but so far on a very positive track. No news from the state as far as appropriations for the fiscal year 27. So as of now, we anticipate to receive state aid as planned for budget. So not much to report, and if you have any questions, I'll take those.

Any questions for Olga? Thank you, Olga.

Moving on to the expenditure side, similar. Two months into the fiscal year, nothing major to report. Departments are on a similar trend as in prior years. So far, no outliers have been reported. So we're just moving along with planned and contractual expenditures.

Any questions for Olga?

Thank you. Moving on to the next item. You want me to move it? For the year and adjust. Go ahead. Next item for tonight is final, hopefully final, care and force appropriation. That's basically as we are moving through our normal process to wrap up fiscal year 26. Some of the contractors weren't able to finish planned work before June 30th. So this is just our normal process to carry enforce existing appropriations into the fiscal year 27 to keep that funding for already planned projects so that's just um you know kind of lagging projects that town council voted in june before so we're just adding to that list so i motion to approve the carried and forced appropriations thank you any discussion all those in favor aye

Opposed? Any abstentions? Thank you. Next item.

I would like to move that we discuss or approve the police private duty billable rates policy, which we all have the power to copy. Can you talk a little bit about it? Second. Can we go forward? Anybody want a second? Second. Thank you, Ilana. Thank you, Ilana.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Sure, so the policy that's presented tonight currently represents our existing process. So as you know, police private duty, or also known as constable rates, is an item in our budget. We have it on the revenue side and expenditure side. So this is our normal annual process. This is when vendors reach out to police department and they need assistance to monitor traffic during their work. So those are billable hours. And what the town is seeking is a reimbursement for the costs that relate The updated policy is presented to you tonight for acceptance, just to give us the ability to utilize a blended rate. The recently signed police unit contract allows, provides for police officers, depending on the experience and who reports for that side duty, they get different rate. So for us to make it billable and just to simplify and streamline the management of that program between finance department and police department, we are looking to be able to consider a blended rate. Just so we have one billable rate to all vendors. um regardless of which officers show reports for that duty so that so the policy presented tonight just adds that language um to help us you know be more efficient when we monitor and manage uh that operation okay question olga so uh there's no numbers here you just said that it's different it's going to be less more So that will be determined if you accept, and we're probably going to use the weighted rate, because the rate changes every year. So the policy outlines the approach and the reimbursable expenses such as corresponding employer FICA and Medicaid taxes. We do have to carry weapons comp policy. So the policy outlines the elements of the fee that all combined and the town is being reimbursed for that. But because the rate changes every year as union contract changes the officers rate. So just it's a moving target, so that's why there are no rates in the policy presented.

Was there a policy before this?

Um, probably. I could locate one, so it's easier just to create one. I got you.

No, I just wondered if there was.

But it's been something, but the approach has been consistent throughout the years. You know, it is a past practice. This is just putting it in words just so I have something to go back onto, and that it represents what is currently happening, how the fees develop for years.

Okay, so you brought it up to date.

Correct. Thank you. Any other discussions?

all those in favor aye opposed any abstentions thank you actually i just feel like i don't have enough time to insurance okay uh item 15 uh we thank you i'd like to we have the noise ordinance item a on 15. and uh did everybody this was sent out does anybody need a copy tonight does everybody have a copy i have one anybody want one

Anybody over there? Zach? Mary Jane? Mary Jane, you want one? Does anybody need a copy?

Murphy, you want one?

I'll take one, so I don't have to bring you the whole thing.

Here's one for you. Thank you. Does anybody else need one?

Do you need one, Steph? Okay.

Okay.

Okay. All right, Randy, can we talk a little bit about it, as you all know?

That ordinance is very closely aligned to a number of towns.

It's authorized, the way it's drawn now, is authorized by the DEP. They no longer will review them, but they will catch you on them if you don't do it right. So the fact is that any town can enact such an ordinance as long as it's at least as stringent as the DEP. That is.

It is.

Absolutely. I checked it line by line.

Anything over that?

Yeah, you can actually do it stronger. The only thing I left out was the actual level of decibel because there seems to be discussion about that among municipal lawyers. But the DEP has a specific number. As you know, Tom, it's 50 decimals. Probably should be at 50 feet, but beyond that, I'm going to have to plug in numbers.

Yeah.

The reason I gave it to you is so you can tell me what you want to change, and I'll tell you whether I can change it or not.

You're talking about the decibel level. I see all of it.

I'm talking about everything.

And that's 50, what is it, DCA.

Yeah, DCA. Right, right. So in any event. The Council should take a look at that if you haven't already and give the mayor some feedback or send emails to the mayor as to what you want. If it's lawful, I can try to put it in. If it's not, I'm not going to put it in.

Right. Well, no.

You'd see some of the suggestions I get. Like jail time. We're not doing that. But in any event, so if you have some suggestions as to how to do that, let me know. The big deal is the hours of operation. They're left blank. Usually it's 9 to 7. At night, 7 a.m. You can do 10 to 6 or whatever. 10 p.m. to 6 p.m. for the quiet time. As far as zones A, B, and C, which is in there, I'm going to coordinate that with our residential, B1, and industrial zones. I'm not going to go into the detail of what the zoning commission does. I'm talking about the general gross residential areas, the gross B1 and B2 zones, and then the industrial zones. which is which would be seen not going to get into the separate different be one be 2, 1 acre 2 acre 4.

Tell me what you want because I can't guess and you can tell the mayor.

Yeah, everybody can kind of take a look. What you think hours of operation should be right Randy and then also really the standards 50 decibels. Right.

And that's a standard compared to something that we would know. Vacuum? A vacuum?

One second. Tell me. 52 decibels with the air conditioning on it and nobody speaking.

Okay, I'm speaking now. How many did it go up?

I'm just talking to the guy across my fence. 64. Now I'm angry with him. With me talking into it, it's 76, but it's right here.

There you go. Which means we all rise to 65.

So if I can only get it to 50 to talk you across the street. Sorry?

I didn't want to interrupt. No, go ahead. No, I'm sorry. I just had a question for Randy. You did research into other towns that have done these.

um and you were looking at how they had written it but did you get any feedback in terms of like the ones that have done it were they glad that they did it no i didn't get a value judgment from any of these people they were all guys um the fact is is that the the issue is not in the in the ordinance the issue is in the enforcement right yes and having the the uh fortitude to enforce these things One of the suggestions that was made is, a matter of fact, Tom had an idea of having a pre-permit process. One of the suggestions that was made to have the police issue disturbing the peace or public display of unnecessary noise or things of that nature. Police will not do that. The reason they won't do it is because prosecutors won't prosecute that. It's not because the police are lazy. It's because prosecutors won't prosecute that. So they're going to have to have decibel meters for when something's ongoing. But the big deal that I've talked to, everybody I talk to, well, most of whom I talk to, said they've got the same issue that I do. The problem is that the parties, the loudness, the immediacy of the situation, And that's why you have the quiet time from 10 o'clock to 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. to 7 a.m. Because that's the only way the police can enforce you, and it's by way of an infraction. It doesn't take a prosecutor at that point. It's for the town. So that's, to answer your question, Nobody loves this. No town attorney or city attorney I spoke with loves this because it's very difficult to enforce. But in any event, it's there and it probably helps in deterrence. And that's about all I can say. Basically, this is all anecdotal. I have no appearances about this. I have no data.

If I was a contractor, is there a way that I would have to take out a permit or something to prove or just sign something to say, I know that the time blah, blah, blah to here, I can't.

Do jack hammering or whatever, unless they're going to get a permit from the building department to say that they understand this? No. Yeah, because that's just a lot of suggested that you do a permitting process. Yeah. And you could do that. But the fact is, is that's that's it has to have some foresight that there's going to be a party that's going to be loud or some such thing. And you got to get the people in to do that. It's a great idea if you can do it.

Mr. Mayor, have you consulted with the police chief? Is this something he would like us to do, or is this something that he would consider to be a burden?

I consulted with the chief, and he said they're not going to issue disturbing the peace summonses. They're just not going to do it because they can't get them enforced. He said they will obviously cooperate in this and issue infractions for this violation. The problem is that if it's a... Let's say an ongoing situation. They'd have to be with decibel meters at least, I think, 50 feet away, and they'd have to meter that and then, of course, chronicle that, journalize it. And that takes manpower. As far as the parties go and things like loudness and amplified music, which is the big complaint that people get, they had that in Morris as a matter of fact. they can shut it down right there. Police can come and say, this is too loud. It's disturbing everyone and it violates the timeframe. They don't have to take a decimal reading at that, you see, just because it violates that timeframe.

But most of the time, as somebody said, when you were talking about this, Once they show up and just say, hey, look, it's getting too loud, most of the time it just works. Yeah. Most of the time.

As I said, I did, it was different on this one. I made three different aspects of it. That hourly rate, hourly, I'm a lawyer. That hourly prohibition. Yeah. And then, of course, the continuous hum or machinery on. And, of course, the fact that there's parties and things of that nature. And one big complaint is volleyball games, believe it or not.

I hear it. Oh, yeah. No, I don't have it.

What do you think is a volleyball court where I live? Yeah.

I'm talking about backyard volleyball.

Yeah, backyard volleyball. Yeah, sure, Randy.

Every Friday. Every Friday.

Yeah, with the boom box. Yeah. I heard that from Danbury.

Oh, yeah.

They had a problem with that. So those type of things. So there's three elements here. It's a little different than the state. So that's the thing. I wish I could tell you that it's going to be a success, but it probably will be a success concerning the 10 to 7 or 9 to 7.

So for construction, there's already a timetable, right, in the construction permit, right? But isn't most of the billing department pulling the permit? You mean if you're pulling the permit? If you're pulling the permit, I thought for sure. No, I don't think so.

demolition demolition maybe yeah you think for it from time to from well don't forget when when when the state did the 202 parking 202 that was during the night yes that's right that was it and that was generated a lot the main the main calls that we've gotten the police the mayor's office the other ones are these parties

that are at like one or two in the morning, and then the other residents trying to sleep, to get to work, to do all that.

And also that lady who came in about the Airbnb, that was the- That was, but it really- But it was about them coming every week, I know.

It was because they shared a driveway and she thought it was loud.

I thought she was talking about them coming and just being loud at night.

No, it was that too. I remember the discussion. It was that too.

When I lived in Northville, I was surrounded by roosters, and they're really loud. We have a right to farm them, it's unfortunate.

It's not similar to what I brought up last time. With the ducks.

Yeah, yeah. Not in the milk. 10 to 7 is- The bottom line is that the roosters belong- I will say.

If you buy near a farm, you're going to hear it and you're going to smell it.

So, I am either an overachiever or I misunderstood. I thought we were supposed to go through this and opine and give ideas tonight. So, I'm ready.

Okay.

I'm ready to go. But if you want to hold off, let everyone.

I meet with the mayor every third of Monday.

So what I suggest, so it's all homogenized. Give it to the mayor. I'll just give it to me. And I will tell you, I'm telling you right now, I will redraft if it's viable. That makes sense. I will not if it's illegal.

I understand. Thank you. That's what I'll do. Awesome.

All right, next one.

Next is a vacant storefront ordinance, which we did speak about. So I would like to move that we take action on that proposal for the vacant storefront ordinance.

Can everybody get a copy of this?

Does anybody want a copy? Do you have a second for that? Can you have a second? Nobody wants a second?

Thank you, Rolando.

Say what?

I'm sorry, what? Mary Jane, do you want one?

to move forward on the proposal to firm it up make it make it real yeah that's it first we have to say what we want to do okay we have this one we have had a while so

right and randy did you put any x's in here for no no okay yeah i thought it was the same and the mayor and i worked on that together that's a while yeah and uh the other thing is that you'll need a public hearing by the way you're gonna get public hearing for the vets ordinance too on the 28th right

But it doesn't have to if you can't make it happen on the 28th is set to retroactive. Yeah, just.

Does anybody have any comments on this one.

I have a comment and I think that this is very well written it covers I mean, despite anything I could think of, you've got it all in here. I mean, every under a itself about vacant and owner shall. I mean, what else could you do to the building unless you set it on fire? Then there wouldn't be anything to worry about. So.

So, Randy, the next thing would be setting a public hearing.

Well, the fees before in here, we don't have any free fee on the second page. Unless you want to, you know, if you want to do that after the fact.

I did a little bit of research on this one, too.

Right. Okay. So you have the fees?

From different towns. In Connecticut. Okay. That's what I looked up. Okay. So let me get it. Where did it go? Right here. Oh, God. No, that's not it. Talk amongst yourself for a moment. Okay.

Let's move to something else. Okay. Here it is.

It's 930. I found it. Okay, so Hartford has a vacant storefront ordinance. If an owner leaves his or her property vacant for 120 days or it is underutilized for 120 days in one given year. And underutilized means that it is not open to the public for at least 20 hours per week. The fee, the fine, is $100 per day. You're talking about Hartford.

Hartford, I know.

I have a couple of different towns. And it can result in property liens. And this is legal.

What's a town like ours that you have?

Well, okay, I'll tell you the other ones that I have. Ansonia? Yes. Landlords are required to register vacant if the property sits empty for six months, triggering a gradually increasing schedule of annual fees intended to pressure owners to lease or sell. Doesn't say what they are.

Okay.

New Haven aggressively penalizes a blight owner's $1,000 per day for not maintaining boarding up, abandoning, or allowing unsafe commercial buildings.

I think it may be called commercial blight.

Excuse me?

Yeah. Commercial blight. Commercial blight. Yeah, commercial blight. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah, I think I read that. The what? The smaller towns. I don't know the sizes of towns. I'm really not familiar with everything in Connecticut. Well, just read off the names. So I can't answer them. Yeah, just say the town. I just have two more.

Yeah, go ahead. Okay.

Hold on, I'm finishing up New Haven. If accrued fines exceed the value of the building, the city can initiate foreclosure to take ownership.

Yeah, New Haven is different.

Okay, Middletown and Torrington.

Are they small enough? No, those are cities.

Okay, I don't know. This is all the information that I got.

Well, we actually had said something about a registration fee was about $200 or something in one of our conversations.

I think we're getting... confused with registration fee, and then on the very back page, the civil penalties. Right. I'm looking at the registration fee. So Randy has civil penalties up to $100 to $150 per day.

But don't we have to have a registration fee? And then registration fees. What would you have for that? I thought it was $200, but...

I have one more bit of information that would probably be very interesting to everyone. So there is something in the Connecticut Senate Bill 363... What?

Died.

Died. Died in committee, yeah.

Oh, was it recently?

Last year. Last year. But don't forget, at least that tells me, because I've got to make a determination as to legality, that it's legal. Because we've got five towns that do this, plus the legislature is considering it. But it died in committee.

Okay, great, thank you.

Yeah, I received it.

Okay, thank you. Do we want to put a fee in here, a number?

I would say my own opinion would be initial registration, $50.

Okay. I like it.

Annual renewal, I'd keep it at $50. At $50. Second, $100.

Yeah.

Third, $200.

Okay. Very good. That's good. It doesn't put too much on a person. And then we go to the important part. which is the penalties.

Civil penalties, it's already in.

So the penalties are $100 to $150 a day for violations of occupied commercial properties. Occupied, you mean they're just making a mess? I don't get it. If they're occupied.

That means it could be. Go ahead, Randy.

Occupied means that they've been blighted, essentially.

A commercial blight. If it's occupied and you got the windows painted black or whatever, that's a value judgment. The problem with that, I was telling you, it's vague. Very vague. Right. So what would you suggest? That's what I'm thinking.

I thought that occupied. Yeah.

Yeah.

I know we want them to be there.

So change it to unoccupied.

Okay.

Just explain this a little better to me so I can understand it. It's they have to register and that's a moderate expense at what point are they paying 100 to 150 per day like how much time passes before that kicks in back here i believe that it's okay a second wait a second a minute here it says separate uh separate daily penalties we apply for failure to register failure to maintain to maintain standards so if they register they don't pay any penalty other than the registration fee right This is only for people who haven't registered.

So Randy, what's the trigger date for the fine?

Whatever you want it to be. Usually it's six months or 120 days.

Well, this one 80 oh well, that's it you need a 100 different different period. Well, yeah, 120 days is a long time to look at it.

I know we're looking at her age is one year.

Yeah, right. Great. Mayor, what do you think.

I just tell me how many days you want to play 90.

I would say more than that.

Why?

Three months.

Then they just keep on going.

Three months. I would say six months. Yep.

Six months.

Yeah. That's what I'd say.

Okay, I love it. Six months. So within 30 days they have to register, but if it's been unoccupied for six months, then it's $100 to $150 a day.

Who decides whether it's $100 or $150?

Where do you see that? Oh, I've been here.

Yeah, I was there. I would say myself. I keep it constant 100.

OK, I'm just going out the 150.

And so the violations that could happen if they for every day, if it continues at this vacant storefront unoccupied property, it's up to 250. So what do you do to get up to 250 from?

I would say if we're going to do my own opinion, right?

Yeah.

You start 6 months then you go to a year. And then here the thousands 120 months.

You know, this is this is on a piece of paper. We have some people in this town who cared at all how much you wanted to send the bill. But they would do anything and we know that.

Well, if we if we modify the civil penalty ordinance you put that within this and then we need to do another have to be.

Then let's do that and they and realistically the goal of this whole thing is just to provide somewhat of a monetary incentive for people to lease their property. Rather than just keep it vacant and it's not, you know, we're trying to help assist some to get their properties rented. All right, so I have a situation.

i have a situation that we have and that is there's a store it's been vacant for a long time the owner tried to do something and of course it wasn't approved so he left it alone and it's just sitting there sitting there sitting there so it's going to take more money maybe than he wants to spend or she wants to spend on making it usable so he this person is in between a rock and a hard place you're gonna we're gonna start giving him a fine he doesn't have enough money to turn it back into a bookstore or a coffee shop or whatever What do we do about that.

Well, what's your you know, it's like the money will be the incentive is to try to get that owner to sell the property or at least because if you can't do it, you got to be able to have somebody else come in and do it, you know, I I'm just asking I'm not I don't have the answer.

I just think that when it gets to the point that we've had things happen in town that they're they're just not what they don't either have the money. They don't want to spend it there.

The problem with an exemption, they have to appeal to the town council, and the town council would have to agree by majority to let them off the hook. That sounds good.

I mean, that way if there's extenuating circumstances- Absolutely. then they could come to town council and the town council could determine.

And if it's been vacant and just looks like a mess for a couple of years or five years, then we would expect some really valid reasons why nothing is being done and why they're not selling it.

So how about they petition the town council as to whether or not there is good cause, as to whether good cause exists.

And so I plead poverty. I'm at your mercy, council people.

Let's see your tax return.

When you're not in poverty, you have property.

yeah the second part of the bacon storefront is slash property so we're not just talking about bacon storefronts yeah you're talking about any other piece of property such as the one near right and in downtown someone could have a business downstairs but someone else could own the apartments above is that true

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Right. They have to petition and you have to have the right questions.

Exactly. I mean, I like the idea of exemption. I think it could work. And I know I'm getting ahead of everyone here talking about how an exemption could be structured. But for example, when People sign up for unemployment and certain unemployment programs They have to provide proof and they've at least been applying for jobs You know, they apply for this exemption. They have to prove that they've been doing some outreach to try to get someone absolutely space that's good point there may not be a you know, for whatever the spaces they may be reaching out. Yeah, they may be advertising here. They're everywhere under the sun and they may just not be getting right.

We had that with somebody who put the price for the rental of the space so high that no one could use it. And he didn't care because he didn't. He had the money.

Well, I would I would think if he's pricing is so much higher than market value, that would kind of go against the exemption. It has to be a fair price.

But that doesn't go in the ordinance. I don't do policy. I do law. And the fact is that you have to make that determination as a deliberative body. I want to get straight. However, you're going to have your registration. Yeah, 6 months after the vacancy of the registration then the $100 a day. That's a pretty steep. Yeah, we got 30 days.

Yeah, 3 grand. It doesn't even really give you time to find somebody else to.

So what do you think the set of doing 6 months to 9 months.

What about you put 6 months and you extended on extenuating circumstances.

6 months and wait for some. If you have a guy that has a property and he has a real estate and it's also then you have proof that you are coming in. to see the place, and the guy comes in and says, listen, I can't be paying 100 out of the day, but it's fine, and it's our job to say, I agree with you, you know, you're accepted.

Right, we didn't have this kind of stuff when Mary Jane and then Diane.

So, who works with these business, is it the Black Prevention Board that will go in and talk with them and discuss, because there's like,

I think I think if this work once this is passed if this hasn't been

given to a blight board somebody has made a complaint there and would fall to this thing immediately we would call and see if there's an issue rise or some kind of issue can we help you with it and hopefully they. Tell us what their issue may be then try and help them. Other times it could just be the people just kind of gave up and walked away could be the bank. could be in some form of a foreclosure on the property which could take longer which then that could be something that could be brought to the town council and the town council after that certain amount of time. But there are some properties right now and within the downtown that it's just they've actually been as you know vacant for years now and some of the other businesses or stating that that's detrimental to their business because it's a battle. So it's kind of a fine line, but I think the whole really premise for this and other towns and cities have done it is to create that. I don't want to say incentive, but make it to where now the person knows that there is a financial

burden to them if they don't well this because we've never had this this would certainly be something to spur someone on to not sit around for years and years and years are you talking six months now or nine months or what six

Six months and then we can come back.

I think six months is fine. That's a good amount of time.

One of our wonderful people who buys a lot of property, you notice his are never vacant? Because he doesn't try for too much rent.

That's it. That's exactly why. Some rent is better than none.

He's my client and he is very, very judicious that way.

Well, if there's a lot of screaming, then we know maybe we put it too low.

I don't know.

Another thing? No, I'm sorry.

I think Mary Jane was next. Mary Jane. Yeah, that was good. No? Okay. Another thing that I saw, and it's just something to consider, rather than putting a, let's say, $100 fine, you could consider someone in here does $5 a square foot, and that goes up as things are not done. $5 a square foot. So it's dependent upon the size of your store or your property as to what the fine will be. That's not a good idea. I thought that was a pretty good idea.

Why by the square foot? I mean, because you mean like if I made half of it look good? No, no, she's saying charge them by the square foot. Oh, charge them?

That could get expensive.

That would be a rational basis.

That would get too expensive.

So that's a rational basis. I said $5 a day, a square foot. Yeah, and for a very small coffee shop that was only, I don't know how big that was.

$100 is always going to be less, Diane. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Oh, okay, fine. Thank you. Randy, can you explain the appeals process?

I'm not familiar with CGS. That's why I want to revise the civil penalty ordinance.

the appeals process says that when when you're issued a summons or anything that has sanctions like a monetary sanction there has to be an administrative basis of an appeal and the appeal would be a board appointed by the mayor with the approval of the town council that would review the the actual violation and determine whether or not the uh the violation and the sanction is lawful is correct However, it also contains a provision, our appeal provision has to have reference to section 7-152C of the statute. So what that says is that every appeal, you have to have that process. You also have to have the right to appeal to superior court. So what I propose to do is I propose in the new revisions, if you will, of the Civil Penalty Ordinance to actually spell out the appeal process so people understand what it is. And that's what that's alluding to.

This doesn't say anything. We have the right to appeal to superior court. Does that subject us to very expensive legal fees?

Could, if you want to defend it, yeah. Or you could also settle it. But the fact is, is that yes, that's one of the things that I'm very cognizant of in all my towns. The fact is, is that when push comes to shove, it costs money when you go to court and you can't get away from it. So yes, to answer your question, when it goes to superior court, it costs. Depends on how vigorous you wanna defend it. Look at our tax appeals. I mean, our appraiser fees in tax appeals are more than the legal fees.

do we have anyone who can research for the towns that have things like this? You know, how much revenue did they generate and how much expenses do they have?

They go to chapter 10. Let's just say that.

Yeah.

I got nothing. I got nothing. I don't care. I'm filing for.

Yeah. And they bankrupt. Yeah. But the fact is, is that don't forget, this is not considered a tax. It's a municipal lien, but it's not taxes are exempt for bank. Fines are not necessarily unless it's criminal. And this is not criminal.

No. No.

I'm a little afraid that we could be subjected to expensive legal fees. Yeah, but it would never get that far because- I was going to say that, yeah.

You're right, that would be the last resort. Right, that would be the very last resort would be going to court.

Right, and it would cost the- It would be reasonable. the person who's doing that.

Substantial money. Yeah, I suppose we don't have to go to court. We could just give them an exemption or something so they don't have to go to court.

It's costing us right now because there's no revenue from the closed thing. That's right. It doesn't do anything. It's a vegetable.

Right, right.

You give temporary exemptions, then they have to come back, they have to keep coming back. Right. You don't give them a blanket.

Right, they gotta keep proving to us, hey, I've been driving with X1G for six months, I got five walkthroughs, everybody doesn't like this space.

This will actually incentivize them to come to the town hall.

Talk about an issue that hopefully we can help- You know what that could generate?

It could generate cooperation. Yep. Yeah. Really good. We have economic development. Right.

We haven't got anything like this on the books to make it known to people that we're thinking of and talking about. And if you shoved it under my door and I was that person, I'd probably say, this is six pages more than I want to deal with. All right, I might as well do something. Because there isn't any reason that they don't, except he doesn't want to, just like the former big building up the street.

It's important for us to do something about it because, like Randy said, he has a client that's very, you know, conscious with the economy. You know, like nowadays, or like when the pandemic hit, you had some business owners, you know, property owners that got personal loans because of the property they own, and they never trickled it down to the people they rented to. You know, so you have a client that's very conscious. That's all we want. We want people that, you know, empty storefront. What are you doing about it? You probably live in Hawaii right now and, you know, at a beach and you don't care about that property, but we do. And so does she, because she owns a business next door and it's a bad look for her. So.

I support this for storefronts and vacant storefronts. I don't really distinguish the two so much. But for houses, there might be, like sometimes somebody might, maybe they want to keep the house in the family and they're waiting for the next generation to buy it or something.

This is strictly commercial?

Vacant storefronts. Now, you could have it anywhere. I remember almost 15, 16 years ago, I was having a conversation about the end of Dorwyn Hill, where all that crap was. That's right. Right. But that was one of them. And there was there was also the the yellow house up to two right on on stone on stone tent that collapsed.

Yep.

You know, we had a conversation about this, you know, thinking, would somebody be in there? It could that this house collapse on somebody.