Representative Town Meeting - Regular Meeting

We're ready to go. So good evening. This meeting Westport's representative town meeting is now called to order. My name is Jeff Weiser, and I'm the RTM moderator. We welcome those who are joining us tonight in the Town Hall Auditorium, as well as those watching us streaming live on westportct.gov and those watching on optimum government access channel seventy nine.

On my right tonight is our team deputy moderator Laura Carf. A note regarding public participation in tonight's meeting members of the Westport electorate may comment on any on the agenda item when we open discussion for that item. Comments will be limited to three minutes. Emails may be sent to the entire RTM, of course, your own representative if you have their email, but to the entire RTM @rtmatwestwardct.gov. That's d l for distribution list.

Rtm-dl@westwardct.gov. Those emails go to all RTM members. They will not be read aloud during the meeting. Tonight's invocation will be delivered by Rita Marcocci, the founder of the Westport based film production company Verus Studios. Her latest project is helping veterans reenter the workforce in public protection careers. She has an interesting biography which I'll let her share with you along with some other interesting thoughts. Welcome.

Thank you so much. Thanks everyone for inviting me to be here tonight. As Jeff said, my name is Rita Marcacci. I have been a Westport resident for fourteen years, and I really understand what it's all about, and that is community. So thank you for giving me the privilege, to share one of my many, many experiences on what it means to be a part of the Westport community.

Several months ago, just by chance, I ran into the one and only Jimmy Izzo. I hadn't seen him in almost a year. And so we spoke and we caught up, and then he randomly asked me about my latest film project. I told him the status, gave him the update, and then I said to him, oh, I may need your help. I wanna do a fundraiser for the film and for our veteran focused charitable partner.

And Jimmy just looked at me and said, don't worry. We got you, kiddo. And the next thing I knew, I was introduced to a wonderful team of community leaders that includes Jimmy, Andrew Colabella, our fire chief Nick Marson, Andrea Moore, and Phil Delgado. Each one of them have been nonstop in helping me create an amazing event that will support our veterans. It will support the independent film project that I'm working on, does have a social impact message on veteran mental health awareness, and our charitable partner, Hero to Hero.

Hero to Hero is an organization that was actually started here in Connecticut. They do have a national presence. This organization does amazing work by transitioning our service men and women out of active duty and into first responder roles. In fact, the Westport Fire Department, they employ five veterans who successfully went through the hero to hero program. Think about what that represents.

These individuals that are part of the fire department served our country, and now they're serving our town, protecting our families, responding to emergencies, standing watch when we need them most. I've always found that Westport has just been an amazing place where people engage with each other, They support each other where creativity and compassion intersect. We support the arts not just for entertainment, but because storytelling builds empathy. We support our local businesses and our local organizations, not just because it feels good, but because it strengthens the fabric of our town. The creation of this event and fundraiser would never be possible without the support of our Westport community.

For instance, the fundraiser will take place at the Saugatuck Rowing Club at the end of this month. Last week, totally out of the blue, I received a call from the rowing club, and they wanted to tell me that they would like to feature a specialty drink on their menu for the entire month of March, and that drink will be called the hero cocktail. And then they said all of the proceeds from the sale of those of that drink for the entire month will go directly towards the fundraiser. I mean, that's amazing. I didn't ask for that.

It was totally unexpected, but again, it's another example of what we can do in this community. All of this good and all of this support came out of one small conversation, one reconnection with an old friend. That is the cycle of community at its best, And that is what Westport represents, coming together to ensure the success of meaningful collaborations. And when we invest in one another, especially when it involves those that have served our country, we reinforce the very values that make our town so special. Thank you for having me tonight.

Thank you, miss Marcotti. Would you please lead us in the pledge?

Oh, sure. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, miss Marcotte. As I mentioned, you're welcome to stay, but we always recommend spending your evening elsewhere. Thank you. Would the deputy moderator call the roll, please?

Sure. Okay. Miss Kuykendall? Here. Mister Mandel? Here. Miss Purcell?

She is absent.

Mister Tate? Here. Mister Keenan?

He's on

the phone. Phone.

Miss Levy? Here. Mister Mull? Here. Miss Pitok?

I believe caring for a sick family.

Okay. Mister Burkhart? Yep. Mister Drake? Here. Mister Izzo? Here. Miss Kopak?

Maybe on the phone. Sick. I think absent.

Okay. Mister Colabella? I know he's here. Okay. Mister Lucas? Here. Miss Wiley? Here. Mister Gold? Here. Miss Kramer? Here. Mister Lowenstein? Here. Miss Shom? Here. Miss Banks is?

On the phone maybe or late? No.

She had she's not

coming, but she had said she was gonna try to call in.

But she might be late on

the on the phone. Gotcha. Okay. So I'll leave her for now. Mister Braunstein.

Is he on the phone, mister Braunstein? Might be absent.

I am here. Miss Sorrelli.

On the phone.

Miss Briggs?

Maybe late, but on the phone.

Okay. Mister Carson? Here. Miss Lautenberg?

Maybe on the phone.

Mister Kling?

On the coming on the phone, I believe.

Miss Bateau?

Definitely on the phone.

She's on now?

Yeah.

Okay. Miss Cohn? She's on the phone. Here. Miss Breezen? I

yep. She's here.

Mister Newman?

He's absent.

Miss Johnson? Here. Miss Kale? Here. Mister Moore? Here. Miss Neiman? Here. Someone just said they're on the phone, but I couldn't hear.

So we're missing on the phone miss Pitok, miss Kopak, miss Banks, mister Braunstein, miss Briggs, mister Kling, and miss Lautenberg, and I think mister Newman is absent. Did I call anyone's name there on the phone? No. If you are on the phone, please mute. And I get 27.

Sorry. Let me just make sure. I have 8 absent. Oh, yep. 9 absent. Okay.

At the moment

Can you hear me?

Ellen Laddenberg's Gotcha. On the That's 28.

Sorry, it's Ellen.

Yes. Yep we hear you. Thank you. 28?

28.

Great. So as people show up on the phone we will hear or if they come in we'll hear. We send March birthday greetings tonight to Joe Carson. Joe Grayson who is on the phone and Adam Drake. Congratulations and happy birthday to everyone. I'm just going to start announcements by thanking you all for your patience in putting together tonight's agenda. It's been a little bit of a roller coaster and I'll have a few other thoughts in a minute, but for the time being are there any announcements from RTM members? Any RTM member oh, that perked up Mr. Mandel in the back. Any other announcements from RTM members?

No. Come on down, Matt, and tell us about sandwiches, I bet. Just a lucky guess. Oh, no.

Okay. I just heard some bad news so give me a sec to get my head together. Okay. Matthew Mandel, RTM district one. It's the great sandwich contest. And, if you saw yesterday, great picture of our first selectman eating a sandwich. But, he proclaimed the month of March as sandwich month in Westport. And, we did it at the Old Mill grocery, specifically we chose it there because the Old Mill grocery has had issues. They lost a legal battle and thus they lost their liquor license and can't sell wine any longer. So, all of us, if you can, go I can't hear you.

And And tables outside. Which is secondary to the point where the moneymaker is being able to sell wine. And, now that they can't, please go there. Please support them and keep them going and get until spring so they can get a little more money out of things. But, we're gonna work on trying to get their back their get back their liquor license.

Anyway, great sandwich contest. 23 different restaurants, markets, and delis are all competing for who makes the best sandwich, 10 categories and has been the tradition over the last few years, we're going to have an RTM sandwich lunch probably later in March. I'll find the place and then we'll throw it out there and we'll all have a nice lunch together as we have had in the last few few years. So, sandwich, eat them, they're good, supports the businesses. Thursday begins the new series that was put together at the Chamber of Commerce called Your State Your Business.

The controller of the state will be there at 11AM at the library, free event to come, hear what's going on in the state and how the controller is dealing with it, tell us about it. For businesses, residents, all free event, come. Two weeks later will be the secretary of state, Stephanie Thomas, and then two weeks after that will be William Tong, the attorney general. So, all three of them will be coming, talking to the businesses, talking to the residents, free event. All you gotta do is go to the Chamber of Commerce and sign up. And, those are my announcements for today.

Thank you, mister Mandela. Any other announcements? Any other announcements? Or committee announcements. We're entering budget season full on, and we'll all be getting committee meetings coming up if there are any already scheduled. Maybe not. It's a little little little early. So then our next regular meeting is scheduled for April 7, and so no other announcements on to the business of the evening. I I wanna explain a little bit about what we're doing tonight. We had a meeting last week, as many of you know, attended by, I think, more than 20 RTM members and more than a 150 town residents to discuss the future of the Karari Bridge.

At that meeting, there were many options discussed and we focused on the town's response to the State Department of Transportation at its public meeting on March 19, which I hope is in everybody's calendar. One of the consistent themes of that meeting was that the town needed to present a unified stance on our position if we expect to have a positive effect in the negotiations, if there are any, but the negotiations in our discussion with the straight state department of transportation over the future makeup of the bridge. Few other themes regarded the inclusion of pedestrian and bike lanes on a wide and modernized structure which evokes the current design of the bridge and a continued height impediment that would keep large tractor trailers off the bridge and therefore out of the Saugatuck neighborhood. The only way to have a unified voice on the RTM is to have a vote which a majority can agree on. And to that end, I scheduled this agenda item for this evening and proposed a resolution that might or might not be acceptable to a majority of the RTM and useful to the discussion on March 19 and potential discussions going forward.

To confirm, however, we do not anticipate voting through this sense of the meeting on the more detailed topics of whether to rehabilitate the current bridge or renovate it or replace it. We'll not be voting on the design of a future structure nor will I don't think. Nor will we be voting on other legal aspects of the modernization. These are all issues which are worthy of discussion and which the state has adamantly suggested is their job, and it may be their job, but if we can agree on some basic needs of the community, it will help provide important input for the town negotiations with the Department of Transportation. So now a beauty of this wonderful legislative body is that I cannot predict if we can come to a unified voice.

I recognize from past experience that we are not very good at wordsmithing our thoughts on a Tuesday night in the Town Hall Auditorium. I know that we are not good at designing bridges, and I am cautious about confidently interpreting state and federal laws that will affect the completion of this project. We can, however, identify all these things to be considered crucial to the bridge and to the town as this long term project goes forward, and I encourage that conversation this evening. But I do hope we can agree on some basics. By speaking with a loud, unified voice this evening, we can help the first selectman in his review with the state understand the needs of the town as provided by a majority of this body, and if if a majority of this body can deliver a positive report, I believe that would be helpful as we move forward.

Our proposed resolution tonight asks simply that a modernized bridge evoke its current iconic structure, that it be wide enough to include a bike and pedestrian lane, and that it be height restricted so as not to provide access to large trucks. The wording is in the packet on the website, and it would be helpful to keep the discussion tonight to those issues and others that we can address. Beyond all that, I encourage as many of our members and members of the public to be available for the March 19 meeting with the Department of Transportation. So that's all I have to say on the subject. And with that, would the deputy moderator read item number one of the call?

To hold a public discussion to support the town administration and its Cabari Bridge discussions with the state of Connecticut Department of Transportation with the intent to adopt a sense of the meeting resolution.

Thank you, miss Karp. That was pretty much a committee report. What I said spoke to what we talked about last week in our kind of open ended discussion. So we're gonna turn right to the public for comments to see if members of the public would like to discuss the Kiribati Bridge. Our first selectman, mister Christie, come on down and welcome, as always.

Thank you Mr. Moderator. And thank you to the RTM for taking up this discussion item tonight. We heard about community in the opening remarks tonight and the convocation, and first I want to acknowledge the community interest in the future of the Kerbari Bridge. My immediate focus is ensuring strong public participation, as moderator mentioned, in the March 19 DOT public hearing and also ensuring public participation in the comment period.

The public hearing is the appropriate forum, and for some West Borders, the first forum an opportunity to hear directly from the DOT about the proposed project and where the process stands. And I encourage all of us, West Borders, elected officials, everyone watching at home, to review the environmental assessment in advance of the meeting. And, I also encourage everyone to come to the meeting, again, in this room, March 19, open house at six p. M, and engage in the process. That way, we're all working off the same set of facts before deciding how the town should best engage going forward.

And you do have my commitment to watch the rest of this meeting later this week because I do need to step out and prepare for my budget presentation to the Board of Finance tomorrow night, which is also a ninety ish million dollar price tag. So with that, thank you for all you do. I'm glad to see many members of the public here here tonight, and I look forward to watching and hearing all of your comments later this week, and of course, in addition to our legislative body. And thank you again, and thanks for all you do.

Thank you, mister Christie. Any other members of the public? Yes. Come on down.

Sam Levinson. 165 Imperial Avenue. Just two really brief comments. For those of us who live by the bridge, we witness the traffic every day. And, it's not a matter of opinion. As a matter of fact, the traffic study for the hamlet, as an example, demonstrated that the level of service at Bridge And Riverside fails every day. It's it's it's greater than f every day. That's today. That's before there's any development in Saugatuck. That's before Hiawatha comes online.

That's before the bridge potentially can take more traffic. So, we have a problem daily with backups. It's impacting the neighborhood, our health, our lifestyle, and our property values. So, anything that occurs that enables more traffic, and heaven forbid, truck traffic, is gonna further negatively impact our health, our lifestyle, and our property values. And, anything that the state does to enable that, in my opinion, amounts to a taking of our property.

So, I encourage this body to stand strong and protect the residents, not those getting off 95 and going through our town. Protect the residents, protect our property values, and recognize that whatever we're negotiating for, we have to fundamentally prevent a worse traffic problem. And, as we consider what we want in the bridge, I would love to have a bike lane. That would be great. But adding a bike lane means widening the bridge.

Would widening the bridge fall into rehabilitation? Maybe not. So, if we demand a bike lane, are we now demanding a replacement of the bridge? I just wanna be very careful about our memorandum of understanding and what we're asking for. There's sort of a need to have versus a nice to have. We all believe in safety. We've all been safely crossing that bridge for decades. I just want to be very thoughtful about how we negotiate with the state. And, please, please protect our property values and our lifestyle because if that bridge gets replaced, I'm selling. I'm moving.

I'm leaving town. It's that it's that problematic. So, please understand that from the people who live

in it every day. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Come on down, Morley.

Morley Boyd, six violin. Thanks Jeff. I don't have any prepared remarks because I don't really know what's gonna be said here tonight. Except I will say that I I do like the sounds of the proposed resolution. And to respond to what was just said by mister Levinson, I can clarify that the generalized plan that was discussed at the last RTM Zoom meeting involved widening the existing bridge is actually a variation on a alternative that the DOT originally arrived at, that was widening the existing bridge.

Of course, the sticking point came when they also wanted to raise the bridge. So that's why I think that our proposal to slightly widen the bridge to address safety and pedestrian and bicycle access is a reasonable one, and it's based upon other bridges, other historic bridges in other states that have done the same thing. So I think it falls within reasonably falls within the idea of conserving an existing structure but modernizing it to address the needs of the community as they are today. The second point I wanna make is that I hope that the RTM will stay on the field here as this goes forward. And I say that because the DOT, whether it intends to is intended to or not, isn't really following the prescribed process here.

Mister Levinson mentions that he lived on Imperial Avenue. He's within the bounds of a National Register District, Bridge Street the Bridge Street National Register District, and it's called Bridge Street for a reason. I mean, the houses on Bridge Street only exist because a road was put to access the bridge. The lady up at the corner gave her pasture land so that a road could be sent down to the bridge and all the houses were built after that. DOT came along and said, well, the approximate area of effect for our project is just a few houses on on Bridge Street.

Overlooking that they're proposing a massive change to the very thing that defines this national register district that they've just stumbled into. It's completely inappropriate and it runs completely afoul of the section one zero six process. Yet here we are. So I don't want to go down this rabbit hole except to just say that we need to stay involved and we need to ask very pointed informed questions on the nineteenth. Thank you very much.

Thank you, mister Boyd. Any other members of the public who'd like to speak? Oh, yes. Mister Stern.

I'll try and I'll try and be brief. Thanks for inviting me. That's a joke. Brian Stern, 12 Covey Drive, Westbrook, Connecticut. I think it's excellent you're having this meeting and I think it's excellent that the town is discussing specifications of what we want. And we've gotta be clear. If you've a department of of transportation, you've gotta be clear what you want before you get there. You can't sort of and about it. And you've gotta be very focused. My my opinion is this, is that it would be extremely difficult to get the state to approve something that doesn't allow 18 wheelers to go over there.

It's it's a legislative mess. There are some towns that have done it. Rowayton, for example, did ban 18 wheelers from their main street, you know, the one that goes past all those fancy restaurants there. And it has been done, but that was one heck of a struggle to do it and will take a long time. When Jim and myself were were here and we were discussing, and this is now many years ago.

I can't believe how many years ago it was. The the state did sort of start to float ideas about financing the bridge sorry, constructing the bridge themselves. Too tight specifications that the town would give them, and then somehow donating the bridge to the town to take that responsibility of the federal regulations off their back. Now, it seems to me that at some point, because as our two previous speakers, I totally agree with what they said, that bridge is vital to the community there. And it's a big part.

There are two districts of Westport that really are impacted. And you saw a little bit of the emotion of the first speaker. And that's very important that we that we honor that and that we preferred we preserved that part of town for a hundred years, for a long period of time. And this one decision will change that if it's not the right one. So my my feeling is that we should not take off the table when we're doing the negotiations, and I'll I'll participate in them if you want.

The idea that the town, with very, very serious clauses in the contract, if we accept the bridge from the town from the state, take the responsibility as it, but have, you know, a warranty, have years of of of how, you know, how long it's gonna stay in place without major renovations. Do it tightly. And I think in the long run, a hundred years ago a hundred years from now, when my great grandchildren, hopefully, are still living here, they have a community there, and the town should take the responsibility. Hell, if you read my articles in the newspaper, if you read them, on the Westport Journal, we have reserves in this town, and this is what they're for. They're to protect the town.

And when we go into the negotiations with the state, we have to be firm on our specifications that you're drawing up today, bike lane, size, 18 wheelers, all that sort of stuff that's crucial for us, but be prepared to compromise on some sort of ownership of it. Because I think in a hundred years time everybody will thank us for it. That's all I have to say. Great. Again.

Thank you, mister Stern. Any other members of the public? I know you're out there. Anyone else like to speak? Yes. In the back, come on down.

Benjamin Levety's, 9 Highgate Road. Good evening, mister moderator, madam moderator, deputy moderator, members of the RTM. I'm the, the chairman of the Westport Historic District Commission. I'm not here to speak on behalf of the commission, but just to provide some additional context for everyone's consideration tonight. Ten years ago, my predecessors on the commission voted to approve a study report that would have resulted in the designation of the Saugatuck Swing Bridge as a local historic property.

And, the purpose of that report was to require that modifications to the bridge be appropriate. And, that means not in Congress with the aspects of the historic property that are determined to be historically or architecturally significant. So, that's what was done back in 2016. In my personal view, the resolution that's proposed tonight is consistent with the aims of the vote that was taken ten years ago on the historic commission. And, that's all I wanted to add for this evening. Thank Thank

you very much. Any other members of the public like to speak to this? One shot. Oh, yeah. Come on down. So, yeah, we we have the public speak, and then we have a resolution, and then the RTM speaks, and that's the end of the public conversation. Yeah. You for asking.

Bobby Guimon, hi, everybody. How are you? I live on 471 Riverside Avenue. I can repeat what Sam Levison's speech was and just change the address to my address because that's where I live, and I wanna protect my family and my property values, and I will not leave Westport for whatever the bridge ends up being. I can go over the whole thing that I've said a thousand times. You know where I stand on this. I think what you need to take into consideration is what can we control. The state is not gonna let you control what they build there. I know that because I sat with the state for a dozen meetings. What they probably will let us do is have major input in design.

Major input on what ends up going there. You're gonna ask for height restrictions. They're gonna say no. You're gonna say we want, you know, bike lanes. They're gonna say, well, the bridge is gonna be 50 feet wide. We don't want that. So I think tonight's conversation first of all, that last letter in your proposal in the what was it called, the

name?

What's the Resolution.

And the resolution was

not Sense of the meeting.

The sense of the meeting wasn't exactly what we were discussing on the other evening, and you added the structural limitation to the bridge, and that takes that doesn't take into consideration my neighborhood. It takes into consideration Greens Farms, which could put a no truck a no truck ban on their road, but it doesn't take into consideration balancing both sides of the river with the traffic load that's necessary to get through this town. So I have some issues with that. But I urge you tonight to discuss what we can control. Not pipe dreams, not illusions.

State of Connecticut is not playing with us, and they are going to suggest and pretty much insist that they build everything according to their specifications. We can have control of what the bridge looks like. We can have control of some historical preservation aspects to it, maybe by another trust design. We can actually ask, and I believe that's what the meeting was in December was about what can we take from historical properties from the bridge and use to protect it. Things like maybe a bridge park, Kubari Bridge Park right by the bridge.

Maybe we can take the truss system off of the roadbed and put it into another position somewhere in the town. There's a lot of variables that we can ask the state to do that we do have control over. So, urge you to I urge you to, you know, I'm not trying to pick on the Bridge Street side. I get it. I get it. You know, the trucks go by my house. I get it. Nobody wants it. But, we live in a neighborhood that's right off of 95, and we have three spans to get across that we have to balance the traffic load over, or we're gonna put the we're gonna put the liability on one particular part of town at the benefit of another. And, you know, maybe if you end up going that way, maybe we can reduce the property taxes on Riverside Avenue and increase the property taxes over on Bridge Street.

Maybe there's a way to compensate the houses on that side of the river. Because if we're gonna lose our value, why should it not be balanced? So, urge you just to pay attention to what we can control. And I think if we work with the state in a way that's reasonable, there are certain attributes that we can protect and bring into the end goal of the product, which is a good stand that protects everybody, balances the traffic, and is an addition to our community. Thanks. Thank

you, Mr. Biman. Anyone else from the public like to speak? Yes, come on down.

Hello. My name is William Donovan and I'm the dock master at the Westport VFW, which is located just north of the Kibari Bridge. We have docks there that have been in place for, I don't know, fifty or sixty years. And when they redid the bridge a while back, what we noticed is that the the level of the bridge itself is inadequate for getting boats in and out of it. The problem is is that all the boats that we have up there trying to get underneath is that they they just can't At a high tide, didn't mean high tide. We can't get underneath the bridge. And it's it's

a

it's a pain in the butt in terms of having to call and open the swing gate up, the swing bridge down, and this and that. Now I understand that in terms of building a new bridge and having people in there and causing for the five alternatives that I saw, if there is any work done there, I would just like to see personally as as a member of the VFW and as our fellow boaters that are above the bridge, we would like to see the height raised somewhat in terms of incorporate that in. I'm not talking about five feet, six feet. I'm talking a couple of feet so that it would allow better access to traffic up and down the river. They also I know I heard a couple of years ago, they were talking about dredging the river up and making access up into town and putting docks up that way there.

I don't still know if that's, you know, on the books of what they were thinking about doing with that. But I'm just expressing my concerns about that. And if there is some type of forward motion where they are gonna do some work on the bridge, I would like to see that that the bridge is raised. And, you know, maybe by a couple of feet just to help, you know, the navigation in the channel going up and down. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Any other members of the public? Any other members of the public? Oh, putting on a coat. Are you coming up? Come on up.

Hello.

Hello. Welcome.

I'm Linda Prestigard. I live at 110 Roseville Road, and I see this as impacting the entire town with two major issues, the traffic and the historical nature of this bridge. And I think that this town should be doing everything within our power to avoid allowing our town to be, in essence, the 4th Lane of I 95 traffic. I don't know how to say it any plainer. We cannot have 18 wheeler trucks coming through down Greens Farms over that bridge or preferably any any road in Westport if they do not have business in our town.

So I thought that there were very many constructive suggestions that have come through the various comments in the Westport Journal I've been reading in o six eight eight o. I think we should be looking at the opportunities that we may have with the way stations that used to exist, I believe, at Exit 18 and in trying to make it much less desirable for 18 wheeler trucks to get off on either 18 or 17 and make it have them view it as not an option. I don't think that you're going to get those needs met by trying to stop Waze or Maps, Google, or whatever to try to make it less desirable for the cars or not to direct them through because I don't think it's going to work. They're gonna figure out ways to get around it. And I personally think that the historic nature of this bridge should be recognized and appreciated in by the town and its residents because it is almost by definition when you come off Exit 17 and you come approaching that bridge and coming from town the other way.

It's an incredibly important piece of our history, and it really is a part of the nature of the town. And while it's not a true comparison, I think if you look at what happened to Grand Central Station and the preservation that occurred there versus what happened to Penn Station, when you start to dismantle these historic pieces of our small New England town, you are eliminating much of the charm and much of the character of the town, and it does have an impact. And it may not be a direct and immediate impact, but when you continually eliminate the older houses, you take away the bridges, you demolish older buildings, you lose the look, the character, the feel, and there's a reason that things like these bridges get designated as historical bridges. And it isn't just a question of traffic, but it the the it is a question of the quality and the character of our town. I do think that we should be able to figure out a way to make it wider, add pedestrians, add bicycles, and not increase the height of that build bridge other than I totally respect the idea that the bridge was lowered, and it shouldn't have been lowered.

It should be accessible or made easier for boaters to get through. But I don't think and I think there are many people in this town that believe that we should be able to figure out a way to continue to be able to use the bridge properly, make it more accessible for pedestrians and bicyclists without opening ourselves up to allowing Connecticut to avoid it dealing with traffic problems the way it should be and running the traffic through our small towns.

Thank you miss Briskarden. Any other members of the public like to speak to this? Yes. Come on. Come on down.

Hello. My name is Ben Meyer. I'm one of the one of the owners of Bridge Square. Just to be brief, guess. You know, I've seen some problems at other places where things get over constrained.

And so, it's a very constrained problem to refurbish this or rebuild it. To some of the points I've heard, If it's refurbished, it may have enough capacity to carry heavy trucks anyway possibly. So, it may be necessary to do some local ordinance restrictions on big trucks going through to achieve that that goal. So no matter what I mean, we can't have the bridge falling into this you know, being in disrepair too much. So if they strengthen it, the trucks may be a problem anyway even if they don't replace it.

I've heard raising the bridge a little bit to help boats. The less it's open, the better for obviously traffic and backups. But if it's raised too much, again, I have to represent where we where we own Bridge Square, you have to be careful you you don't close off one of our our entrances to Bridge Square. We have two entrances. And, it's very tight. We have, you know, restaurant trucks bringing supplies, liquor store to 99 bottles. Those trucks have to go in and out different exits. They can't turn around. It's there's no room to do that there. So we would effectively create backups on Riverside or Bridge Street if an entrance was closed off.

So I think they have to be very creative about raising it a little bit. They also wanna raise it because of the flood zone issue the the hundred year flood thing because they wanna get their mechanicals higher if possible. So I believe moving the pivot point to the east was one of the engineers at Connecticut. DOT seemed to be doing it the prior meeting when they had it in, I guess, the Room 201 over here. He's he talked about that with me briefly.

Might make a lot of sense because you don't want to close off one of our entrances not only for us but for the town. And, you do wanna have those mechanicals not get wet somehow. And, and it helps the voters too. So, those are my thoughts. And, if the mayor wants any any additional civilians on the team, I'm happy to help, preferably after tax time though.

Thank you.

Thank you, mister mayor. Any other members of the public like to speak to this? Any other members? Yeah. Sorry, Morley. No, I'd better not. It's a time honored tradition. Bad precedent. Sorry. Any other members of the public? Alright. Seeing none. If I I don't see any, wave strongly if you're out there, but I see none. Do we have a resolution?

Yes. Resolved. It is the sense of the Westport representative town meeting that the town administration should engage with the Connecticut Department of Transportation to ensure that that the Krobari Bridge across the Saugatuck River is restored, rehabilitated, or replaced as soon as practicable. Any upgrade should at a minimum maintain or revoke the iconic design of the current structure. The finished structure should be wide enough to include pedestrian and bike lanes and a height restriction to ensure that it will not provide access for semi tractor trucks.

Second. Thank you miss Karp and mister Mull. Would any member of the RTM like to address this? Miss Stamen kick us off.

Good evening everybody. Kristin Schneeman, District 9. I will start by saying I might have hoped we would have had a somewhat more specific or strong statement, but I understand that it can be hard to get 19 of us to agree on anything, let alone more than that. So I think ultimately it is most important that as I think I like the words that Morley used, that the RTM stays on the field during this process now that we've all been activated. So I'll be happy to go along with a statement that I think represents, you know, a a clear statement of our priorities as the representatives of our community.

I do wanna say that in the statement as it reads now, there is one word that gives me pause, and that's the word replace. I know we're trying to be keep the field open here for the first electman and others to have a conversation and negotiate with the state. I understand that that is also the state's preferred option to replace the bridge. But I do very strongly believe that rehabilitation or whatever word you wanna use that's not replace gives us flexibilities with a number of things that are very much to our advantage, I think, as I understand what people's priorities are. It gives us flexibilities with the design standards, with the load posting, with height of the bridge itself, with height over the base flood elevation.

I've been digging into a lot of details on this stuff recently, and I don't understand it all at the level of depth that other people do. But I've I've covered a lot of territory in the last few weeks. I'm gonna talk a little bit about process, and I apologize because I'm gonna get into the weeds. But I think it's important because this is how the state does its business. This is how the federal government does its business.

There are a lot of laws regulations and policies and all sorts of things that govern all the elements of this replacement of a bridge or the rehabilitation of a bridge. And they will dazzle us with the details, and we will all sort of be deer in the headlights and just kinda go along with whatever they say because we don't necessarily understand it at the same level of depth, but it's important. A lot of what we've been talking about in the process that we've been part of as a town has mostly been under the National Historic Preservation Act section one zero six consultation process. That meeting that we had in December was the Department of Transportation coming to us under the heading of section one zero six to consult with the town about this project in the context of historic preservation. If that's the same group of people that's coming back on March 19, not really sure about how productive that meeting's gonna be.

I've asked that question. I haven't gotten an answer to it yet. Who from the state is coming? What can they what what's their agenda? What can they tell us? What do they want to hear from us? And what are they gonna do with that information? Section one zero six only requires that they consult with us. It doesn't require them to do anything with the input they receive. But there's actually another governing law here that I think is really important and that we have the opportunity to leverage right now, and that's the Department of Transportation Act section four f.

So four f versus one zero six. And I'm just gonna read you something quick. Section four f prohibits the Federal Highway Administration from approving a project that uses a historic site, including demolishing or substantially impairing it, unless there is no feasible and prudent avoidance alternative. So replacing the Kerbari Bridge would constitute a use of a national register listed property. Conduct and the Federal Highway Administration would need to demonstrate that rehabilitation is not feasible and prudent before they could approve replacement.

So we can use that that law to argue that adaptive rehabilitation, which is the, you know, the proposal that Morley and others have circulated is that that that is a feasible and prudent alternative that would avoid the use of a historic resource. And the burden of proof is on the agency to show otherwise. And this has been successfully leveraged in historic bridge cases across the country. So they're not talking about that. Nobody's talking about that at the state, but I think that's something that could work in our favor if we wanna have more control over what that bridge looks like and what it can do and what it can't do.

I think the last thing I'll mention now is just that I I learned actually in the last couple of days about another example in this state that I think is really instructive. I did not know that East Haddon East Haddon has a swing bridge. I don't know how many people in this room know that. And it just got and Andrew's giving me the it just got rehabilitated. They finished the work last summer.

And it it's a bigger swing bridge than our bridge. They rehabilitated it, and it they they were allowed to do a lot of things that I think we wanna do including and they did actually widen it to add a a lane that accommodates both pedestrians and bikes. So I just think that we've been this process has been sort of barreling down the tracks, but I think we actually have opportunities to influence it that, like, if we don't bring this to the table, the state is just gonna keep telling us the same thing that they've been telling us all along, which is that this is the way they wanna do it. This is the way it has to be. They can't do anything different.

But especially if we rehabilitate and not replace, it is true if we replace the bridge that they have to do they have to do it in a certain way. They will not build a new bridge that does not accommodate all forms of traffic. But if we don't build a new bridge, if we real rehabilitate the old one, we may have a lot more control over the outcome. So I'm kind of advocating for considering removing that word replace from from our sense of the meaning. So thank you.

Thank you, miss Neiman. Anyone else? Who's next? Mister Tate.

Okay.

Chris Tate, RTM district one. Thank you. So first off, I wanna state, you know, state that, you know, some people why we are concerned about this bridge and all that. You know, that Zoom meeting we had, I think we had roughly, like, a 150 people on that Zoom, which is probably since I've been down there, Tim, more than the people on the Zoom that I've ever seen before. So I think there is a little bit of, of people out there in our community who do care about the bridge, you know, having a 150 people on a Zoom for that particular night.

That said, you know, I I know we're doing the sense of the meeting here, and I get that. But I guess, you know, doing all the research and my concern is going forward, and as Kristen was stating here, you know, we wanna make sure we don't get blindsided, is, you know, back in the late eighties, we had we were in the same position we are now. The state wanted to come in, replace the bridge, wanna take it away, and put a new bridge in. And at that time, Madi Hart Hahuth was the first select woman and actually spoke to her daughter today who spoke to her, for me, and I'm gonna meet with her and to discuss what they did back then. Because back then, they had the same position we're in now and obviously succeeded into getting the bridge rehabilitated, and and here we are dealing with it now, but for that point doing that.

And one of the things they did was put a what they call a RTM bridge committee together. And that committee was actually done by the first select woman at that time to put that committee together to the then during the process while she was negotiating with the state, the committee was also there to, be a voice of the community at the same time inform the community what was going on because this is gonna be a long process. And we all wake up one day and say, what happened? We want to be transparent as possible. So, you know, going forward and and, you know, and and, with the first electment, I think, you know, putting some sort of committee of maybe one or two RTM members, but mostly, you know, somebody like an engineer and and like minded people in that process that as we go forward can be that communication for us as in the RTM in our community because I have people come to me and ask certain questions.

I won't be able to answer them or say, hey. The building community is having a meeting, you know, this particular time, and they're gonna be discussing, you know, where we are with the bridge and what's gonna happen with the bridge, and at the same time, hear from them and then pass it back on to the first electman as he goes through his negotiation. So it'd be just, it it helps solidify us in having this having one voice, having a committee and then through you know, we can have fifteen, seventeen different reasons why we want the bridge, how it looks, or whatever, but having one voice to communicate that to the first electorate as he communicates to the state. So, really, coming out of this, I'd like to see, hopefully, that to happen. Because, I said, 20 ago, last time we went through this, it seemed to work then.

So sometimes if it worked and they were successful, we might wanna follow the same road map. So, you know, looking back at that and looking at what they achieved, I think we can try to maybe focus on doing that again. And then also help the first select person, select selectman, that they, you know, as he goes to negotiate, he knows what the committee is looking for. And we can be that conduit, kinda like the, you know, long lots building committee and other committees we put together. It's just a, you know, a way of kinda solidifying that and working together. Because, again, this process is gonna be long, and we don't wake up one day and be like, what did I miss? So we want somebody focused on because we all have our daily lives. We're all going about our daily daily lives. And so, you know, we don't have the time to be reading every single thing that goes on and what may be going on with this bridge. We have somebody who's then communicating that back and forth.

I think, you know, something that I would like to see going forward for us as a community and where we end up with the bridge. And, again, that's gonna be an ongoing process. But, Kristen, you know, I agree with you. You know? Do we take that out? Yeah. Maybe. But but that's my 2¢. I think that's for the community going forward as we have some sort of committee to to communicate to the first selectman and then into the to the public as we do in a lot of other situations like the long let's build the committee and so on. So I appreciate that, and hopefully, something like that could be going forward. Thank you

thank you mister dade and miss kale miss perkhart.

Nancy kale rtm district nine. I just want to point out that it would be great tonight to have that sense of the meeting resolution, that wording posted on a screen above all of us so we could see it. So here's hoping. I love the no fourth lane. So thank you, Linda.

I think that's a great motto and I'm gonna keep using it. I agree that it's time to get involved and get loud about this and that means all of us. The nineteenth is key and I really hope that the whole town shows up. There's lots more that we can do though. And a sense of the meeting tonight is just one of them, but it absolutely does not stop there.

Many of us on the call the other night voiced that we should have a multipronged approach. Kristin Mott Purcell was saying that. Chris Tate was saying that. A lot of us were a lot of members of the public. So I think that one of those other prongs is absolutely a committee.

And I'm disappointed that the first select person didn't mention that tonight because I don't believe that we need to wait until the nineteenth to start to talk about forming a committee of RTM members and, of course, many others. So I am I'm fully in support of this resolution. I think Kristen had a really good idea about somehow incorporating rehabilitation into the sense of the meeting. But I don't wanna stay here for three hours debating that word or other words because most importantly, I think we need to have something that we all agree on in this sense of the meeting resolution. And it's most important that we're taking action tonight in doing that knowing that that is only just a start.

Thank you.

Thank you, miss Gail. Mister Burkhart.

Ross Burkart, ITM district three. Just it's interesting. I've been around town probably as long as many of the people in here longer than most of the people in here. I was on the P And Z back when Marty Haworth was the first select person. And we got involved in the issue because there needed had to be an ape One of these I'm sorry.

It's been a long time. But somehow, the law required us to take a position on the bridge. And we were very far along on having a design which the state eventually proceeded to work on after they had built a very humpback bridge, temporary bridge to while they were doing the work on the bridge. And what we were gonna do is tell the state that we wanted to become the owner of the bridge and, you know, much like was proposed here earlier in the evening. And the thing that we've gotta remember is that the Nemo bone is connected to the tailbone or whatever.

The state said that said that what that would probably mean that they would have to take Route 136 all the way from the Post Road down, cross on Bridge Street, cross the bridge out of the their system. And that the town would not only be taking over the responsibility of maintaining and running working on that bridge, but also for a long stretch of highway between the Post Road and Bridge Street, at least. And the PNC and the town, I think I don't know I've forgotten some of the history, but it was very interesting. The PNC basically voted in favor of us. Not that we could but made it very clear that we were in favor of the town taking over the bridge in spite of all of the other financial responsibilities that would go with it.

And, it was very interesting. It looked like the state was going to accept that offer and then at the last minute they said nope we'll build it. You will continue to own it and we'll do it the way you want to have it done. But there are, I think, bigger financial implications to this than just simply this is more than almost anything else we're gonna be doing in this town. It really does affect all of us.

And the air pollution problems that are down by the bridge are basically a regional problem. I mean, the the no question. I hate it when trucks go by my house on Clinton Avenue and the noise and all of the pollution. But the the we are dealing with a a system here that is very interconnected. And the other concern that I have that I think that this town needs to really think about is we have three crossings of Saugatuck River.

The Bridge Street the bridge, the post Road bridge, and basically, what is it on Canal Street going up in that area. And I think we have got to look at long term, you know, resiliency for the town and how we're gonna manage if one of those three bridges that we've got goes out. And if they if you look right now, the post road bridge at me at high tides is practically being covered or touched by the Saugatuck River. That wasn't going on when I was back in the nineteen eighties. The the river has risen.

The water levels in town have risen. And we've gotta really start thinking about how we if the post road bridge, for any reason, goes out, what is gonna be the traffic plan? There are 18 wheelers that come into town and go across the post road bridge to service all kinds of things along the, along the post road. So if we immediately say, automatically design it so the Cabri Bridge can't take 18 wheelers, we are really pinning ourselves into difficult corner that we really need to think about. There are ways I think we can deal with that, but at the same time, thinking about a broader resiliency plan and how we're going to deal with the fact that the Saugatuck River is going to continue to rise and the shoreline along around Westport and along Riverside, you know, Riverside Avenue, the the the flooding potential is going to increase over the next ten, fifteen years and the next fifty years because the climate change and the temperature change going on with climate change right now is really actually built in already.

Even if we stopped all carbon emissions and methane emissions today, there is a lot of of temperature rise and everything else that is built into the amount of pollution that we've already put into the atmosphere. So I think we can't take Cabriere Bridge in isolation by itself without thinking about the ramifications of other things that are gonna be going on in town. And that I will leave it for that. I think I've talked more. I will say more at the public hearing.

Great. Thank you, mister Burkhart. That's mister Rizzo then miss Johnson.

Jimmy Izzo, RTM three. Ross, great point. I think everybody's being so consumed with the Kurbari Bridge and their own backyard, which I understand, but we have to look at the whole town with this situation. I like what Robbie said we have to control what we can control so I don't know if it's so much of saying we don't want this we want this but remember folks there was a housing bill that just passed that our representatives voted for that basically said traffic doesn't matter, that parking doesn't matter, that all three of our state reps raised their hand for it. So that means traffic is coming.

So we have to deal with traffic. We have a bunch of eight thirty g's on the docket. There will be something in Saugatuck at some point. We know that. It's you can only hold that off for so long. But I do like what Ross is saying. We have to find a way to either get a traffic engineer in at some point or get these lights all fixed. But the biggest problem is the Saugatuck River, there's only three ways to cross it. And we have to get equal distribution of trucks vehicles over all three and good luck to that. Thank you.

Thank you mister Rizzo. Miss Johnson and then mister Carson.

Hi. Good evening district nine. Yay district nine. All four of us are here. All the power to district nine. And five in spirit. I I have a bunch of things to say and I'm but I'm gonna try to not be long. I have a like all of us, we have different we all come to this in a different way. I was on the pack, the pack back when I actually ran for planning and zoning back in 2017 on a third party line. And one of my lawn sons had the Krobari Bridge on it just because of concern about infrastructure and long term resiliency.

I so I really do wanna shout out like Jimmy did what Ross has just said that we are an interconnected community. And water is a huge part of our life and is going to be much more a part of our life as we move forward. I I love that bridge. There's no doubt about it. I I sent Andrew a photo on on the solstice.

I walked across the bridge on a cold night, no one was around and Christmas lights were on and it is truly a spectacular bridge. I walked that bridge, most days and I think it's a wonderful iconic piece of our town history. But I am really, really concerned. If anything happens to that bridge, our entire economic vitality for the future is interconnected with that. We have really two main water crossings, three.

If that one fails or anything happens or somehow gets stuck and it's required to stay open because it's a federal waterway, we really are going to be in desperate straits. I I looked up the East Haddon Bridge that Kristen you mentioned. It's a spectacular bridge, but that is a community of 8,000 people and this bridge is an integral part of all of our lives because of our need and desire to access Metro North. I I believe as I have said to in an email to everybody, I echo the fact this is I'm not sure I'm going I might I might abstain tonight because I'm not sure I can agree to every component of the sense of the meeting. And I don't know where it's gonna go, but that doesn't mean I am not trying to punt this.

I, a 100%, don't want trucks And, I believe that that concept of a fourth lane of I 95. I believe that that is the number one issue. I think we can debate the future of the bridge. I hope we can keep the bridge, maybe rebuild it. But, number one, that's not what the state is thinking about. They have a piece of infrastructure they need to maintain. That bridge has to open. That's a federal waterway. And I I believe that no matter how much we don't want it to have trucks, they're gonna have to build it to accommodate trucks because fire trucks are trucks. School buses are trucks.

That bridge, when it was originally built, was built kinda like the Brooklyn Bridge, kinda overbuilt. It was built for horse and buggy, but he overbuilt it so as the world as the history passed, 18 wheelers could go over it. And, as Robbie said on the call this past week, the only reason why 18 wheelers don't go over it now is because there's an electrical box that's been installed so the height isn't currently restricted. That wasn't part of the original design. And, the bridge itself, the infrastructure is beginning to crumble so it can't accommodate it.

So, I don't know whether or not us standing here and saying no trucks is anything we have absolutely any say in. So I don't really I mean, if we can meet if if we what we can do though is we can form some kind of special committee and not wait to what happens with this bridge. We can start tomorrow. We could start today and start with a process of really it it's it's not anybody. It's all of our problem, and this is the RTM.

And we have the authority to create a special committee. That is our superpower. Okay? The first select person can recommend like they did for the Long Lots building committee, but our superpower is the ability to create a special committee where we can look at different alternatives for how we can limit truck traffic and stop. We can stop it there. We can do that now. We can put Greens Farms Road on a diet. We can put all sorts of different ways of putting in trees or all sorts of different things. So we decide. We decide whether or not trucks are gonna come over that that stretch.

So I think rather than saying because we have actually no authority over what the DOT does. We can we can raise our concerns. We can raise our voice, but the actual authority we RTM doesn't have authority for that. But we do have the authority to establish a committee to do what we can do. So I I'm not trying to hijack the meeting at all.

I'm not gonna change the sense of the meeting to add that. But I do believe that that is really what our next step should be. And I and one other thing I want to mention is having sat on the pack before, what I'm concerned about with the focus on preserving the existing structure, If it can't be preserved in the same way because it has to be lifted or we we potentially maybe want sidewalks or whatever, we just haven't decided, I don't want an oversized same thing. I don't want I've seen some schematics that they did and it was the our iconic bridge just bigger. And it was kinda like Disneyland in that it was trying to pretend that we were saving the old and it wasn't the old.

It was kinda like a bigger version of not even the old. So I I don't so at that point, I I just want us to you know, that's really what I wanna say. Sorry. I'm not gonna go further. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Johnson. Mr. Carson.

Good evening. Joe Carson, district seven. I'm new to this process. Okay. I'm only here four months, and I'm learning, and I'm really confused. Okay? In my opinion, the Department of Transportation in Connecticut is not hostile to Westport. Okay? They didn't write this report to tell us that they want more trucks coming through our neighborhoods. And I agree with everyone.

We don't want more trucks. But they did alert us to the conditions of that bridge. Okay? You can ignore it, do whatever you want, but it's there. And if it fails, we're in trouble as an RTM. Okay? Be serious about what they say. They say the bridge does not meet the criteria for the number of vehicles. That's what they say in the report. They say public safety is at risk.

That's what's in the report. They say they do not have place for bicycles. And let me tell you something. I am a person that's really interested in bicycles in Westport because Westport failed me. I'm a survivor from an accident in Westport. Okay? And if you don't read this report, word fault. Okay? Replace the bridge, rehabilitate the bridge, repair, whatever. We have to do something as an rtm group okay they say it okay don't ignore it that's it

thank you mr Carson mr Lowenstein

Dick Lowenstein, District 5. What are our red lines for this project? Okay. We started off the meeting with Jeff suggesting that we not talk about what we're gonna do about the bridge, but talk about what we wanna do as far as this percentage of the meeting goes. And, I think some things have come up in the discussion that I wanna throw out for the floor. First of all, the word iconic was used in the documentation we got. I suggest it be changed to historic. I'm iconic, but I'm not historic yet anyway. Second, the word replacement should be stricken. Fix the bridge, yes.

Don't replace it. The question of traffic came up on the bridge. I have made a modest proposal that part of our negotiation we asked the state to grant to us the right to control local traffic on Route 136 from Bridge Street to Compo South to the Post Road. And, this is not something for discussion tonight other than to say whatever this committee does, that's something that we should consider. A question of an emergency came up. You talk about three crossings of the bridge. Really, really four. There's the Merritt Parkway also. When there's an emergency, you take emergency measures. You just don't say we plan for everything.

You can't plan for every single emergency that might happen. So, if there's a bridge, the Mianus River Bridge, for example, you find a way to solve the problem. Pardon me. It might be short term, but you work on that problem until you fix it, then you go back to what you were doing. But, anyway, these are We have to get back to what we were trying to achieve tonight, and those are some of my suggestions.

But, I think, you know, the idea of forming a committee as suggested by Jen Johnson might be a very good idea. I don't know the peculiarity of doing such a thing tonight, but it's worthwhile doing. But remember, the state DOT, like many of the people in this town hall, are bureaucrats. They are not elected people, they are appointed people. DOT And, is a department that we sometimes have to resist and use our elected officials as a lever to work on those people. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Lowenstein. Any other members of the RTM? Mister Mandel.

Matthew Mandel, RTM district one. What started as a conversation among a bunch of RTM members realizing that there was some synergy created that meeting last week and I don't know how many articles and people commenting about it. Today, we're talking about what we would like to do with the bridge. I think the RTM is representing their people. I think we are This is the start and not the finish of what we're doing. And if it means that we need a committee, if it means we need to aid the first electman, these are all things that we need to do. Something I wanna do. If you build it,

they will come.

I always wanted to do that one time. But if they build a bridge that's big enough for trucks, they are going to come. Our constituents are telling us that they don't want trucks coming across the bridge. This resolution that we're gonna vote on, and I will support it, tells the DOT we do not want trucks. So the question is why does the DOT want to do it?

Well, they're saying it's the federal highway rules to do it. But if you really look at it, what does it gain anybody other than one block? Because if the trucks come across it, they're gonna go down Bridge Street and when they're gonna hit Campo Road South, we'll have already said you can't go down Greens Farms Road because we control that. So, they now have to make a left. So what's the real benefit of doing it?

Trucks coming across the bridge is more of a future problem that we need to be heading off today. I've seen plans for the road that would come through Rizzuto's and go over to Saugatuck Avenue. The turns that people say can't be made by the trucks today may be a straight path in the future. Greens Farms Road could, in the future, be the fourth lane. I I I think we're gonna keep that. It could be the fourth lane. The future is what we're discussing today. It's not just about the bridge. It's what happens in the future. And, that's the problem.

And, that's why we have this resolution. And, that's why people are here and they're concerned. The DOT, you know, talks about, well, what do you wanna do? What don't you wanna do? Are you obstinate? Are you not obstinate? My goal from the very beginning is to have people sit down and figure out an answer to that problem, answer to this question. It's not black and white. It's not ones and zeros. We're talking with engineers.

We need to be looking at the gray area between it. We need to be looking at the fractions or the decimal between the zero and the one with engineers and come up with a solution. Now, I know that Jonathan Steinberg in a meeting with the DOT a week ago asked them, what concepts do you have to prevent trucks from coming across it? And, we would hope that the DOT when they come on the nineteenth won't be just here to hear what we have to say but might be coming here to present concepts to us on how to keep the trucks off of it. The reason that the trucks are a problem is that it could be the safety valve.

No truck is voluntary, no driver of a truck is voluntarily gonna get off at seventeen, go all the way down Saugatuck to Riverside Avenue to Route 1, go there to the connector and come back down. But, they would voluntarily come off a little bit and go parallel to the highway and then get back on if it could save them some time. That's District 1, District 9, District 4, District 5, District 5. These are all the concerned citizens that would be affected. The trucks currently are on the West Side on a road that is somewhat more commercial.

But on the East side, it's completely all residential. And Bridge Street is a historic district too. So that's where we're at. Kristen brings up the point. It's the burden of proof of the DOT, of the Federal Highway Association, to prove that there isn't a more prudent concept.

Mister Boyd brought up the concept of splitting the bridge and widening it and it was done in Vermont, it could be done. So, I'll spitball for a second. The metal structure on top actually doesn't do anything other than be the historic looking bridge. Pick it up, take it to the shop, clean it up, make it look better, split it, widen it, take the bridge that's sitting up, the actual bridge part and redo it. Make it work properly.

Bring the structure that you've fixed in the shop back and put it back down. Now, we've got a hybrid situation, adaptive reuse, a rehabilitation of the bridge, and trucks still can't go across it. But, we've accomplished two things. One, a workable, safer, wider bridge still looking historic and it could work. Just spitball idea, but that's where negotiation and sitting down and collaborating with the DOT could work.

We're not being obstinate. We'll be looking to the future to work with the DOT to come up with a solution that would work for both the state and for us. It's there. It just takes a little more imagination. It just takes people, as Dick was saying, bureaucrats, engineers, have them think outside the box, think past the numbers and we can find an answer. What we started last week was amazing and here we are continuing the conversation and the conversation will continue. We can form a committee after the nineteenth if we see that the DOT wasn't offering what we were doing. But, I think we can aid the first selectman in doing it. Mister Meyer here offered him services. He said, I be I don't see him.

There he is. Mister Meyer offered to, help out. Expertise is what we need to be able to talk head to head with the DOT, engineer to engineer, so that they understand us, so we can understand them. It's not just us. I'm not an engineer. Was just coming up with a spitball idea but engineers might figure out actually how to do it. So, point is we're looking at the future and protecting our town from a threat that we see that may be coming and we can head it off today by starting with a resolution that says we don't want trucks coming across it. And that's exactly what the resolution does say.

Thank you, mister Mandel. Mister Mahl.

Louis mall district two before I get started jack cling had asked me if I would say a few words on his behalf He is not feeling well tonight, and so he just would like to me to express that he supports the efforts that we're trying to make tonight, and that the one thing that he definitely does not wanna see are big trucks going over that little bridge. So, Jack, I hope you feel better tomorrow, and it's tough to try and speak on your behalf because nobody says it as well as you do. I have a few disclaimers that I would like before I get started. First of all, I've never built a bridge. Expert in designing, building, or maintaining one.

And I do have a few little blurbs that I wanna throw out there before I get going. Whatever happens to Bridge Street and Riverside has a huge impact on District 2. So I wanna make sure that Districts 1 And 4 And 9, I wanna reassure you that you are not alone. This impacts the entire town. So as Ross Burkhart said, there are three crossings, and this is like a balloon.

Then you squeeze it here, and it comes out over here. So none of us wanna see 18 wheelers being pushed from one side of town on up this river to Riverside. If you wanna see bad traffic, come and look at the intersection at Post Road and Riverside and Wilt Road. We don't even have pedestrian signal lights to get our kids safely across, and the DOT has to fix that problem before they ever fix the problem with Kerberari Bridge. Another thing that I wanna mention is for those of you who have problems with the notorious RTM 29.

This meeting once again dispels any notion of wrongdoing by that group. That you can't petition your local government, and that's why you're here. And finally, one question that I have, mister moderator, before I get into what I really think about Kerbari. Are we setting a precedent tonight on all future infrastructure projects? If so, I would like to have a similar public discussion on the parks and rec maintenance facility, but that's for another night and another time.

So, with that, if you want to answer my question about are we setting a precedent or not or just leave it for people to ponder.

I think we'll leave it for I can answer it in the future, but not tonight.

So, I won't be here for the March 19 meeting, unfortunately, or fortunately, depending upon your point of view. But, I think that we should have three guiding principles. Number one, we should stick to the facts. We should use common sense. And we should weigh in with the best interests of the town of Westport.

That's what we should be guided by. As I said, no one wants 18 wheelers on local roadways. If DOT can ban tractor trailers on the Merritt Parkway, why can't they ban on other state roads? As I say, 18 wheelers belong on the interstate. We do have to address the height of the bridge, the width of the bridge, 19 feet six inches.

That is a narrow road, period. Passageway under the bridge, there's commercial, residential, and recreational usage of that river that we have to take into consideration, and we have to listen to those that are most affected on both sides of the river. I wanna remind you that rivers Riverside Avenue and Lincoln Street are also historic properties. It's a historic district as well, so don't neglect them either. One thing I would like to see, no matter what we do, is to keep the appearance of whatever is there now and also to make sure that we keep the name.

I'd look at the timeline of this, and it was built Bridge Number 1349 was built in 1884. And the first rehab repairs that I see is 1951. So that's sixty seven years of lapsed time. But then the next one after 1951 comes in 1979. That's twenty eight years later.

And then in 1979, the next reconstruct happens in 1993. That was fourteen years. And here we are at thirty three years. I read that report that was written by the DOT rehabilitation study report. That was done in 2016.

And it was scary to read that, and that was ten years ago. And as Joe Carson pointed out, that bridge is in bad shape. It'll have me rethink going over it the next time I decide to go down to the beach. Maybe I'll find a different route. There is only a four foot wide timber sidewalk.

That doesn't comply with ADA in any shape or form. I I noticed also that I looked there was a a sign that used to point out Scenic Highway, and that sign is broken and just lying there, you know, in the snowbank, that that's indicate that's an indication also of what the bridge is. It's broken, and it needs to be fixed. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Mull. Miss Bateau is on the phone, and she would like to speak. Let's see how we can make this work here. This works for votes, but I hope it works for talk. Go ahead, Wendy. Give it a try. And everybody else put yourself on mute, please.

Are are you are you able to hear me, Jeff?

No. Hang on. Go ahead. Try again.

Are you able to hear me?

Yes.

Okay. I have given Jeff a little bit of language that I would like to add on, if possible, to the resolution. I I so appreciate what everybody here has said. I think a lot of the comments are probably most appropriate for the nineteenth, but certainly Nancy Kale's comments and Jenny's and a number of others that speak to things that the RTM could be doing are wonderful. What I would like to do is partly in response to what Ross said, but for other reasons too.

What I'd like to say, if possible, is to affirm that the DOT will adhere to the purposes and regulations of the Connecticut Inland Wetlands and Water Courses Act, Connecticut general statute two twenty four dash 36 through two twenty four dash thirty five. And that's that that would be it. That's a state law, and it it would provide all kinds of protections, not just environmental protections. So, for example, when Ross was speaking about flooding, If you look at the at the variations on the bridge rehabilitation on the charts in the assessment, the the choice of the DOT says they want to sink several piers so deep into the water that it will destroy the bottom of the water. It will cause flooding.

It will destroy all the life at the bottom of the of the water, which means it's gonna be destroying property. That also that that choice also said it's gonna take 10 properties, I guess, by eminent domain. I'm not sure. If we if we simply say that they have to adhere to their own state law, which they have to do anyway, but we'd like to make it clear, those points will be moved. They won't be able to do those points.

They also won't be able to contribute to air pollution, which will help the Greens Farms road situation. I can't go into a whole description of of the IWW now, but it's something to consider because it will provide a whole lot of protections that will affect each and every concern that have been expressed. So that's it. Sorry not to be there, and thank you.

Thank thank you, miss Bateau. Just to be clear, this this is a state law that they'd have to abide by, the inland Yeah. And so we're asking them to abide by a state law?

We're asking them to affirm that they will be abiding by it. So

so I'm afraid

GS 22 a through 30 36 through 22 a dash 45.

So I would I'm just I'm afraid to ask a question, but is that a request for an amendment?

Yes. And Stick on at the very end.

Just stick on at the very end, but we're asking the state to follow their own laws.

Yes. Because otherwise they don't have to. If you don't if you if it's if it's too complicated to do with me on the phone, I I understand. I just think that it will give us if we affirm that they're going to abide by those laws, they will not be able to they will not be able to do things that provide the that will yield the consequences that that they say their choice will yield. Maybe maybe this is an inappropriate way to request that we add it.

I mean, I don't want to if if the RTM were interested in doing that and we had a majority to do it, I think at this hour it kind of complicates what we're trying to do sufficiently that that's a great thing for the March 19 meeting to ensure and express our interest in it. But I'm it's it sounds a little complicated to try to add on, but I I look look for input. I don't see maybe a lot of people anxious to talk to do that right now. Could could we put it

I didn't get it to you before.

If it's okay, Wendy, let's let's save that for the nineteenth. If that's okay with everybody.

It's it's okay with me. I think it would be better from the RTM now, but it's okay with me.

And this isn't our this isn't our last chance at this either. This is going to be ongoing presumably. We'll know more after the nineteenth and if that's okay, let's make note of that. And it's an important point, certainly the environmental aspects. And if that's okay, we'll take the next speaker and maybe come back if you if you think some more about that, Wendy. Are there other people who thank you. Are there other people who would like to speak to this?

Hey, Jeff?

Yes.

It's Jill Graveson.

Yes, Jill.

The the reason I'm on this call was I was hoping Wendy was going to speak. I think other than what Jenny said, this is the most important thing that you can insert some place into some conversation, especially on the nineteenth. I think this is what Wendy said really, really is singularly important. She's the best person who's read, to the best of my knowledge, all of this information. And I don't know how to make sure that what she just said gets into something.

It might not be exactly what what the RTM is trying to do, But I think on the nineteenth, the the information that she just partook is really, really important because it's it's, you know, it's either federal law or whatever. I don't know exactly because I'm not as good this as Wendy is. But I think that someone, needs to really, study or discuss this with her when she gets back from vacation so it can be included in the conversation. And that's all I have to say.

And and coming from Wendy and you, have no doubt that that is correct. It's it's just that having it right here, right now without a lot of background for everyone, it's hard for us to vote on something to make it part of the

No.

No. No. I don't I don't just I don't disagree with that at all. I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying for the meeting, I think that Wendy's dealt into this really importantly, and I hope that somehow that we can figure out how to get it included in the meeting in the nineteenth because I just think really important. But that's my own personality. And so you guys can continue with the meeting and ignore me for this part of trying to get the RTM's determination on what they wanna do. But I'm just saying for the nineteenth, I think this is really important.

Great. Well, we will not ignore you. We will take that very seriously, but I think that's a great point to to very very much follow-up on the nineteenth.

Yeah. Okay.

Thank you. Any other members of the RTM who want to speak to it? I don't see any. Yes. Oh, yes. Mister Nayman.

Alright. At the risk of making y'all help hate me, I am gonna suggest an amendment to the resolution. But we can make this quick because I think it's a very simple one which is to remove the root word restored. And I'll my argument is basically this. I think my sense is that the red line to Dick's point that virtually everybody I've heard from doesn't want to cross is 18 wheelers. Right? It's allowing large truck track truck traffic across the bridge. And as I understand it, replacement essentially makes that point moot. If we're saying that replacement is one of the options that we support in this resolution, that would essentially mean that they would have to build it in a way that allows 18 wheelers. So I'm gonna suggest an amendment.

Just remove the word words or replace. So it would read bridge across the Saugatuck River is restored or rehabilitated as soon as practicable. And that's simple. Change the resolution. Happy to hear a second or not. It could be a quick vote, up or down, and then we can move on with the evening.

Second.

Mister Colabella, thank you. Get that, Colabella. Alright. So the first the amendment is that the it reads that the Kurai Bridge cross the Zagatec River is restored or rehabilitated as soon as practicable. We have a motion and a second. Would any member of the public like to speak to that? Yes, mister DeMond.

Yeah. Robbie DeMond. 471 Riverside Avenue. The thing that I'm hearing is that you guys are not really up to speed with all the details and you're voting on something without the information. So I would make a suggestion that before you talk Could you speak

a little more into

the I apologize.

It's my first time here. No it's not. I would make a suggestion on having a study group to actually look at some of the variables that the DOT is talking about. To educate ourselves to the actual facts before we put together something that's just based on misinformation or second know, third person information or fear. I mean, there's a lot of data that you can read. We could probably spend two or three hours and have a conversation with the information that we have available to us now. So, I mean, listening to this group and a lot of the comments, it's just reminding me again that a lot of people have not taken the time to really look at what the variables are. How can you make a good decision unless you have the facts? And I don't want trucks on Bridge Street. I don't.

I just don't think they should all be dumped on Riverside Avenue. We have a hidden gem that Andrew loves, which is our park. We have a school with elementary kids and parents going to and from that is about as narrow of a road as it can be. You pass JRs. You gotta you'll clip a mirror. We have an ice cream shop. Yeah. Okay. So there's some you know, it's it's a mixed use, but mixed use is residential. So there's a path, and I think Andrew mentioned it.

There is I believe that there is a path, but if you vote on something based on fear and misinformation, it's basically a waste of time. We need to put together the facts, black and white in front of a group of people, maybe the whole RTM, whoever has the time to invest in it, to educate yourselves to make good decisions. I believe the resolution is a good idea. I think you should put together a committee. I think we should sit down and have some seriously hard conversations. I think you need to do it now because we did it ten years ago. And back to the point of ten years, the bridge is substantially worse now than it was in '16. And I was on the pack and I go under the bridge more than anyone in this room. So the clock is ticking. If I can be of service, I'll do my best.

Try not to be I'll try not to be biased, but that bridge has affected my income for almost thirty years. So I have to stand up for it. Thanks for listening.

Thank you, mister Guilleman. Mister Boyd, I knew you'd get a second chance at it.

Thank you, mister moderator. I appreciate that. Morley Boyd six filing. I just wanna say that I do support Christian's amendment. I think that the point is that if you include the word replace, you've essentially created a document that is eating its own tail. I mean, I think the sense in this room tonight is what it is about trucks and so forth. So you're kinda saying two different conflicting things if you have replacement in there. Thank you very much.

Thank you, mister Boyd. Anyone else from the public like to speak to the amendment? Could you mute if you're on the phone please? And seeing none, so we're voting on the amendment. Oh.

Do you wanna vote the amendment?

I'm sorry. We're not voting. We're not voting. We're we have the resolution is that that that we had restored or rehabilitated and dropped or replaced and now members of the RTM. Yes. Mister Lowenstein and mister Carson.

Dick Lowenstein, District 5. Jeff, do you wanna consolidate all proposed wording changes into one motion, or do you wanna have each wording change separate?

Well, that's the only one so far.

Well, because I was gonna propose only one, which is changing the word iconic to a historic to remember the fact that the bridge is

so Well

I mean, I'll make that motion separately.

We were just about to vote on the whole thing, and so that hasn't been an amendment yet if you wanna make Okay.

So, you're willing to accept additional amendments after this one is voted on?

This would be the second amendment.

Okay. Good. Good enough. Thank you.

Yep. Is that an amendment? Is that an amendment you're asking for?

Yes. An amendment Why How do you feel about it?

I mean, there's this one on the

floor right now. This

would be a

second Vote. One after Yeah. It'll be number two.

This would be the second amendment.

Okay. Fine.

So is it Dick, are you asking for an amendment to change the word iconic to historic?

Yes.

Do we have a second? No. Mister Gold, now we're back to the public to talk about changing the word iconic to historic. Is there any public comment on that? Alright. Now is there any RTM comment on changing the word iconic to historic? Seeing none. Will vote roll call vote on changing mister Lawenstein, you paying attention to your amendment?

I'm sorry. I apologize.

We're now gonna vote on the changing the word iconic to historic. So we'll have a roll call starting with mister Lowenstein.

So this is amendment two. Two.

By vote now?

Wait. Hang on just a sec. So, yeah, start with mister Lowenstein.

Go for it.

Yeah. Sorry. Miss.

Mister Lowenstein's.

Sorry. Mister Lowenstein. Yes.

Okay.

And then we go to miss Shyam. We're voting on Dick's amendment changing iconic to historic.

Iconic to historic. Yes.

Okay. Miss Banks is not here. Bronson is not here. I am a yes. Miss Sorelli?

Yeah.

Mister Carson?

No. Miss

Bato? Mister Kling on the phone? No. That's right.

Yeah.

Okay.

And Wattenberg had to draw. Miss Bato?

Yes.

Rachel dropped. Miss Grayson?

Yes.

Miss Johnson?

No.

Miss Kale? Yes.

Mister Moore?

Yes.

Miss Schneeman? Yes. Miss Kuykendahl? Yes. Mister Mandel? Yes. Miss Purcell is not here. Mister Tate? Mister Keenan is on the phone.

Mister Keenan, are you there?

Oh, sorry. I was muted.

I'll abstain all things since the meeting was moved.

Okay.

Abstain.

Abstain.

Miss Levy? Yes. Mister Mull?

Abstain.

Mister Burkhart? No. Mister Drake? No. Mister Izzo?

Abstain. I can't hear you.

Miss Kopak?

Mister

Kolobella? Yes. Mister Lucas? Yes. Miss Wiley? Yes. Mister Gold? Yes. Miss Kramer? Mister Weiser?

Yes. Pass 20 yeses. Right?

Yeah.

And and two three abstentions and two noes? Three noes?

Four noes. Four noes. Three abstentions.

So if we change iconic to historic 20 to four to three. So now we go back to the RTM is speaking on the motion to remove the word or replace and add restored or rehabilitated. Any other comments on that? Yes, mister Carson. Whoever's whispering on the phone, we can almost hear you. You might wanna mute.

Joseph Carson. I'm learning more and more. Okay. If you read the DOT document, it says clearly that regular maintenance rehabilitation is no longer good for that bridge. It's failing. Okay? Why close off our options by taking away a word? Right? Why don't we just use modernize? Okay.

And, again, I'm not proposing amendment because we'll be here for two more hours. Hours. Again it' what you started with is very simple it gives us three options and we don' t know which one but we don' have the intelligence in this room to go against the engineers report. So I oppose that amendment.

Thank you, mister Carson. And you did mention to me the word modernize, which is which is a good one, but the resolution was already in there so I used it other places. Any other members there are to mister Burkhart?

Ross Burkhart, RTM District three. I also oppose this amendment to the original resolution. I agree with the comments from the public that we are cutting off an option that we really should look at and really to see whether it there are a number of criteria that we need to use to evaluate what the bridge is going to do for us, pedestrian, bicycle traffic, and everything else. Widening the bridge and basically maintaining its historic character, I could argue with you that that no longer in fact, most of the work that has been done on that bridge over the last thirty, forty years has really rendered the bridge a not really historic landmark. I did qualified historic rehabilitation work in my real estate business.

And I can tell you that if I came with a building that had been so altered and changed as this bridge has been, I would probably not even have my historic application reviewed. Now things have changed since I was doing that, so maybe I'm wrong now. But I I think the other thing that we have are not opening ourselves up to is that we could we if the state is true to its commitment to listening to us about design, we can get some of their worst designs off the table. And there are great bridges that have been replaced old bridges, you know, that I have seen that may have been historic bridges. I don't know.

But I really think that we ought to at least see what a replacement design might do that might create not an exact replica of the so called historic bridge, But, we could get something that would be equally, if you don't mind, I voted for the historic I didn't vote for the change from but, anyway, it's an week that could be iconic and eventually historic. I just think we need to, at this point, really sit down, spend more time going over the facts, and discussing what we really want to get out of the replacement of this bridge. And it's not simply no 18 wheelers. Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Burkhart. Ms. Johnson.

Jennifer Johnson, District nine again. Again, thank you, Ross. And and I really, again, wanna extend thank you, Joe, the new guy. I I think we we have strong opinions. Individually, have strong opinions. And there are clearly very strong opinions people feel about the historic side of this bridge. I I can understand that. But we represent 3,000 people and we need as RTM to do what we're supposed to do, which is to listen and hear what DOT has to say. We've been asked by the first elect person to go. We have this meeting coming up.

So to pass a resolution now, a sense of the meeting that says, you know, one thing that ties our hands. We this is as Jimmy said at the call this past week, you know, this is going to be a give and a take. This is gonna be a journey that is gonna that we're all gonna be going on together for the next five, ten years. And it's gonna be a really interesting journey. But along that way, it's going to need to be a give and take.

So I think we need to be open. We need to listen. We need to start now with addressing the trucks. And I think if we had spent five hours like we have now between last week's meeting and here in a committee about what we could be doing about trucks, I think we actually would be actually getting something that tangible done whereas tonight is symbolic. And I think we have a lot more homework to do, a lot more listening before we should be tying ourselves to the future. I think we owe that to our our constituents. Thanks.

Thank you, miss Johnson. Let's see. Miss Kale. Mister let's see. Amendment one. Miss Kale.

Nancy Kale, RTM, District 9. You know, we've done since the meeting resolutions on Ukraine, on women's reproductive rights, and something that's around the corner from us that impacts our entire town as we've been saying all night should not be beyond this body. I'm sorry. In no way shape or form does a sense of the meeting resolution tie our hands to anything. We've been saying all night that we do not want trucks crossing this bridge.

So to me, taking out the word replace which is exposing us to but not tying our hands, not cementing anything is it's better left out than in this sense of the meeting resolution. But if we're gonna again gonna be discussing this ad nauseam for the rest of the night, I don't think it's worth it. Sorry, Kristen. We tried. So if it does go to vote I will support it.

If it fails it fails and I think I'm hoping that as many of us as possible can just make a statement basically that we really really care about what's gonna happen with the Kerbari Bridge. And this is a start tonight to do something about it as the RTM.

Thank you, miss Gail. Anyone else from the RTM like to comment on removing or replaced? Anyone else? Oh, yes. Miss Villansing, your second time talking about this.

First time on this one?

No. Second time.

Dick Lowes and Justice Farr. Do you realize how important this vote is tonight? It's not. It's establishing a negotiating position with the state. The state's saying they wanna replace the bridge. We say don't replace it. And somewhere in between, maybe we'll meet you have a meeting of the minds. This is not something that is written in stone at all. So I will support it because it's a negotiating position that we are taking to the table with the state.

Thank you, mister Lonsigne. Anyone else like to comment on this? Yeah.

What are we voting on? Two two six?

We're no. We're we're voting we're voting on the first amendment which was miss Naaman's that says we remove the words or replace. So we're only suggesting that we want the bridge to be restored or rehabilitated.

Okay. And then

And we're not we're not We are yeah. We already voted on that passed. So, iconic became historic and now we're voting on So, if there are no other comments from the RTM, we're voting on removing the words or Sorry? You can't amend the round of amendment. You're actually voting for

And then if that fails Dick can bring his motion separately, his amendment.

Okay. Alright. We're voting to approve the words or replace or remove the words or replaced and to add historic.

What? To change iconic to historic and remove the words.

Right. Alright. Yep. We already did.

What's the amendment?

We we we spoke about Dick's amendment from the floor from the public and no one spoke. We had already spoken from the public about Kristen's amendment. But Kristen's amendment had changed because Dixon's amendment got added to it.

And then the public can speak.

Don't I mean, I know you're a parliamentarian, Harris, but I just that's not the way I've ever heard this the RTM run. I mean, we we voted on Dick's. We approved it. And we're not gonna have public comment again on Kristen's having amended the the motion with the word historic. I Procedure? Yeah.

I would like to suggest that the chair rule that the vote on my suggestion need not be voted on a second time and that the vote now is simply on the removal of the one word. And if anybody objects to the chair's ruling, they can then say so. But I think it would make it a lot simpler for everybody to name.

So moved. Does anyone have a problem with our proceeding in that manner on the RTM? Great. Alright. We're voting on miss Nayman's amendment to remove the words or replaced and making it restored or rehabilitated. And we'll do a roll call starting with miss Nayman.

Yes.

Okay. Quakendall. Go. Shoot. I don't have any more of the red cheese. Okay.

Oh, here. Do you need one?

I'll just make do. I got it. I don't wanna hold everyone up, so this is

Here you go. Here.

That's what I have.

So I'm okay.

So Quigandole is a no. Okay. Mister Mandel? No. Mister Tate? Chris, did you vote no?

No. I'm sorry.

Okay. Mister Keenan?

Okay.

Miss Levy? Yes. Mister Mull? No. Mister Burkhart? No. Mister Drake? No. Mister Izzo? No. Miss Kopak?

That's Shane.

Mister Colabella? Yes. Mister Lucas? No. Miss Wiley? Yes. Mister Gold? Yes. Miss Kramer? Singh.

Mister Lowenstein?

Yes.

Miss Chaum? Yes. I am a no. Miss Sorelli?

Yes.

Is yes.

Mister Carson? No. Miss Bateau? No. Miss Grayson?

I'm gonna abstain.

Miss Johnson? No. Miss Kale? Yes. Mister Moore?

Yes.

And I'm a no.

Mister Weiser, sorry. No. You're a no? Okay.

Hold on

one second. Wow. This is hard to figure out. There were

nine yeses. 1234567. I have 10 yeses. Oh. Go back through. And then noes, I have 12345678910111213 noes.

And 123 abstain. Four abstain.

But which else do I have different than you? I have Levy, Colabella.

Wait a minute. Hang on just a sec. Yeah. Levy.

Levy, Colabella, Wiley, Gold, Lowenstein, Shom, Sorely, KL, Morrish, Neiman.

Right. That 9 or 10?

Yes,

it is. 345. Oh, there we go. Sorry. Yep.

So it was

10 to 13 to

And yes. 13 no for abstain.

So that amendment fails. So we now go back to the main motion or the main resolution. And just to be clear, I'm gonna read the resolution again and then we'll go back to speaking in the RTM about the main motion result. That it is a sense of the Westport representative town meeting that the town administration should engage with the Connecticut Department of Transportation to ensure that the Karabari Bridge across the Saugatec River is restored, rehabilitated, or replaced as soon as practicable. Any upgrade should at a minimum maintain or revoke the historic design of the current structure.

The finished structure should be wide enough to include pedestrian and bike lanes, and a height restriction to ensure that it will not provide access for semi tractor trucks. Are there any other comments from

Motion to reconsider.

Come up, please.

Motion to reconsider the vote. I'm conflicted by the situation in terms of what we are going to do. So, would like to at least change my vote to an abstention rather than a no and revote. I don't like the idea of us tying our hands to being one way or the other but I am not comfortable with saying that we could replace the bridge. Think that we should do something in between.

Motion to reconsider since we that was the winning side of the no when I was on it I'd like to reconsider the vote and take the vote again.

Can't he change his vote?

He's seconding the motion.

He can change his

role. I have Do no you want me

to call Ira

real quick?

No. No. Okay. So that I mean, quite frankly, have no idea how to handle that. But we have a motion and a second. And I would prefer to say if there are no objections that we allow mister Mandel to change his vote from a no to an abstention and move on. Yes, mister Gold.

I'm gonna change the

vote. Peter Gold, RTM district five. I strongly support Matt's motion to reconsider not only his vote but everybody else who voted no because as the motion would stand without that I would have to abstain and not vote for the main motion. I think Matt is absolutely right. We need something in between and I think we should leave the word replaced out. So, I'd rather not vote against the main motion if I don't have to so I'd like to reconsider the vote I'd hope some of the other no's or abstentions will also vote for Kristen's change.

Yeah, yeah, no, we'd go back to the public.

Are you looking oh, that's Robert's role. Yeah. Hey, no. No. No.

I'm talking to Peter. I cancel your terms of service here. We vote on the motion to raise.

Oh, good. Should

be

considered our rituals of order. We're going off AI.

Yeah. Right. Well, they it's they can at least have a

Only a member who voted on the prevailing side is On

the prevailing you know, he oh, no. Yeah. He lost. He was 13. He was voted no.

Right. So that failing sentence.

Yeah. But

Peter was not. Alright.

So the RTM votes. I'm discuss this. So the RTM can vote to vote again, or the RTM can deny that right. That can change that assumption.

So we have a motion

to reconsider, which is moved and seconded.

So we have to vote on

the motion. Well, it wasn't a proper second. Peter, you voted yes. Right? So you I don't think you can second.

What?

That's easy. Not

really because then every time we vote, someone can say, well, don't like the vote. I wanna discuss it and revote again. The RTM is Right.

But Peter wasn't

in favor of a motion.

Peter wasn't. Your second was not on the winning side.

And then the RTM votes on your motion. We don't just revote on Kristen's. We vote on yours. Honore. Once we figure it out.

Only be used if new information is obtained that was not known at the time of the original vote. Or if there was an over in the voting. Sure that's happened. But it says, the motion to consider to be as confusing. One, new information is obtained that was not known at the time of the original vote.

It's not the case. And two, an error oversight in the original deliberation. Yeah. It sounds like Do you want me to call or are you calling? I'm calling on me.

What's

that? That's not really, though. I mean

After adverts all done and closed. And that's from a no to an abstain. Alright.

Matt's withdrawing it. He's changing his phone. So Matt, you wanna be an abstain?

Sorry. So the there there are a few procedural problems that now Peter's gonna tell me more of. Oh. Oh, you want the laptop back? There we go. There's a question as to the motion to reconsider and if it was properly made and properly seconded, mainly properly seconded because the seconder wasn't an affirmative or didn't wasn't a prevailing voter as was it. So basically Matt wants to change his vote and if there is no objection we're gonna let him change his vote. Is there any objection to his changing the vote? From no to abstain, which would make it 10 to 12 to five. Right?

It is now 12. Yep. 10 to

10 to 12 to five.

Yep. Sorry. Yes.

Alright. Everybody good with that? Good. We're now back to the main motion, main resolution. Yeah. No. Sorry Robbie. There's we're back to the RTM. I'd love to but I'm I'm afraid we're gonna we're gonna we'll talk later. We will talk later.

But for now, we wanna move on. We're on a roll here. So is there any more discussion on the main resolution? We just did this The vote was 10 to 13 to four and mister Mandel changed his vote from no. He was not he didn't want to remove or replace, and he changed it to abstain.

Thank you. I just explained it to you. That's it. Okay. RTM, Is there any more discussion on the Maine resolution? Any other discussion on the Maine resolution? Alright. Seeing none, we are voting on the following resolution and we've lost a couple people. Joe Grayson

Okay.

Left from the phone. Resolved, there's a sense of the Westport representative town meeting that the town administration should engage with the Connecticut Department of Transportation to ensure that the Curare Bridge across Saugatec River is restored, rehabilitated, or replaced as soon as practicable. Any upgrade should at a minimum maintain or evoke the historic design of the current structure. The finished structure should be wide enough to include pedestrian and bike lanes and a height restriction to ensure that it will not provide access for semi tractor trucks. We'll have a roll call vote starting at the top.

Okay. Sorry. Miss Kuykendahl? Yes. Mister Mandel? Yes. Mr. Tate? Yes. Mr. Keenan? Abstain. Miss Levy?

Yes.

Mr. Mall.

Mr.

Burkhart.

Yes.

Mr. Drake. Yes. Mr. Izzo. Did he leave? No. Ms. Kopak? Mr. Colabella? Yeah. Mr. Lucas?

Yes.

Ms. Wiley? Yes. Mr. Gold?

Mr. Chairman?

Ms. Kramer? Yes. Mister Lowenstein? Yes. Miss Shang? Yes. Miss Sarelli?

Yes.

Mr. Carson? Yes. Ms. Bateau?

Yes.

Ms. Grayson? Ms. Johnson? Miss Kale? Yes. Mr. Moore?

Yes.

Miss Nayman? No. Mr. Weiser?

Yes. Almost unanimous, but for the abstentions. I said almost unanimous. 20 to one to one two abstentions three abstentions

four abstentions

20 to one to four. Right? Thank you everyone. We'll see you in a few weeks.

I knew it. That was what I think threw it off. I skipped myself. I couldn't figure out why I was.

Why don't you yell in the microphone that you both yell?