Town Council - Regular Meeting

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. Moment of silence for the men and women in the armed forces, our first responders, our veterans, those fighting a good fight in Ukraine, and those suffering from the military conflict in the Middle East. Thank you. Now we're going to do the American Creed.

Let me stand right up here. Okay, this is the American's Creed by William Tyler Page. I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people, whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed, a democracy and a republic, a sovereign nation of many sovereign states, a perfect union, one and inseparable, established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and portions. I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it, to support its Constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies.

Thank you. And Diane.

Okay, so we have several Girl Scouts who will be and they're doing it in tandem or in threes. So we have Lillian McDonald and Alice Hyde first. And we're also going to just have a moment with the scout leader who's going to say her name and her address.

Carolyn Hyde, Girl Scout Troop Leader 40067, 31 Brookview Lane. Thank you.

Five minutes, girls.

Hello. Our names are Alice, Leo, and Mackenzie, who is not here tonight, from Troop 40067. We are Girl Scout cadets working on our Silver Award. A Silver Award is the highest award a Girl Scout cadet can earn. Our Silver Award aims to provide the public with easier access to New Milford's history through art installations and an attached website. All art pieces are properly weatherproofed and representative of the respective location's history. Over the next few weeks, over the next week or so, they will hopefully be installed at the Historical Society, the Library, Gallery 25, Marinsville Hotel, the Silo, and here at Town Hall.

Today, we are here to present our project and hopefully gain some form of public interest. The main audience of this project is families as well as people who just love the outdoors. We aim for this project to get people outside more and learning about the town of New Milford. In an email, Mayor Bass mentioned that he'd like to see the project before it was done. Although this is not the fully finished project, emphasis on that, we'd like to show the art piece for Town Hall tonight, which is, sorry, it's on a stake right here. This is not the fully finished project, as I said. And then we also have the one for Gallery 25, which... It's also not fully done, but just figured that would be a good little visual sort of. I don't know. We're grateful for the invitation to be here tonight and to share our project. We'd like to thank Mayor Bass as well as Sandy Ivler for their help on this project. On September 20th, we will have a small unveiling along with the other silverware that is being done in our troop. Keep an eye out for these new installations. Thank you.

Can I ask you a question?

Yes.

So you all made those?

Yes. And painted them? They did not cut them. We didn't cut them. No, we didn't.

No, but that's really cool.

Thank you.

So when will we start to look for them?

Around September 20th, hopefully.

Thank you. Great job.

Okay, next we have Sonia Hyde, Emma Pollack, and Emma Wellington.

Good evening, we are Emma W, Emma P, and Sonia H from Troop 40067 and we are working on our Girl Scout Silver Award. Silver Awards are the second highest award you can get in Girl Scouts. It requires 50 hours minimum of work per person and must be sustainable to help the community. Your group can either be solo or have a maximum of four people.

Me and my group have chosen to focus on getting kids outside. Our silver award is called Art in the Parks. Our goal is to get kids outside instead of staying inside watching screens. We have made a mural. This mural is a four by eight piece of plywood and it's painted to look like a sunset. This is the mural. And our other project is a fairy walk through Clatter Valley. This includes painted fairy doors and painted rocks to show that fairies live in the trees. This will help kids get outside and use their imagination. This is one of our fairy doors.

We will be placing the mural against the old bathroom facilities at Young's Field, and if there's any reason it needs to be removed, that can be done easily. The ferry doors will be scattered around Clatter Valley's trails. We will be installing the mural on September 20th before the walk-a-mile. We'd like to thank Dan Calhoun for his support, as well as the Park and Rec Commission. Thank you.

All these projects were spurred from the pandemic. They survived the pandemic. They were in the second and third grade. And we took a walk around the green and took a look at all the history because we couldn't be inside. And that's where these came from, getting more kids outside, interested in art, and involved in the milk industry. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

And those are all the speakers.

that's it yeah okay all right so we'll start with item number four a and b uh consent agenda i'd like to move to approve the prior minutes and the tax collector refunds excuse me we cannot do the prior minutes because we don't have them you're right how quickly i forget so i'm going to just change that and say uh i'd like to move that we accept the tax collector refunds

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

And we will put the minutes on the next meeting, correct, Mayor? Oh, yes. Okay, good. Thank you. Go ahead.

All right. Next, really quick, wishing the students, parents, families, teachers, paraeducators, the staff, and bus drivers a great school year. They had their first day today. Half day. They'll have another half day tomorrow. We wish them a lot of success. in their school year. Congratulations to the Milford Cricket Tigers. That's the women's cricket team. They defeated the Dream Cricket Dragons to book their first place in the final at the JYCT Women's Tournament. So big congratulations to the Tigers. I want to thank the World Atlas for naming New Milford one of the nine most walkable town centers in Connecticut. Very nice. And we had some good other towns in Connecticut that joined us. So it was wonderful for World Atlas to include New Milford. I want to thank Kevin and Michelle for allowing me to officiate their wedding this past Saturday. So it was great to see that wonderful couple. I want to congratulate Waterwich, Northville, Galesville Fire for their outstanding showing at the Bridgewater Fire, the Bridgewater Parade, Fireman's Parade. They did an outstanding job. I want to congratulate the Park and Rec 2026 C Division Champions, Murphy's Tire. They did a great job. And I believe the other ones due to weather, I think those championships will be happening as well. I want to congratulate the soccer club of New Milford U18 team. They made the finals at the tournament in Hershey, Pennsylvania. And I also want to thank Matt and Kate. They're very young entrepreneurs. And they raised $100 for a food bank at their lemonade stand. So a big, huge thank you to them. I also want to thank Wanda, who really is the operations manager of the food bank, to be there. A town hall to thank them as well to tell him how much we appreciated their kind efforts. We want to thank Sharon Village Center of the Arts as each year they allow myself and staff as we help with their Harry Potter summer camp and it was great so big thank you also to Katie and Pat from the office. Also want to welcome home Sergeant Mesko and also Nick Calincio, both from the U.S. Army National Guard. Big huge welcome home to them as they are now home and a big huge outstanding thank you to them and their service. Want to congratulate New Milford librarian Kathy Riley and the entire library team. The library had a record-breaking use of 10,560 patrons for July. So big, huge tribute with all the programs they have going on books that you can pick up also library of things. They have a lot of great events going on there as well. So big, huge thank you to them. Also want to thank everyone that was in attendance for the Lane those firehouse open house if you haven't been to see that. I'm sure they're going to have a few more open houses, a beautiful facility. I want to thank the lanes will fire board of trustees. What are which chief in the Milford PD to know for the ambulance to know for tpw to know for certain who are all in attendance to be keeps thank you to them. for all their efforts and all the public that was there as well. Also want to thank Chairman Rob Beebe and the entire municipal building for their work on this project as well. I want to thank you to the Milford High School course director Kevin McNulty as he also helps run KLM Productions and they did Into the Woods which was a play at Canterbury School that's where they where they performed it and a lot of these amazing actors go to the Milford High School and to Scottacoke and it's just great to see that wonderful performance I want to thank Jerry Romanello and the entire Kennewood Valley Country Club as they brought back with Norm and Art Cummings the New Milford Classic to the Milford Golf Tournament that was many years in the making. It took a hiatus, but it's back. The Greater New Milford Open, so a big, huge thank you to all the sponsors as well. Also, great job to the Lions Club for the carnival, even though they had some rain. had an outstanding Saturday, so big huge thank you to them. And also wanted to thank everyone that came out to the Purple Heart ceremony that we have. We are a Purple Heart town. And just so I could put into the minutes, John Avalone, these are our Purple Heart veterans here in New Milford. U.S. Marine Corps Vietnam War Purple Heart, wounded in combat 1969. Grant E. Pope, U.S. Army, World War II, Purple Heart and Bronze Star recipient. Wounded by artillery fragments during the Rhineland Campaign, 1945. Returned to combat after recovering. And Mr. Pope has passed away. But we cannot thank him again and continue to thank him and all for service. Clarence Henry Stone, U.S. Army, World War I, Purple Heart recipient, a Milford native who was mortally wounded while serving in France in 1918. His Purple Heart was presented to his family in 2018. Joseph Pagamo, U.S. Army, Vietnam, wounded in combat in Vietnam, received the Purple Heart. Harry Maynard, U.S. Army, World War II, 36th Infantry Division, European Theater, Purple Heart and Brown Star recipient. Nicholas Toffoli, U.S. Army, World War II, Purple Heart recipient, served in France, Germany, and Austria. later served with the Honor Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Nicholas Hyna, U.S. Army, 1st Infantry Division, it's called the Big Red One, Purple Heart recipient. Matthew Hayes, U.S. Army, National Guard, Iraq War, 143rd Military Police Company, Purple Heart recipient. Cannot thank them as well as all of our veterans enough and those currently serving for protecting our great country. Also want to thank Commander Delaney, who is there as well. And it was a wonderful time. Also want to thank Senator Harding, who was there as well. Also, some of the infrastructure that we're doing. Currently we're doing Sunrise Lane. The contract is currently beginning the reclaiming process. So if you are up in the area, please take some extra caution. As we are reclaiming the property, then we'll be milling it. Jerusalem Road, we're doing the drainage project first there. The contractor continues laying the under drain and also the cross pipes. They're hitting a lot of ledge. So please, again, that's another area where you're gonna wanna take caution. We do have flaggers there. But I want to make sure that you get there safely. Some of the other infrastructure projects that we're doing as well. Bless you is River Road. We did some drainage and now we're going to be looking at doing some planned paving on a portion of that road. Cornwall Drive and Adams Lane. That has been completed. Sand Road is completed. Sunrise just told you you're working on it. Same with Jerusalem Road. Kennewood Mountain Road, we're gonna be doing 400 feet of drainage pipe to replace a failing metal pipe. And when we're pulling out a lot of this old drainage because it's so old, it's basically falling apart. So as we do this road work, we also do the drainage work to make sure these roads continue for the next 50 years. Also, Mariel Road. That's one we received. We received a grant and that's going to start on September 8th tentatively weather permitting. And we're also doing the sidewalk work at Elm Street at the hospital. We're going to move the stairs to provide a safe landing at the roadway. We're also doing Treadwell Avenue, the pedestrian ramp that's currently in progress. We're doing some sidewalk repair on Bank Street. And we're also doing some by the post office. Bridges, Brookside Avenue, that's in progress as we're currently talking right now. Chinerski Bridge, that's in final design. Wheaton Road, that's due out in 2028. And we're waiting for permit by Connecticut DOT. The Walker Brook Bridges, there's two of them. And that's we're working with the the utility companies getting the final design and then we're going to get public input once we get those. The Squire Hill Road that's due in 2029. We received the funding that's 100% funded Connecticut DOT. So we'll begin the design process. a little bit later. Sandpit Road, that's due in 2030. The application was accepted, 100% financing. The Grove Street, Still River, and Housatonic resurfacing project will begin early next year. And the Boardman Road, the grant was approved. You may have seen that in the paper, and that's for the drivable bridge. And we're looking at some of the design work. They're gonna bid that out as well. Some of the intersection improvements. High Hill and Grove Street. We're waiting for the finalized bid documents and that is for the traffic light. It's just taken quite some time going through all the processes with the state. Elm Street and the Elm Street extension. That is where we're widening the intersection to allow for left-hand turns, which should help relieve some of the traffic congestion there. We're just waiting for one final easement to be signed and filed. And then on Pumpkin Hill Road, that's where we're actually allowing for a left-hand turn on Still River to go up Pumpkin Hill, and a left-hand lane from Pumpkin Hill will turn left onto Still River. The Attorney General needed to sign the easement, which he did. That's gonna be filed by the Clerk's Office with the EEP. And then we can start to begin the bidding process there as well. and uh let's see what else we have the pedal park and the pickleball courts right now we're waiting for our contractor to complete final design and that will go to zoning and then we also have the uh chip seal that they're evaluating a young's field whose tonic Avenue Boardman Rd Sawyer Hill New Preston 2nd Hill Long Mountain and that will be for the spring of next year. Statistics I was speaking with the chief Ceruto today. Motor vehicle stops so far this year or 2,459. Last week we had 77 stops. Accidents this year were we are at 599 last year we were at 584 and uh that's due to we have some extra accidents we were trending down it's now trending back up we continue to ask our citizens the two most important things that we can do we talk about this at our meetings here the number one cause of accidents is driving too close so if you can make sure and give yourself a safe distance between those driving in front of you gives you plenty of time to stop or if you're at a stop sign or stoplight give the car in front of you a little bit of time to go forward and that should help also distractive driving on your cell phone looking out the side window not really focusing on that if we can all be self-responsible just on those two things we can reduce those numbers just by doing that DUI's this year we had 57 and 50 we had 57 last year 58 to this date so it's about the same we don't want to see anybody get a DUI you want to see anybody drinking and driving on the roadway so please as we say before if you're going to drink make sure you have a designated driver with you or call a family member uber call someone just don't drink and drive lastly my office received and I know the police departments has received public works has received about a camera that's in the Gaylordsville area some people claiming that to be a flock camera first and foremost New Milford does not have flock cameras uh that's the police department the chief is there he can talk a little bit about it as well also ask our public works departments there are no we have no flock cameras We've contacted Connecticut DOT. We've contacted the state police to see what they are. And I know the police department and the chief are investigating to see if in fact that is because they're not in New Milford. But I'll apprise the council once we hear more from that as well.

So Flock is a name brand like Kleenex, right? But there are other automated license plate reader products out there. Do we have any automated license plate readers in Milford?

No. And this one, people are telling us, that are asking, they're saying it's an actual Flock. So the chief is here tonight too. They're going to investigate to see because none of us even know whose it is, if it is.

Could we perhaps at a future meeting discuss a moratorium on the automated license plate readers? Absolutely.

Great.

Okay.

That's all I got.

Really? Yep. I can't believe it. Thank you. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Moving on. Number six. Six A, B, C, and D I will do if there's nobody wanting to do them individually. These are appointments and I'd like to move the following. The New Milford delegate on the representative policy board of Aquarian Water Authority would be our Mayor Bass. B, Fair Rent Commission, Vanessa Rodriguez. She's filling a vacancy. That would be a term of August 24th, 2026 through January 31st to 2029. And by the way, the Aquarian Water, that's August 24th, 2026 to December 31st of 2027. The Cultural District Commission, Vanessa Rodriguez is filling a vacancy there, August 24th, January 31st, 2028. And then we have also Cultural District, Johannes Gerlinger, And that term is the same August 24th to 2026, finishing January 31st, 2028. And finally, Julie Drogue. I hope I spelled said that right. She's also filling a vacancy for the term of August 24th, 2026 to January 31st, 2028. Thank you, Tom.

I'd like to speak on a couple of these. First is the policy board for Aquarian Water and Authority. People may or may not know was Aquarian Water. was owned at one time by ever sources now owned by the R W C which was a smaller water authority. Part of this sale was to create representatives on the board for this it's just as a delegate. I was definitely opposed to the sale because it's going to lead to much higher prices that those that get water from the utility are going to experience. I will bring back the information when we have that. As far as Miss Rodriguez, who wants to serve on the Fair Rent Commission and the Cultural Commission, it was brought up uh per the um charter uh could she serve as a commission member as she works for the town of the milford so i had asked uh i believe mr bolero is here as well i'm going to read greg's email and then we can talk a little bit more about it uh said hi pete i saw the town council meeting where there was a question regarding vanessa rodriguez's ability to serve on the fair rent commission Mr. Rosenberg cited that salaried employees are not eligible and therefore had the vote tabled. Please let Mr. Rosenberg know and the rest of the town council that the Nutmeg employees are full-time hourly employees whose hourly wages are negotiated and documented in the collective bargaining agreement. It is my professional opinion that Vanessa is an hourly employee, not a salaried employee. and therefore is eligible to be appointed if the town council so chooses. And Randy, does that fit with your opinion as well? Thank you.

All right. I'm glad to hear that because I think it would be fantastic for this, and I'm glad that it's kosher. Great, great.

So we have a motion and we have a second. Any discussion on these motions? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Any abstentions?

Thank you, everyone. Now we work on number seven, reappointment. Move to appoint Deborah Rose as the poet laureate. for our term of August 24th, 2026, to August 23rd of 2028. Second.

Thank you. And Deb is currently our poet laureate. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Any abstentions? Thank you.

Item number 8, grants. I'd like to move that we approve the youth agency accept the grant funds of not to the size of $9,439.65. This was awarded by the Waterbury Youth Services and it's for the DCF Region 5 Youth Diversion Team. It's an enhancement grant. The money is going to be used to support the youth agency uh ytd that's the youth diversion team program and its services for referred youth and families the awarded money would be deposited into existing grant project accounts of number four three zero five zero zero zero zero four nine five zero six four two and the revenue account of 430-50-000, 53-230-42012. any discussion just that just a question like obviously I support this I'm sure we all do but what why is Waterbury supporting our operations here I can answer that for you it's because of the region 5 youth diversion team region 5 well the regions are not the same in every single part you know we could have Girl Scout regions we could have town council regions so we've been in that region for a long time and we've had different name for the for part of this at the time but yeah that's why so we get we get the benefit yes do you have any discussion all in favor aye opposed any abstentions thank you item number nine donations um i'm going to go through nine a b c and d we'll start with the Parks and Rec, I move to let them accept the following. All of these donations are for their 8-mile and 5K road races, and they'd like to take a gift fund. They have a gift fund, and I'll tell you what that number is, too. 335-1000. five nine nine zero two and they will be accepting two hundred and thirty five dollars of an online donation from eighteen donors and a twenty dollar anonymous donation now we move to item b the milford public library requests permission to accept a donation in the amount of five hundred dollars from john tucker the donation would be used for the library materials and programming Item C, Gallery 25 would like us to approve the acceptance of a donation from Mike Fu Media and Summer Pictures in the amount of $1,000. That's a typo on the agenda. If you read it, it says $100. $1,000. and that would be deposited into account one zero four five zero zero zero five nine nine one six wait we're still there and wait there's more item d uh... we also from the mayor's office would like to accept the following donation for fireworks uh... this is a monetary donation to be deposited in the economic development fireworks account number one zero four six zero three zero zero five three zero zero one and that will be for $1,500 of coca-cola $1,500 from the new Milford Lions Club so not is that coca-cola the product okay there we go okay any other discussion

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

Item number 10. I'd like to move that we discuss in possible action regarding this recycling center fees. And the mayor, you have some...

Thank you.

And I think Bob, is Bob here?

There he is.

And as you can see in your packets, Bob had sent a letter to us. He wanted to talk a little about... due to the escalating costs i know we're all experiencing uh some fees so bob i'll let you take it from there

Couple things since taking over the recycling center back in 2020, I believe we this is going to be our fourth attempt at a price increase. This will be the third actual price increase that we that we're requesting. Obviously, during COVID, we tried to keep the cost as reasonable as possible. What it has done for us is I managed the recycling center for the town prior to it going to going out to bid. We averaged about 1300 customers. And about 800 customers from Sherman. Right now we're at a combined 6000 customers. A lot of that again is due to. Increasing costs for the consumer with their household garbage trash pickups. We hear that all the time about the companies obviously raising their rates and stuff and. We're a very convenient location for them. The second thing that we did was we opened a bottle and can redemption center, which that brought us about 400 customers just that weren't aware of what we had. And the third positive thing we did is we opened on Sundays now. Sundays has been a tremendous amount of business for people to come in and be able to get rid of their regular garbage, their bulky waste, their metal, their electronics and all that kind of stuff. The costs of disposal are public knowledge. You can go on the HRA website and see exactly what it costs us to dispose of stuff. What it does not show is the fees and surcharges that the companies have added to that they don't have to get approved. One of them is actually the HRA themselves. They added $0.75 per ton of garbage to the overall cost as an administrative fee. Fuel surcharges. Additional costs because of COVID went in. They have not gone back down. So they've added about $30 a ton to the cost of that you would see if you go on the HRA website. The cost of trash is about $98 a ton to dispose of. With the extra fees, it's up to almost $130 a ton. On top of that, the transportation costs have gone up. We've tried to keep costs down. I bought my own truck, so we transport our own stuff to keep it as good as we can. But again, with diesel fuel being $5.44 a gallon right now, uh that doesn't take long to eat that up very so uh what we did is we looked at as you can see we gave you the pricing of the other transfer stations um you will see three that are pretty i'll say in a lot less than us that's richfield newtown and danbury what you have to know about that is they are located in transfer stations that are owned by interstate waste systems which is the contractor for HRA. So they were able to keep their costs obviously a lot lower because they bring in not only residential stuff, they bring in commercial stuff. So they're able to keep their costs low. If you look at the other, New Fairfield, Weston, they're all pretty much a lot more than the town of New Milford. We're trying to get in line The biggest move we're making is we're moving from per bag price to per pound price. That's the best way in the economy to get people to recycle more, which is what the goal is. And if you want to throw out an item that's recyclable, now you're going to have to pay for it. You're basically going to pay for it. Our recycling is free, of course. So that's the biggest thing. What we are looking into with HRA is in addition to having just regular garbage, we're looking into a composting program. There are three different areas out there. We have to find the one that's best. One thing you have to know is that the DEP requires that all composted materials be taken off the property every 48 hours. That makes it cost 48 hours. That's the law, actually. From DEP. So we're we're looking at they've come up with a couple of different. Self composting. Mechanical. Things I'm working with HRA on that now. To do that, that will be able to do it at much reduced cost. So in addition to where your garbage would be 20 cents, composting would be significantly less. Just a matter of getting it. where we're fortunate is we have a composting facility right here in town so we're trying to use their product to take it to our place to try to keep everything lower those those are just some of the things we're trying to do to keep it obviously as low as we can

I just want to congratulate you, Bobby, and your team. I personally go to the Recycling Center often, and you guys are a tremendous team. Many other teams in this town, but you guys, a lot of people sometimes don't get the chance maybe to go down there, but if anybody ever, you know, go down there and see, you probably have the best recycling center around. And I congratulate you on that.

We appreciate that.

Thank you.

All right. Rolando and I don't always agree, but we do agree on this one. You guys do a fantastic job. I got my sticker on my pickup. I've done quite a lot. I appreciate you guys. It sounds like you need more revenue to support your operations. I'm just wondering if there's any alternatives to raising the prices, which is gonna affect everyone who goes there. Could we use surplus funding to support the recycling center? Could we use waste management funding? Are there any other ways to get them the revenue that they need without increasing the cost on New Milford residents?

I think waste management is an allowable use. As far as using surplus, surplus would only be used for one time. So you'd be masking the operation costs. I think Bob runs a very tight ship. You've added more ability for people to use the recycling center, whether it be for bottle redemptions to additional electronics, everything else. I know you're trying to get additional revenue sources out there. But unfortunately, as we're all experiencing inflationary pressures, There has to be a little bit of an increase. It's just unfortunate.

I have to say this, Bob. You definitely turned what we used to do into a completely different animal. When you were saying that you're going to go by weight now for each bag instead of the bag cost, I mean, I don't go there. I pay somebody to stop and pick it up. I probably shouldn't. But what would you say would be, is that an increase for the person who comes in with a bag or two by, what do you think, how much?

What it's going to do is the it's going to benefit the I'll say single people and seniors the most we have. We have single residents and senior residents that will bring in a bag of garbage that's 7 pounds 8 pounds. That's right now it costs them over $3 to get rid of it. This will bring that down to them. We figured that it'll average about a $50 a year savings to seniors and people with less amount of garbage and give the people the incentive to reduce theirs and put more of their stuff you know, that can go into recycling into recycling.

Bob, this is with your new proposal. This is with your new proposal. Correct. Right, so taking out... Driving the cost down.

Yeah, taking out the recyclables, that's a big, big thing, because I know a lot of people just throw everything into one place. So you're right about that, right? Diane?

I would say I think you're the best bargain in town. We have canceled our service with one of the pickup trucks because it costs so much less just to go to you. And I'm very tired of picking up after the bears that go through our garbage. And so we're saving a lot of money by going to the recycling center. So I highly recommend it. It's really great.

I'm in there at least once a week. Bob and his crew do an excellent job on not only taking our garbage, but assisting the elderly with the garbage that they have. They're showing where to put the garbage. Outstanding. And what they do on depositing the bottles and picking up the nip bottles and making the town money. Whatever that organization needs, I'm behind it 100%.

Well, being on the recycling committee, they made a big difference. They changed everything. You know that.

It's a well-run operation. It's clean. It's real good. It certainly is. And the young lady that sits right next to you, she's always smiling when I'm talking. Thanks so much.

It's the best. It's the yang to my yin. Right. Okay.

Any other questions? I'd like to make a motion. Okay.

I'd like to make a motion that I didn't make it yet, that we approve the actions presented to us by the recycling center manager to have them up their fees per this document.

Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye.

Opposed? Any abstentions? Thank you. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, moving on to item number 11, the Milford Police Department. We have a discussion and possible action. I'd like to make a motion that we utilize the asset forfeiture funds for the purchase and outfitting of a traffic DUI and drug enforcement vehicle.

Thank you, Chief. Should I come up and talk a little bit about the use of asset forfeiture funds?

Good evening, everyone, and thank you for this opportunity. At the police department, we're always looking for various sources of funding to purchase necessary equipment, and the Asset Forfeiture Fund is one of those funds. it is not taxpayer dollars it's dollars that have been given to the police department by the courts from drug investigations and to be used for specific purposes and in this case we would ask for the approval of those funds to be used for a traffic dui drug enforcement vehicle you know traffic enforcement is one of our most serious concerns in the community and we are concerned about all traffic violations, but very much so DUI and drugged driving. We want to reduce those numbers that we mentioned tonight, and this would be a very important tool to do that. That's one very important issue that we focus on. Another is drug dealers in our community. we want to keep drug dealing down in our community and quite frankly we've been very effective at that and we can only be effective and continue to be effective if we keep changing our approach and changing the equipment that we use so this vehicle would give us that new opportunity and we'd uh ask for your approval for for this vehicle any discussions any questions for the chief zach

I do just have one question here.

Obviously, I'm totally on board with this. I'm just curious, when it comes to this traffic DUI drug enforcement vehicle, is there any specific difference between that and a regular cruiser? And if you could expand upon that.

Yes. This will be unmarked. So we will use it in a manner that will allow us to approach a situation in a more discreet manner. um it will obviously have the capabilities necessary to be a traffic enforcement vehicle to apprehend speeders for example so i would say those are the two different okay thank you very much you're welcome thank you any other questions for the chief All those in favor? Aye.

Opposed?

Any abstentions? Thank you all. Thank you, Chief.

Thank you.

Thank you all. Item number 12, I'd like to move that we go into executive session. I'd like to invite Chief Ceruto and Greg Bolero, the Director of our Human Resources and our... Katie, before you finish your motion, Chief, would you like anyone else invited in?

Yes.

I just... Oh, you talked to him. I thought you were talking to me.

Would you like any of your command staff in as well?

Command staff would be good.

Can you also include the command staff?

Yes, we'll include the command staff of the New Milford Police Department and our attorney, Randall DiBella. Anyone else? Okay. All those in favor of going into executive session?

Aye. Opposed? Any abstentions? Okay. Thank you. And for those, we're going to be going into executive session, and we're asking everyone to please just wait outside. Yeah. Thank you.

I'm now making it a motion to accept the police contract, the union contract, as we spoke to. That's to add it to the agenda.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Thank you.

Now, I'd like to move that we do.

approve the police contract as we just heard about any discussion in a second any discussion all those in favor aye any opposed Thank you, everyone. Thank you. All right.

And Chief Ceruto, you'll stay for our next. Is that right? Thank you. OK, Mayor, up to you.

Next is the finance director. Olga was, I believe, still in flight coming back or just landed or landed a little bit earlier. I'm not too sure. She wanted me to give an update. The town has completed the first month of the fiscal year and preliminary revenue collections are consistent with historical patterns for the beginning of the fiscal year. The month of July is a busy month for the tax collector office as the first installment is due. For the month, the total amount collected stands at 48.6% of budget, which is comparable to the same period last year. Other departments are showing expected trends as well, with a positive exception from the building department where July collections are almost double the amount from the same period last year. Regarding the expenditure side, there are no significant or unusual variances to report at this time. Departments are operating within their approved budgets, and expenditures to date primarily reflect routine and reoccurring operating costs associated with the beginning of the fiscal year. Some expenditures, including seasonal, contractual, and other periodic costs will occur later in the fiscal year. Overall, we are proceeding in a manner generally consistent with prior years with no significant concerns identified at this time. We are wrapping up the fiscal year 2526, which is in line with the usual timeline. This entails processing the invoices, recording revenue, and preparing the accrual entries in accordance with the counting standards. The audit is now underway will take a few months to complete as usual. That's from all go give that to you and the her.

All right now you 14.

14 next is the noise ordinance and Randy pass out Randy can talk a little bit about the noise word.

Yep. The mayor asked me to, your honor and town council, the mayor asked me to draft, to create a draft of a noise ordinance that addresses things such as construction, loud noises, amplified music, things of that nature, so I did. What I did is I took a look at some of the other towns, including Brookfield, Newtown, and Newington. Newington was the best, but Newtown has a very good one as well. The statute changed. state statute that authorized noise ordinances. It used to be you needed express approval of the Department of Environmental Protection and Energy Environmental Protection. Now you have to draft the ordinance that is essentially one of the auspices of the town and pursuant to the town authority, but it has to be at least as stringent as the state regulations. What I did is I reviewed step by step the model state ordinance, proposed ordinance, and crafted one based upon a compendium of those ordinances I reviewed. The result is what's in front of you. Obviously, it's a very complex document. And the reason for it is because there's three elements in here. Chief Ceruto and I talked probably about a month and a half ago concerning enforcement. And it would seem to me that the third prong of enforcement, which is the ambient sound, background noise, things of that nature, tonal sounds, hums from mechanical or electrical equipment, is going to require decibel review, decibel training, and decibel verification. We can do that with in an agency, you can actually hire an entity to do that. That's what Newington did, and I think Middletown did the same thing, and a certain specific entity. So what I tried to do in this ordinance is separate out the street, if you will, the street problems, the loud parties, the impromptu volleyball games in neighborhoods keeping people up till 2 o'clock in the morning. Amplified music, and I love amplified music, but as far as at 2 o'clock in the morning, not so much. And amplified voices, things of that nature. So there's three aspects of jurisdiction under the statute that I covered in the noise ordinance. One is whether a police officer would issue an infraction should there be a violation, and that would relate to when the sound was emanated. So that if there's a daytime definition, which the DEP suggests of 7 a.m. to 8.59 p.m., anything after that, then if it's loud, if it's disruptive, it's disturbance, then an officer can issue an infraction. And that would come with a $200 penalty, or whatever you set up to $250. You can set it less than that. Newtown's is, I think, 60, graduating up to 75 and then 100. So that's when the officer in the street is not put on the spot and has to do a decibel check. Why? And the chief and I talked about this. Because by the time they get there, they stop the music. But the fact is that it already disrupted the neighbors. There's also in the statute a little provision that you can easily miss that says you can have your noise ordinance and you can have your infraction summons, but you have to first give them a warning. So I put language in here stating that an officer would not issue a citation, or I should say a infraction summons, without first giving a warning. My discussion with one town attorney who has said the warning almost always works. because you show up with with 2 officers with badges at midnight and they don't want any trouble people then they that that kind of help so the warning is apparently very effective. The warning is for that that instance only it goes on again the next night and that's the warning again right right every event or incident see and it's designed that way I think in order to avoid. the confrontational aspect of it. I don't know that. The legislative history didn't say that, but I'm guessing that. Again, there's three elements here. There's the street, if you will, street violation, and then the the ambient, the sounding, the tonal violation, and then there's construction. Construction is a bit easier because the fact is that if there's jackhammering at 11 o'clock at night, that's an easy thing to stop. You stop and you issue a citation. Where you get into some diciness is when you have an independent contractor who's been engaged by the town or the state to help out with night work. The town and state generally respect the issue of noise. Independent contractors, not so much from what I've been hearing. And that's only anecdotal. I have no evidence of that. So that's going to be a potential issue that an officer is going to have to handle on the scene. But in any event, nevertheless, that's still prohibited. Construction is prohibited. The big thing and the reason I believe the council has to review this in detail is because it is detailed. And because you have to determine the hours of operation, the hours of daytime, as the statute says, daytime hours. Statute says it's 7 AM to 8.59 PM. That's considered daytime under the statute. Newtown has that. Brookfield has 7 AM to 10. Now, is that stringent enough under the statute to meet muster? It probably is. That's not been challenged. The bottom line is that if you read the ordinance, you need to consider plugging in the times, which I do suggest we follow the state guidelines, by the way. 7 a.m. to 8.59 would be considered day. and nine to 659 would be considered night. Concerning the prohibition of things such as chainsaws, construction, yeah.

The DBAs.

That's both yeah, yeah, I have not put those in here yet.

No, I'm just reading the draft in high background noise Is that something like the 80 DBA if you're in excess of that? Is that something you violate your standard?

But that's I want here's what's going on New Milford. I mean Newtown has one set of decibel ranges Brookfield has another Middletown has another the state has in the regulations 55 decibels during the day 45 at night for some reason one of the towns has 45 in the day 55 at night which I believe is a typo so the fact is I want to I don't want to plug those in until I'm sure it's gonna pass muster

Are there any recommendations for extenuating circumstances? Let's say we've had severe weather and there's a lot of trees that are down. Good question. You need to bring in people from out of town to clear them out. If I'm out of power, I'd like them operating all night long. It's in there.

And there's an emergency response. As long as the contractor or even his honor or an official, DPW, contacts the chief of police and requests an emergency waiver. So there's a provision in here for that. When you read it, take a look if you think it's strong enough. By the way, there's no pride in authorship here. There's only 78 towns out of 169 that have these things.

Really?

So yeah.

So don't feel I'll be insulted when you want to correct this stuff because that's... Well, my first question was actually going to mirror exactly what Ari was asking about exemptions for emergency circumstances. And I see here under exemptions, my second question, exemptions noise generated by the operation of any mechanical power or gas in the power system, like landscaping tools, for example. So that would not follow under construction because it's not substantial repair alteration or similar action. Right. So say someone's running their lawnmower at 6 a.m. on a Sunday, that would be exempt?

You could make it exempt. You could take it out and make it not exempt. Okay. Again, that's why you have these things to take a look at them. So I can... I can modify or adjust.

If I see something for one second, just let me be quiet for one second. Right now we're at 53 dB with the air conditioning on. Is that right? When he was talking, we were at 64. So 55 during the day is a conversation.

What are you right now?

It's got a DV measure. 64? Yeah, you have it right there.

When I talk, do I count it? Right now, you're at 74 because you're right next to me. But this is, you know, the background noise is the background noise. But that's a pretty low bar, 55 during the day. That's why I gave these things to you.

You're not going to pass it tonight. And don't forget, only 46% of the towns have these things. And that's why I left the values concerning decibels out. because I'm not sure what's palatable here.

I'm very pleased that we're not going to have to talk about this tonight because I'm going to go through this with a real fine-tooth comb. Well, that's what you got them for. I'll give you a very short, very bad incident that happened. I was renting a house for six months, and construction was happening on – uh the road up up the way up the up the road for me and every morning a truck which was working on the project it was the um i can't remember the the bridge the marial bridge work yeah uh he would come down the hill aspatuck ridge road and do these jack breaks that were just like like 7 a.m. in the morning and he would keep doing it all morning long and I called the town to ask about it and the person I spoke to said there was no need for that that truck driver to be using jack brakes, it wasn't enough of a yes to do that. And so they continued on for four months. And there was nothing that I could do about that.

This was a town truck?

No, it was a contractor who was working on the bridge project. And the town felt that they could not do anything about it because it was not town personnel.

Probably true.

It was horrible.

There was no noise ordinance either.

Right, right. But to find out that if you do get them to stop, Katie, to your point, you have to renew it each day. It went on for months.

absolutely i'm sure that the police department would really enjoy coming back to somebody's house day after day right i have a question sort of in that vein randy is it i can't read through this now is it uh any any chance for instance you have a farm and you have roosters you have cows you have any horses whatever they wake up when they wake up if it's 5 30 and the roosters are going crazy, is that something, I wake up, I don't like it, of course, I'm awake now, and could I consider that to be outside the timeframe of seven to,

No, farm activities exempt.

That's what I thought you were going to say.

I think I got to do something about that.

I had that case in another town, by the way.

Yeah. So obviously not having a noise ordinance, I was not able to do anything. So my neighbor bought a 10-acre lot. It was during COVID. And for six months, blew dynamite five times a day right outside my house, 200 yards from my house.

Oh, jeez.

You'd hear the horn. The whole house would shake. Now, obviously, there's got to be something in here with construction to allow that in some instances. There is. There's a provision regarding blasting in here. Right. But that's also a tough slope because you don't want to stop anybody from building.

Right, right.

But at the same time, me and my neighbor would like, you know, who's having a drainage issue, would like to approach them for some sort of, you know, something that they could do to, you know, for the pain and suffering that we went through for almost, I mean, it was almost two years they were blowing this road up.

It's like stopping animals from making noise. I mean, that's nobody's fault.

I mean, I want the guy's house to be built. I didn't want to stop him. But it's a tough situation.

Well, to answer your question, Demolition is a permit activity. It has to be done by permit. So there's a provision in the state statute that says a demo lasted, can be done during daytime hours. I think it's one hour less or some such thing than normal in the DEP ordinance. In here, I left it blank. I put Xs. Wherever there's Xs, you've got to fill in. Because I'm not a member of the town council, so that's your. The fact is, is this doesn't prevent somebody or protect somebody from a nuisance lawsuit. And that's in here, saying that the fact that they don't violate this particular ordinance, or they do violate it, does not make it definitely a nuisance that's actionable in a lawsuit, nor does it protect them from a nuisance that's actionable in a lawsuit. So you still have your common law rights in that regard.

I just wanted to expand upon what Katie was talking about with animals and their noise that they create.

For example, I have a neighbor who raises ducks and they are very, very loud in the morning. To get that farming exemption, would they have to get some sort of farming license or is it just anyone who has any livestock living on their property? even if it's not necessarily considered farmland, they still get that exemption because it is a living animal. We can't really control, we don't want to like muzzle them or anything else. I wanted to make sure that I followed up on that and see if there was an extra step for that exemption.

That groom may need some duck muzzles.

Although, duck eggs are good, by the way. They are, absolutely. Although that might not be the classic definition of a farm, the statute, there's two statutes involved. First of all, the statute that enables this ordinance exempts farming activity. not just farms, farming activity. And secondly, we have a state right to farm statute and a local ordinance that's a right to farm ordinance that Dan Redioff wrote years ago. So the fact is that's going to be a, that dog's not going to hunt.

Well, thank you for the clarification. I wanted some clarification on that.

You're welcome. Thank you. I've had that case, by the way.

I've seen this like this, and now we'll go back to the next meeting. Yeah, you really need to go through this.

So please mark this up so we can have the conversation continue

And should we present questions through the mayor?

Yes. And Randy, you want to talk a little bit about the municipal citation ordinance?

I do. We are trying to get some, if you will, more aggressive enforcement, not mean-spirited enforcement, but more aggressive enforcement of our regulations. And the mayor asked me to take a look at what we could do here, and we're going to need to revise. the civil penalty ordinance. Right now, it's essentially used for zoning. We need to beef that up. And again, it's a civil remedy. It doesn't involve the police at all. But to beef that up, to put in enforcement of this and of other municipal, if you will, regulations. The reason I want to do that is because, or I suggest we do that, is because when we speak, Megan and I speak monthly at a meeting, there seems to be, if you will, an ever-expanding... ability to avoid lawfulness. And I think what's happening, it's not anybody who's bad, but it's people who think they can get away with this. There's no remedy for this. They're not going to spend the money on this. And that's not only New Milford. I represent five towns as town attorney and eight towns in total on other matters. And that's everywhere. Things like the Freedom of Information Act is being weaponized in all these towns. the fact that, oh, we didn't think that the CEO would enforce that in another town. or wetlands, uh, the judges don't like the wetlands act because it takes away from people in another town. So the fact is if we enhance the civil penalty ordinance, I believe in this, and I'm not the only one in the state that believes this municipal lawyers, I believe that we'll have an ability to say, you know, this was violated. We're going to do a $200 a day fine continuing until it's remedied. And we're going to file a lien against the property.

Right.

Let them file an application to the court. to dispose of the lien because we had very good effect with this on a property on Route 7 about five years, six years ago. We put a lien on the property. It was essentially blighted and it kept accumulated. We brought, we foreclosed the lien, went to court and the property got cleaned three days before the court hearing. And like the mayor said, or someone's told me that, we don't care, we don't want the money. We want it to hurt them so they'll have to clean it. We want the property clean. And it worked to a charm. But that was zoning and blight. So this, I would like to expand until the court tells me I can't. The civil penalty ordinance to help the town enforce some of this stuff.

We'll have a copy of that for the next meeting so that people can look at that.

Yeah, I have to meet with Z.O. Regan because I need to coordinate with zoning to do that.

All right. You mentioned your opinion that the Freedom of Information Act has been weaponized. How do you see people being cited under this? What's the relationship between that in this ordinance here.

Because the fact is that, oh no, I'm saying that as an example of what's going on out there. The fact is that people are taking more liberties with these regulations and things of that nature and doing things that are ridiculous, frankly. You get a Freedom of Information Act request and a litigation case that I've been handling for six years and they decide to do an FOI case instead of formal discovery. That's weaponizing it. It has to do with the fact that people are expanding and they're ignoring the proper use of regulations and statutes and ordinances, and they're just doing things without having a reasonable basis for it. And that includes FOI matters.

Can you be a little more specific on the kinds of things that you think should being enforced here like I you know if it's blight or something I could see that that makes sense but I've heard you mentioned blight and FOIA I I'm not hearing other examples of what are the violations of zoning laws violation inland wetlands act

I mean, there's violations all over the place, and the fact is is the ZEO or WEO are forced to go for the low-hanging fruit, because in order to get into substantial litigation, it costs money, and it costs a lot of money. And people, not everybody, some people, are just ignoring mandates or the the if you will the conditions in order to to to do these things by not getting permits by not caring what's what happens and saying okay come and get me we've got a couple of these cases right now we've had one going on for almost a year in this town up on a very popular road right so randy if we could if you could send uh

kind of a draft will send it to the town council to take a look at will discuss it again at the next.

Sure I would ask you to dig into this because it's pretty complex.

I don't think there's an intimate change in the question. There's an administrative provision in here that I tried to put in to take the police out.

And that is for, let's say, a loud property that is humming with electrical. Then instead of having a police do that, we're wasting an officer going there and having to put a decibel meter there. We have a town employee that the mayor would be authorized to hire to do that.

I've seen that. I've seen that it's called noise enforcement. Exactly.

It's administrative enforcement. Because the police, you know, you can't have them sitting watching decibel meters at a factory. So yes, you're right.

If it's okay with everyone, I see there's people here that want to hear about the disabled veterans ordinance. And I know we have Brian that's been waiting to help out. I'd like to see if it's okay with the council if we go to that one and then talk about the vacant storefront later.

Move to item D. Brian? Yep. Or no, you're going to have him come? Yep. Okay. Okay.

Thanks, Reed.

So this has been brought. Actually, it both participation too. There are veterans, disabled veterans, that can't work. It shows on their documents. It's not at 100%. I'm sure Brian could talk about it.

I'm probably not saying it correctly.

But we want to make it good for all of our veterans.

Sure. I'll give you a little background on it. Beginning with the 2024 grant list, state law fully exempts from property tax the assessed value of a primary dwelling of a veteran who has 100% service-connected permanent and total disability rating as determined by the US Department of Veteran Affairs. The law is very specific that underlying disability rating has got to be 100% and the rating report also says you are considered permanently and totally disabled. So one group of veterans is what the mayor is trying to address. There's a small group of veterans out there. that are considered TDIU, total disability based upon individual unemployability. So the key distinction with the TDIU, it doesn't change the veteran's underlying disability rating. But it's a determination that the service connected disabilities prevent substantially gainful employment, allowing the VA to pay compensation at the 100% disabled level. So the original law in 2024 didn't address veterans with a TDIU. In 2025, the legislature came back. they passed a law it's a local option so municipalities may grant the exemption to these veterans so right now we have around 47 100 totally permanently disabled veterans in town we went through the files pretty quickly last week there's probably somewhere between five and ten that would fall under the TDIU and the town could pass a local ordinance or resolution that would grant the exemption. had this discussion with somebody recently okay you had the biggest frustration yeah and it's not right sure so can I make a motion oh you know I could work with the mayor with Randy and you know we could come back with either an ordinance or a resolution an ordinance Randy okay We'll probably have to change the homestead ordinance too because we address the law that pertains to the 100% disabled with 100% disability rating. This is separate law for the TDIU, so I'll probably have to come back and do that too.

And just getting, I'm sorry, Zach?

For the record and for definition here, the TDIU, does that apply only to physical disability or does that also apply to psychological disability under the VA's definition?

I think it could apply to both. I know, for example, you could have a veteran with a PTSD rating of 50%. That's what his disability rating would be. But he may be, the VA may consider him totally unemployable and give him the 100% payment. So yeah, you're welcome.

How does everybody feel about bringing it back with these definitions?

We can have it for our next meeting.

Yep, Randy, we can have the ordinance set for the next meeting. So we can get that on the docket for an ordinance for the next meeting.

Thank you, Christine, for bringing that up.

Yeah, thank you. And again, thank you, Brian. You're welcome. and a big thank you to our veterans absolutely yeah all right so we're going to move back up so let's go to the storefront the vacant storefront we can move that to the next uh uh okay meeting uh all right you know basically just real quickly i mean randy we can talk about that at the at the next uh council meeting okay the next is the data center moratorium okay okay i'd like to make a motion on that Make a motion on what the item E. OK. Basically, as we all know, it's front and center nationally, our data centers and you know what they can do, especially with AI, the power that they generate, but also what they can do to the community at large that they're in. We've seen some communities, massive amounts of water that these data centers use. Some of the neighborhoods that these data centers are, they draw so much electricity. Those neighbors have brownouts that they are. And a lot of these are just, this is like a brand new technology, so to speak. You have a noise element to it as well. And I propose that we set a moratorium so we can learn more about this, understand it more. and protect our environment. So with that, I'd like to get the town council to state that we would like to move with that and ask Randy to provide us with an ordinance that we can then view and look at, and if possible, approve at the next town council meeting, but at least it shows the public and also shows as the state is looking around for possibilities that New Milford would propose some kind of fight against that. No, but they're trying to put them all over the place. So we have water. We have a lot of land. We have water. We have a river. So it's better to be proactive than reactive, I say.

Okay.

so any sorry no i'm just going to say so we'll bring it back next but just a sense from the council for randy to move forward to prepare an ordinance i'm completely supportive of having a moratorium on the data centers i think we don't have the infrastructure that they're looking for but it can't hurt to have a moratorium we might as well have it and we should so one of the things already

Some of the properties on the Housatonic have water capability, by right, an easement to draw out of the Housatonic. So that's one of the reasons why they are looking here. You know, I would tend to agree with you, you know, but we have a lot here that offers them, but we all agree on the moratorium.

I'm in support of it.

Yeah, I'm in support of this, too. I just have a question, and it's maybe not appropriate, but the company that was going to come in up on Aspatuck.

The battery? Yeah, the battery.

Have they disappeared, or...?

Yeah, they're not moving forward.

They're not moving forward.

Okay, with anything. They're not moving forward.

With that project, anything related to battery storage? They're not moving forward with that.

All right. Are they possibly moving forward with a different location in town?

No, I have not heard of any of that. But that doesn't be holding them to talk to anyone. But I have not heard anything. with them moving anywhere, but they could be talking to somebody or not even any of us. I hope not. I'm with you. So can you make the motion? Yes.

I'd like to move that on the data center moratorium that we have a town attorney draw, what do you want to call it?

I'm going to have to research this issue. Research it. I want to make sure.

The town attorney would research this and draw up something for us. We'll leave it a little oblique. How's that? There you go. Yeah, a lot of work.

We're giving you a lot of space. Sorry. I got nothing else to do.

All right. We have a motion in a second. All those in favor. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Thank you. And then lastly, just real quick, and we'll bring it to the next one, is the vacant storefront ordinance. The reason why, and we talked about this a few months ago, we do have some properties that have been vacant for a very long time. not due to people wanting to use it but there's one issue or another and hopefully putting in an ordinance would incentivize those people that do have those vacant storefronts from actually creating incentives to

make them useful viable storefronts especially here in the downtown area we'll discuss that next meeting right okay so then we just have the final meeting the final item there was a

a proposal in the state legislature to assess properties that are darkened, essentially, and it failed, just to let you know. So you can draft an ordinance. I can't tell you what the viability of it will be at this point, given the state legislatures. if you will, reticence to adopt that. But I'll take a look and I'll draft something for what it's worth.

At least we'd have something to say that this is what New Milford does not want.

Sure. Sure. I'll draft one. I can't tell you the Bible yet.

And lastly, we have Bridge Street. And that's the property that the council about a year ago. For those who don't know, that's the parking lot right on Bridge Street and Main Street to talk and negotiate with the existing property owner. I am asking the town to allow us to bid to see what cost it would be to do an appraisal. And the reason being is with the new laws that now have been put into effect when it comes to allowable property development. Now with sewer and water you can have a 17 unit development that does not require parking. So that could differentiate if we decided to move forward with that space there the town can decide that corner space what you know and that is on the landmark part of town. So gives us some opportunities with an appraisal gives a true value of what that property would be and then we can discuss further with the property owner. So if I could have a motion to sign that.

We have to have a motion. I'd like to move that we allow mayor bass. Bringing someone to get an assessment of true assessment of the 59.

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

Okay.

All right. Before we adjourn, I just asked earlier if we could put on a future agenda a moratorium on automated license plate readers. Is that something we would be asking Attorney DiBella to research?

I think we'd ask the Attorney DiBella and the Chief also. when it comes to those cameras as well.

Do we need a motion now to do that or we'll just put it on the agenda for the next meeting?

We'll put it on the agenda for the next meeting and then we can discuss it kind of like we're doing with these ordinances.

You're not talking about the flock, the multiple people getting it. You're talking about just having it.

That same style, whether it's the flock brand or another brand.

Well, the flock means it takes every car that goes by.

Well, that's the name, right?

So yes, just a name brand. But you're you're talking about an individual reason, like a speed camera.

No, speed cameras are fine. We're going to need speed cameras. Maybe that that that's not what I'm talking about. There was actually an article in the Danbury News Times today about the difference between the different kinds of cameras. And Flock is just a name brand for a variety. information can be shared inappropriately and, you know, a lot of people wouldn't want that.

So that's the kind you don't want to.

All right. So we have a motion to make a motion. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. All those in favor? Aye. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, everyone.