Town Council - Regular Meeting

for the pledge, please. Paul Key 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. We could still be stand for the American creed.

As we read this pledge tonight, remember that 250 years ago, our founding fathers sacrificed a lot for this country. So keep that in mind. The American Creed by William Tyler Page. I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people for the people for the people whose just powers are derived from the consent of the government. A democracy and a republic. A sovereign nation of many sovereign states. a perfect union, one inseparable, established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice, and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes. I therefore believe is my duty to my country to love it, to support its constitution, to obey its laws, to respect its flag, and defend it against all enemies.

Thank you very much. Diane, we have anybody.

Good evening. I'm Tom Kepsiac, 94 Long Mountain Road. I want to note that the minutes of the 41326 town council meeting that were included with tonight's agenda are incomplete. The minutes do not include any mention of the extended discussion that took place regarding an enhanced facility for the DPW. Before a vote is taken to approve the minutes, they should be updated and distributed to the community for its review. The updated minutes should include a copy of the letter from TRC that the mayor read at the meeting and promised to post for the record. Regarding the conversation that took place during the meeting, there are a number of issues that deserve scrutiny. There have been repeated comments over a number of meetings that imply that the decision to relocate the DPW to the former Century Brass site was made 20 years ago. The mayor has not provided any documentation that confirms any conversations from that period, the information that was available at that time and the decisions that were made. Given the significance of the issue, one would assume that the discussions and decisions would have been a matter of public record. What we do know from that public record is that in 2010, the town was in the process of negotiating with a developer who wanted to build an ethanol refinery at the site. The negotiations failed apparently as a result of the economic conditions at the time and the regulatory constraints on the development of the property that were being imposed by the state. In 2016, the town was negotiating with a developer to construct a natural gas fired plant. That project was halted because of community objection. In 2020, the town published a POC that

included the recommendations that a planning process be initiated that would confirm the needs of the DPW, the options available to uh address those needs and to and include a costbenefit analysis of those options. Presumably, the POC would not have included such a recommendation for a planning process if the decision to relocate the DPW had already been made and was well documented. Since that time, the town has received two hazard mitigation plans from Westcog that confirmed that the Scoville Road site is in an area likely to flood during significant storms, rendering the site inaccessible and subject to flood damage. The mayor read a letter during the during the meeting. The mayor read a letter from the engineering firm that has been engaged by the town to assess and address the pollution at the Scoville Street site that resulted from previous use. The letter claims the DPW can be relocated to the Scoville Street site with minimal risk. TR TRC claims that the aquifer is somehow protected from pollution because of the geology of the site. The town's own records confirm that the site and the aquifer beneath have been polluted as a result of the previous use. So, the claim that future pollution would not occur needs to be supported with further information. The town has not provided any documentation in support of TRC's claim beyond vague references to current construction techniques and operational procedures that will minimize the chance of pollution. nor any evidence that the state will allow the operation of a

facility that includes a number of activities that are prohibited under pro above a protected aquifer. The community is being asked to put its faith in the town's ability to properly plan and properly plan and execute a project of the complexity of the changes to the DPW's operations and/or its location. This is the same administration that could not put a replacement roof on the high school without incidents. Has allowed the East Street building to fall into such disrepair that it is uninhabitable. That has allowed the old Boardman Bridge to become unusable and that is now a defendant in a lawsuit for refusing to fulfill its responsibilities regarding pollution of the Husatonic. With this track record of its management abilities, there does not seem to be any basis for allowing the comp current currently proposed relocation of the DPW to to proceed. A planning process that is compliant with the town's POC and takes into account the recommendations of the Westcog reports should be started so an optimal solution serving the department's needs and therefore the communities can be assured the appropriate resources should be retained to manage the planning for and execution of any changes to be done on behalf of the department. Thank you. Anybody else? Diane?

No. Great. That's it. Thank you. Uh, next. Number four. Number four. I'd like to move that we approve the items 4 A and 4B on tonight's consent agenda. We have a second. Any discussion? Mary Jane. It's already in there. Okay. They gave it to us separate. Okay. All right. It's already in. Okay. So, it's all there then. Thank you. Thank you. Town attorney. Is it something that we have to go word by word? Absolutely not. That's nonsense.

And is it information act says and I gave lectures on this minutes shall shall talk about the business attended to by the body. Thank you. This is a deliberative body. It's not a political body. When you do that, right? To to define an initiative of Republican or Democratic is not correct. This has been brought up many times over the years. 25 years I've been town attorney, we've never had in any of towns I represent a verbatim for minutes. There essentially a thumbnail of what went on. You need to know what happened, what was done, and the vote. That's it. Thank you. We have a motion and a second with the amendment. All those in favor?

I opposed. Any abstensions? Thank you. Number five, mayor's comments.

Thank you. So, first before I uh go in on the congratulations and everything else, I'd like to counter what was presented at public participation because the narrative for some of that was false. And let me show you how. First, it was stated that this was already a done deal. The public works move for since I've been mayor and have said about this move, I've said that the public must vote on it. I then said, Mary Jane, you've been on council for a long time as I have that this has been going on way before my time. As a matter of fact, February 4th, 1998. I don't know, s 1998. What year are we in today?

I was with the classifier. I'm just kidding. 20 2026, right? So that's Randy 28 years ago. Long time ago,

they were talking about public works facility renovation or relocation. And by the way, I'm going to put this on the agenda at the next meeting because right now we're going through a lot of stuff. So I got to have my department, right? Stop their time to then bring in all this stuff because of the falsities that were brought on here. So let's revisit the high school roof. That's a project that had an issue to it. But guess what's there now? A new roof. Geez. here on the high here on the roof of town hall. New roof. Jeez. Library redone. The max roof done. Senior center roof done. Miles and miles of roads done. Bridges done. I'd say the DPW staff and the workers here do a great job. And to sit here and opine that they don't

is I can't I can't even say how utterly ridiculous that is to town employees to say that they can't do that. Oh, and by the way, Randy, the litigation that was brought on supposedly that the town has no standing in in uh the uh claim by someone that a doesn't live here, b someone that does live here. Can you again tell the public and the town council where that litigation is right now? That litigation just got removed from federal court to state court and is subject to a motion to dismiss. Thank you.

The other one was dismissed, by the way. Can you repeat that again, Randy? The other one was what? Dismissed. The first one was dismissed. This one is subject to dismissal because in my opinion and in John Tower's opinion and others, it's frivolous.

We're also doing the Lanesville Fire Department and they'll be up here in a couple weeks and they'll talk about it, how that project is going. Well, now for those that are in the trades in construction and everything else, there's a thing called sometimes you run into what's called problems. So, in problems, you can do a couple things. One, you can put your head in the sand, you can cry, and you can come up here and That's what you can do. Or you know what else you can do? You can man up, put your big boy pants on, and get the job done. And thank you to our public works staff who's right over there. By the way, thank you to our contractors and thank you to everybody. Oh, by the way, did you know some of these projects were done during COVID? Wow. During, guess what, Jack can tell you over there? We had lots of supply chain issues, but somehow we managed to get them done. And this politic this politicalization of projects, politicalization of things has got to stop.

If you have a difference of opinion, come on up here. Let's have a great conversation about it. But to sit here and say that people are against clean water, that people don't want to do the right thing is disingenuous at best. We all live there.

Again, I repeat to the public that's here and that's watching the the only way a public works facility can move over to public works to over to Century Brass, which I fully support, would be them to say, "Okay, because guess what's going to cost money?" Who do you think approves the money? Oh, that'd be us, the public. One more time too that I like to mention. They talk about it that was just brought up here that uh somehow by putting it at Century Brass it would be environmentally damaging. Well, if you use that same logic, right? Then you're going to have to get rid of Away. You're going to have to get rid of all the houses on Husatonic Avenue. You're going to have to get rid of Big Y. Oh, you're going to have to get rid of the new uh state uh department of public works facility because they're on the aquafer. Oh, Husatonic River Brewery gone. Let's keep going. Oh, sorry, Rolando. CNC Deli gone up. McDonald's gone up.

Oh, can't hang hang on. Hang on. Let me Canterbury School. Uh, sorry. You're in the Oxford Protection Zone. Uh, you can't be there anymore. It's called using technology that God has given us with our brains to figure things out so that we can use things in a great manner. So I'll be putting this again on the agenda at the next meeting and we can talk more about it. Jack, I'd ask you to come. Sorry, you'll be at the next meeting as well. We can opine more so that the public itself can be rest assured. If there was if if there was a way that it would be bad for us, why would we do it? But all you got to do is go look across the street from River Brewery. As I say again, just walk walk across there. Look across there and guess what's over there? Brand new public works facility. And those who are against it, you know what they say? Oh, that's because it was grandfathered in. It's not a brand new facility. Where was everybody then? I'll tell you where they were. It wasn't political. Now it is. And that's very, very sad. It should be what's best for the town. on a good note now. And Tom, we'll make sure uh you had talked about the TRC thing. I believe that's in this new package which will be put up so you can more than happily take a look at it when it gets up there.

Should be posted already. Oh, it's already posted. Okay. Already posted. And thank you, Stephanie. Um, big huge day, opening day for New Milford youth baseball and softball. I want to thank you to board president Joe Ponazo and the entire board, the coaches, the volunteers, the sponsors, the donors, and parents for their contribution in this year's opening day and the season. Uh, big thank you to them for allowing me to throw my pitch into the ground.

Oh my god, it's pretty pathetic. Joe is pretty pathetic. It was bad. I keep telling him I was a lineman, not a baseball, but a lineman in the ground. And thank you to Representative Buck, but he did a pretty good job. Me not so good. Go Wave. Also, I found out today, Randy, the New Milford High School ladies softball team, right? 18 to nothing. Is that what it was? 18 to nothing. Yeah. Go away. Oh, yeah. Against Joe Barlo. 10 and0. Wow. Yeah, that's a little They've earned that boy. They sure have. Our workers.

Also, congratulation to Milford Youth Baseball softball 9 boys as they won their double header. First game 12-2, second game 19 to1.

Congratulations to the youth 16 soccer club of Nilford Timbers who are 2-0. Big congratulations to the Milford boys lacrosse teams. They won the Bantam uh boys BANAM. They were the kindergarten through two. They won over Lichfield Hills. The boys lightning, which are grades three and four, they won over Lichfield Hills. The boys juniors, five and six, they won over Watertown. And the boys seniors, which are seven and eight, they won over Watertown. So, great job. Want to thank Dan Calhoun and Denise Mastro. We had a very successful opening day for the park and rec soccer program. And for those that don't know, so the park and rec soccer program is on a Saturday, one day where uh our soccer club of New Milford is a more extensive program, but it's great to see all the people there and uh uh it's great. Thank you to the parents for allowing us to uh really have a very successful soccer program and thank you to the park and wreck team. Uh, also, uh, Saturday, Randy, believe, believe it or not, National Independent Bookstore Day and we got a great one right over there, Honeybee Books. Outstanding. If you haven't been there, you got to go check it out. It's right on Main Street. Great job. And, uh, they've got books, music, they got some albums. Even back in my time, Randy has some albums. Kind of remember they got them there. Yeah, it's pretty good, I got to say.

Yep. And uh they're open uh Tuesday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Saturday, Sunday 9:00 a.m. and they close at 6 p.m. except for Diane Wednesdays. They have book clubs 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. And while I was there on Saturday, I met a Nilford author, Caitlyn Kelly. She just put out a book called The Secular Prayers of Medicine and she has an amazing personal story. If you get a chance, you can go to Honeybee Books, check out uh her books. You can purchase them there or you can check check them out at Amazon. Big thank you to our wonderful Nilford Garden Club S. Saturday. They were giving away oak tree seedlings from Bartlett Tree. Hopefully, Randy, I can when I put this one in, it'll be still be alive. So, I'm hoping that'll be good.

What about me? Water it. I'm watering it. Yep. I'm watering it. And the gentleman from Bartley Tree told me how to do it. So, that's good. We have to make it.

Yep. Big huge thank you to Jason, right? And Maria Leo, the multicultural fair that we had. I'm not going to take away any of the the good things that are to come from our leadership presentation, but great job. Also to Commander Jim Delansancy uh on Saturday, the Milford uh American Legion at the VFW did the veteran services expo and coffee hour and these are going to be going on every month. So if you need to know know more about uh VA benefits, about different programs for veterans, you can go there. they actually have someone from the VA there to answer those questions for you. Uh, also, um, big thank you to everyone that participated in the Give Local nonprofit campaign. That was last week. The entire campaign of Western Connecticut raised $2,946,954. Some of our nonprofits were able to participate in that. Big huge uh thank you to Diane at the Pratt Center. Also Jason at Village Center of the Arts and Jeff uh as well who didn't do he said he didn't do enough but he did a lot uh this year as well to really create the awareness and uh again our nonprofits do so much for our community that we couldn't do on our own. So big thank you to all of the nonprofits. You know, Randy had a big chance to to meet Basil Lucanov Glennire 100th birthday. Pretty amazing budget. We're still uh in that process. So on May 5th at 700 p.m. is our town meeting for our budget. And this gives the public a chance to come and opine on the budget if they so choose. um can't make any uh uh differentials because that's been approved by town

council and board of finance. And what this basically does is set the date of the referendum, the recommended date that the council had talked about a Saturday will be May 16th and uh that'll be at your polling districts that you're there uh as well. We'll talk more about that. That'll be a Saturday. So May 16th. Also some great news. Paul was talking to uh Tommy, our chairman of our pension commission with the growth of the plan. Our growth now, Randy, is up to $84 million. Wow. Outstanding.

So, amazing work by our pension committee, OGA. Amazing work. Uh Greggy's over there. Amazing work, guys. uh really seeing the growth of that plan and that's really going to help us moving into the future not only budgetarily but to our workforce. So big thank you. You know what Paul what do we got going on? Got a lot of stuff. Yeah. On the 28th of April 400 p.m. to 6 p.m. Village Crest is doing their future healthc care heroes. Not ready for

April 29th 1:00 p.m. to 400 p.m. at the library is the job fair. And this is in partnership with the Northwest Workforce Investment Board. So if you or someone you know is looking to either change jobs or looking to get into the job market, uh you can come to the job fair and uh we have some employee employers that'll be there that'll be interested in talking with you. You had some numbers on unemployment. I do. That's going to be in the EDC one. Thanks, Paul.

May 1st, 5:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Harry Brook Park is the Peacock Strut. It's a good walking fundraiser for Harry Brookke. May 1st and May 2nd, all day in the downtown in the Milford spring fling. That'll be sidewalk sales, light refreshment, menu specials, and more. Also on May 1st and May 2nd, on May 1st, 11:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. May 2nd, 9:00 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friends of the Libraries book sale. Great chance to get a lot of books, great prices. I know I get a lot of those from my grandson there. So, big thank you to the friends of the library for all they do for the library. May 2nd, 10:00 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Petty Bone, the Rotary Club's shred event. So, if you have items that you'd like to dispose of, documents, old tax returns, uh old uh real uh personal information that you want uh really taken care of in a compliant way, uh you can go to the the Rotary Shred event.

$10 a box. Yep. $10 for big box. On May 2nd, starting at 10 a.m. to May 3rd, 10 am, the Boy Scouts, Troop 158 right here in the middle green is doing camping for cans. And uh it's a great thing to bring non-p perishables to the Boy Scouts, creating awareness for those in need. And those uh proceeds are going to go to our food bank. May 3rd, Londo, if you like cornhole, May 3rd,

we'll be there. starts at 11:00 a.m. and the game starts at noon at Petty Bone is the Senior C Center's Cornhall Tournament Fundraiser. May 5th, 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Petty Bone. H presents Let's Talk Trash. It's all about trash. Uh and thank you to uh Husatonic Recovery for that. May 8th and May 9th, 9:00 a.m. to 400 p.m. First Congregational Church and St. John's Church is doing their airing of the quilts. If you haven't seen those, that's amazing. They have lots of old quil quilts from many, many years ago that'll be adorned on those, too. And then at the congreg at the uh historical society, they're going to have old sewing machines from all sorts of different dates back. That ought to be pretty cool. May 9th, 10:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, their parish hall, is their spring craft fair. May 9th, noon to 5:00 pm at Petty Bone is the spring food truck festival. So, it'll be food trucks, music, inflatables. We're going to have uh some of our bigger trucks that'll be there for the youngsters to take a look at and touch kind of touch a truckish event. May 9th, 9:00 a.m. to noon on the green is the farmers market opening day. And then after that, it'll be every Saturday from 9 to noon. May 9th also 10 am to 7:30 pm at Harry Brook Park is the great nutmegger scavenger hunt. May 9th also 10 am to 1 pm is the pet thrift shop that's at our animal welfare and those proceeds go to help them. May 9th 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Lendy's the fishing derby and park and wreck family fun day. May 10th, 8:00 PM to 10 p.m. at the McCarthy Observatory is the second Saturday stars. If you haven't been to that wonderful observatory

yet, now we have two telescopes there. Uh one is pretty much remote, the other one is at the big uh dome. That's a great chance. Also, uh our uh social services, uh we've been able to have access health uh come in person uh to New Milford. uh as far as uh enrolling people. So, if you do need uh health insurance, this is a great place to come. There'll be people there to do that. Uh the next one is going to be June 30th from 10:00 a.m. to 400 p.m. at Petty Bone. Then June 25th, August 27th, October 29th, all 10:00 a.m. to 4 p.m. Big thank you to Access Health for uh really bringing in-person uh assistance to us. And then as far as traffic, and we'll talk a little bit more about this tonight, uh, but just traffic statistics. So far, uh, this year, our officers have stopped 11 1,149 vehicles. Uh, we've had accidents, 289, 53 of those have been in parking lots. That's up from 267 last year. And a lot of that is due to the fact of the winter that we had. Uh lots of snow and ice DUIs. This time last year we were at 27. So far this year at 22. One is too many. Uh and we continue to be very vigilant about that. We did receive a grant that the council approved for distractive driving. So extra officers will be out extra patrols uh when it comes to distractive driving. And as the chief had told us before, distracted driving is the number one cause of accidents. Well, actually number two cause of accident. Number one is driving too close. So we talk about this pretty much every meeting, but just to continue to

create the awareness. If you can just make sure that you stay a safe distance from uh the vehicle in front of you and also keep your eyes on the road, those two things self-responsibly, we ourselves can help lower those numbers. Back to public works s good things going on for public works. Uh tree crew uh they've been doing uh continuing doing the smaller cleanup jobs throughout town. They also did some work at Petty Bone as well. Also, they've been putting up the wonderful uh American flags that you see adorning our lamp posts. They put up the uh Revolutionary War banners that are up there now and they'll be putting up soon the gradu the graduates that will be graduating from the high school. So a big huge thank you to them. And if you had a chance to drive down uh Still River Drive where the roundabout then if you're coming from uptown, you may look to the left and you see all these Abbervites like right in a row. So big thank you to uh DPW. The reason for that was many years ago when the rotary was actually built, uh, what was put there was some larger trees that were right on the fencing and they aged and a lot of them had died and a lot of the bigger branches were falling into residents uh, yards. So, our tree crew went in, cleaned all that out. Now we put the arbor vites which will still be a buffer zone still look nice but it won't have the impact on the neighbors uh when it comes to that our pothole machine has been out and about filling potholes and I think we're over 60,000 potholes since we've had the machine so far but I'll get that true number right Jack on Friday

I'll get that number and what do we got going on s for this summer well bridges is right, Jack. We got uh Chinki Bridge, right? Uh San Road Bridge is just is done. So, we got that done. Uh then we're going to be looking in 2027 Wheaten Road, Walkerbrook Bridge. There's two of them, right, Jack?

So, we got those two. We're looking to see if we can get a 100% funded bridge for Squire Hill Road. Uh, we put the application in for Boardman Road, not the bridge, but Boardman the road. The bridge we're putting back in for that because they didn't get us give us the grant for that one, but we're looking again. I know in speaking with uh Chuck as well. Hindel Road, Grove Street, that's the first light that uh the town will actually uh be on really the towns. We're just waiting for OTAA. That's the governing body from the department of uh uh transportation. Uh they finally approved that. So now we're waiting for final approval from Westcog, right, Jack? And we're waiting for Inland Wetlands.

Brookside. Yep. Brookside, too. Sorry. Thank you. So, we got Brookside going on this year as well. Um intersection improvements. We're also talking about East Street and Elm Street. So, we're waiting for uh the hospital to give us the easement. Um we sent over the easement paperwork, right, Chuck? For over there.

Yep. So, we're seeing that and that, as we talked about before, will be widening that intersection so that you'll be able to do lefthand turns on each side of the intersection. That should free up some of the traffic congestion that you see, especially during rush hours. Pumpkin Hill Road, that one's been in the hopper for quite some time, but DP needed us to do a analysis on Indian artifacts. So, we've been kneedeep and getting all that taken care of. Um, Wellsville Avenue and that's the full reconstruction. We've talked about this before. That's going to be doing a full depth reclaim of the road itself. And then sidewalks, brand new sidewalks there as well. This is a lot tip uh grant that we got. So, we're continuing to work with easements on some of the packages from the property owners and also Westcog, right Chuck, you're going back and forth with them. Okay. Uh other contracted work that isn't the towns, but sometimes people ask. Aquarian Water, they're continuing their upgrades of their systems. Mallet Lane, Brookside, Elm Street, Elm Street Extension, Treadwell Summit, Aspatuck Avenue, Maplewood, Pleasant View, and Deborah Lane. Our Chip Seal contractor came because uh last uh fall, late fall, they did a last application and that didn't really work as well as it should. So, Jack and Chuck brought the contractor back and he said he was going to fix it all on his dime. They've come out and done that. We're waiting for the weather to get a little better and they will be doing that. Correct, Chuck?

Correct. I reached out to them again today. They should be in the weather holds true. They'll be back in reapply that they did come in about a couple weeks ago and did a complete sweep and remove all the excess stone

and crack sealing. This year we're anticipating doing Youngsfield Road, Husatonic, Boardman, Essex, Bernett, Darwin Hill, Chip Ceiling. After July 1, we'd be looking to do Youngsfield, Husatonic, Boardman, Sawyer Hill, New Preston Hill. Uh we had Synopoly, our uh contractor, uh doing some of our sidewalk repairs as well. Uh we're also working on uh for those that may know when you go on Railroad Street, you know where the parking is, the Railroad Street parking, you have that wooden, uh uh guard rail, so to speak. We're going to take that off. We're going to put in a new one. Repaint it, right, Jack? Make it all look nice. Is that what we're doing to make it?

Yeah. So the contract will be in to replace the wood part. It's called Marp. So it's a wood front with metal backing. So that'll be stripping off the wood, replacing it with the brand new sections of wood. And then the high department will be painting the the metal pieces which are still usable and in place it black. So it'll look brand new and refreshed and give us a lot more service. And so what we're looking at so far for drainage work and some of this drainage work when we're pulling up the the uh uh the old drainage pipe. Some of the stuff's been in the ground 40 years, 50 years, you know, as we've really been paying attention to our infrastructure work. And so right now they're up on Cornwall and uh some of the pipe that's come out of there just the whole thing is just rotted out. So, big thank you to our uh public works team as they go out, we talked about this before, in late fall and into winter before the roads get too bad. They're out checking our roads, seeing what roads need to be in repair in what order. And so, right now they're doing Putinham, right, to Long Mountain. They already did that, right? Cornwall from Putnham to Long Mountain area. Then they're going to do Adams Lane, San Road, Sunrise Lane, and Jerusalem Road as well there. And uh uh what's great is we just did the bridge on Sand Road. So now we're going to do the roadway. So that'll all be done. Some of the mill and pave that we're going to be doing a reclaim Cornwall Adams Sand Sunrise and Jerusalem Hill. The grant project that we talked about before is Mariel Road and that's where we received the million dollar grant from the state. So we'll be doing that right Chuck this year.

Yes. That's going to start in July. July one. So that's from Milesville to basically the new bridge west. So it's about 1.3 miles or so. And we got million dollar grants about 1.4 million. And you know, Jack, facilities, I can't thank them enough. And Joe, I know you're here. Board of Ed can't thank the board of ed facilities people enough as well. On the town side, right, we did the roof at uh the senior center, the flat portion. Correct. And then we did brand new flooring right in the senior center. That's completed.

And that's all completed. Looks beautiful. And the reason why we did that was as we're doing more and more programming into the senior center, the big room. We're doing more activities, dancing, and everything else. We wanted to make sure that that flooring had a little more uh padding, so to speak, to it uh in case someone did fall. and uh looks absolutely beautiful as well. So, good job to that. Uh also, we did the uh roof at the max, right, Jack? That's all completed as well. Did a full refresh of the Max, right Jason? We did the stage, right? uh refrigeration system, the sound system, and I might add, Jason, not the sound system we were able to get at a wonderful price

from someone that actually came through the youth agency. It was um gentleman through the max going to teen events about 20 years ago and going to live band events and he had a big heart in trying to make that a live band for kids. So, He donated um over probably close to $12,000 worth of equipment. So it was great. You know, it's amazing. That's DNR.

Yeah. You know, it's amazing, right, Jason? So, one of the things that we talked about after CO was where's a place where kids uh maybe seniors and maybe into their 20s could go uh to network. And these are these you you uh really have a young guy that really is coming in and kind of promoting these concerts.

There's two of them out. We have two two uh promoters in their late teens, early 20s that are putting on this live music because they've been finding themselves only being able to play in bars and uh you know they trying to keep it substance free for their colleagues and their peers. So that's why they're they're happy that the max is back kind of on the map and Uh the mayor and I have been frank with them and saying, you know, it's there as long as you respect it. Absolutely. They're doing a great job, by the way. They're doing a great job.

And we also use as a rental. So people want birthdays or they want to rent it, they can do that as well. Have the commercial kitchen. So big huge uh thank you to the facilities uh team for that because we also have small businesses that go in there and they uh really use that and that helps them in their business as well. Jack, we got some stuff going on here in town hall, too, right? Our facilities team.

Yeah, they're going to be shortly putting in new floors downstairs. The uh our staff will actually doing that. They bought the materials already. They're on site, so you should see new floors from the entryway off of Church Street all the way downstairs. They'll have new floors there. We have the uh new fire protection loop up at the uh PD that they they finished that. And we have new air conditioning going on at the PD and down at Park and Re. And J, you know, we talk about all the infrastructure work that we're doing and it's extensive and as I said before, it's roads, bridges, the dam, right? We're working on the dam too, right?

Yeah. Reservoir port dam. Uh we're working on that um to meet the new D Army Corps of Engineers uh standards. We've worked out with uh D. We've got a five-year permit with them to complete the work. Uh we've already changed uh we're in the process of changing the valve. There's a valve at the bottom of 40 ft um underground to turn the valve. So, we're making it so that you don't have to anymore. We'll be able to turn the valve from the top so you can empty the if you for some reason we saw a large storm coming. We can actually work on lowering the level of the dam. Uh we're going to on the back side of the dam, it's too steep. So, we'll be leveling that out and then we'll be replacing the spillway um and and the drainage system off of that. Uh we've got a 5-year permit. We're using ARPA funds right now for a lot of that permit.

And then also, Jack, we've talked about the past, right? Old drainage. Talked about all this capital that we need. We've set up a uh a capital plan. We brought that to the town council and talk about how we're looking at things 5, 10 years and plus out, all the needs of the community. Another thing too that we talk about which is super important when you're talking about infrastructure is resiliency. And I know Jack, one of the things that you and I have talked about, we saw what happened in Southbury and saw the impact of really um congested waterways and how those uh you know logs that have fallen into the river uh how they haven't been cleaned out, they actually clogged up the culverts which created uh that disastrous flooding that happened. And I know you're putting in a plan where we can work uh in a safe environmentally uh sound manner to really help mitigate that at least in our river courses here in town.

Yeah, we've mapped all of our own as you know we have 69 bridges plus that's on all the culvers. Uh we've also mapped all the private bridges because if in a storm event that uh just our bridges aren't the only ones that are affected. So we've mapped all of those. We understand where those are. We've act we've gone out and we've started to clean some waterways that look uh that are impaired. We'll be doing ongoing looking at the rivers and finding places where we have trees and things that are um have fallen that may cause a problem. Uh we've working with Jim, we've talked to Jim Furl about how we want to do this. So you'll see us alongside the roads cleaning out culvers. There's one we got another one up on Long Mountain we're going to be doing shortly. So we're looking at each bridge, each culver to see what the what the challenge there is. Great.

Thank you, Jack. And that's all I got. Number six, youth agency. Uh, report to the town council from the student advisory board. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi. Um, my name is Payton Jadu from the new Milford Youth Agency Student Advisory Board. And over the weekend at the MAX, we held the multicultural fair. Um, so every attendee started their journey around the world with a passport. Each person then made their way across the room to visit 14 countries, receiving a flag sticker from each country to add to their passport. The student advisory board members represented Germany, Peru, Brazil, the Philippines, America, India, Slovakia, Mexico, Ireland, and Portugal. Our social services, the library, the senior center, parks and wreck, Newford high schools, French honor society, and Spanish honor society added to the tour with Italy, Hungaria, um France, and Spain. Um some of the crafts we did included alpine hats, carnival masks, patriotic headbands, mandala keychains, piñatas, and paper fans. Attendees were also offered many delicious treats such as German chocolate, Brazilian soda, dried mangoes, Slovakian cookies, Indian sugar cookies, Peruvian corn, and much more. We actually have a basket off.

So, the students put together a basket of um the samples of everything they had. And so, on behalf of paint, I present this to you, Pete Town Council. It's got all kinds of goodies in here. So, I'll leave it up here and you guys can take it, but it has tons of good stuff. Along with this, in the background, we obviously had a great selection of global themed music playing as part of the experience. Based on our numbers of passports we handed out, we had over a hundred people come to the three-hour event, including Mayor Bass, who took his time at every table. Thank you so much for coming.

Thank you. Um, again, New Milford is changing. Our public schools now serve a student body that is approximately 35% non-white. And our town is becoming increasingly diverse. As students, we are leading the way through events like this multicultural fair, celebrating the many cultures represented in our town and community in our schools. Our diversity is one of our greatest strengths and we are so proud to have this success as we had a wonderful event. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thank you.

That was a great job. And on behalf of the town council, we want to thank you guys for really highlighting this, talking about all of our cultures here in the Milford and that's what just makes this place so special. So, it was amazing time and a big huge thank you to you guys. You did a outstanding job. And I would be remiss to not layout. Absolutely. Without her leadership and the the meetings with the students over the many months of planning um it would have been it wouldn't happen without her. So big thanks to Maria and Brian as well. Yes. And all the new stuff. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. The youth agency is also requesting permission to accept a $250 donation from the Union Savings Bank. The youth agency is extremely thankful for this donation and for the union savings bank commitment to new New Milford's youth and families. The awarded money will be deposited in an account recommended by the finance director. I have a motion. I'd like to make a motion to accept and a second. Any dis any discussion? All those in favor? I opposed. Any abstensions? Thank you, Paul.

Okay. Number seven on the agenda is road closures. Bank Street Group is requesting the closure of Bank Street for the Rock the Block concert on May 28th, 2026 with the rain dates May 29th, 2026 from 3:00 p.m. to 10 p.m. May make a motion to accept that. Any discussion? A big huge thank you before we vote to Gary Gold Ring, Meredith, all those from the Bank Street Group. They put these on each and every year. It's a great great uh destination point for not only residents here in the milford from beyond thousand people easily the road. All those in favor?

Opposed? Any abstensions? Thank you. Number eight, discussion and possible action on the following appointments to the library board of trustees chapter 9 article two section 1-16 code of ordinances. Sanford Iler of 91 Squire Hill Road for turn 42726 to 1312028. Do I have a second? Second.

Thank you. And uh Sanford's right here. And I want to thank him uh for volunteering uh for this. Uh, it's a very important board and I was very excited when he said he was interested and I think he'd make an outstanding addition to the library board of trustees and we have a motion in a second. All those in favor? Opposed? Any abstensions? Okay. Congratulations. Hey Randy, could you swear? Could you swear? Carry out the duties of the office to which you're appointed to help you got. I do. You're in. All right. Thank you. Congratulations. Okay.

Number nine. I would like to move to approve Park and Rex request to accept the following donations for the 8 mile and K road races. Four $50 gift cards from the Iron Rail. Matson Financial Advisors, $250. Union Savings Bank, $750. Michelle Laquari $250 for kids run on the green. Jesse's ice cream for $250 for kids fun run. Majilleskis for $250 and Robert's Auto for $250. And I have a motion to accept those. Any discussion? All those in favor? I

opposed. Any abstensions? Thank you. And those donations, Paul, are going to go into Yes, I'm going to read that account. Yep. Park Park and Recck is requesting that the monetary donations be deposited into the recreation revenue account450-44709. The New Milford Parks and Recreation Recreation Commission would like to thank these donors for their generosity. Okay. Okay. Next uh number 10.

Number 10 is from our grant compliance specialist. The New Milford Youth Agency has been awarded $10,000 through the underage nicotine prevention program. The community mini grant funds will be used to implement a community-based nicotine prevention initiative that leverages existing youth programming leadership opportunities in the community partnership to reduce nicotine use among individuals under the age of 21. funds will be received into an account determined by the director of finance. B. The town in the Milford has been awarded $42,330 through Connecticut Department of Agriculture enhancement grant funds. The funds will be used to purchase equipment appliances for new teaching kitchen at Sullivan Farms. The funds will be received into an account determined by the director of finance

and and uh go ahead. Is it the leisure of the council that when we vote we do it A and B? Can they be together? Y make a motion to accept everybody. Okay. We should do the resolution. Yep. And then Paul's going to read the resolution for B.

Certified resolution. Be it resolved that it is in the best interest of the town of New Milford to enter into contracts with the Department of Agriculture. In furtherance of this resolution, the mayor is duly authorized to enter into and sign said contracts on behalf of the town of New Milford. The mayor is further authorized to provide such additional information and execute such other documents as may be required by the state of federal government in connection with the said contracts to execute any amendments, recisions and revisions thereto. The te town clerk is authorized to impress the seal of the town of Milford on any document amendment resession or revision.

Okay. So, we have a motion and a second on the two A and B. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? Thank you. Number C. The town of New Milford has been awarded a $1,000 grant from the fiscal year 26 greatest American cleanup grant program to be support the keep new Milford Beautiful initiative. The New Milford Police Cadetses will organize a trash bash cleanup event during which the grant funds will be used to purchase necessary supplies. The funds will be deposited to an account designated by the director of finance. Do I have a motion to accept that? And do we have a second?

Second it. Any discussion? All those in favor? I opposed. Any abstensions? Thank you. And before we move to the next uh poll, I'd like to make sure in the minutes we thank Victoria, our grant writer. Uh she's been able to to uh help assist in getting these awards and also she's the one that helps with the compliance to make sure that we continue to be complying with these grants so we can get more grants. So big thank you to Victoria

and with money tight throughout the world, she's doing an excellent job getting these small grants for us. Number 11 on tonight's agenda is public works DPW discussion and possible action on the approval of an easement acquisition for uh LOTCIP project L095-00005 East Street Elm Street intersection Improvements with the Danbury Hospital 30 Elm Street in the amount of $3,82 details the intersection improvement project to reduce congestion in a turn lanes in the northeast and westbound directions. Widening of the roadway at 30 Elm Street requires relocation of sidewalk and parking lot alterations.

This is one we talked about just a little while ago. Um if there's any questions, we have Chuck and Jack. Uh but this again is uh really expanding that um intersection to allow for lefthand turns. Right. Is that a motion motion? move it. Okay, do we have a second? Second. Thank you. Any discussion? All those in favor? Opposed? Any abstensions?

11B on DPW. Discussion and possible action on developing the safe streets for all SS4A steering committee as follows. Victoria Cello, grants and compliance specialist. Chuck Ballard from public works. Paul Murphy from the town council. Lieutenant Lefon from the police department. Details $20,000 grant excard 200,000

200,000 I'm sorry $200,000 grant uh 40,000 of it from the uh town match to produce a comprehensive safety action plan. This will be a datadriven strategic roadmap to eliminate the roadway fatalities and serious injuries and provide a pathway to future project funding through the SS4A program. And then uh Chuck or Jack, would you like to come up and talk a little bit about uh the SS4A program and the safety action plan?

Yeah, thank you mayor councel. So SS4A is a federal program. Um, and basically this is a it's a vision zero program. It's how do how do you reduce fatalities and serious uh injuries in your town. So the basis is we hire consultant to come in and basically map the town, identify certain areas where improvements can be made where it whether it's intersections, sidewalks, um maybe additional traffic signals, etc. They're they're going to come up with some plans to move forward, identify them, prioritize them. And then once this is complete, this open ups the doors to future fundings and future rounds of SS4A grants. So this is a comprehensive safety action plan grant and then there's implementation grants going forward. So this is step one. You know, as long as there's funding going forward, we can then reapply once we have this in in in this plan uh in place after this. So, we just want to get this in place. We'll have a steering committee just go out for bid for a consultant to come in, do the work. We'll get that done as soon as possible. We'll have this comprehensive safety action plan brought back for committee for review in front of town council with public input. Um, we'll identify some needs and then we'll go out for future funding to make some safety improvements throughout town.

Any questions for Chuck? Make a motion to accept the steering committee. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor? I oppose. Any abstensions? Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. 11 C DPW resolution and authorizes Mayor Pete Bass to sign the local bridge program settlement application and any associated agreements between the state of Connecticut and the town of New Milford for Brookside Avenue bridge over Great Brook number 09028. updated cost to include construction at 987,448. Uh inspection at 288,6180. Have a motion to accept that. Thank you. And we have a second. Second.

Thank you. Any discussion? Chuck, would you like to just briefly talk a little bit about it? Yeah. So, this is the Brookside A Bridge. uh long long in the making here. We're finally here to construction. So just a part of this is the official sign off. We obviously want reimbursements on this. Correct, Olga? Yep. So in order to do that, we have to authorize the mayor to sign off in in the final rounds of application and supplemental applications and commitments to funds. So we just want to authorize the mayor to be able to sign off on that and this will get us reimburse partial reimbursement for this bridge project. Nice. Okay. What's the time what's the time frame on that bridge? Uh we we'll be going to we signed off on contracts last week. We expect probably the closure mid midsummer. It'll be complete by winter.

Good. This is not a full replacement. This is basically a superructure replacement. They're going to strip the deck, cut down the abupments, replace the deck, and rebuild from there. So much shorter duration. Reimbursement. You got a home down there in that valley. They're they're they're streamlining it. Knock on wood. All right. We have a motion in a second. Correct. Yes. Yes. Any further discussion? All those in favor? I opposed. Any abstensions? Thank you.

Number 12, finance. Discussion and possible action to transfer $86,000 into public works winter overtime. 10430-5133 from the following accounts. $36,710 from public works winter mud and snow 10430 0-5003

$30,000 from public works crack ceiling 10430-56005 and $19,290 from public works Highway Maintenance 10430100-56905. Make a motion to accept that and a second from Mary Jane. Would you like to talk a little bit about Sure. This is obviously we had a shortage.

Sure. Is it uh transfer on behalf of the uh a request on behalf of the public works department? Um this is a very often mentioned uh line that is currently over. Um it's public works winter overtime line due to the unprecedented number of winter storms. So now here's a recommendation how to rectify that situation and replenish the account now that hopefully the winter is gone. And we had met with Jack who's behind there as well about where we could uh find the money in this year's budget to shift over and per our ordinance and policy we are now coming to the town council and Olga this had already gone to the board of finance.

Uh this one doesn't have to per our charter this is an interdep department um inter department transfer so only requires town council approval because the budget is able to um mitigate that within their original appropriation. Perfect. So, we have a motion and a second, right? Yes, we do. Any further discussion? Any questions for Olgo for Jack? All those in favor?

Opposed? Abstensions? Thank you. On 12B, discussion and possible action to transfer $9,400 from the finance personnel 10411900 0-5100 0 to personnel payroll 1041410 0-4 5100 0 and now Olga this one has already gone through the board of finance. Correct. This is an interdep department transfer because we are transferring funds from one department to the other. The transfer did go to the board of finance uh last or this Wednesday, past Wednesday and it was approved uh pending town council approval.

Um and now the transfer is presented to you. And you may ask well why are we transferring right from finance personnel to regular personnel and we have Greg here from the personnel office HR. Greg, can you come up and talk a little bit about the need for uh the transfer of funds?

Yeah. So, I had mentioned during my budget presentation that my assistant, who's been with the town for about 14 years now, is going to be retiring in June. So, what this request is going to do, we've been interviewing for the position. We've narrowed it down to a good group of people. I'm expecting to make a decision on this within the next week or so. And the idea is to bring this person in before Diane leaves so that we can get kind of a knowledge transfer. Working in municipal government is different from the p the private sector. Just getting some familiarity and really making a smooth transition. So it's good common business practice whether you're in a municipality or in the private sector

is we don't want to make sure institutional knowledge isn't lost by someone who's been there forever. they can actually transfer that institutional knowledge to the new person and it makes it much easier because there's only two of you, two and a half people as when you present it to the town council. Yes. There's you, there's Diane as of right now and then you have a floater that works part-time in your office in the fire marshals. Exactly. Exactly. So, it'll be very helpful. We're really hoping that the person will be able to start on May 18th. Diane's going to be leaving on June 18th. So it gives about four weeks and this transfer will help satisfy those funds. Any other discussions for Greg or for Olva on this motion?

We don't have a motion yet. Oh, we don't have a motion yet. Sorry. We make a motion. Thank you. Second. Thank you. Any discussion? All's in favor? Opposed? Any abstensions? Thank you everyone. 12 is a discussion possible action to update the fund balance policy. Thank you, Jack. Thank you, Chuck. Boys getting out of here.

Um, so the town um has had a fund balance policy for a number of years in place. Um, last this Wednesday, past Wednesday, the um uh draft for the fund balance uh policy did go to the board of finance and it was approved um with the recommended um revision. So the only change um to the current policy is just to change our um minimum or maximum I guess threshold uh from 2 and a half months of the reserve to two months reserve which is in line with uh GFA recommendation. So, GFOA is uh basically our go-to um resource um that provides a number of guidelines to municipalities um you know regarding application of policies, what policies should be in place, what are the safeguards for municipalities and they also you know issue some of the opinions on interpretations. Um so the recommendation within the industry is um to have two months of the budget as unassigned fund balance or in other words a rainy day fund. So uh the revision on the table right now is to adopt town's policy in line um with GFO GFOA recommendation.

Make a motion to accept motion. So move. Any discussion? All those in favor? I opposed. Any abstensions? Thank you, Olga. Thank you. And Olga, you're going to give us a financial report.

Yes. Um, so moving on to the financial report. Uh, the report is provided as of end of March, which is three full quarters of the fiscal year. Uh, starting with the revenue, again, we are moving, um, nicely, you know, uh, throughout the departments. Um, we are on trend with prior year performance. um few departments do outperform their budgetary targets such as building department. So they have already exceeded their bud uh budgetary line. So that is very positive. Uh state revenue is coming in on schedule. Uh we're still waiting for uh a few payments to come in. So far no adverse communication from the state. So we are hopeful that we will complete this year as budgeted. Uh but not much to report on the revenue side. So far no material concerns. Um and we keep monitoring and hopefully we will remain on track. If you have any questions for

just a statement she uh she works alone and she works many hours and she's done an excellent job for the town in Milford.

Thank you. Um moving on to the expenditure similar you know um nine months into the fiscal year we are within our budgetary appropriation across pretty much all departments as you have seen and uh just a small number of numbers did come before you just because again you know we developed the uh budget based on the estimates or you know uh facts known at that time but then some of the natural fluctuations happen uh but nothing of the material extent. Um so so far nothing you know material to report but we are where we want to be 9 months into the fiscal year. Any questions for Olga? Thank you Olga. Appreciate it very much. Thank you. Great job. Great job. Okay.

Next comments. Next is a discussion and update on red light cameras. So, town council, thank you very much first for allowing us to proceed with putting uh cameras on our bus our buses. Yep.

Currently working with Chief Cerudo and the staff there uh working with different vendors uh to see which one would be best for the town. We're also going to be getting input uh from Anthony and Dr. Parlott as well uh and the bus company. And uh the goal is if we can to have those installed before school starts next year. And I'll continue to bring up uh more updates as we move forward. That being said, uh a year ago February, uh when uh the ability uh for technology for the town to do red light cameras, speed red light cameras and speed cameras, the town council at that time wanted to take a pause and to kind of see as other towns are beginning to install these uh what what what the effect was. And it's been over a year now. It's been a year and like 3 months, two months. Uh so I wanted to bring this back up to the town council to start with a thought of do we want to explore moving forward with red light cameras. Uh I've uh received many many um calls. Also, when I'm out and about at events, uh people talk all the time about how people really are just going right through, especially on Route 7, the red lights. It's very dangerous to go out, especially on certain ones. And uh this type of technology obviously would um see those, catch those people, and you'd be given a a fine for that. So the question I pose not for tonight to approve something like that to talk about obviously you guys need the data for that. It's just I want to know kind of from the council is it something to explore so we can take uh time to get you that information or is it something

where we're just like we just don't really want to even look at it as of right now. Mary Jane, I think it's a great idea. A lot of fatalities occur at intersections and we have a very busy one down here by Big Wide and um there's a lot of cars going back and forth and in and out. So, I I just think it's a great idea to, you know, explore and see what we can come up with. I agree, Zach. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Okay, Sam. I'd say we need to take care of our own people and u if it takes that to um keep our people in your military safe I say 1,000%. Another thing is that if you remember if you guys remember the report from Chief Seruda he mentioned that there's quite a few of those things that are happening in New Milford from coming from outside of New Milford. So what happens is that and the police, New Milford police, just for the record, they cannot chase people from outside of town. In other words, if they get on the state roads, the state takes over that stuff. So if we have the cameras and we have a punks driving like punks and we get the license, we get the license of the punk and uh that's how we're going to come down. Well, they will come down hopefully one day when they start getting tickets for these things. So, I am 1,00% for it.

Does the state want to put on the cameras on the state roads without our permission? So, Paul, what's going through right now, uh, legislation, um, speed cameras, especially where they're looking at legislation where instead of a town having the ability to do so, they're just going to do it. Let's do it. So, okay, Rolando, your thoughts?

Yes, I also agree. You know, enforcement works. Um we always talk about how one fatality is too many and on route seven we've seen the difference once uh Chief Seruto his staff have been doing a great job uh monitoring uh Route 7. You see the difference you see it I mean he he obviously has been here in the podium speaking how we can't have an officer there 247 because obvious for the obvious reasons but they're there. They're there. I see him every morning and you know or every other morning and and it it's worked. So if we can enforce even more of course it's going to help and

keep our citizens safe. So I I I'm I'm on board also. Rolanda, wasn't there a big accident in front of CNC to just today? No, it was on Saturday. It was on Saturday. Yeah. Everybody think I was okay. you know, it's people trying to beat the other, you know, getting out of uh I was getting out of um uh the coffee shop there, Starbucks. Uh but everybody's okay.

Thank goodness for that. So, I'll bring forward at the next meeting some more data points for us. We can begin that conversation. Also speak with Randy, too, as far as legislative wise. And uh I'll have more information from other towns that have implemented this as well so we can have a you know a good starting point and a good basis for that. Uh next uh economic development update just a brief one is uh first I wanted to congratulate uh Amy Aruda. She did uh did a grand opening uh her new uh practice which is A+ lifestyles. That's located at 7 Kent Road. and her therapy practice is a collaborative grounded and paste EMDR holistic approach uh mainly virtual and uh you can go to her website a+ lifestylect.com and a big congratulations to Amy and thank uh her for her investment in our town. Also had a chance to speak with Dr. Kbacin I call him Dr. Okay. Uh at Northwell, now it's called Northwell uh New Milford Hospital and talked about their plans as they're continuing to invest in town, which is great that we have a community hospital in New Milford. That helps with people that want to move here, both businesses and uh residents as well. He talked about they're going to be expanding uh their general practice as some of the uh older community general PA practices. The doctors are aging. There's a spec specific need for it. So, they're expanding adding more doctors to that practice as well. They've redone their cardiac rehab unit there. Uh before it was in the front, they moved it towards the back. Uh they also have a new wound center there as well. They're doing day surgeries uh at the hospital

also. Uh the oncology is top-notch there as well. It's a thriving uh medical enterprise and can't thank Northwell and Dr. K enough for continuing to invest in our town. Uh the Lanesville renovation, as we just spoke about before, that's happening. Uh they were doing painting prep in the second half of the existing Western Garage bay. Uh they were also uh the electrician was also continuing the installation of the fire alarm system. I had asked uh Mark who's uh pretty much uh with the firehouse kind of helping out running it with the firehouse as well as our uh GC general contractor and our clerk of the works uh to see is once we get a little more towards uh completion that we have an open house so that all of us can go in and see uh what this uh great investment will do. uh to help uh our first responders, especially on the other side of uh the bridge. And I'll be bringing forward to the town council at the next meeting uh new zoning regulations uh that some of them are going to be approved, I believe, sometime this week. Uh there'll be some major changes uh to zoning uh and how they're approved not through our bodies uh whether it be through zoning or planning. This will be done through uh Hartford and how that will impact uh our um really the look and feel of our town. All right, Randy. So, I'll be talking more about that at our next meeting because some of these uh haven't as of yet been approved, but we're hearing that it they're going to within this week sometime. We're

starting to see stuff on that. Yes. On the paper I saw a gentleman in Bethl, he's taking advantage of it. he's going to he wants to put in for affordable housing now. So, some of the things and just real quick, uh if you are on uh sewer and water, 19 units needs no parking. There's no parking requirement anymore allowed. You don't have to, right, Randy? Another one is sewer is available. Might not even be there yet. Yep.

But it's not a sewer line. Uh, another one that they're talking about as well is they're going to allow for in in uh commercial, but they didn't specify commercial industrial, but commercial now will allow for residential um homes. So, within a commercial property, so you could have a development, a strip mall, and there could be housing right there as well.

Uh, so they're going to be allowing that. uh accessory accessory dwelling units, they're called ADRs. And how they were normally done years ago was if if you are uh aging and you want to keep the house multigenerational, your kids or grandkids would move in. Vice versa, they would go into the ADR and you would stay there or vice versa. Now, there doesn't need to be a component of any kind of uh relationship. And if I'm correct, Randy, there is no size requirement anymore. That's absolutely illegal now. Yeah. So theoretically, your single family developments could now become duplexes.

And the question that's posed that they haven't answered yet is when your single family residence has been approved, it's been approved with the engineering of sew of a septic been engineered with water. And if you're doubling the capacity of the property and with uh room bedrooms um that could put uh the septic that you're having that could put it at risk. So those are all things that we're trying to get more information on. That's why I wanted to make sure that uh we try and get more of that as we're moving forward uh here. Yes. Could we possibly uh vote on a moratorum?

So we do not qualify for a moratorum. Because to have a moratorum, I know this was brought up a few years ago as well, you have had to have had since I believe 2020, don't hold me to the date, Diane, because I I could be wrong, but you have to have had a certain amount of built affordable housing. Yeah. Before to your ratio. So, your ratio of housing to affordable housing had to have grown a certain percentage. We're nowhere near that. We have had uh about 400 units approved, but not many built. You're seeing some being built now,

but we would not qualify. I had asked the very beginning with uh Randy and with uh our zoning enforce officer Laura, we just don't qualify for that. Mr. Mayor, there's been a lot of disinformation spread in this town about affordable moratoriums. That is not automatic. You have to go through the department of housing. It's not something you can just say, "Here's what we're going to do." Other towns have done it, but it's not something that could be done by by fiat. You have to have a qualification as the mayor just described. It's not just a threat would be that you cut off all your funds. Yeah. Significantly,

and and to that's point also, Mr. Mayor, if I may, New Milford is actually one of the places that attract this bill, you know, because of the size. places like Yeah. Places like New Milford, New Town, they're very attractive now to to to some of these builders. You know, they're attractive because of the safety. Yeah. Get get ready. Because of the safety, we don't have problems.

So, I'll be I'll be bringing it to next meeting uh more information as uh uh the state legislature continues with their stuff. I heard a lot of bills are going to be finalizing this week. So at the next meeting uh I'll be able to bring more of a finality to you. And then uh and then lastly, Paul had asked uh before uh I do this every month. Uh we finally got our new uh data in uh when it comes to unemployment within the state and within the town. This is our February 2026 data. The state of Connecticut uh average is 5.8% 8% unemployment. New Milford is at 5.9% unemployment. So in New Milford, there's 15,363 individuals that they deem as uh can be in the workforce. We currently have 14,462 of our residents that are currently working and there's 911 that are currently unemployed. We want to make sure that everyone that wants a job can get a job. That's very important. But as you can see, these numbers have uh ticked up both uh on the state level and uh here in the town as well. I know uh right now kind of going through a uh a pretty big shift in job placements are uh it technology I know s uh in different sectors there's been large uh uh reductions in that workforce um and uh hopefully I can get a breakout of some more uh of that as well but it's something we need to be cognizant about. Do you believe IA has taken a lot of the jobs?

You know, I can't really pontificate on that right now. I, you know, I can ask around. They're saying in the future that AI would be a big contributor to the way we adjust manufacturing jobs. Jobs, but there's also on the upside, you're going to need some jobs for the AI when that comes as well. Yeah. But to have an eye, you have a good education. Absolutely. Math and sciences. You got to have you got to have some educated people. You got and that's all I got. What? Oh, yeah. Thank you.

I was just so for those that are Let me come over here. This is our tourism and our community website. This is now we've had that for a couple of years now. As we continue to grow and really expand our We're now a cultural district here in Guilford. We want more people to shop and dine in our wonderful town. So, I had Denise uh who's with our economic development team. I asked her to come and do a full refresh on this site as well. And who's who's been on this site?

Okay, so this site has lots of cool stuff on it. First, you see the homepage here, which is right here. And then I don't know if I can.

There we go. So, we have a calendar of events. Just got to wait for this to line up. from this calendar of events here. See if I can get down below here. So, here you can see the calendar. All sorts of events that will be on here. So, people uh either our general public or those visiting our town for either the day or the week, they can come and see all the wonderful things that uh we're have happening here in town. And uh if you're interested, you can populate your event yourself or you can contact uh us in the mayor's office. We'd be happy to help put that in for you. That's another kind of uh uh thing that that uh this site has to offer. I apologize. I'm not

a mouse.

Yeah, I need a mouse. Here we go. Okay. So we also have stories that are on here. So we have community stories that are here. So it talks about all sorts of great stuff that's going on. And then we also have our our YouTube our new Milford now YouTube page. So from there, we add on stuff that's uh happening in our wonderful town that people both in our community and those that are coming here to either think about moving here or uh think about uh coming here to for a vacation. They can see that as well. And what else we have too is we have guides. So we have places to eat. So here we have a list category of our restaurants that are in town. It has the phone numbers uh has contact information that we have there as you can see. So if somebody from the public's like, "Hey, we should go out some get something to eat." Got some great spots that are all here as well. Also, we have play things you can do. Our parks we have going on here as well. As I said, this is built for both our residents and those that are looking. Uh, we have explore together.

This talks about all of the stuff. kind of doing a refresh on this as well. See what else we got here. We also have the newsletter. So, you can opt into that and that has our newsletter about what else is going on. So, this is all about really just providing additional information, a diff additional resource for not only uh our residents, but for those visiting uh in town as well. We've seen quite a quite a bit of people coming and visiting all of our uh shops. And you can see there different things where especially when this you're doing it on your your phone. Uh this is kind of a little more interactive as well and just talks about if you want to go and see different things, drink, eat, play, all sorts of great stuff on this site as well. We're going to continue to uh build that out as well and uh continue to make it more interactive. Does anybody have any questions on the site?

Can you click on the chat thing? Which one? Upper right corner. This? Yeah. And just type over there. What are the best? What of what are the best towns in New Wil in Connecticut? Where where am I doing it? Right here. Where where the the thing is blinking. That's that's your child GBT. Right here. the thing. Oh, right here. You just need to type. Yeah, let's go. What are the best sounds in the Connecticut?

And I always see some bread. Mayor, we have to give you some. I know. Just click on the uh this thing.

Yeah, that's what I'm looking at. We don't want to know about poop. All right, never mind. We're going to do this exercise some other day. There we go. Not not only uh not only us here at the council, but people listening need to get this out to the public. Absolutely. Because our biggest down I'll let you do it. Our biggest downfall here is we don't have a newspaper anymore. So we don't we can't advertise our own town.

Yeah. Was where the money is. So that's what I'm gonna tell you. We're not there.

We got to get we got to get our

great again tool. one of the tools we're using uh to continue for both our community and for economic develop. Right. Thank you. Right. And that's that's a goal is we need to let the public out outside of New Milford know about our town. And then we're also uh going to be working on our town website. We're going to do a refresh on the town one because in the year 2028 I believe it is or maybe the end of 2027 ADA compliance is going to be required on websites. So we're working with our vendor to make it compliant which we need to be. So we're working on that too and I'll bring that as we're moving forward with that project. I'll bring that to the town council as well.

Great. Thank you. All right. Any other questions? Okay. Like to make a motion to adjourn to Everybody. Thanks so much. Thank you.