Town Council - Regular Meeting

just do a voice. All those in favor say I. Any opposed?

Any abstensions? Motion carries. Thank you. So make a note to add to item nine appointment additional appointment for board of education agency. Here we go. Out of practice. Good evening everybody. Welcome. Thank you everyone for coming. Uh couple of housekeeping items before the mayor's report. Um, we are going to be recording these meetings. Uh, the technical team has been working to set up u a YouTube channel. It's part of our overall communication strategy to help folks uh make it easier for folks to see the meeting. So, this is actually being live streamed uh this evening and we're working on how to post it and get it easy access for future viewing. Uh, just to let you know that. So, thank you very much. Um, welcome to all our new council members and our returning council members. I want to publicly thank for former mayor Kilda for all of his assistance with the transition. I also want to thank all the folks who ran for office and were either successful or unsuccessful. As has been mentioned in several different meetings, it's very important that folks come out and run for office. It's not an easy thing to do and we are all grateful uh for everybody's efforts. I also want to uh extend a thank you to the town hall staff. Um they've been very very helpful with getting us uh in motion. Uh there's a lot of activity going on. Some of the things I'm I'll touch on in this mayor's report, but appreciation to the uh special appreciation to the town hall staff. Um it's I'm personally very grateful for their assistance.

I wanted to just give you a quick status of boards and commissions. There are openings on various boards and commissions. Uh we encourage our residents to get involved. Our successful governance of our town depends on all the boards and commissions being full fully staffed in order to meet regularly. Uh we're working on providing an update and posting it on the website of all the openings that currently exist across all commissions. We don't have that right now, but we're hoping to get it stood up and uh our next meeting is, believe it or not, December 2nd. Um I've already received a few different applications and we'll review those and if it's appropriate, I will bring those names forward to the council. I'm also working to set up a mayor's advisory committee. We're still kind of defining the parameters on how that council or that advisory committee will will work. There's a variety of things where we want to seek input. Um everything from, you know, long-term planning, um issues with facilities, um improvement to our operations and communication and um a general ideas about customer service, how we can improve the relationship between our residents and when they need services at the town hall. I don't expect that to be in really ready to go for a couple of months, but we're going to do our best to expedite that doubt in the interim. Uh, [clears throat] please use our website, reach out to us within through the mayor's email box, and we will take into consideration any any ideas that people want to share with us. The that leads us also to the communication plan. Uh, as I said, the town council meetings will be streamed

going forward and we'll be putting up them up on the website as soon as we get the technical issues all straightened out with so folks can access it from home at any time. Um we also have had some volunteers uh some citizens have volunteered to help us kind of facilitate that activity and help us improve the general communications plans uh for the town whether it's using YouTube uh through various social media portals and we're also going to work on developing a social media policy so hopefully we'll have one-stop shopping with either the web page or other social [clears throat] media platforms, but so that way we won't have multiple social media platforms for people to access to get information. [clears throat] Again, that's going to take a little while, so we ask for your patience um as we move through those those different ideas and get those things set up. We also plan on having a freedom of information seminars and workshops. Uh we're working on getting those scheduled for the late winter or spring time frames. Uh we feel that the freedom of information has been an area that's kind of caused a lot of confusion through by staff and the general public how that works. And we are pledged to getting um getting everybody trained on freedom of information different whether it's a chairperson or a member of a you know member of a council or member of a board. It's important that they understand the rules and regulations around use of things like um executive session, [clears throat] all those things. So, we're going to work on that and also work with our staff to hopefully improve the access to documents when folks come in and are are searching for documents. I want to provide a status on Route 6.

Um, this information was provided to our public works director by Sean Smith from the uh, state of Connecticut DOT. And we also did some other research about the overall status of the project, its scheduling, and so on. I've got a couple of folks that have reached out to me with that information, and we hope to get that up that'll provide folks more detail of the work that's being done and the schedule. But here's a brief update. Um the and this is as of uh Friday afternoon, [clears throat] excuse me. The night work on Route 6 Main Street will continue for another week. So we can expect to have detour set up um during the night over over this coming week. Um [snorts] there was a detour that was set up on Maple Street and there were some concerns brought to the mayor's attention about large trucks going down Maple Street. I I think I'd like to think that that's been addressed, but sometimes it's unavoidable. We are working with the police department who's handling all the flagging and they're setting up the the detours. Uh I just ask the residents patience. Uh Route 6 is a very busy place as we know and it's absolutely necessary that the night that this work is being done at night to mitigate tra issues. Um, I personally can't imagine trying to do this work at 3:00 in the afternoon in downtown. Don't think that would work. Uh, there were some issues with the road plates and the potholes and that was due to some miscommunication between the crews and the inspectors. I I don't want to speculate on what it was, but that's what I was told. Perhaps there was some confusion about whether or not the holes could be completely filled or whether they need to be covered with those large plates. I don't know, but we believe

that's been resolved. As far as I know, we don't have any big craters on Route 6 right now. Uh the plan is to complete this drainage work within the next two weeks on Route 6 and then move the work to the Agony Avenue and the South Main Street work. So again, hopefully within a couple of weeks that disruption on the main corridor will be resolved and [clears throat] there should be a lot less uh a lot less impact on the traffic patterns once the work is being done on South Main Street and Agy Avenue. And just a general statement, you know, as weather and temperature permit, the state contractors will be doing all that they can. Um and the streetscape work uh which is a little bit more of the finished work in that um around Baldwin Park is supposed to start in the spring of 2026. So there's an update on that [clears throat] and um I've got a few more things and I'll just let the council member know if know members know if you have a question about anything in the mayor's report. um you can bring up the council comments and we can discuss it or um we can manage you to get a hold of me afterwards. Um I have in your packet you found the leazison on reports. Thank uh the leazison assignments. Thank you to everybody who's already contacted me about uh leazison on assignments. I'll sort through that over the next couple weeks and uh get back to you if there's any kind of discrepancies or if I can't meet your requests. We'll do our best to accommodate your requests and I ask your cooperation. It's important we at least have a way on to everything so we don't let anything go uncovered. Uh but I'll reach out to you individually about your requests. I wanted to provide some update and

information about the property re-evaluation that um has been on everybody's mind. Um it's also been on the mind of our assessor's office. Uh, so I just have a little bit of a a statement I'd like to share with you. Um, and this is for a lot of the folks too that not only in the audience but also folks that are might be watching outside on television. Um, just a little bit of background information. The town has completed the statemandated re-evaluation. The notices with the new assessments will be mailed starting [snorts] to be mailed on December 2nd of 2025. If you have not received your notice by December 8th, there will be an email listed and available to you that will put you directly in touch with the company that's managing our re-evaluation. There's a lot of misconceptions about how this process works and we're working with the assessor's office to get some more information out to folks. There's also information in the letter that will be mailed to residents with their new valuation. [clears throat] I'm not sure how we can emphasize this, but it's very important that residents do not apply the current mill rate to their new assessment to get an idea of what their tax is going to be. It's a comp not a complicated process, but it's an extended process that we will work with the board of finance, the financial director's office, the tax collector, and all the folks that are necessary to put together to build our budget. It's not a good idea to pull out that piece of paper, look at your new

assessment, and simply multiply it by the existing mill rate because the bill rate absolutely will change in some way. I need to leave it at that. However, if you have questions, like I said, there will be the company that helps us manage this activity is contracted with us to manage questions, manage appeals, and all those kinds of things. There's a lot of information in the letter and we're working to prepare for any questions that might be coming in through, you know, through the town hall's phone system so folks so their calls are directed to the appropriate office and we can provide as much as assistance and direction as we can. One other thing just about the assessment itself. It's based on your current market value using recent sales and other marketing and real estate data. Again, it's not super complicated, but there's assumptions made. There's no way that we can go through every single person's property. So, there's some general um looking for a good word. Usually, I'm not at a loss for words. Um, but there's some tools and tech techniques that are applied by the company to do the the best job they possibly can to properly assess your properties. Uh, and this is a residential and commercial uh revaluation that's taking place. Um, and there's also a uh there's also some other websites that you go out to look at to understand re-evaluation, how it works, and why it's done. And so we'll try to make all that available to folks so they know what's what's happening with that. Um, I want to just do another uh couple quick shoutouts if I can. Uh, we had our first weather surprise last Friday morning. I'm sure some of you got out

and went out to your cars. If you made it to your car cuz drive driveways and sidewalks were slippery, that's for sure. The conditions were just right. And uh I thought the town crew did an admirable job of rearranging what they had planned for that day and quickly getting out or at least as fast as they could to get the trucks loaded and get out there and sand the roads. I think they did an admirable job. So it's uh not easy. I did take a tour with the highway superintendent also on Friday morning to look at all the current projects that are in flight and what their efforts are underway to try to button everything up before the snow flies. Uh they're they're they're doing the best they can and we're going to stay at it as long as weather permits. Uh last item is community events. Want to bring to folks attention. Um we have the uh town of Plymouth Small Wonders Christmas program and there's a variety of ways that you can donate. Um there's a flyer that's um available. There's information available up in the uh up in the foyer as you enter the town hall. Uh all the information about how you can donate gifts to the Small Wonders program. It's obviously a worthy cause. So if you can look into that, we'd appreciate it and support that program. Um, and finally, uh, I know there's a meeting actually going on right now down at Plymouth about the lighting of the Christmas tree down on the Plymouth Green, which is scheduled for, I think, the 6th of December. Anybody? Right. December 6th. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. Um, [clears throat] so that's uh that's the mayor's report. So, thank you for indulging me in that. This meeting, as you know, is more of a kind of a formal [snorts] uh get get business started that occurs

after after the election. That's why we're here on a Monday night and not a Tuesday night. Um so there's a few more things to come later on in the meeting about that in reference to setting our meetings and so on. And we'll come back to that and just in the agenda shortly. Um I would like to move to item number five, which is public comment on agenda items. If anybody would like to speak to an agenda item, please come up, capture your name, make sure the microphone is on if you'd like, and if you have anything to talk about that's on the agenda, we'd be glad to hear your comments. It's kind of a boring agenda really tonight. I'll take it for the first meeting. Anything? Anybody? No. Okay, good. We'll move to item number six, which is kind of a discussion item. And I I want to turn it over to anybody who would like to um talk on the council about council rules and procedures. In your packet, I included the current version of the council rules and procedures. Uh just a little background on this. I I don't know the date that this was formally adopted, but I believe that is the current adaptation. um you know, we basically follow Robert's rules and procedure and we're going to get to that in the next item, but I wanted to let folks know that um if they have any questions or discussion things that they want to know about tonight, we can talk about it. Um I would not recommend adopting a new council rules and procedures, it's something you might want to think about for a little bit and then come back and we can I will be happy to put it on next month's agenda. But if anybody has any questions now regarding what was in your packet, be happy to address those as best I can. I'm seeing no, we're good. Everybody else set with that. Okay, great. So, we'll plan on formally adopting rules and procedures uh our next meeting and get a hold of me if you have any questions about what what you

have currently in front of you. Okay. Thank you. Uh item number seven is Robert's rules of order. I I included this asformational in your packet. Um I I think it's appropriate everybody kind of just brush up on the the session about motions and understanding kind of the order of operation of how motion should work. And there's other things that maybe [clears throat] a tiny homework assignment um understanding a little bit the difference between a motion and a resolution. motions are kind of action items as they appear, whereas a resolution is something that's more more binding and and and greater length, but you can check into that. I completely cheated and stole this from Spark Notes. Uh but it works. So, um anybody anybody have any questions on that? Okay. All right. So, uh, as I stated earlier, um, this meeting is part of a, uh, it's on a Monday because it's designated by the charter that this organizational meeting needs to take place the first Monday on the first week after the municipal election. So, that's why we're here on a Monday night. Um, I would entertain a motion to going forward to set the council meetings to the first Tuesday of every month at 700 p.m. in and then we can worry about location. We can post that as necessary, but I I would entertain a motion to set all the future meetings for the next year on the first Tuesday. Do I have a motion? Motion, Mr. Green and second, Mr. Tisha. Any discussion about meeting on Tuesday? I'm just wondering if any of them fall on

holiday or pardon if any of them fall on a holiday. We have the holiday list. I to be honest, I did not look at it. No, no conflicts that I can see, Ron. Okay. Any other discussion? Any other questions regarding the motion? I'll do a quick roll call on this one. Ron, yes. Joe, yes.

Sue TJ, thank you very much. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. So, our meetings will go forward and I'll work with our uh IT staff and others to make sure that we get the calendar updated accordingly on our website. I lost my lost my agenda. Here it is. Thanks very much. Okay. Item nine, resignations, appointments, or reappointments. So, uh, there's been a little bit of, uh, motion due to the election and some other folks that have, um, sent their, uh, resignations or requests to be on, uh, appointed on boards to us. They're in your packet. I would like to and again, let's note that the other additional, uh, appointment, it was added earlier in the agenda. Uh, but let's take them one at a time. The first one is to accept the resignation of Sue Boyard from the board of assessment appeals. Is there a motion to [clears throat] that effect?

I make that motion. Okay, that's TJ. And second of Ron. Thank you. Any discussion hearing? None. I'll just do a voice vote. All those in favor say I.

Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Yeah. Okay. One extension council woman boil there, which makes sense. Okay. So, that passes. Thank you. Um, we can take these two together. The same individual um to accept the resignation of Seth Duke from the community investment fund ad hoc committee and his resignation from the economic development commission. Is there a motion to that effect? Mr. Green made the motion. Second Sue. Any questions or comments? Discussion hearing none. All those in favor say I.

Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Motion carries. Thank you. Uh the next one just to make a note um it's in your packet but uh the letter uh references that uh Michael Mafia would like to resign from the conservation and inland wetlands commission but that would be effective as of the end of the year December 31st. So we need to make sure that that stipulation is in the acceptance of uh Mr. Mafia's resignation letter. Is there a motion to accept Mr. Mafia's resignation from conservation weapons Ron Tisha and second Joe Green? Any discussion [clears throat] hearing? None. All those in favor say I.

Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Motion carries. Thank you. Uh this is an easy one. Uh you have in your packet a letter to to accept the resignation of David Sakorski from the board of finance motion. [clears throat] Thank you Mr. Ankle and seconded by S Boyard. Thank you. Any discussion hearing? None. All those in favor of accepting the resignation say I.

Any opposed? And no abstensions. And that motion carries. Thank you. Okay, we're going to move to some appointments now. Uh the first one is to appoint Janet Lavo to the board of assessment appeals to fill the vacancy. Is there a motion to appoint Janet Lero to board of assessment appeals? S boyard and seconded by Mr. Zigurski. Any discussion? None. All those in favor of that motion to appoint Jenna with the board of assessment appeals say I. I.

Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? [snorts] Motion carries. Thank you. Uh the next one is the appointment of Roxan Peragino to the vacancy on the board of finance. Is there a motion to appoint Roxan Peragino to the board of finance? Motion by Mr. Green. Is there a second? Second was Mr. Engel. Any discussion hearing? None. All those in favor say I.

Anyone opposed? Any abstensions? Motion carries. Thank you. Uh and this is the addition uh a motion is in order to appoint Gerald Bubber. I'm sorry, Jerry. Um to the vacancy on the board of education. Is there a motion to that effect? So moved.

Motion by Mr. Zigerski. Second. Second, Ron. Thank you. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor say I. Any objections? Any abstensions? Okay. [snorts] Very good. Thank you. Motion carries. That concludes item number nine. Thanks everybody. Uh and just a note, it's very important again to make sure our boards are full so they can function. And this makes sure that the board of finance and the board of education are fully staffed, [snorts] if you will. So, thank you. Okay. Number 10 is to discuss and take action that might be necessary to refund overpayment of property taxes. There is a list uh that has been provided us provided to us by the tax collector and I checked with her earlier today. This these numbers and listing is accurate. So I would entertain a motion to refund over payment of property taxes as are listed currently in this agenda. Is there a motion? [clears throat]

Motion, Mr. Green. Second. Second by TJ. Thank you. Any discussion, pretty straightforward stuff. Housekeeping. Thank you very much. All those in favor of the motion to refund the overpayment of property taxes as listed in this agenda, say I. Anyone opposed?

No opposition. Any abstensions? Thank you very much. Motion carries. Okay. I would like to move to item number 11. This is public comment on non-aggenda items. If anybody would like to address the council, please come forward, state your name, sign in, and we will be glad to listen to your input. Anybody want to speak to the council? Looks like we got a couple. Thank you very much. And of course, I have to remind you to turn on the microphone. So, thank you. Okay. Good evening, mayor and council. Congratulations on winning your seats. You have run your race and won. And now the challenge task of leading your town, our town has begun. You hold a place of power and authority. And I am here tonight to encourage you to walk in righteousness. Proverbs 29:2 says, "When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice." And I'd like to see our town rejoicing. Righteousness is doing what is right in God's eyes. It means taking your oath of office seriously. It means walking in integrity. While you probably won't agree on everything, I do hope you will have courage and speak up if you disagree,

even if you are a lone voice. Vigorous, healthy debate on every topic presented to you will help you in your decision making and ultimately benefit our town. I am so pleased that the town council meetings are being televised for the benefit of the public and that it appears that this mayor and council are opened to public input. This means that you recognize the wisdom in the public. God gives that God [clears throat] gives to them and not just you. So I encourage you to ask God for wisdom. He says he will give to all men freely if you ask. Lord knows you're going to need it. And again, congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Additional comments from the public, please. And we got about what, six of them up there, Mr. Taylor. Six or seven. Note to self, check the pens before we go. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Sorski, members of the the council. Uh I'm Van Scaler. I'm your economic development consultant. I just wanted to briefly appear to wish you God's speed and God's blessing on your journey and to let you know that uh I'm here as a resource for you. Uh and we've had some wonderful successes over many years as I imagine many of you know in the field of economic development. A powerful and very effective economic development commission has has guided a lot of what we've done over the last five or six years together. I'm happy to report here tonight, as I imagine most of you know, [clears throat] that all the lots in the Plymouth Business Park have been sold or on a contract to be sold. So, no additional lots are available there, which is both good news and bad news. However, a private developer is embarking on a second private industrial park on the corner of North Arlington and Preston. I did share with you, Mayor Sakorski, the uh my most recent annual report which I'd invite you to share with your council members and also to look perhaps for a time as I proposed where maybe we could have a working conversation between you, mayor, and your council and the EDC. We certainly need a new chairman now with Seth Duke's departure and his moving away out of state. Jeff Scott continues to serve as as the vice chair as you know, but still still there are some shortages of members on that commission. I'd be eager to see those slots filled. So again, I'm here as a resource for you. Look forward to working with you. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Taylor. Appreciate it. Anyone else from the public like to address the council? going once going twice. Gone. Thank you. Okay, let's uh open up item 12, which is town council comments. Let's start from my left hand side. How about uh Councilman Zigurski? Any council comments? Anything you'd like to talk about, please?

I just like to wish everyone uh good luck for the next couple years here. We're all going to work together and pull through. And uh like to thank everyone that actually came out tonight because uh usually you look out here and there's maybe two or three people in the crowd. It's nice to see people getting involved. Thank you, Councilman Bullyard. Share the microphone. I appreciate that. We'll work on that next meeting. We'll make sure we're

Can you see Can you hear me? Oh, yeah. You can hear me. Okay. Um I have a I have a phobia, so forgive me if I start stuttering on these things. Um I just want to everyone who voted this year and and I was very happy to that I was picked as a my privilege to serve my town um and get involved in different things. The number one thing that I made Dave crazy with over the last six months is getting our veterans a liazison and we're working on that with Keith Golick and the veterans groups to make sure that that mandate from the state um gets filled. Um other than that, I'm I'm open to people calling. you just leave a message on my phone because we do screen the calls and we will pick it up if we know who you are. So, okay. Thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Green. Anything? Anything? Yeah, I just want to thank congratulate everybody up here, town council and mayor of course. And like uh TJ said, the crowd tonight, it's about time that people came out to hear what we have to say and we're and what we're doing. So that's a great thing that everybody came on tonight and especially loved your at the point. That was very nice. Great. Thank you, Mr. Engel. Anything?

Right. Here we go. We'll share. Yeah, we got it's okay. We knew we'd have some technical difficulties.

Okay, now now I can be heard. Um I I too would like to thank everybody for for uh the results of the election and I want to congratulate everybody up here and um you'll find out that we're here to work together. We're not here to work against each other. That's one of the main things that we're here to do to make improvements for the town and to move forward with everything. So again, I thank you and uh thank you everybody for showing up. This is good. Thank you very much. [clears throat] Um that concludes uh the agenda for this evening. As I said, kind of a more of a formality meeting tonight. Appreciate the crowd for coming out tonight. Um and more information to come on how you can be involved, what we need, and how you can communicate better with us. appreciate that very much. [clears throat] And so I would say item 13 is a motion to adjourn is in order. That sounds like a threesome. Let's we'll give it we'll give it we'll give the motion to Mr. Angel in a second to Mr. Tisha. Uh there's a motion. Any discussion? All those in favor say I.

And I assume there's no objections. Thank you very much. Thanks everybody for coming. Thank you technical team for working with us tonight. Have a good evening everybody. Drive safe.