Selectmen Clear Funds For Homeland Security, Artificial Surface

By John Voket

First Selectman Herb Rosenthal reported that he and fellow selectmen voted to accept more than $82,000 earmarked for local homeland security initiatives Monday during the board’s biweekly meeting. That evening, he said selectmen also endorsed a transfer of surcharge funds from the town back to the Parks and Recreation Department, so the winning bid could be administered for a new artificial playing surface at Treadwell Park.

Mr Rosenthal noted that Newtown had not yet received last year’s $120,000 homeland security allocation to date. But he fully expected those funds to supplement the more recent allocation of $82,582. He said an overall allocation of about $5 million was expected for distribution among communities represented by leaders of towns in the Housatonic Valley Council of Elected Officials.

“I expect a little extra will go to Danbury because they are a municipal center,” he said during an interview following the meeting.

Mr Rosenthal said previous and current allocations were expected to support, in part, the installation of an emergency communication system that would give universal voice and video communications capabilities to member towns in the region.

“The assumption for the regional need for a common communication system is that a bioterror incident, or even a natural disaster wouldn’t just impact one town,” he said.

The first selectman also expected part of the allocation to be used to fund security-related training for health, police, and emergency response officials, and to underwrite training for town responders. He said the police department would receive about $22,000 while a combined fire department and EMS allocation would total about $60,000.

In other action, the approval of a transfer of $275,000 that had been deposited in the town’s capital reserve fund means that following an expected endorsement at a town meeting, the Parks and Rec Department would be able to finalize an installation schedule for the Treadwell Park field project.

There were initial hopes that if the funds were approved, and parks officials could act quickly enough, the artificial surface might be available for play by the fall.

“The $275,000 that was already collected from surcharges will be combined with $225,000 rolled over from a proposed field project at Oakview Park that is no longer happening,” Mr Rosenthal said. “But because the allocation is more than $150,000, it still has to pass through the finance board, the council, and a town meeting before t can be released. But I think at this point everyone is in support of the project, so it’s just a formality that will take a couple of weeks to move through the system.”

If the finance board passes the initiative at its scheduled April 11 meeting, and the Legislative Council approves the measure at its scheduled April 20 meeting, Mr Rosenthal expected to set the town meeting for Monday, April 25.

During the Monday selectmen’s meeting, town GIS Coordinator Scott Sharlow provided a demonstration of the recently installed satellite mapping system. According to Mr Rosenthal, he and selectmen Joseph Bojnowski and William Brimmer, Jr, were all extremely pleased with the amount of revenue being produced by homeowners and other building professionals purchasing satellite property maps.

“Usually homeowners only want maps of their own property, which is only a few bucks,” Mr Rosenthal said. “But when you are selling mapping of entire parcels or subdivisions to developers, surveyors, or other building professionals, we can generate several hundred dollars for each package.”

The next selectmen’s meeting is set for 7:30 pm, April 18 at the Booth Memorial Library.