A Year Filled With Projects, Benchmarks And Milestones

Compiled By John Voket

While residents zipped about Newtown during 2005, handling their day-to-day duties, many may have remained oblivious to the wheels of progress grinding away on myriad municipal projects. As a matter of fact, 2005 will probably go down in the books as a year of projects, whether they were conceived or postponed, whether they concluded or proceeded.

Generous helpings of philanthropy, in both donated monies and volunteered time, helped small and large projects along. From the second annual Relay For Life that raked in more than a quarter million dollars, to Habitat For Humanity and Day of Caring projects that united members of the community to sweat it out toward a greater good, Newtowners showed no adversity for giving in 2005.

It was also a year during which more residents turned out requesting assistance themselves. Many service organizations from the Salvation Army to the Newtown Fund, from the local social service agency to community food pantries, from youth and family service agencies to Kevin’s Community Center health clinic, all logged more requests for support.

On the political front, several familiar individuals who served on appointed commissions decided to move on or move out, and several new members were elected to the Legislative Council, replacing others who contributed to numerous initiatives earlier in the year.

Newtown welcomed a few new and expanding business initiatives in 2005, and supported numerous others with financial incentive programs, infrastructure, aesthetic improvements, and advisory oversight from Sandy Hook to Hawleyville to the Borough. It was a year of milestones for businesses celebrating significant anniversaries, while other relative newcomers were faced with having to deal with evictions and displacement.

Religious institutions also provided news in 2005, with some congregations celebrating projects initiated and other bemoaning proposals that were defeated. Residents saw significant improvements in facilities and programs at town parks, as well as the closure of another longstanding and popular site.

The news about several key projects related to Newtown’s school system kept members of related boards on their toes throughout the year. From HVAC improvements at Hawley Elementary School to plans for future high school expansions and other projects, members of the Boards of Selectmen and Finance, as well as the Legislative Council, were frequently engaged in the gyrations as members of the school administration and Board of Education moved initiatives through their own political avenues.

All in all, however, the business of living and doing business in Newtown progressed through its ups and downs, its victories and pitfalls. And 2005 has all but passed into the history books, leaving local residents and its workforce looking ahead to all the promises and prospects the new year has in store.

While most of the departures were voluntary, 2005 may have yielded a net loss when one considers the many decades of experience several key public officials compiled before deciding to move on or out of their positions in 2005.

Among those who departed key positions were longtime civic volunteers Richard and Marie Sturdevant who were actively engaged in the Fairfield Hills Management Committee and Town Hall Board of Managers, respectively. Ms Sturdevant was also active in recruiting and qualifying candidates for the local GOP when she and her husband decided to relocate to Brookfield.

Newtown Youth Services said farewell to its director Tony Tozzi, who opted to seek other opportunities in his field. Other appointed officials who tendered resignations in 2005 included Town Hall Board of Managers Chair Edgar Beers, Parks and Recreation Commission Chair Larry Haskell, and Health District Board Chair Joan Crick.

Several Legislative Council members who worked on numerous initiatives in recent years, and who were unsuccessful in retaining their seats last Election Day, included Richard Recht, Peggy Baiad, Joseph Hemingway, and James Shpunt, Sr.

Walter Motyka was appointed to the new Fairfield Hills Authority, and the Legislative Council welcomed newly elected members Keith Jacobs, Patricia Llodra, Stacie Doyle, and A. Jeffrey Capeci. The Board of Finance lost Peter Giarratano, who ran and lost in the Legislative Council race, and gained former school finance director John Voros.

The year also saw the tragic loss of many residents, too numerous to name individually, who devoted many years to public and voluntary service in the community.

Taking Care Of Business

Several local businesses celebrated milestones and marked changes in 2005. The Curtis Packaging Company celebrated its 160th Anniversary with a brief visit and proclamation by Governor Jodi Rell, while Newtown Savings Bank, the town’s first and original banking institution, marked its 150th anniversary with many related activities.

The Taunton Press, the internationally known publishing firm, relinquished its exclusivity with Newtown by announcing it would consolidate and relocate its distribution and related facilities to Naugatuck. Pitney Bowes expanded its Newtown workforce by 100.

Newtown also adopted initiatives to recruit, retain, and grow businesses in town with the adoption of a Business Incentive Plan that provides tax breaks to newcomers and existing companies making significant improvements. The Economic Development Commission also adopted a master plan that included a strategic focus on Newtown’s rich heritage of agricultural commerce.

According to Newtown Development Director Elizabeth Stocker, other happenings in the commercial sector included development of The Shoppes at Church Hill & Queen Street — 17,000 square feet of retail and office space under construction.

Sandy Hook Center became the pilot area for a streetscape project underway with the bid for work there awarded to a local business, LRM. New business openings including Red Brick Tavern, Newtown Computer Services, and Tre Ragazze gift shop, rounding out the variety of businesses in Sandy Hook Center bringing its retail district to full occupancy

SMT opened new operations on High Bridge Road and both American Stair and Environmental Energy Services built new headquarters and a manufacturing facilities on Turnberry Lane.

South Main Street saw approval for Plaza South, a 72,000 square-foot-development; Waterfall Plaza, the redevelopment of the former Newtown Manufacturing site; and Berkshire Plaza, which could bring an additional 20,000 square feet of retail development in the area.

Some tenants in the Sand Hill Plaza also complained that they were being evicted from spaces on the north side of the sprawling retail site, forcing some merchants to seek space in neighboring communities and others to relocate elsewhere in Newtown. No further information was forthcoming by the end of the year on the official plans for expansion or development at that location.

 

Fairfield Hills

The ad hoc Fairfield Hills Management Committee became the Fairfield Hills Authority in 2005, and former ad hoc committee chair John Reed passed the gavel to new authority chairman Robert Geckle. Frequent visitors to the former state hospital campus, who saw little activity there between the relocation of town offices to Peck’s Lane early in the year, finally began to see things begin to happen in the final few days of 2005.

While authority staff handled day-to-day operations, authority members worked on early proposals and ideas to combine public recreation with private, tax-generating development at the facility. First Selectman Herb Rosenthal also floated an idea to build a new high school facility on a Fairfield Hills as an alternative to an expensive proposed expansion on the existing building.

The management committee and the authority began cultivating a partnership with the regional contingent of Connecticut Master Gardeners, enlisting the experts to help develop landscaping and beautification ideas on site. While initial plans were presented to begin a landscaping project around the main entrance and engineer’s building, the bulk of the work was postponed to spring of 2006 due to weather-related constraints.

Early in the year, town employees representing several departments including land use, education, health and zoning were still working at Canaan House, where leaks and heating problems created many uncomfortable days. It had already been determined that all offices in Canaan House would have to be relocated, and in mid-January, employees went through the process of moving to clean, climate-controlled leased office space at the Kendro Laboratory facility on Peck’s Lane.

One of the last acts of the ad hoc committee was to select a project management company to handle and oversee remediation and demolition on the campus, and it eventually chose Torrington-based O&G for the many tasks scheduled in the coming months. Then in the last few weeks of the year, and assisted by other local officials, the authority announced its choice for design firms for several major projects including recreational playing fields, a passive walking trail through the campus, a new town hall, and mothballing several buildings being considered for reuse.

As the year drew to a close, authority members were awaiting an early January meeting during which architects from Hartford-based Tai Soo Kim Partners and Vollmer Associates LLP of Hamden were scheduled to present conceptual plans and scopes for their assigned projects.

Budget And Finances

The new year started out with a minor financial windfall as town financial watchdogs using a computerized system monitoring US Treasury rates were able to squeeze more than $142,000 in additional savings from a December bond refunding procedure. When added to the initial savings achieved through last month’s bond activities, the total savings now tops $1.2 million, according to Newtown Finance Director Benjamin Spragg.

Over the course of three budget workshops and a scheduled meeting, the Board of Selectmen chopped and sifted its way through $1,829,250 in cuts to the municipal budget proposal. And by mid-February, the board voted to accept and pass to the Board of Finance a $33,178,956 package that represents a 5.93 percent, or about a 0.6 mill, increase in the tax rate.

In early March the Newtown Board of Finance voted to support 99 percent of the budget increases proposed by the Boards of Selectmen and Education, according to chairman John Kortze. After much public comment and discussion board members reduced a proposed $4.7 million education increase by seven-tenths of one percent, arriving at a $56,938,770 bottom line. The board also reduced the proposed municipal increase by three-tenths of one percent, arriving at a $33,067,456 figure.

At the first April meeting of the Legislative Council, after almost an hour of public comment and nearly 90 minutes of deliberation, council members voted 7-5 to pass the proposed annual budget to a town vote as it was presented to them by the Board of Finance several weeks earlier. The total budget that went to taxpayers for approval was $90,006,226.

By the end of the month, taxpayers turned out and approved the endorsed budget by a margin of 539 votes.

Edmond Town Hall

The year started out on a positive note with Alan Black, the architect and project manager for a $1.5 million accessibility project and elevator installation, assuring officials that work would be completed by June 30. However, Mr Black said he was concerned by issues cropping up as workers began excavating on the west side of the building.

He told the Board of Managers in early February that it was likely the town hall’s original builders were challenged by water, which may be emanating from an underground stream. Mr Black said early-on in the project, workers did test borings down to 38 feet, about 20 feet apart and found sand, gravel, and stones, typical of this area.

But workers were also hitting water 35 feet down. By June 30, problems related to the water and other construction issues contributed to Mr Black adjusting the completion date to mid-September.

The architect reported to the Board of Managers that drainage pipes unearthed during recent excavating would constitute the installation of a special drainage culvert and a work hole cover.

In August, Mr Black reported to trustees that their failure to remit payment for invoices was affecting the project, and that contractors have turned their attention to other jobs, which could further delay the project’s completion.

As summer changed to fall and fall turned to winter, the project dragged on with installations of the elevator and related aesthetic elements inside and out being performed. But in the last few days of the year, it was learned that the elevator had failed its initial state inspection, in part, because of water that had reportedly leaked into the foundation pit.

It was also reported to The Bee in late December that the walkway designed to accommodate handicapped and wheelchair-bound visitors to the town hall was improperly installed. Officials close to the project assumed the latest developments would further delay the project’s completion into the early part of 2006.

Borough Politics

Joan Crick had enjoyed almost 14 years unfettered by concerns of biennial campaigning to keep her $2,500-a-year borough warden position. But in early 2005, Ms Crick learned she would be facing a challenger. On February 15, borough residents gathered at Town Hall South, and Victor Krochta garnished enough support to run for the top elected post in the town-within-a-town.

Mr Krochta said he was discouraged by the level of taxpayer participation in borough government, and if elected, he wanted to inspire a renewed sense of interest among the roughly 1,000 eligible voters who reside in the district.

Maintaining that it was her civic duty to carry on her family’s legacy of public service, Ms Crick proved successful, winning reelection by 22 votes with a total voter turnout of 262 borough residents.

 

Voting Machine Concerns

In mid-April, Newtown Democrats began sponsoring a series of forums on voting-related issues. The first forum featured representatives of TrueVote Connecticut, who used the Newtown venue as an opportunity to call for Connecticut Secretary of the State (SOTS) Susan Bysiewicz to rescind an request for proposals she issued earlier in the year soliciting vendors to supply the state with new computerized voting terminals.

The group referenced aspects of the recent Help America Vote Act (HAVA) that stipulated each voting precinct in the United States would have to furnish voting technology that would not only accommodate virtually any handicapped person, but would also provide a verifiable paper trail to ensure integrity in vote counts.

Soon after the initial forum, local elections officials in the town clerk’s office and Newtown’s Registrars of Voters began expressing concerns about future cost, maintenance, storage, and training, and were waiting some definitive information from Ms Bysiewicz’s office on how they should proceed.

The Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, headed by First Selectman Herb Rosenthal, waded into the fray calling for towns to be allowed to use optical scanning technology as an alternative to purchasing all new Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) machines. In an exclusive interview, The Bee was the first Connecticut media source to report that the SOTS would allow towns to use HAVA grant funds to purchase optical scanning technology.

As the year drew to a close, however, the SOTS office still had not delivered a final ruling on which of the three DRE machines would be recommended for use to ensure local communities complied with the HAVA requirements.

Other Local Happenings

It was a busy year for several local spiritual groups in town. St Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church kicked off a $5 million capital campaign to fund church expansion projects. Ground was broken in April for a new synagogue for the Adath Israel congregation on Huntingtown Road in ceremonies that included a large contingent of the Nezvesky family, whose patriarch Israel and his wife, Rose, almost a century ago donated the original land upon which the new temple will be built.

In another local project, members of a Buddhist temple were dealt a November 18 decision in Danbury Superior Court upholding the Newtown Planning and Zoning Commission’s (P&Z) February 2003 rejection of a proposal to build a 7,600-square-foot temple and meeting hall at a ten-acre property in a residential area at 145 Boggs Hill Road.

In 2005 health news, Kevin’s Community Center celebrated its second anniversary with the announcement that in its short tenure, the free public clinic had already dispensed more than a half-million dollars in public health care, referrals, diagnostics, and related services to more than 500 local adults.

While efforts continued toward establishing its own freestanding facility, the clinic relocated along with other local offices, from Canaan House to the Kendro municipal offices on Peck’s Lane early in the year, where it continued to operate on Wednesday afternoons. Soon after the move, KCC founder Z. Michael Taweh announced Linda Pinckney, LPN, would become the new clinic director.

In other municipal health news, it was learned in the fall that Newtown’s Health District would likely become the center of an expanded health district service area comprising Bridgewater and Roxbury in addition to Newtown and the Borough of Newtown.

Health District Director Donna Culbert told The Bee in December that the two newcomer communities had approved the merger, and that a part-time staff sanitarian already serving those communities would become a full-time worker for the new regional initiative.

Ms Culbert said the consolidation is part of a statewide public health initiative to eliminate numerous parochial small town health districts. Several of these smaller districts are still operated part-time and managed by semiretired health officials or physicians who split their time away from their own practice.

In February, a fifth Nunnawauk Meadows expansion added a two-story addition to the community’s main building that contained 14 new one-bedroom apartments. The project, which was paid for by state funds and loans, also provides enhanced services for use by all of the Nunnawauk Meadows residents.

Before the addition, Nunnawauk’s population of 140 residents lived in 120 units sited throughout the 65-acre site that lies adjacent to the Fairfield Hills campus, but there were no apartments attached to the central building for those residents with mobility issues.

Health issues also contributed to the closing of a favorite longtime destination for generations of Newtowners. It was learned in late summer that the Dickenson Park Pool would be closed permanently.

In early September, Parks and Recreation officials heard from consultants hired to study the existing converted pond who said safety, health, and handicapped accessibility issues all added up to a recommendation to close the existing facility, and consider replacing it with one of several choices of more conventional pool configurations or a sprinkler filled “splash-pad.”