Llodra:

DEEP To Support Tick-Borne Disease Prevention, Not Deer Cull

By John Voket

First Selectman Pat Llodra said that the Board of Selectmen are backing the idea of engaging the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) to attempt a deer population study and resident survey in the coming months. Following the latest selectmen’s meeting June 18, Mrs Llodra said the survey would attempt to gauge residents knowledge about the deer population locally, and what residents hope to do about it.

“I expect the DEEP survey will also come with options to control the deer population, but that should not be construed as the Board of Selectmen supporting any suggested population management,” Mrs Llodra said. “We’re hoping the DEEP’s partnership will help us elevate the knowledge of ties between the deer population and the public health issue of tick-borne disease.”

Mrs Llodra said that her board has never had a conversation about, or plans to mount any type of, deer culling, and that she wants the public to know that anyone stating a connection between the DEEP partnership and eventual deer culling is “misinformed.”

“Residents need to know that Newtown is nowhere near a decision on culling,” the first selectman said. “The Board of Selectmen have identified a goal to promote education and awareness of tick-borne disease. And we plan to do that through an information campaign, calling on the health district and the school district health official for collaboration.”

The first selectman said she wants to address “fixing gaps and improving public knowledge so residents can better protect themselves from Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses.

In other business, Mrs Llodra said that during the only July meeting of her board, she plans to introduce a charge for an ad-hoc committee that will be appointed to study municipal space needs.

“We have no resources for a consultant, but I know there are numerous residents with the expertise to review space that is available in all our town-owned buildings, and match them with anticipated future needs,” Mrs Llodra said.

She expects that ad-hoc committee will include six or seven individuals.

“We had to wait for the school district’s space study to be completed before we went to work developing a charge for this group, who will look at all the buildings in town,” Mrs Llodra said. “We’ll also be using a study that was developed for the town back in 1999.”

The first selectman said that the ad-hoc committee’s work could take up to one year, and that if they have a compelling need to contract a consultant, the chair should be prepared to come before the selectmen to request an appropriation for funding.