Politics & Government

What's On Tap For Today's Selectmen Meeting

The Board will hear updates on firefighter contracts, the Board of Education's quest for a new space for their maintenance facility, and is scheduled to establish a Riverfield School Building Committee.

The Fairfield will meet today at 4:30 p.m. at Sullivan Independence Hall for their regular meeting. Several items that have been in the works for some time now are on tap for this afternoon’s meeting.

  • The Board is scheduled to act upon a request from the Town Facilities Commission for a special bond appropriation in the amount of $11,000,000 to replace the roof. has been inching forward for over a year;
  • Assistant Director of Public Works Ed Boman will be before the Board of Selectmen for a third time to discuss a proposed agreement with United Illuminating to replace the lamps in 109 decorative light fixtures on the Post Road with LED lights. The decorative posts that are part of the agreement run along the Post Road from Grasmere Avenue to Thorpe Street. The town would receive a $14,684 grant from UI, a four-year $100,000 loan, and the local share of $18,696 is already appropriated in the budget, Boman said at the Jan. 11 Selectmen meeting. Boman explained the town would save 90 percent of the cost of lighting those fixtures because wattage is reduced, burn hours are reduced because the lights would be programmed to shut off at midnight instead of burning from dusk to dawn, as they do now, and the cost of maintenance would be reduced. The current bulbs are 25 to 30 years old and will need to be replaced anyway, Boman said. Selectman James Walsh asked that Boman and Director of Economic Development Mark Barnhart look into whether downtown restaurants and bars would be affected by turning off the decorate lamps at midnight, and whether it would be better to keep the lights on until 1 or 2 a.m., so the vote was postponed. The information was not available at the Board’s Jan. 18 meeting and so was postponed again;
  • The Pilot House, a resource center for families raising children with special needs, will go before the Board to request the Selectmen approve renewing its lease at 240 Colony Street;
  • ; the grant would be used to reconstruct the main parking lot;
  • The Board will hear from Superintendent of Schools Dr. David G. Title on renewing the lease the 6,120 square foot property at 418 Meadow Street for the schools’ Maintenance Department. . At the Jan. 4 Board of Selectmen meeting, it was recommended that Title and other school officials look into other properties, especially because the Board of Education would like to consolidate into one maintenance facility. The vote was postponed at the Jan. 4 meeting so that education officials could look into the price for leasing or buying a different space;
  • The Board is scheduled to establish a Building Committee and . The $9.1 million includes building an addition to eliminate the need for portable classrooms, bringing the school up to date on building, life safety, and fire codes, and upgrades to core facilities like the library, among other improvements.
  • The Board will hear a report on the firefighter contracts, . The issues that lead to the impasse were sick leave, wages, and pensions.


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