1. proposed ordinance appropriating $1,750,000 for the ... · john barry victoria triano ... we...

COUNCIL MEETING Monday, September 8, 2003, 7:00 pm

Town Hall 75 Main Street, Southington

TOWN 7:00 pm Public Hearing

A Public Hearing Session of the Town Council Meeting of the Town of

Southington was held on Monday, September 8, 2003. Chairman Edward M.

Malczyk called the Public Hearings to order at 7:00 pm.

The following Councilpersons were present, viz:

John Barry Victoria Triano Arthur Secondo William DePaolo Mary Baker Philip Landino Michael Riccio Edward Malczyk

Ex-Officio Members present were as follows, viz:

John Weichsel, Town Manager Mark Sciota, Town Attorney Anthony Tranquillo, Town Engineer

Absent:

James Verderame

There were approximately 30 other persons in attendance.

EDWARD MALCZYK, Chairman, presiding:

1. Proposed Ordinance appropriating $1,750,000 for the Misery Brook

Sanitary Sewer Interceptor Emergency Bypass Project, authorizing the

issuance of bonds or notes in the same amount to finance said

appropriation and providing that sewerage system user charges shall

be charged to defray such appropriation or debt service on bonds or

notes issued to finance such appropriation.

MR. WEICHSEL: We have Tony to make a very brief presentation.

MR. TRANQUILLO: Mr. Chairman and Council members, on the map you have

in front of you, you’ll see in yellow, existing sewer lines in the

area of Meriden Avenue where Misery Brook crosses underneath the

street.

A pipeline 24 inches in diameter, built in 1961, runs in this

location. And ultimately down to Recreation Park. There is a 15 inch

main here built in 1964, called the Meadow Wood Interceptor and an 8

inch main here built by the deceased P. J. Delahunty back in 1967 or

1968.

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2/22/2007http://information.southington.org/Meetings/Minutes.nsf/all/3D17EAA859C0DF5B85256...

Around Christmas of last year, we received a report that there was

some sewage coming into a pond at the intersection of Meriden Avenue

and South End Road. When we investigated that through the treatment

plant, we found that there was a blockage somewhere in this system,

in this section here. They entered this manhole with a sewer jet and

were able to fee up the flow. But it was obvious at that point that

there were considerable problems there. There was some sort of a clog

or collapse in this area.

After considerable effort and after being unable to go all of the way

between the manhole, we decided that rather than to dig in this area

to try to discover what the problem was, the main in that area is

about 20 feet deep, very poor soils with utilities all around a major

roadway. We decided to construct, in orange, a by pass.

Now originally we had decided we were going to construct this section

of the interceptor, by passing this problem area. It started here and

proceeded to the edge of Meriden Avenue. It was difficult conditions.

But, workable.

As soon as we hit Meriden Avenue at this location where the pavement

is located, those conditions got much, much worse. We ended up

installing steel sheeting, concrete at the bottom of the hole. A

very, very ugly condition there.

In order to lay the first 20 feet from the edge of the road to this

manhole, we were tied up there about 5 or 6 weeks. When we reached

this location, we found that even this main had some problems. So, we

had to rebuild this section of the main here, the 15 inch, and then

we proceeded to build this to complete the by pass.

The by pass is plastic pipe which is more inert and less corrosion

problems with that. The problem we found at the end of construction

was there was hydrogen sulfide generation, which creates sulphuric

acid and eats the top of the pipe out. This manhole down to

approximately this point. We actually took a piece of that pipe and

we have it available if the Council wishes to see that.

The final cost of about 1.7 million was far more than any one

anticipated. But the soil conditions there were probably the worst

that I’ve seen in 31 years and I’m sure John has probably seen no

worse conditions in his 40+ years in the management field.

We’re very hopeful that we won’t have this kind of problem at some

point in the future. John DeGioia who will be here this evening is

going to be monitoring and tv-ing a good part of the system,

especially the older portion of the system to try to anticipate these

kind of conditions so they do not become an emergency situation.

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The reason this cost so much, obviously, is because it is an

emergency situation. You’re on a time and material basis with the

contractor, which always costs you premium. If we can foresee some of

these problems, we’d actually put out a contract and bid it out and

we’d get more competitive bids.

Not to scare the Council, but we do have a condition right now on

South End Road, which may require some replacement of the 8-inch main

there. That will be nothing like this. It’s very shallow, very low

flow, very decent soils in those areas. So, we are looking at the

rest of the system to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

The system as I indicate here, is a very resistant to corrosion. The

manholes were coated with a special coating so that the acid will not

eat at those, either. We’re confident that that main will be there

long after all of us are gone. We put a first class condition. We

should not have any further problems in that area.

Does the Council have any questions?

MS. TRIANO: I just wanted to reiterate something that Tony said and

he said that the situation, first of all, was critical. That it was

actually a crisis situation. There was a breakdown that had to be

addressed, right, Tony?

MR. TRANQUILLO: Correct.

MS. TRIANO: It wasn’t optional. It wasn’t we could put it off until a

better time. And, the other thing was that it was immediate. We

needed to take action immediately and because of that, we had to make

it on a time sensitive --- that’s why the cost was so high. I just

wanted to reiterate that for the folks in the audience that may have

some question about why it was so expensive and why we didn’t put it

off or anything like that.

MR. TRANQUILLO: Well, the other factor, Councilwoman, is that the

project was done, if you’ll remember, during the middle of winter. We

had tremendous snowstorms and unbelievable cold weather. Which

obviously, makes the working conditions very difficult.

I might add that in spite of the 1.75 million dollar cost, we got

lucky, because when we began constructing or reconstructing this

area, we found a cavern under the road where the material, soil had

washed into that pipe. That could have fit a car. Now if that road

had collapsed and someone had been injured, we would have been liable

for millions of dollars. So, really there is a silver lining. We did

get lucky in some respects.

MS. TRIANO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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THE CHAIR: It should also be understood, too, that as one of the five

projects, this one is already done. So, in a sense, there’s not much

of an option. We have to pay.

Any other questions? Any comments from the audience?

By the way, first let me say this, too. The cooperation with the

adjoining property owners was tremendous. Pat is here and he is one

of them and I want to thank you all for helping us. I had a couple of

meetings and believe me, I think that also made a very difficult

situation much better for everyone to go through.

So, Pat, just publicly I’d like to thank you and also the other

property owners that were there.

MR.PORIELLO: Thank you, but that was part of my duty, the same as the

officials of the Town that took such immediate action on something

that was really very, very important. It could have been a disaster

for 3500 houses.

THE CHAIR: Pat, could I just ask you to give your name and address.

MR.PORIELLO: Pat Poriello, 836 Meriden Avenue. We live right next to

the brook, Misery Brook.

I’m in favor of the bond and other bonds, which are needed to run

this fine Town. I’m especially interested in this bond, which is

needed to pay for expenses of the Misery Brook Interceptor, which had

a blockage and a breakdown.

Thanks to an alert citizen who notified the officials of the overflow

of the sewers and the work was done on it immediately. A special

thanks to workers that the Town picked for the job. The men went

above and beyond their job. They worked every day through ice, snow,

cold, rain, the worst weather possible. But they just kept at it. I

couldn’t believe it. I was right there watching them every day. They

all kept working at this sewer to keep the line open to the 3500

houses.

It could have been a disaster but everyone kept working at the job

and saved it. Special thanks to Jim Gura who was also on the job

every day and sometimes also in the middle of the night. I called him

that one of the pumps one night stopped working. He had notified me

to call him if that happened. I know he was there other nights, too,

to keep the pumps running.

Also John was there, John Weichsel was there, kept his eye on the

job. The Town Engineer, Tony Tranquillo, was always there. John

DeGioia, the Sewer Superintendent. It was just a good reaction from

all the Town and I think they deserve good thanks for it.

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Thank you.

THE CHAIR: Anyone else wishing to speak on this issue?

MR. POMPOSI: I want to say my piece early because I know you are

going to get involved with all this other stuff.

Phil Pomposi, 1215 Pleasant Street. Not necessarily just for this,

but for all the items on the Agenda regarding these appropriations

for these ordinances. As you know, our Board was in favor of all of

these with one small change, which you went ahead and overrode

anyway. That’s not what I object to. I’m in favor of these.

What I do object to and what I read in the paper and what I

understand is that the plan is to have this referendum three weeks

before the regular election and if that’s the case, that’s wrong. I

mean, we’re going to have a general election and I would think with

these kind of numbers and these kind of important items that you want

to give as many people as possible the opportunity to vote on this

and you know, other than the added expense which there will be

because of a referendum prior to the regular election.

In checking with our Registrar of Voters, Bob Sherman, this

referendum, you’ll have one school open, one voting place, and a

portion of the day. I think it’s wrong for the taxpayers of this

community to be denied the right to vote on these. I mean, if this

came six months ago or a year ago when we don’t have an election, but

we have an election three years in a row, I mean, three weeks later,

and there’s really no excuse we can use other than the fact that it’s

a well known fact that referendums usually don’t get too many people

to vote. It may be, I don’t know if that’s the reason or not, but I

hope it’s not.

I don’t think you are going to have any problem with any of these,

but I think most of the people should vote on this. So, I certainly

hope that you change that part of this item. I don’t think you could

justify to the voters and the people of this community to ask them to

spend this kind of money, but not give them the opportunity to vote.

There are a lot of people that may not be able to vote in a

referendum three weeks before a regular election because either they

can’t get to that one particular spot, or because of the time of day,

whatever. It’s just not right and I would hope you would consider

that and put that on at the regular election.

Thank you.

THE CHAIR: John, if you could address that?

MR. WEICHSEL: Mr. Pomposi, there is a statutory problem. There is no

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way to get it on the November ballot. There’s a statute that requires

that all bonding matters be complete ignoring the day of the event

and the day of the last publication of sixty days. We don’t have

sixty days. I moved as quickly as I could on this. There are 35 items

in the checklist for each of the five bond issues, so that is not a

possibility. It cannot legally be put on the November 4th election.

MR.POMPOSI: What is it, John, is it sixty days ---

MR. WEICHSEL: Sixty days ignoring the day, November 4th and the date

of the publication of this action which is occurring tonight, which

would mean at the best you would get it in the paper by tomorrow,

well you couldn’t even get it by tomorrow, but you get it in by the

11th. There’s no way to get sixty days, obviously, so that is not an

option.

MR. POMPOSI: When you say it’s got to be done 60 days after we, what,

tonight, or . . .

MR. WEICHSEL: Yes, you would need 60 days ignoring the date of

publication which was as I say, assuming the papers are cooperative,

on the 11th we would get it in and the earliest you could get an

election would be if the general election were November 13th. That’s

not the case. The November election is the 4th, so we do not have the

days and quite frankly these issues, not the least of which the first

one which we’ve already got in the ground, really have to be acted

upon.

MR. POMPOSI: Well, if that’s the case, you know, I would suggest that

you really consider getting it to be available to voted on in more

places than one particular spot. It’s going to cost money, but I

mean, you have to give the people this opportunity and you have to

stay open all day.

I don’t know, I’m going by what John says and I assume that that’s

correct.

But, I’ll make sure.

MR. RICCIO: Do the voters have the opportunity if they can’t make it

in a special election to vote by ballot, absentee ballot?

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: Absolutely.

MR. RICCIO: So, I mean, if we could just put that out there, to

address Phil’s concerns, if someone can’t make it for location or

date, they could at least vote by ballot.

MR. WEICHSEL: That is always the case, Councilman, for every

election.

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MR. RICCIO: Okay.

MR. WEICHSEL: There’s always absentee ballots.

MR. RICCIO: Thank you.

THE CHAIR: Anyone else? Okay.

2. Proposed Ordinance appropriating $10,000,000 for the Carl M. Small

Regional Vocational Agriculture Center project and authorizing the

issue of bonds and notes to defray such portion of the appropriation

as is not defrayed from grants.

THE CHAIR: Is there a presentation on this first?

MR.WEICHSEL: Yes, there are several people here from the school. I’m

not sure who is going to say what.

DR. POLANSKY: Good evening. I’m Dr. Harvey Polansky, Superintendent

of Schools and it is my pleasure tonight to provide you a brief

overview of our plans for the vo-ag center.

Of immediate concern to the Council, initially during this process

was assurance of the reimbursement rate. State Statute copies and the

law was sent to the Town Manager early on and we can confirm it is at

95%.

The vo-ag center currently is housed in the high school. In my mind,

this is a wonderful solution for both the vo-ag center and a rapidly

overcrowding high school. It will essentially free up 10,000 sf of

the high school and provide much needed programming space that meets

national and state standards and benchmarks in the vo-ag program. Vo-

ag is very different than it was ten years ago, five years ago. It is

a regional program. We receive revenue from this program. We receive

state grants from this program. And, it’s really a wonderful program

that enhances our high school.

Friar Associates, Ms. Stannard and her staff, have worked diligently

with a group of parents to outline what this program will look like.

The building will be housed currently where the tennis courts are.

The tennis courts, which will be moved first, will go parallel to

Pleasant Street with the appropriate sun angles.

The practice football field will then be moved to a different site on

our grounds.

In the high school, it will allow us a variety of new programming

opportunities to handle the 2100 to 2400 students that will occupy

our high school in the next three to four years.

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AT 95% reimbursement, the total cost of less than $500,000, this

gives us an additional 91 parking spots. It brings our vo-ag program

to state of the art of an already outstanding program. It expands

curriculum offerings and it provides much more flexibility for the

students and the community.

We’ve asked Brian Solawater from Friar Associates to come here with

his staff and we can entertain any questions that you might have.

THE CHAIR: Any questions from the Council?

Are there any statements from the taxpayers?

ROBERT FARO: 38 Huntington Circle. I just had a couple of questions.

First of all, I like the idea of taking away from the high school

enrollment. What’s the cost going to be on a yearly basis to

Southington on this? How much do we get reimbursed by the state? Is

it more than we would from the high school?

DR. POLANSKY: We receive revenue, right there are 90-some odd

students. Our revenue from the other Towns will increase to 150

students. That coupled with state aid for the program, we provided an

outline of the specific costs on this program for you earlier that

was requested. We think that in the long-term it’s a moneymaker and

not a money loser. As the programs expands, so too, will revenue and

state aid.

THE CHAIR: We get paid state grants, plus also these are tuition

students, the ones that come from other Towns.

MR. FARO: The other thing is, when is this going to be completed? A

date?

THE CHAIR: Everything is projected.

DR. POLANSKY: Well, it really depends on, I would be presumptuous to

state when it would be completed. I think there is ---usually, the

state will reimburse us on an as going basis. So, essentially, the

state reimbursement comes in as we start building. If we break

ground, hopefully, during the summer, then it’s about a year and it

is a self sustaining building, we can move like gangbusters to get

that done.

THE CHAIR: Harvey, I don’t think anybody is going to be critical of

you for being reluctant to give finishing dates on school.

DR. POLANSKY: Given my experience, dates are uh ----

MR. FARO: Well, my concern is what happened to our elementary schools

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for the upgrading and what happened there. I just hope that this

project goes off well.

THE CHAIR: We all do. We all do.

MR. FARO: Thank you. DR. POLANSKY: Yes, I am a little gun shy to give a date of any kind,

but what we said was we did not want to have construction with

students in the building and we think we can provide this in a self

contained environment and move rather quickly.

GERRY BELANGER: 98 Dawn Lane. I’d like to echo everything Harvey just

said. I had a whole list of stuff, but he stole my thunder here, so,

I guess I don’t have to say it all. One point I did want to make was the other reason for getting it on

the October 14th referendum was I think we have to have paperwork in

to the State by November 1st?

Oh, November 15th, so strike two. Maybe I’ll quit while I’m ahead.

So, I am in favor of this and hope we can put it to the referendum.

Thank you.

SUSAN SKARVINKO: Good evening, Susan Skarvinko, 119 Rockwood Drive. I

am the current president of the Southington High School PTO.

I’d just like to thank the Council for putting this in front of the

voters in such an expeditious fashion. Those of us who have children

at the high school and who are in the high school know how urgently

we need space in that area.

I think one thing Dr. Polansky didn’t mention is that we will also

gain cafeteria space, which is something that is sorely needed there.

As we know, there is no such thing as a free lunch, but this comes as

close to anything you can imagine with a 95% state reimbursement

rate. And, just to echo, there will be no construction with kids in

the building. This is a huge plus for us all.

Again, as I say, you may be interested to know that agriculture is

still American’s number one employer considering all the fields that

are related to it and this will just only add to the offerings that

our high school has made available. We are what we call a

comprehensive high school. We have a lot of kids to service and this

is just one more program that will help our high school be

comprehensive.

It’s a win, win situation. It’s a plus for everybody.

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Thank you very much.

JOHN MOISE: Stonegate Road. I just have a statement. The proposed vo-

ag center seems to be a good deal for the Town of Southington. The

95% reimbursement rate from the state is as true as it seems to be,

how can we go wrong?

What we need to know is what the 5% includes, unfortunately. What are

the surrounding Towns that our vo-ag center uses? How many students

does the vo-ag center cater to? What is the amount of students per

Town?

If the state is paying 95% to build a vo-ag center in Southington,

why wouldn’t one of the other Towns jump at the chance to build this

facility in their own Town?

One of the great things about building a new vo-ag center in

Southington is that it will open up some classroom space at the high

school. I believe this space would also be opened up if the vo-ag

center went to another Town.

According the Towns from Friar Associates, given out at the BOE

meeting on August 14th, it would have cost approximately $500,000 for

existing building renovations at the high school. This would seem a

better deal for the Town as we could continue to see the high school

bursting at the seams. It may also alleviate some of the parking

problems at the high school, as well.

The total cost of this project is $9,906,980 minus 95% according to

the state. Therefore, Southington has to pay approximately $500,000

to open up the high school. Why not let another Town take on the vo-

ag center? Has this avenue been discussed with other Towns and the

state. If the state is paying Southington 95% and the cost escalates,

as it has been known to happen with construction, is the Town help

responsible for whatever that amount may be? That cost would probably

have to be absorbed by the Southington taxpayers.

Finally, as you know, we have a new ordinance that this Town Council

has passed with respect to any municipal construction over $1

million. For this project, the Town would have to pay the salary of a

project manager to oversee this project to insure we do not have

another Hatton and Strong debacle. Is this going to be paid by the

Town? Or is this included in the 95% that the state is paying. And,

how about the interest on the $9.9 million, as well?

There are many questions that I have asked at this public hearing to

get a better understanding of what the BOE and its administration

have proposed. The questions that I have raised, I feel needed to be

asked and if the public feels the vo-ag center is the way to go, then

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that is what will happen.

I believe after what this Town has been through over the past four

years, we need to really understand what we are once again asking our

residents approval for. It’s 95% that the state is paying – it’s

great. But let’s look at the 5% and what it really entails before we

move forward. At this point, the taxpayers are not paying a dime and they would be

paying for $500,000 to who knows. The unknown amount is what needs to

be examined more closely.

Thank you.

THE CHAIR: One thing, in answering one of the questions is, we’re

bonding $10 million. Anything that goes beyond $10 million would have

to then go to another referendum, so in that sense ---

DR. POLANSKY: I think I need to set the record straight. There is no

$500,000 cost to renovate – that’s misinformation. Flat out

misinformation.

There was a plan at some point to reconstruct the crawl space, the

basement area. That plan was a separate plan.

Built into the cost is a construction management fee of $546,000 and

that was handed out at the BOE meeting. There’s an escalation,

contingency fee in there. Every single avenue through the state,

through our architect, are feasible. They’re in there. Moving the

tennis courts, they’re all part of the costs. If we hit rock or

something like that, there is some contingency fee in there, but our

feeling is that I think we’ll be in good shape. Where we’re building

it, we have a pretty good feeling what’s in there.

I think it’s really clear that we not pass along misinformation and

keep the voters informed of, in fact, what the costs are, where

they’re going. There is $500,000 cost. That was a separate plan that

is not part of this project.

THE CHAIR: And, it didn’t include a lot of the things that this

includes.

DR. POLANSKY: It did not. There was a separate high school project

that we decided we will do some minor building modifications, but it

does as Ms. Skarvinko said, free up the cafeteria, free up some

office space and just usurp the existing vo-ag 10,000 sf.

MR. WEICHSEL: Dr. Polansky, one item that has not been answered which

I believe I understood you to say previously, that the state came to

you in effect so the talk about other Towns may ---

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DR. POLANSKY: We are a regional, by state statute, a regional

vocational agriculture center site. The state is divided up into “x”

number of vocational agricultural centers throughout the state.

Southington, not through the foresight of myself but of my

predecessors, became a vo-ag center early on. It is a model program.

It brings from two other towns about 30% of our kids. Our own kids go

there. It’s a one-third and the other 60 some odd percent is all

revenue to the Town. Thank you.

JOE ANGELILLO: I think most of you know me. I am Joe Angelillo. I

live at 475 Meriden Avenue. Land, I think most of you know my

philosophy as far as spending money. I fully approve of this program

because as Dr. Polansky said, it’s a regional school. Our nearest

school that does the same thing is Middletown and Lyman Hall in this

area. It’s like our vocational technical schools that we have. They

draw from the different communities.

Now, if we were to have to expand the high school and not think about

moving the vo-ag center, it would cost us a fortune. As was stated

before, it’s a win-win situation. So, let’s go with it and I fully

approve.

Thank you.

THE CHAIR: I want to add just one thing to what Joe said, too. For a

long time I think many people looked across the street from the high

school and saw that as the future of expansion.

If you’ve driven up there in the last two weeks, that option is gone.

This is the only thing that will deal with the space needs of the

high school for a long period of time. Whatever thoughts that anybody

had that that property across the street was going to be for

expansion, are gone into houses.

Is there anyone else?

MICHELLE ALLAIRE: 228 Lazy Lane. My first question, is there any way

that the official grant could be revoked? The grant we’re getting,

the 95%, is that official? Because I read in the paper that we would

find out tonight about that.

DR. POLANSKY: It would require the state legislature to change the

law. And, the law has not been changed and it survived the magic date

of June 30th, 2003, so we are good for another year at that

percentage rate. As long as we get the paperwork in this fall, we are

eligible for that percentage rate.

MS. ALLAIRE: The next question is, I understand and I heard from this

gentleman, that the revenue would be created from this proposal. Does

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that include the budgets for the teachers, the maintenance of the

facility and everything like that? We would make money on it,

considering all of our budget costs?

THE CHAIR: I think it’s hard to tell. Harvey?

MS. ALLAIRE: Pardon me?

THE CHAIR: I think it’s hard to put an exact figure on that. I don’t

know, Harvey, if you just want to address that in terms of the

budget?

MS. ALLAIRE: I guess in addition to that question is, how would that

affect us as taxpayers? If when we come into our budget process, are

we going to have more teachers, maintenance? Building upkeep. And, is

that going to increase the taxpayer’s burden to get this facility

running and keep it going?

DR. POLANSKY: The revenue goes to the Town, into the Town General

Fund. So, whatever revenue we take in, essentially is an offset.

There are also a tremendous number of what I refer to as cost

avoidance by doing this. We’re going to have to deal with the

parking, we’re going to have to deal with the cafeteria, we’re going

to have to deal with a variety of other issues that will offset this

and take care of those issues.

So, while there may be some operating costs, I believe that the state

grant that we get, coupled with additional revenue, will --- the Town

gets checks from other Towns.

THE CHAIR: One thing is important. First of all, the students that

come from other Towns are tuition students, so therefore, they pay

tuition. The number of students that come as a result of this program

may vary over some time so it’s hard to tell right now what that

number is going to be. But the number is as Harvey said, about two-

thirds.

The second thing is that having the regional center here does mean

that Southington then gets grants from the state on an ongoing basis.

And, in some cases there is equipment grants, some times its

computers and other thing that have a peripheral benefit to. Now

those grants, there’s no set figure that we can go to right now to

say what the grants are. But those grants have been sizeable in the

past. So, in a sense, this also is a grant provider in a lot of ways

and those grants do help out.

Now, in some years, I would imagine that the flow is different than

others. So, for us to answer your question on a yearly basis, it

would be difficult to do that. But over a long period of time, it is

a financially awarding thing.

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There’s some other things, too, that are intangibles as Harvey said.

The vo-ag program has been maintaining the facility, the athletic

fields. I mean, that is an income although it is not an income that

is going to appear in a balance sheet. There are a lot of things that

are kind of intangibles that are parts of these programs. So, I

think, we can’t --- I can’t put a figure on it for taxpayers, but I’m

confident to say that there is a figure that is a benefit.

MS. ALLAIRE: Within the grant, is there a specified amount of

residents that have to be Southington residents versus outside

residents for the tuition basis?

DR. POLANSKY: There’s no. It has historically been 1/3, 1/3, 1/3.

Historically. And, that really depends on --- the program, the local

interest in the program had waned at one point. With the changes in

the program we’re seeing far, far greater interest in our local, our

own kids wanting to be in the program. We have a waiting list now.

So, I estimate that we will continue to serve as our kids expand the

population.

MS. ALLAIRE: So, there is a possibility it could be 150 students from

Southington with no tuition.

DR. POLANSKY: No, it’s a regional program and it’s always been l/3.

The state because of a variety of efforts by the state, they want a

regional program. I’m not talking about a wide change of – a rapid

change of 60 students. Plus or minus ten would be a standard

deviation and that’s always been the case. We’ve always tried to keep

1/3,1/3,1/3.

So that we’re getting at least a 60% revenue stream for the Town.

MS. ALLAIRE: I’m in Human Resources, myself. And, I know that

Southington has been trying to say that we are a Town of Technology

and trying to get these technology parks going and things of that

nature.

I’d like a little bit of education on vocational rehab or the

vocational center in how it’s --- the agricultural center and how it

is going to help our students be prepared for the future for their

employment that’s going to be meaningful employment. And, no

disrespect to anybody who is in the farming industry, florist or

agriculture, but if somebody could just give me a little bit of

information on how it’s going to help them with their future

employment opportunities in a satisfying profession, I would

appreciate that.

THE CHAIR: Marian, we are going to limit you to five minutes. I know

you could go on forever.

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MS. ALLAIRE: It’s for my own personal experience and knowledge and no

disrespect to anybody.

MS. STANNARD: Marian Stannard, Director of the program in

Southington.

First of all is a question I have to answer to parents all the time.

If a young woman or a young man comes in and says I want to take

agriculture, the first thing their parents say is, what are they

going to do for a job.

In Connecticut, the nursery and landscape industry, the floral

industry is a $1 billion industry. It’s our number one employer in

the State of Connecticut in agriculture. Landscaping, floral culture,

nursery, landscape architecture, and so on. Two of our largest agricultural employers in the State of Connecticut

are Pfizer and Bristol Meyers in the animal health industry. We all

know Pfizer are human health products, but a major portion of their

products are animal health products. And, a lot of our students in

animal science continue on in higher education in the animal

research, the animal physiology.

Another area that the students are really very strongly interested in

is in the environmental science. And, in these days with increasing

regulations that all the Towns have and the concerns that we have for

environment, we are encouraging our students to look at some of those

regulatory fields and some of the human health fields that relate to

environmental science.

We all have pets and the retail industry and the veterinary science

industry, there is no limit to the opportunities there. So really,

you look at the different areas of interest that the students have.

In terms of technology, biotechnology, Connecticut is a leader in

animal biotechnology and plant biotechnology. We have a lot of

businesses in the State of Connecticut that are seed industries for

other parts of the country in terms of biotechnology.

And, then equipment technology and engineering related to that also

relates to agriculture.

So, I always like to say to the parents and to the students in 8th

grade, we take a lot of interests that young people have and help

educate them in the careers that relate to that. So, as much as I

would like to make my money full time in farming, sometimes, I know

that’s not the direction that most of my students will go, so I

encourage them to look at a lot of those other related fields.

(Applause)

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MS. ALLAIRE: That was good information. Thank you.

I think that’s it for my questions and I thank all of you. I do want

to make one last point and I came here a little bit after the start

of the meeting but I just want to say that having five public

hearings in one evening is just way too much. I think for all of you

and for the public and it’s just a lot for people to absorb in one

evening. In the future if we can try to – I know you had a tight

schedule, but I think it’s unfair to everyone, including yourselves.

Thank you.

THE CHAIR: Next, please?

HILDA CAPRAL: 104 Beechwood Drive, Southington. I would like to thank

the members of the Board, friends and neighbors of Southington for

allowing me to address this public hearing.

My daughter is a junior and attends the vo-ag program at Southington

High School. This has been a very positive experience as she has

benefited from the program in many ways, as have the other students.

Vo-ag is just not a farming – not farming any more. The

opportunities, careers are endless. Many of us do not realize the

impact of vo-ag on our students and our community.

The most important ones that come to mind, food products that we eat

every day, clothing, and shelter, the homes and the buildings that

keep us out of the weather’s elements. Without -- we all take these

for granted. Without these fields and programs to produce these

goods, we would not be the productive society we are today.

As we proceed on the super information highway, through the age of

technology, we need to expand our program to meet the needs of our

great economy and to continue the knowledge and job skills we need to

keep our environment productive.

I encourage the members of the Board to vote to put this on the

referendum ballot.

Thank you very much.

THE CHAIR: Next, please?

ERICA ANDERSON: I’m one of the out of Towner’s, 124 Hawthorne Avenue

in Waterbury. I recently graduated from UCONN as a University Scholar

and I have to attribute most of my academic success to the vo-ag

program.

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I was given the option by my parents to either go to private school

such as Holy Cross or Sacred Heart, or because I was into horses, to

attend vo-ag here in Southington. And, it was such a unique program

that I opted to go to Southington.

I’ll make this short and sweet. The teachers in the vo-ag program are

phenomenal. I’ve had a resume since I was 15-years old. I learned

about cover letters when I was 15 years old. They encourage you ---

well, actually, you have to have a supervised agriculture experience

program, which is a certain amount of hours per week working in some

type of agriculture field. They keep an eye on you with that. So, in

this day and age of video games and hanging out at the mall, I

learned a lot about working through the vo-ag program.

And, they always saw all of our potential. Everyone in that program.

They’re always concerned about our future. They had people from

college coming to speak with us when we were sophomores and it’s just

a phenomenal program and it would be great if we could match the

phenomenal teachers and students with a phenomenal facility.

So, that’s all I wanted to say. That’s it.

MARIAH RASMUSSEN: 26 MacArthur Drive. I am a graduate of the vo-ag. I

graduated in 1998 and went on to UCONN and I majored in animal

science. Since then, I have studied bio technology and equine

science. I now work at an equine facility in Meriden.

I have to say that the vo-ag was one of the greatest things I did in

high school. It made school interesting. I learned public speaking. I

mean, we learned how to balance a checkbook. Things that you wouldn’t

usually learn in other classes and I just think it’s a great program.

You get one on one attention with the teachers. They know who you

are. They want you to succeed and they’ll do anything to help you

succeed and it helps you also to gain responsibility. And, that is a

great thing to have.

I just think that the facility that they’re looking for is going to

be a great thing to have. And, I think -- that’s all. Thank you.

LORELLE MARINELLI: I am a junior at Southington High School and I am

currently involved in the vo-ag program. When I first came into the

vo-ag program in my freshman year, I realized that I only had four

years until I had to make up some decision on what I would like to do

for my future. Now, with only two years left ahead of me, I can

proudly say that I have a confident idea on some colleges I would

like to attend and the different job opportunities in my interest

area that are out there for me.

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I have learned many skills in the vo-ag and competed and participated

in many events. These events have taught me my dislikes, my likes and

opened up a whole new horizon of jobs in my interest area.

In the classroom, I see many individual classmates with more

interests in other areas of agriculture that the Southington High

School does not offer. I would like to see the Southington vo-ag

program expand with this new addition because I know the positive

effect the program will have on these students and their futures,

just like it had on me.

Thank you.

AMANDA CAPRAL. I’m a junior at Southington High School vo-ag program.

When I first entered the program, I wanted to be an equine

veterinarian. However, the last two years I have experienced

different areas of the program and have broadened my thinking of

other careers in the program. I am also excited to represent Southington High School at the FFA

National Convention in Louisville, KY this fall. Our vo-ag program

has given me hands on experiences in the areas of animal science,

agricultural mechanics and plant science.

This past summer I had the opportunity to do my SAE (supervised

agricultural experience) project of 150 hours at Trails and Tack at

Middlefield. The experience of working in a tack store extended a

wealth of knowledge both in horse tech and retail experience.

The owner of the store also offered me the opportunity to attend a

national trade show to see behind the scenes as a buyer. I would like

to encourage the Board to put expansion of the vo-ag on the ballot

this fall. Improving this program will benefit the entire community.

Thank you.

THE CHAIR: Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Questions

from Council members?

Okay, thank you.

3. Proposed Ordinance appropriating $2,000,000 for acquisition of

land for open space, passive recreation and conservation purposes and

authorizing the issue of bonds and notes in the same amount.

THE CHAIR: John, I don’t think we have a presentation on this one.

MR. WEICHSEL: I don’t know if Bill wanted to make a comment, or two,

maybe.

MR. DE PAOLO: Thanks, John.

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I might say Mr. Chairman and for the audience we had an open space

referendum –

(End of Tape #1, side A) (Beginning of Tape #1, Side B)

-- roughly keeping about 100 homes from being built. We’re pretty

much after the Novick piece, which was the last purchase, pretty much

exhausted on the funds.

We are applying for a state grant on the Novick piece and we hope to

get it, but there’s no guarantee. But at this point we’re looking for

another 2 million. There’s a few other pieces, a few of the parcels

that the open space has been working on.

We know it’s something that we feel the people want to do, so

basically that’s where it all started. It was approved by the Council

unanimously.

THE CHAIR: Comments from the Council?

Comments from the public? Phil?

MR. POMPOSI: Phil Pomposi, 1215 Pleasant Street. As you know, I’m a

full supporter of this acquisition of open space from the very

beginning. And, as a member of the open space committee for some

time, I was pretty active and the only thing I feel sorry about is

that we were not more aggressive in some of these larger pieces.

I think the reason for that, I think everybody knows that was on that

committee, is that we were a little gun shy because of the fact that

we just did not have the funds available. I don’t know if it will get

any better, the way things are in real estate today because land

really is, as you know over the last few years, has appreciated

dramatically and it really put us at a disadvantage.

A couple pieces, the one named tonight, we, unfortunately just missed

out on. But I am for it.

The only thing and I see according to the notes that it’s been taken

care of and that is when this came before our Board, the word

“recreation” was in there and we asked that it be corrected to

“passive recreation” because we wanted to make very clear that this

was going to be used for open space and open space, only. Open space

being a piece of land that’s left as is, open space, and not used for

municipal purposes.

And, I guess this has been changed and I assume the ordinance wording

has been changed. So, other than that, that’s fine.

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THE CHAIR: It should be clear to every one that this is the purchase

of open space not to be used for active type of recreation like ball

fields or anything like that or any other kind of municipal purpose

such as police stations, fire stations, schools, whatever. It would

be for passive recreation. In other words, the most active would be

walking trails or hiking trails, something like that. And, that is

included in the ordinance.

MR. FARO: Robert Faro, 30 Huntington Circle. My only concern is like

Mr. Pomposi mentioned, why it’s only 2 million? I mean, if we had

more and we didn’t spend it, it would still be there. Why did we come

up with only a 2 million figure?

THE CHAIR: If you add all these five together, Bob . . .

MR. FARO: Oh, I understand that. But what I’m saying is, if you don’t

buy the land, you’re not using the money. But you’re in a situation

now where you don’t have any money, so how can you really negotiate

with anybody when you’re broke?

MR. DE PAOLO: If I might, Mr. Chairman, it was a selective decision

to go for 2 million. We picked it last time and it passed. We figured

rather than go 1 million or 3 million, let’s go 2 million again.

If we can do this every year, if we had to, Cheshire for the last

10,11,12 years have had 1 million propositions on their referendums

every year pretty much as a standard thing. It was just an arbitrary

decision. You don’t want to go for too much, you don’t want to go for

too little.

Most of the parcels now, as you notice, for example, Novick was 1.3

million. The Brandenburg property is 1.6 million. Everything now, the

piece we’re looking at is 1.8 million. It’s pretty much going to be

in that ballpark. It’s six in one, half a dozen of the other.

MR. FARO: So, in other words, we’re only talking about one piece of

property.

MR. DE PAOLO: Could be. But if you leverage it, we’ve got four so far

with the 2 million that we had. Sometimes you don’t have to pay for

it all at once.

MR. FARO: Can you really negotiate with anybody if you don’t have any

money? How does that work?

MR. DE PAOLO: It’s difficult.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: If I may, you’re right. It is difficult negotiating

with them because you have to put a stipulation in there that it’s

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over $1 million it has to pass a public referendum and sometimes

sellers are a little gun shy to wait four or five months.

MR. FARO: And, you have to wait for the referendum.

MR. DE PAOLO: I might interject, the next one we take up is the

Brandenburg property. That one has to be approved at a referendum.

The Brandenburg family said they would like to sell to the Town. They

would like to use that piece for open space or for a middle school.

They had a developer waiting to pay them a check at the door. They

decided to go to the Town and wait for the referendum. So, I think we

owe them a high debt of gratitude.

MR. FARO: I guess we do.

Thank you.

MR. RICCIO: I’d just like to make a couple of points if it’s okay

during the public hearing so they could comment if they’d like. And,

that is Bill just made a good point in that there is some option for

old farm families out there, but a lot of them don’t know. So, if you

live next door to a piece of property that you’d like to see

preserved as open space, go to the family before the developer gets

there and direct him to the open space committee.

You know, we’re looking. We’re out there actively seeking properties.

People come to us, why does that land have houses on it? It’s because

nobody in Town informed that property owner that this is available.

We’re actively competing with or in the open market for open space.

So, I expected the podium to be packed tonight with people in favor

of it. I think everybody is in favor of it. It’s just nice to hear

it. So, get out there. We can’t do it all ourselves. We need your

help.

THE CHAIR: Just one more thing, just in the past, the state has been

cooperative in grants. Right now the state is not doing that, but we

assume that the state will get back into the granting of money to

Towns for open space at some point in the future. And, actually,

we’ve used that grant money and the communal grant money also as

leverage in terms of our negotiations with property owners. We are

involved still in negotiations with property owners and again, time

payments, payments over time and other things are strategies that can

be used in trying to seal those deals. But money is certainly the

most important aspect.

MICHELLE ALLAIRE: 228 Lazy Lane. My first question is, with the open

space, now I’m hearing from you that people come forward to you to

say I have land that maybe you’d like to purchase.

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THE CHAIR: It goes both ways. We also make requests.

MS. ALLAIRE: Very good. Because I haven’t really been officially

mapping where we’ve been purchasing open space, but I know over on

Lazy Lane there is a nice piece of property that Carpenter owns that

might be something that he might be interested in talking to you

about.

THE CHAIR: Well, let me just mention one thing. Our prime importance

in this as it began was in dealing with the residential properties.

There is an imbalance in terms of our zoning in that I can’t think of

the figures right now, but we have far --- a great amount of land

that has been developed for residential and much ---

MR. WEICHSEL: Eighty percent.

THE CHAIR: -- and much less for industrial and commercial. And, land

that is zoned industrial is not something that we necessarily have

high on our list for purchase for open space. We see that land as

potential tax generation.

So, I know that you live close to that land and ----

MS. ALLAIRE: It’s beautiful land. A lot of nice deer, bobcat, fox.

Wetlands.

THE CHAIR: I know that. Yes.

But it’s also strategically located in such a way that it does make

it attractive for industrial purposes.

MS. ALLAIRE: Okay. Fair enough.

THE CHAIR: I’m not going to say that at some point in the future that

might not be something that we would look at, but at present we’re

looking to try to get residential land because again, that’s where

the money is spent. Where the tax generation is going to come from is

industrially zoned and commercially zoned land.

MS. ALLAIRE: Okay. Is there some type of, and you’ll have to educate

me once again, a guarantee to the public that this land won’t be

developed in the future?

THE CHAIR: Yes. That’s in the ordinance.

MS. ALLAIRE: Is there a timeframe?

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: It’s two-fold. When we receive state money, the

state requires us to put an easement on the property, which is

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forever. And, then for our own, in this particular case, the bond

ordinance itself by it’s own wording would limit the Town.

MS. ALLAIRE: Okay. I guess the other ---

THE CHAIR: And, forever, too.

MS. ALLAIRE: Excellent.

The other thing, in the decision making for picking pieces of

property, I know you said residential neighborhood and both of you go

out and look and you have people come to you as well, but is there a

strategic plan of like trying to disperse it throughout the

community?

THE CHAIR: Initially, we were looking at grant money and in terms of

grant money, the state was interested in land that might be

contiguous with other green land in other Towns. So, initially, our

focus was in places that would be acceptable to the state. And, that

did kind of keep our focus on the outside.

Right now, the state is not participating in that kind of grant

situation, so I think our target areas have changed somewhat. We’re

certainly looking at bigger property rather than smaller property. I

know sometimes when there is two lots, people would like to approach

that as open space, but in that sense, that’s usually the kind of

property that we don’t go after aggressively. In some cases,

sometimes people might want to almost donate it to the Town. But

anything that is a small lot would be something that we would be less

interested in unless there was a great deal out there.

MR.RICCIO: The committee –- actually the Staff is working on coming

up with a map to show. We have a property that has incredible hiking

trails on it on the east side of Town. On the south side of Town we

have a property with a field and a pond. On the west side of Town we

have a property with a stream going through it, a lot of wetlands and

some potential Indian burial sites over there.

THE CHAIR: Indian. They were burial sites. We’re not going to bury

any Indians.

MR. RICCIO: Native Americans. And, we have Crescent Lake. I mean,

it’s a lake. And, what’s the latest, Bill? The Novick piece.

MR. DE PAOLO: On the north. We have them really all over Town.

MS. ALLAIRE: I think it would be a great selling point for the Town

to get something in the newspaper showing the different properties.

MR. RICCIO: We are working on that.

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MS. ALLAIRE: Okay, great.

I think my last question is about the next thing on the Agenda, but I

know we are not at that point yet, but is this property that we’re

going to be talking about, is it open space?

THE CHAIR: No.

MS. ALLAIRE: Okay, so nothing to do with open space.

THE CHAIR: This one is, again that’s why we’re doing this in a

separate referendum because it’s for municipal purpose. It would be

for a middle school.

MS. ALLAIRE: Thank you for your time.

THE CHAIR: Anyone else on the $2 million for open space?

4. Proposed Ordinance appropriating $1,600,000 for acquisition of the

Brandenburg property on River Street in Southington and authorizing

the issue of bonds and notes in the same amount to finance said

appropriation.

MR. DE PAOLO: Just very briefly, the Brandenburg piece is a piece

that was worked on by the open space and then the land acquisition

committee as a land acquisition piece.

The school department had discussions with our committee and asked us

to look at five sites and their first and most desirable piece was

the piece on River Street, between River Street and Dunham Road,

which was the Brandenburg piece.

We had been looking at that since 1999 as an open space piece. And,

year after year we’re sending letters and letters and these things

take a long time to materialize.

But year after year we would send letters and finally Mrs.

Brandenburg became ill and her nephew took over the property estate

and found all these letters and talked to her and came to the Town

and that’s when they decided they would like to deal with us knowing

that it would be used for a possible middle school.

After negotiations with the Town Attorney and the Town Manager, and

the Open Space Committee, we brought it to the Council. The Council

at that point approved it. It’s a 30-acre piece. Very nice piece of

land for those of you that don’t know it. It’s pretty much all-open.

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One side touches on River Street and the other side on Dunham.

It’s capable of holding about 45 building lots that won’t be on the

market, just a little side effect of this referendum.

And, in talking with the BOE, they decided they would like to pursue

it as their first piece and so the Council unanimously voted to bring

that to referendum.

THE CHAIR: Also, we have another municipal purpose that we’re looking

at part of this land for, and that’s a leaf disposal site, too. So,

in this sense, again this is not open space in the same way as number

3 was. This is for municipal purpose and again, as a possible school

site and also for leaf.

MR. DE PAOLO: I neglected to mention that 23 acres would be used by

the BOE and 7 by the Town.

THE CHAIR: Is there any one else from the Council?

Any questions or comments from the public? Jerry?

JERRY BELANGER: 98 Dawn Lane. I’d like to state my support for the

proposed purchase of the Brandenburg property so the Town can start

planning for construction of a third middle school to be located on

that property.

We have serious overcrowding issues at both DePaolo and JFK Middle

Schools. These issues have been with us now for several years and

there’s no let up in sight. The land the current middle schools

reside on will only allow for very small additions, not enough to

accommodate the number of students attending those schools.

In addition, the current buildings do not allow full implementation

of the middle school curriculum that should have been put in place

years ago. In that model, each middle school grade is made up of

small learning communities and teams. Each learning community is a

network of students, teachers, parents, and other significant adults,

and these teams stay together for more than one year as opposed to

changing from year to year.

Classes are heterogeneously balanced in terms of grade level, gender,

ethnic background and individual needs to insure diversity. Buildings

designed around a junior high school model simply do not allow the

kind of team approach we need to incorporate.

Middle school programming and overcrowding are only two of the many

reasons for going forward with a third middle school. At each

building technology and communication systems need to be updated,

specialized learning areas need to be created, better special

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education resources need to be provided, administrative offices need

to be upgraded and the list goes on.

By building a third middle school, we can relocate students to that

school to allow these much needed renovations. So, the need for a

third middle school is clear but the problem was where to build it.

Several sites in Town were investigated, including both Town owned

and privately owned land. I agree that it was fiscally sensible to

try to use land already owned by the Town, but the only parcel

available that could support this construction was located near Kelly

School. I think everybody agrees that that location was not suitable

for a number of reasons. So, looking elsewhere was a wise choice.

Hopefully, voters will be aware of this.

Therefore, the Brandenburg piece seems to fit the bill nicely. The

location will place the three middle schools at roughly an equal

distance from each other, making busing and transportation much

easier, we gain some more open space, and we prevent additional

residential growth.

As with the vo-ag program, this is another slam-dunk and I urge you

guys to bring it forward.

Thank you.

THE CHAIR: Any one else from the public? MR. DE PAOLO: Mr. Chairman, just one quick comment, we will on the 23

acres, also get reimbursed on this purchase, at I believe, 52% are we

there, somewhere around there? So, 52% of the price of the 23 acres

will be reimbursed to the Town.

MR. BARRY: Mr. Chairman, if I just may be ask Dr. Polansky a quick

question on the need for a third middle school.

THE CHAIR: Mr. D’Andrea is not here. Harvey, you do know we got a

letter.

DR. POLANSKY: I did get a letter. I got the same letter.

THE CHAIR: I’m going to put that into the record just because it

seems to be appropriate. (Attachment 1)

DR. POLANSKY: There are programming issues ---

MR. BARRY: Just real quick, the reason why I think it’s important is,

is there, based on population trends a need for a new middle school

or is it possible that we could do with two middle schools --- I know

it’s in the initial stages of planning on how we are going to build

the facility. But my question is, it just seems like if we have three

middle schools, we’re increasing the cost to the taxpayers by another

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third on the middle school level. Is it based on your trends that you

see in population, could the Town of Southington maybe do with two

high schools? I think there is a necessity to upgrade the facility,

but everyone says a third middle school. Do we need to have a third

middle school?

DR. POLANSKY: In my professional opinion: absolutely.

The Board first looked at this or their research was, let’s put

additions on both JFK and DePaolo. The state provides 15 acres plus 1

acre for every 100 kids. Well, that’s 15 plus 8, 800 kids. That’s

what we are probably going to figure we are going to build for.

Our enrollment at our elementary and our middle schools are exceeding

projections right now. Right now we have over 100 students more than

we had last year on September 1. And, the growth between September 1

and October 1 is pretty – usually pretty dramatic.

Programmatically, Mr. Barry, I think Mr. Belanger really did a

beautiful job of explaining middle schools. We can’t house the

program in our current schools. There are media centers, phys ed,

there are a variety of other team structures that we talked about,

those small learning communities. That can’t happen.

There should be science rooms in each of the team areas. Well, right

now, where are all the science rooms? They’re all in one area. We

need massive renovations of our existing facilities to meet 21st

century standards.

And, the Board looked at a variety of options. To put an additional

addition on JFK and DePaolo impacted programming. We’re not going to

dip below --- I saw the letter. We’re going to stay in the 800 area

no matter what happens. Even years out. I look at our kindergarten

class sizes right now. That’s the bubble that’s coming through. And,

we know that our kindergarten classes are much larger than our

graduating senior class. So, that’s going to continue.

I think the Board has always focused on doing what’s right for kids.

And, what’s right for kids is not cramming all of those hormones in

one little place. I think there are – kids this age need a variety of

opportunities because from ages 11 to 14 is when they’re changing

most. And, we need to connect them to small learning communities so

they feel part of it. And, we don’t disconnect.

What we’ve learned about disconnected kids is they get in trouble. We

want to make sure that we keep our kids connected. And, right the way

our buildings are housed, it can’t just happen.

MR. BARRY: Very good, I appreciate that. One other comment and I’m

not an expert on education. I do think the BOE is doing their best in

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trying to accommodate the overcrowding of a lot of the schools.

Is the School Board and your Administration looking at maybe ways to

save the taxpayers money in the sense of maybe taking the 9th grade

out of the high school and just build a school for 9th graders which

would then alleviate the overcrowding at the high school and then

keep the middle schools, maybe take the 6th and put it in the

elementary. I mean, I don’t know if any of this stuff works. I’m not

an expert. I just want maybe to enlighten us if the Board has looked

at these options.

DR. POLANSKY: I think the Board is committed to a K-5, 6-8, 9-12

structure. I think middle schools tend to be either 6,7,8 or 5,6,7,8.

There are one or two junior high schools. Amity has a junior school

and I’m not sure I want to duplicate what’s going on there.

I think our issue focuses on --- a decision was made early on to have

one high school and we will continue to have one high school. With

the additional space that we’re looking at, we want to slow that

building down and I think Ms. McGrath and her team have a way to

really start looking at how that building, the pace of that building,

the high school building.

But I think the Board has clearly articulated their commitment to

that middle school structure. You also want to decrease transitions

for children. Kids want to have some type of ownership that they’re

in a building two, three years. Three years is even tight.

What we’ve known about grade 9 building and I think Fairfield tried

it, it failed. It’s transitory. Kids don’t feel they are a part of

that community. They disconnect. So, we felt that this was the best

way to meet the needs of our young adolescents.

MR. BARRY: Okay, thank you.

THE CHAIR: I think it’s over the last 16 years or so, when we put the

addition – the most recent addition on to the high school, that was

the result of a commitment by the Board to this grading structure. It

makes for much better planning if that commitment is held to and we

don’t change it.

DR. POLANSKY: And, I think the Board is very committed to that. I

think we go back to the idea about a comprehensive high school.

Southington High School in my mind is the best high school in the

state in terms of variety of programs, in terms of commitment of

staff, commitment of community and commitment of our students.

Is it a big community? Yes. Our high school is larger than --- I

think we looked it up, larger than 50 districts in the state or 40

districts in the state. But it is being managed with care and it’s

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being managed with concern. Our concern now is middle school.

We’ve had tremendous, tremendous program improvement in our middle

schools, which will continue. We just need to get facilities that

will meet the needs of our students.

ANGELINA SANTA MARIA: 250 Summer Street.

Mr. Barry, I just wanted to answer your question as a parent. I have

three children in three different schools here in Southington:

Plantsville School, JFK and Southington High School.

In the last six years, I’m seeing that the schools are bursting at

the seams, so my answer to you is yes, we need to have another middle

school.

THE CHAIR: One thing, let me make it clear that this is a proposal to

purchase the land for a school. The decision as to what the land is

going to be used for will be made in the future and if there is to be

a middle school that will also be another referendum that will be

made.

One of the things in terms of this and the reason I bring it out is

the purchase of this land, first of all as Bill said, is a good deal.

We don’t have many – we haven’t had many good deals come down the

pike dealing with real estate.

Secondly, it’s one that does allow for, not matter it is used for,

and I’m sure that the Board is going to look at middle school first,

but no matter it is used for, it does allow for flexibility in terms

of construction of sites for a middle school.

And, also as John wants to see, the 7 acres for leaf collection, is

not a minor issue. The leaf collection in this Town is becoming more

and more something we do have to provide municipal land for.

So, this referendum is for the purchase of land at a very good price,

a very good deal, to allow for flexibility in several different

areas.

DR. POLANSKY: And, as Mr. DePaolo said, once we decide to build a

school, that land then becomes reimbursable as part of the whole

project.

I would be negligent if I didn’t thank the cooperation, the

commitment of the Council. I think you acknowledged the issues that

we’re dealing with. We’ve been studying this now for two years. I

remember sitting in this room with a bunch of maps and we were

looking at a variety of properties. We looked at every single

property that was in excess of 20 acres and I really appreciate the

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work that the Council has done to keep progress on the front burners

and not the back burners.

Thank you.

MS. BAKER: One more question, Dr. Polansky. Is there a time

constraint on that reimbursement of the 52%. Seven years?

DR. POLANSKY: I don’t believe there is. No matter what the source is,

it becomes eligible as part of the project, no matter when that

project is.

The only thing that will change, you need to know is, there’s a rapid

deterioration of the percentage of reimbursement. We started at 56%

when I got here 4 short years ago. Now we’re at about 52% now. So,

that’s the only change.

THE CHAIR: It was 62% when I got here. So . . .

MS. BAKER: One more quick question in regards to the storage of the

leaves. You may have told us but has the line been delineated, can we

start using the 7 acres right away, after purchase?

Do we have the layout plan? Can we use the 7 acres?

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: The delineation itself would be required as part of

this Council’s decision. As long as the BOE based upon their plans,

have enough land, then it would be your delineation as to the line.

THE CHAIR: I don’t think we have a line, yet.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: That could be done long before the school is built,

obviously.

THE CHAIR: Any other comments on number 4?

5. Proposed Ordinance increasing the appropriation and borrowing

authorization for the Central Fire Station Addition Project to

$1,645,000.

KEVIN DALY: Mr. Chairman, members of the Council, I’m Kevin Daly, 206

Rockwood Drive and I’m Chairman of the Board of Fire Commissioners

and I’m here representing our building committee.

We’re requesting $1,645,000 to build an addition to the existing fire

headquarters located on North Main Street with a footprint of

approximately 7500 sf that will have three stories on the rear and

one story in the front and it will address the issues that were

created over the past several years by the size of the fire apparatus

that we have. It’s cracking the floors in the existing fire station.

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Included for that $1,645,000 will also be $250,000 for renovations of

the existing building so that we can address some concerns we have

with respect to space for our training division and for our fire

inspection bureau.

In an effort to be brief tonight, I’ll leave it to questions at this

point.

THE CHAIR: Questions from the Council? You were here a couple of

weeks ago, so I think we have exhausted ourselves.

MR. DALY: I have nothing new to say other than we did go live on

centralized dispatch today, too. That’s another positive note for us.

THE CHAIR: Very good. Questions or comments from the public?

Kevin, I guess we’re letting you off very easy.

Are there any other general questions or comments dealing with all of

the referendum issues?

MR. DE PAOLO: Mr. Chairman, just before we wrap it up, I do want to

make it for the record and for the press and for the public.

Everything we talked about tonight, not the Misery Brook By Pass

Interceptor, but everything we talked about tonight, including

downtown Renaissance which isn’t on this, but which we have decided

to do, all of these items total a little over $6 million and it will

end up costing about in the first year about one quarter of a mil to

the taxpayer. And, over the course of the bonding, it will go down to

one tenth of a mil.

There’s no good time to spend money, but this is one of the better

times. The interest rate is going to average about 4.5% and that’s at

a 30-year low. These are all good projects and it’s not going to cost

an awful lot of money to do them, so I think it behooves us to do

them now when the price of bonding is so low.

THE CHAIR: I agree with Bill and just one thing, too, is it does look

like a large plate that’s filled with a lot of things that are going

to cost money, but these are all good projects and things that have

real good logical necessity for them.

Second thing too, I hope that people that look at this, the

referendum, do not see this as pitting one project against another.

Each of these projects has great benefit for the Town and actually,

if you really look at them, 2 through 5, the open space, et cetera,

they kind of work together with one another. Each of these is going

to make Southington a better community. In doing that in different

ways, and all of them add to those things.

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They’re also all necessary. The timing, even though the economy may

not appear to be well, these are bonded over long periods of time, so

in terms of that kind of spending, it is something that is going to

transcend several economic periods, good and bad. And, the problem is

if we don’t do these now, we will be faced with doing them sometime

in the future. And, as we all know, prices do go up and rarely have

they ever gone done for any of these things. There’ll be some lost

opportunities like in the vo-ag, the Brandenburg property and even in

terms of open space, there’ll be lost opportunities if we were not to

go after these.

Again, they do deal with specific needs that are necessary for the

Town. So, I hope that voters do not pit one project against another

and I hope there will be support for all of these.

MS. TRIANO: I want to just echo something that --- those things that

you’re saying. And, also just encourage the public to understand that

we are now dealing with the next generation. We are providing for our

children and our grandchildren an opportunity to experience

Southington in a way that we’ve come to learn and love Southington.

And, so I would hope that everyone in Southington would understand.

I’m so glad that Bill in his thorough way was able to break that down

in terms of a tenth of a mil for our taxpayers who we are all

concerned for. I would hope that the public would see this, not only in terms of

their wallet, but in terms of their children and the future of our

children. Certainly, many of these things have a direct bearing on

our kids. But of course, the need for our fire station and the need

for open space affect all of us. And, I wanted to thank every one who

has come forward this evening and hopefully, we’ll see all of these

passed together.

THE CHAIR: All right. I’ll end the public and we’re going to take

about a five-minute recess.

(Whereupon, the public hearing session was adjourned at 8:25 o’clock,

p.m.)

MINUTES OF THE TOWN COUNCIL MEETING OF THE TOWN OF SOUTHINGTON

September 8, 2003

Regular Meeting

A Town Council Meeting of the Town of Southington was held on Monday,

September 8, 2003. Chairman Edward M. Malczyk called the Regular

Meeting to order at 8:30 pm.

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The following Councilpersons were present, viz:

John Barry Victoria Triano Arthur Secondo William DePaolo Mary Baker Philip Landino Michael Riccio Edward Malczyk

Ex-Officio Members present were as follows, viz:

John Weichsel, Town Manager Mark Sciota, Town Attorney Anthony Tranquillo, Town Engineer

Absent:

James Verderame

There were approximately 30 other persons in attendance.

The Pledge of Allegiance to the American Flag was recited by everyone

in attendance.

A Prayer was recited by Councilperson William DePaolo.

EDWARD MALCYK, Chairman, presiding:

II. Minutes

Mr. Barry made a motion to approve the Minutes as presented that was

seconded by Ms. Triano.

(Motion passed unanimously on a voice vote.)

III. Councilmanic Communications

THE CHAIR: Let me just get a few out of the way. We did get a

communication from Southington Printing Company about the placement

of the Center Place sign. (Attachment 2)

MR. WEICHSEL: We have basically agreed to do what has been requested.

It’s a one way sign at Center and Center Place and the street name

sign.

THE CHAIR: And, we are invited to the 12th Annual Drug Free

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Southington Rally on the Town Green on October 21st, Tuesday, at 6:00

pm. The rally will be held to commemorate the red ribbon week for all

of us. (Attachment 3)

MS. TRIANO: Yes, if you can, please come. Make sure I see you so you

can be recognized from the platform.

THE CHAIR: And, John, we did get a notification that Jim is up for

the -- or he has received the Certificate of Achievement Plaque. It

hasn’t been shipped, yet, I guess. (Attachment 4)

MR. WEICHSEL: Yes, the plaque is not here. Usually we delay of

discussion of it until he actually comes.

THE CHAIR: There was a letter that I got and I think everyone got

from Jim Flood on teacher’s salaries. And, requesting that we not

compare with other districts. So, I’ll put that in, too. (Attachment

5)

The Strong School PTO President, send a letter to Harvey and the

Board of Education, the Permanent Building Committee, Town Council,

Mark Sciota and the Principal and Staff of Strong School. Just saying

very nice things about the near completion of Strong School. And, we

appreciate that letter, too. I’ll put that in. And, that’s all I

have. (Attachment 6)

Anyone else?

MS. TRIANO: Mr. Chairman, if I might, on behalf of the Southington

United Way, I want to invite everyone here and specifically the Town

Council. On September 11th, once again, the United Way will be

hosting a memorial service. We’ll be stepping off in a solemn

procession at 8:30 am from the Popular Restaurant Parking Lot area.

And, proceeding down Center Street.

The firefighters and the police officers will be honor guards and we

have the Governor’s Foot Guard coming in as an honor guard. It will

be a solemn procession and all the churches in Southington will be

ringing their church bells at 8:46. And, so certainly we would invite

all the members of the Council, John and Mark, of course, Leslie,

anybody else who would like to proceed with us.

As I said, we will step off from the Popular Parking Lot at 8:30 on

to Center Street. It won’t be a long memorial. It’ll probably only

last about a half hour. But it will mark the day.

THE CHAIR: Thank you. Anyone else? Mike?

MR. RICCIO: I just want to say that a day or two before school

started I took a walk through both of the schools. And, I was

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absolutely amazed at the progress that had taken place since mid to

late winter.

Just a thank you to initially the parents who came out and spoke

about these projects well over a year ago and thanks to the schools

that made it through tough times and a big thank you to the

contractor that came on board and got us to where we are today.

I kind of went through on my own and just looked around and was

really pleased by what I saw.

THE CHAIR: This would be a time, Mark, just a little update. I know

Strong School is just punch list things that have to be done.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: Actually, Strong School did receive its full CO. It

has a – in lieu of site plan compliance, they have a waiver. That’s

the outside from the PZC side of it. But the structure itself is

fully CO’d. There’s some punch list items that are relatively minor.

The school, as Mike said, is beautiful. Jeff and his committee did a

nice job and I also wish to thank the contractor and also from the

government side, I really wish to thank the building department and

especially the fire department for working with us and actually

getting the thing open.

On the Hatton side of it, as you know, Section A & B are CO’d. That

is currently occupied with the children. The old section of Hatton,

which you can see from the road, obviously is the one that is still

under construction. That still looks like it is going to be available

to the students the end of November.

THE CHAIR: It was sheetrocked. Also, they are tiling the floor now,

too. So, it does appear, I’m not going to put any dates here, either,

Harvey, but it does appear that the schedule is something that they

can adhere to.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: Actually, I should say that almost every schedule

they’ve given us, they have adhered to.

THE CHAIR: The Staff is anticipating movement into that area at some

point that will be convenient to them, actually.

MR.RICCIO: You touched on the other thing. The building committee,

both current and past members of the building committee, put a lot of

their time into this and need to be commended, as well.

I just have one quick thing. I’ve been working on the fountain

project that I brought to the Council a while ago. And, I have kind

of a public appeal here. We’re trying to get --- there were fixtures

on that fountain that were, we can’t even figure out what they are.

This is the only picture I have. And, first we thought they were lion

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heads and then dragons and now they look like fishes.

MS. TRIANO and THE CHAIR: I think they were fishes.

MR. RICCIO: If anyone has a better picture.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: Where is Nick D’Emanuele when you need him?

MR. RICCIO: Or if anyone actually has one of them that they’d like to

return.

THE CHAIR: Joe do you know what fixtures were on the fountain?

MR. RICCIO: I’ll get in touch with Joe.

FROM THE AUDIENCE: You know who got the fixtures? Dave Mongillo. He

moved them and he got the fixtures.

MS. TRIANO: There you go!

(Undertone comments)

(Laughter)

MR. RICCIO: Well, I am going to call my friend Dave and if I can, we

have found we can get them replicated.

Thank you.

(Undertone comments)

THE CHAIR: Anyone else? No one else for Councilmanic Communications?

Okay, John, your report, please?

IV. Town Manager's Report and Communications

A. Report by Superintendent DeGioia on grease traps

MR. WEICHSEL: John DeGioia will handle this for us.

JOHN DE GIOIA: I understand at the last Council meeting when I was on

vacation there were some questions raised about the Town’s grease

trap ordinances and sewer ordinances.

I did send a latter to the Town Manager and to all members of the

Council to do my best to explain what our procedures are and the fact

there was some misinformation in the --- going around about what the

Town is and isn’t doing to businesses.

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I won’t go over the whole letter because I know it was pretty

lengthy. I just want to hit a couple of bullets.

The reason that we are enforcing the grease interceptor regulations

is because of frequent backups of raw sewage into the environment and

into basements of homeowners and customers, both business and

residential. These are caused by grease blockages.

Last month, the Town Council made a change to the ordinances. That

change was not a grease trap ordinance or any changes to the

ordinance or use of the sewers. It was exclusively --- it was fifteen

words, actually. The words were: in accordance with the rules and

regulations established by the superintendent of Water Pollution

Control.

It was an “i” that the Town Attorney felt needed to be dotted. But

that’s all. The Council did not pass and I did not request any change

to the 1979 sewer use ordinance that we have now.

The grease interceptor program has been in effect since 1994. It

involves only new businesses. Businesses who apply to the health

department for a health permit to open. It is not retroactive and has

never been retroactive and we have no intent to make it retroactive.

If an existing business plugs our sanitary, we will pursue that

problem individually. But as far as requiring businesses to install

interceptors, existing businesses that is not our policy. We have not

done and we have no intention to do that.

The thousand-gallon grease interceptor is a standard interceptor.

Massachusetts uses it. They have state regulations. The State of

Connecticut is in the process of passing state regulations for the

same thing. And, they’re also minimum size is a thousand gallon

interceptor, which is the sort that is in the parking lot in front of

or behind the business.

The small manually cleaned units that fit under a sink, the building

department has been allowing them for years, is not acceptable. Both

the state, the federal government and we, the Town, have found that

they’re not always cleaned regularly. There’s no automatic system and

we have these blockages with these grease traps in existence right

now. All buildings have these grease traps and we still have lots of

blockages. So, we’re going a step further to go to the larger

interceptors to eliminate this problem.

Costs. I spoke to a plumber who installs these. Approximately $1500

to $2000 to install an in ground, under the best-case scenario. This

is if there’s room in your parking lot and the plumbing is easy to

change, it can run around that price. If the costs get too high, we

do have an approved alternative. It doesn’t work as well, but it’s

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for case-by-case situation where the costs would be prohibitive. We

are not, we never have asked, the papers might have said, $18,000 to

$22,000 to install a grease interceptor. That’s not what we’re trying

to do at all. We’re just trying to keep the sewer lines clear of

grease at a reasonable cost to the business and that’s why we’re only

involving new businesses, people who are investing money right up

front, they’re putting money into rechanging the buildings and

changing their plumbing and getting all kinds of permits and stuff

and this is just an additional expense for a new business.

The Town follows state guidelines regarding the classification of

food establishments. Class I and II establishments don’t need an

interceptor. Class III and IV establishments do. Class III and IV do

cooking, wash pots and pans and the classification itself is given to

an establishment when they apply to the health department for a

permit to serve food. It’s not something that my department or any

other department in the Town has anything to do with. We just see

that as a III or IV and then we require grease control of some sort.

I feel the Town has been very sensitive to small businesses. Through

the years, we have often granted a business time to get some money up

before they install the grease trap. They generally agreed to 60 days

or 90 days. And, almost exclusively have done so. Have hooked up in

the right amount of time. A good example, Talk of the Village Coffee Shoppe in the Center of

Plantsville. They were a small type II establishment. They just got

bought over by Becca Florian. And, she and I have been going back and

forth. There’s no way they can put in an external grease trap there.

You should be familiar with the spot. There’s no land behind and the

road is right in front. They sent us the required information as far

as explaining the expense and we approved an alternative and they are

in the process of installing the alternative as we speak. And, I

think you’ll find she is very happy with the way the Town and her

business have cooperated back and forth. I certainly am.

Basically, that’s it. I can answer any questions. I’ll also stick

around in case the public has any questions during the public

session.

THE CHAIR: Questions from the Council?

MR. BARRY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. John, it’s a case-by-case basis

when a company feels maybe they can’t do it, what the regulations say

right now. So, when they go through the process, do they appeal to

the health department or do they appeal to you? Where is the line of

command and how does a small businessperson know where to go to try

to get some relief?

MR. DE GIOIA: Very good question.

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I work in conjunction with the engineering department and the health

department. Anybody who has a problem will appeal to the three

departments. The three of us will meet, discuss the situations and if

we have any questions, we’ll bring the business owner in and that’s

how the decisions are made. They know when they apply to the health

department, the health department tells them right off the bat you’re

a Class III or IV establishment and you’re going to need a grease

interceptor. So, they know to go back to health. They can go to

heath, to myself or to Tony and the three of us get together and

decide on a case-by-case basis what we’re going to do.

MR. BARRY: So, the small business owner only has to go to one of

those three departments.

MR. DE GIOIA: Certainly. We’re in contact with each other regularly

with regard to the grease interceptors.

MR. BARRY: Okay, thank you.

MR. SECONDO: John, you say there’s some misrepresentation, whose

fault is that?

MR. DE GIOIA: I’d love to know.

MR. SECONDO: I’m asking you, what do you think?

MR. DE GIOIA: I wasn’t here. I came home.

MR. SECONDO: Well, it wasn’t done because you weren’t here. I just

wanted you to know that the press had to pick up that information

somewhere about an $18,000 cost.

MR. DE GIOIA: Exactly.

MR. SECONDO: There was a thousand gallon requirement for a grease

trap.

MR. DE GIOIA: It wasn’t from me.

MR. SECONDO: Some restaurants were not contacted. You contact them at

random or do you go down the official order – how many restaurants

are there in Southington?

MR. DE GIOIA: Oh, I have no idea. I only contact – what happens, the

process is a person or a company will apply for a permit to serve

food in a new restaurant. Once that application comes in, the

Director of Health will fax both Tony and myself a copy of that

application. So the three of us are on board right off the bat when

there’s a new restaurant coming in. That’s the procedure we use.

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MR. SECONDO: I think what happened, you’re right about that, that was

an addition, just dotting the “I’s” in an ordinance that was already

there that we did back in –

MR. DE GIOIA: 1979.

MR. SECONDO: No, I’m talking about the more recent one.

MR. DE GIOIA: Oh, yes. Last month.

MR. SECONDO: What I think happened here John is just that once again

it’s just a lack of communication or a lack of the Town’s

responsibility. The Town has a responsibility to these restaurant

owners. They’re not all troublemakers or trying to skirt the issue.

I think what happens is that --- whether we dotted the “i” several

months ago or maybe we’re trying to enforce something that was

required in ’94 that a lot of them are changing hands and maybe they

just don’t know what the regulations are or understand what they are.

Now, correct me if I’m wrong here. I want to ask you a question. You

mentioned Liberty Deli in your letter. What would happen if he was

bought out? What would the new owner have to do? Would someone gauge

how much grease he’s putting in or ---

MR. DE GIOIA: No, it would be based on the health department

classification of the establishment.

MR. SECONDO: So, if the health department said he’s a certain class,

you would --- not always, there’s a thousand gallon requirement if

he’s in that certain class.

MR. DE GIOIA: Correct.

MR. SECONDO: A thousand gallon.

MR. DE GIOIA: Correct.

MR. WEICHSEL: Then you have heard that if there’s a hardship, the

administration is willing to discuss the alternative system.

MR. SECONDO: John, most thousand-gallon requirement establishments

are places like Aqua Turf?

MR. DE GIOIA: No, they are much larger than that. A thousand is the

minimum. A thousand is the minimum.

MR. SECONDO: Give me an example then.

MR. DE GIOIA: Of a thousand gallon?

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MR. SECONDO: Anthony Jack’s?

MR. DE GIOIA: Yes that would be a thousand gallons.

MR. SECONDO: LaPiazza?

MR. DE GIOIA: Yes, a thousand yes. Now remember, I don’t size them

up, Tony sizes them.

MR. SECONDO: Who?

MR. DE GIOIA: Tony. That’s an engineering decision as to what size is

and what the configuration is. That’s why the three of us work

together.

MR. TRANQUILLO: The sizing is based on a thousand gallon minimum. But

if you have more than a thousand gallon 24-hour average flow, it has

to be sized larger.

Aqua Turf might have a 4,000 or 5,000 gallon per day flow so theirs

would have to be much larger. But the thousand is the minimum by

federal and state regulations and requirements.

MR. SECONDO: A thousand?

MR. TRANQUILLO: Yes.

MR. SECONDO: That’s coming, it’s not law, yet.

MR. TRANQUILLO: It’s not the absolute law, but it’s been on the books

and the recommendations for six or seven years.

MR. SECONDO: Well, my point is that it’s equitable to everybody. That

some aren’t skipped over. That those that don’t have a big need for a

grease trap, don’t have to put it in.

MR. DE GIOIA: Well, the need is by the classification. Absolutely. MR. SECONDO: That was the whole point of the issue anyways, was to

have you come and explain it.

MR. DE GIOIA: Correct. Now, you sort of inferred that we’re sort of

or we have a problem with the businesses in Town. This is how many

applications we’ve gone through since 1994 (indicating) and virtually

every one has gone through without a problem. I think you’ll find

that most restaurant owners adhered. We were clear to them, had no

problem with doing it. We have a very good relationship with the

restaurants. There are very few that have resisted.

MR. SECONDO: I’m sure, John. I’m sure. But I’m sure in the real world

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you understand a lot of restaurants are reluctant to complain, are

reluctant to contact any of us up here. I mean there are those who

comply because they’re afraid they have no choice. You know that.

MR. DE GIOIA: That may be, but there are also those who comply

because they realize that they would be responsible for any raw

sewage back ups that they create into people’s basements.

MR. SECONDO: Oh, certainly. I’ve read enough on the Internet about

the grease. It’s a big problem. Nationwide.

MR. DE GIOIA: Absolutely.

MR. SECONDO: As a matter of fact, there’s a slogan for it and I said

at the last meeting. There’s no doubt about it. I just want to make

sure every little restaurant owner has an opportunity to work with

you and have the opportunity ---

MR. DE GIOIA: They most certainly do. It’s not just myself. As I say,

it’s myself, Chuck and Tony. Any time there’s a question, the three

of us get together and we go over the situation and we decide whether

or not the situation deems an alternative.

THE CHAIR: Any one else, questions?

MR. RICCIO: Mr. Chairman, I haven’t heard any major complaints from

the system that we have going now and I’d rather see them lean a

little bit more on the side of caution with a little bit bigger tank

than have sewer repairs like the $1,750,000 because we get grease

blockages. I know that particular problem wasn’t caused by a grease

blockage, but if the State is recommending 1000 gallons, you can have

a person that starts a restaurant that says I’m just going to steam

cheeseburgers and before you know it, he becomes successful and he’s

cooking all kinds of things. Well, you don’t want to nab him --- nab

him is the wrong word. You don’t want to get him at that point and

say, okay now you’re getting too big.

When the restaurant changes hand, if our departments have an

ordinance that states that, you build it into the cost of starting

your new business, like you would your other costs. I think it’s

perfect to go and do that type of thing.

And, I just have one question. Can we or do we encourage the use of

microbial cleaners, floor cleaners, hand cleaners, dish cleaners that

would enhance your system?

MR. DE GIOIA: They wouldn’t enhance my system. The microbial

cleaners, especially the ones that eat grease, basically do so for a

short period of time. And, then the grease will coagulate further

down the system and create a problem for us. So, no, we don’t

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recommend those.

MR. TRANQUILLO: May I make a comment? I’m not sure John has really

highlighted to the Council some of the spectacular back ups that

we’ve had due to grease. And, they are spectacular, believe me,

because when that grease plugs up the line, John sometimes cannot go

out there and open it up in ten minutes. Sometimes it takes days to

open that blockage. Meanwhile, the sewage is bleeding out on to the

ground, into basements and the restaurants involved get shut down.

That could be for a day or it could be for a week.

Then they are liable for the cost of the clean up and the manpower.

This is not a frivolous situation. Very serious. And, even the

restaurants themselves in many cases don’t understand what the

ramifications are if they do have a blockage.

THE CHAIR: One of the things that happened in this process is we did

have a public hearing and no one appeared from the restaurant

community at all.

MR. DE GIOIA: No, because I was here.

THE CHAIR: So, we did kind of go quickly about it and that created a

problem for us, I guess, in terms of other questions that they might

have had. We certainly can’t come up with questions for all of these

things. We feed on what the public says. So, in that public hearing

when nobody had any questions, I guess the assumption was that this

was something that nobody had questions about it. I think it’s just a

civics lesson for every group when there is something that does have

an effect on your area and business, or whatever, that is important

for you to come to the public hearings and express yourself so that

we can deal with some of the other problems that may come up.

MS. TRIANO: I just wanted to ask a question. John, I have a question.

I understand this is for businesses and for restaurants, but new

construction of halls or some place that would have a kitchen in

them, do they go through a certain assessment in this thing or are

they required to have the thousand-gallon tank? MR. DE GIOIA: They’re included. Yes. It’s not restaurants, it’s food

service establishments.

MS. TRIANO: What about churches or fraternity halls, if somebody, you

know ---

MR. DE GIOIA: If a church has empty kitchens that is just used on

weekends, occasionally, I would think not. I haven’t come across that

situation, yet.

MS. TRIANO: I haven’t either.

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MR. DE GIOIA: If on the other hand, the church has a regular 7-day

production of food for the poor, etc, etc., then very well, they

might.

MS. TRIANO: I see. Okay, thank you.

MR. SECONDO: Mr. Chairman, you mentioned about the public hearings

and people should come up and the restaurant owners didn’t. You have

to admit, all we do is run a legal notice. And, something that is

really important to these restaurant owners – and making money in the

restaurant business is very, very difficult if you don’t sell liquor.

There’s no reason why we can’t contact them. We’ve got to just do a

better job of public relations and marketing.

What would it hurt to send letters to the restaurant owners and

telling them about the public hearing and giving them an opportunity

to come here?

Now, I read enough on the Internet and I have enough information

about the grease, John. No one is going to argue with you on that.

The issue on Queen Street, Tony, you’re right. But there are little

guys out there that are cooking on a little tiny grill you could put

in the trunk of your car that --- they’re the ones who are concerned.

And, if its misinformation, that’s what you have to kind of

understand. It’s not like them against you. Do you know what I mean?

I’m sorry you had to be away and then come back and hear all of this,

but ---

MR. DE GIOIA: So, was I.

MR. SECONDO: Yes, I can see that from your letter. I’m surprised it

wasn’t 4 pages. Obviously, there was a lot more you wanted to say.

MR. DE GIOIA: There was.

MR. SECONDO: But anyway getting back to these public hearings

especially when you only have a public hearing on one issue that

doesn’t seem that important, I think it would be advantageous to us

to notify those people that are paying a permit in Town that there is

a possible change, whether it be minor or major, especially when it

affects their living.

THE CHAIR: We do that with stores and perhaps we should consider that.

MR. WEICHSEL: We do that. The health department indicates that to

them when they come in for their license.

MR. SECONDO: Yes, but they all don’t come in prior to the public

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hearing.

MR. WEICHSEL: I’m talking about when they get the license.

THE CHAIR: I know that there are some, why don’t we save time, if

there is any questions of John from owners?

MR. DE PAOLO: John, before you sit down, I don’t think we’re on

public communications, are we, yet?

THE CHAIR: The only thing is John said he would make himself

available for questions.

MR. DE PAOLO: Before the gentleman, I just wanted to because Chuck

Motes is here and I wanted to ask him, too. The thousand gallon

grease trap size, it could be 100 or it could be 500 or it could be

1000, but if this restaurant owner is negligent, it’s still going to

get into the system.

So, making it larger really doesn’t solve the problem. It just delays

it a little bit.

MR. DE GIOIA: It makes it easier to document that it’s been cleaned

because a thousand gallon has got to be pumped out.

MR. DE PAOLO: Well, that’s my next point. Are there any monitoring or

any inspections of grease traps? I don’t know the answer to that

question and that’s why I am asking. How do we know if he’s --- the

only time we know is when he has a problem, right?

Should there be or could be there or is it just too volumous a chore?

MR. MOTES: Mr. Chairman, there is no monitoring program at this point

for in ground grease traps. The thousand gallons is basically a

matter of being able to handle that amount of volume of water coming

through within a certain period of time. If you don’t provide the

volume of storage, you don’t still the water to such an extent that

the grease will rise or the oil will rise to the top.

The problems with small grease traps is that they are so small that

there’s not enough residential time inside the device itself for that

stuff to separate from the water. It just slides through. So that

although a person may, well, I’ll collect 4 oz or 8 oz of grease or

oil during the course of one day, that’s true. He’s collected that 4

oz. But what you’re not finding out is all of the other amount that

actually slide through that trap and went into the pipes.

No, there is no monitoring program. If you so desire that there

should be a monitoring program, one could be designed, but you’d have

to pay for it.

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MR. DE PAOLO: Well, I know you go, for example, to restaurants every

three months or four months, I guess, quarterly?

MR. MONTES: It depends again, sir, on the type of facility that it is

and the potential risk to the public health caused by that type of

facility and the type of food that it works with.

The Class I and II facilities are generally not hazardous types of

foods or potentially hazardous types of food. It does not involve

heat treatment of the food, i.e., cooking to the point that you are

removing materials from the food to prepare it for consumption.

The Types III and IV facilities, involve a heat treatment of the food

in that you are actually cooking it and you’re rendering the food. So

that you are collecting the oils and greases and fats separately from

the food before it’s served.

MR. DE PAOLO: I guess, Chuck, my question is: When you go to do these

restaurant inspections, can you at that time inspect the grease trap?

Is that too much work? I mean, I don’t know. Is it a lot of work?

MR. MOTES: It’s an additional amount of work and it really doesn’t

prove much to us because within a week or so of a tank being pumped,

it’s going to still be full and there will be a certain amount of

grease on the top. It takes, it’s a dirty business. And, a

sanitarian, going into a restaurant, I would not want a sanitarian

going into the grease trap to inspect it and then go and inspect the

restaurant. It’s not a sanitary type of process.

MR. DE PAOLO: Okay.

THE CHAIR: Is there a need, though, for that? Do you feel that we’ve

had types of experiences that would require a need for that type of

program?

MR. MOTES: Generally speaking, with a properly installed and

maintained grease trap, you won’t have a problem. If the property

owner, the business owner, does not maintain his/her grease trap, he

finds out to his everlasting embarrassment. And, then he is responsible for the clean up afterwards. It plugs on

his property and it’s his responsibility. With the ownership goes

some responsibility for maintenance.

MR. SECONDO: Mr. Chairman, I just want to add or follow up on Mr.

Motes’ comments here that most communities that hire, even a part

time district employee to check grease traps or pretreatment grease

trap inspector, average $29,000/year in salary. Just to inspect

grease traps.

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MS. TRIANO: Chuck, concerning this, I understand your reluctance to

have your sanitarians go in and inspect grease tarps. But, would it

be possible to ask the restaurantor to provide proof that it’s been

cleaned? Do they do that themselves, or do they hire a concern to

clean the grease trap?

MR. MOTES: To clean a grease trap, you would hire a concern to

actually pump the material out because that material can be

recovered. It can go to a rendering plant and then it can be cleaned

and utilized either as fuel in alternative fuel vehicles, and you’ve

seen articles like that in the news media, or it can be sent to a

soap making plant and it can be rendered, supponified and made into

soak such as Castile soap.

MS. TRIANO: Oh, okay. When you started talking about using soap, I

was hoping it wasn’t ZEST.

But the question I have is perhaps if we need some accountability on

that, we can ask the restaurant owner to provide annual proof that it

has been cleaned out or something like that. That might be a

possibility to provide documentation that they have maintained their

– I mean, I’m not trying to give you more of a job on this thing, but

I understand the importance of accountability in this thing. For the

Town. For the safeguarding of the Town.

So, I’m just kind of thinking outside the box and trying to think if

there’s a way that we can address this issue without causing too much

difficulty for anybody.

MR. MOTES: That’s kind of tough because the box you’re dealing with

is kind of flexible. It’s really made of rubber because it depends on

what the load presented by the restaurant is. It may vary from day to

day, week to week, a portion of the year.

So, in the summertime when it’s really busy, they may need to clean

it every other week. Some really large and very busy facilities and

we do have one here in Southington, would probably likely be cleaning

that grease trap every other week if not every week just to keep it

from overloading.

And, it’s not --- it’s a matter that you don’t see the problem until

after all the damage has been done because the material inside the

grease trap is still liquid. It’s only when it gets out into the

sanitary sewer that it turns into a solid and really causes all the

damage and that’s really out of sight.

It’s really difficult to be able to say that a facility needs to be

done every four weeks and I would say also unless it’s one of the

very smallest of facilities, an annual cleaning is simply not going

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to be enough.

MS. TRIANO: I see, thank you.

THE CHAIR: If there are questions?

STEVE MENARD: I own Steve’s Family Dining on 1091 South Main Street

in Plantsville.

Your one comment was that nobody showed up. I never heard about it

until I read it in the article the next morning.

THE CHAIR: Well, again, I’m not ---

MR. MENARD: I’m just saying, I read the Southington section every

day, during the day and I never saw anything mentioned about a grease

trap system being upgraded.

And, then the misprinting in the paper making it sound like we’re all

going to have to go out and spend $18,000 to $22,000 would put me out

of business because I’m not going to dump that kind of money to stay

in business for another five to ten years.

We do have responsibility to make sure we maintain our businesses

properly. But then to put a thousand gallon tank in the ground, if

it’s not feasible or you don’t have to land, and whose to say that

down the road that tank does a leakage problem, what’s going to

happen with the environmental problems?

THE CHAIR: John, could you address that or is that a questions you

could address, or no?

MR. DE GIOIA: As far as leakage, I have never heard of one leaking.

I’m not an engineer. I’m not really ---

MR. TRANQUILLO: That’s not a problem.

MR. MENARD: Well, they said that about gas tanks in the ground years

ago.

MR. TRANQUILLO: A grease tank is no more than a normal septic tank

and those are watertight. And, even if there was a slight leakage to

it, it wouldn’t cause a major environmental problem.

MR. MENARD: What if you’re just the tenant and the landlord doesn’t

want you – wants to take the chance of that responsibility.

That happened with Rosie’s, the landlord there said no way, you’re

not putting a thousand gallon tank on my property. And, there is a

lot of businesses in this Town that do pay rent a landlord and might

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not want that responsibility. When they go out of business or they

relocate.

THE CHAIR: That’s not something we could legislate for. That would be

up to the owner.

MR. MENARD: I’m just saying some of the things that we’re looking at.

I called a few of my competitors and they didn’t hear anything about

this upgrade at that time. Now sitting here listening to him tonight,

it’s a whole different ballgame.

Saying I don’t have to upgrade unless I sell down the road. So I’m

not going to be burdened with this expense and now he’s telling me

it’s going to 1500 to 2000, well, that’s ten percent of what they

printed in the paper.

And, when I asked other people that were involved, nobody could give

me the answer.

THE CHAIR: Did you ask the Town people?

MR. MENARD: I asked Art Secondo and he told me to come to the meeting

to voice my concerns.

Another thing is, why couldn’t we have been notified?

THE CHAIR: Well, that may be something that we’ll have to --- There are certain types of public hearings that ---

MR. MENARD: Mr. Weichsel said that when we get our licenses, we’re

notified of this.

When I get my license, I send in my fee through the mail and I get a

thing in the mail. All that’s in there is my license. There’s no ---

MR. WEICHSEL: I mean the original application. That’s when this

question comes up.

MR. MENARD: Well, that’s not how you mentioned it.

MR. WEICHSEL: Don’t be concerned any more with the newspaper. You’re

here to ---

MR. MENARD: I’m asking you because of what you said.

MR. WEICHSEL: You are not changing your ownership, right?

MR. MENARD: No, I’m not. MR. WEICHSEL: So you are not affected by this at all.

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MR. MENARD: Right now --- as of tonight I’m not.

MR. WEICHSEL: Right now, you are not affected at all.

MR. MENARD: I know that tonight. But as before – what I was told

tonight, there was no way to know who was affected and who wasn’t

affected.

THE CHAIR: There is one way, and that’s to call the Town.

MR. MENARD: Well, I did talk to Art Secondo and ---

THE CHAIR: And, Art’s very knowledgeable about this, but also, too,

it’s the regulators who are the ones that are going to have an affect

on your business.

That’s the people to call.

MR. MENARD: That’s fine, but they’re telling me technically to talk

to one person and I’ve never known it was to talk to the engineer.

MR. TRANQUILLO: Well, you understand Mr. Menard, that you can talk to

any one of the three of us.

MR. MENARD: I understand that now. But when you read the paper from

day one, it was very confusing. And, I am just saying that maybe to

stop all of this confusion from day one, send notices to all the

restaurants. There must be at least 100 places in this Town you can

get a hamburger or steak or seafood and to run off 100 copies and

send them to us in the mail, so we understand that’s going on, might

have alleviated this problem to this point.

MR. WEICHSEL: No. On the contrary, that would alarm people who don’t

need to be alarmed, like yourself. You would have been concerned. Do

I have to do this?

What has happened here, excuse me, Mr. Menard, what has happened here

is a newspaper failed the fundamental rule of journalism, to go to

two sides of the question. And, they have caused all of this

difficulty. Had they consulted with John, who wasn’t here, or Tony or

myself even, they would have gotten the straight story and you

wouldn’t have been upset and others wouldn’t have been upset. So, it

only affects you if you damage the sewer, if you change ownership or

if you’re brand new which is pretty much not the question. That’s the

end of the story.

MR. MENARD: I understand that.

You’re saying the letter wouldn’t have helped but if you ---

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(More than one person speaking at the same time.)

THE CHAIR: Gentlemen, I think that we can agree that when we do have

a sewer situation that deals with neighborhoods, we do contact the

people that are there. And, sometimes maybe when there is a public

hearing that does affect a very restricted group of people, perhaps

the Town should consider the possibility of either letters or some

type of greater notice would go out.

I think that’s something we’ll have to deal with in the future. It’s

not something that affects this issue any more.

MR. MENARD: I understand that.

MR. WEICHSEL: The Council can assist us in that. When we have a

potential ordinance, maybe we’re not as up on all of that, and if you

have a sense that this public or that public should be alerted,

you’ll say it and we’ll do it.

THE CHAIR: We learn from mistakes.

In terms of information, as well.

MR. MENARD: When I first heard about this from someone, and

individual, they said new ownerships only. Then all of a sudden came

out, the way it was worded, it made it sound like we all had to

comply immediately, or we had three years to comply and after that we

would be fined so much money a day for every day we didn’t come into

compliance.

THE CHAIR: Well, that’s what this meeting is for.

MR. MENARD: Thank you.

THE CHAIR: Thank you. Sir?

DOMINICK GULATIERI: Fancy Bagels. I just, I have to agree with you

guys that it wasn’t like – it wasn’t available like for me and since

I took over the first of January of 2003.

And, when I went down to the Town to the health department, there was

no signs, there was no brochures and like many other people I was

informed through the newspaper. I think there should be a way that

you look at – it should be individually based. You know, like

somebody like me, okay?

I can prove anytime, anywhere, if you come down to my store that I do

use a cup of grease, maybe two cups on a busy day. Now that doesn’t

go anywhere near the sewer system. Now, if I can prove that, I always

have my grease trap, which is 50 gallons, which is a lot bigger than

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the little five gallon under the counter grease trap. I do have mine

cleaned regularly, every month, actually, four weeks.

And, the first time I had it cleaned, the gentleman that cleaned it,

came up and said, you don’t have any grease in there. Now, I

understand that you can’t go every restaurant at the same time, you

can’t look in, for health reasons you can’t send in a sanitarian to

go in and look in the grease trap, but you have to come up with a

monitor each individual restaurant.

Now, I was grouped in with the Kentucky Fried Chickens, these big

restaurants that have deep fryers that have these huge grills. You

see, I don’t have any of that. Now, I was grouped in there because I

was a Class III because I cook eggs or I cook a hamburger every now

and then.

Someone mentioned can you have somebody go out there and look at it

or the health department does come in, in my case, every six months.

Now, if I add equipment, they’re going to know? Now, if I change my

menu, you should make it mandatory to submit a menu when you get your

food service permit renewed. Then you’ll be able to judge by that

whether or not they’re adding stuff that could clog sewers. Now, I

mean, I’m all for that. I think that it should be. There should also

be some kind of inspection where they do go and say, you know, like

as – as far as like a surprise inspection, if you would, where you do

go into a business and say wait a second, you know?

Because this covers new businesses ---

THE CHAIR: The only way that we’re going to be able to be that

thorough is if this becomes part of the Patriot Act and the federal

government gets involved and sees this as a terrorist activity.

Because, the types of things that you’re saying really make

government, it would be really impossible. And, all intrusive. Every

time you change the menu, we can’t require that of people. It is true

that this is a problem, but this is not a monumental problem that

requires that kind of expenditures.

SPEAKER: Do you own one of these restaurants in Town? You know, it is

a big problem and people are aware and it is going to shy people away

from coming into Southington.

Now, when I took over, the store has been in Southington for 13

years, okay? I’ve been there for 6. We never had one problem with

anything. Not one. Okay?

I didn’t change anything. I didn’t make additions to the building, I

didn’t renovate. I went in just to change --- I didn’t change the

name. I didn’t change anything. And, then I get, all of a sudden I

get whacked, when it first started there was no, oh, you need to put

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a thousand gallons. It was, well, we’re working on it.

And, then I already have my food service permit, you know? I’m

already going. Now all of a sudden, six months into it, I’m told,

well, you know, we dotted the “I”s and crossed the “t’s” and you are

going to have to put one in. Or, we’ll give John the benefit of the

doubt, he did say there was an indoor one. You know? I personally

haven’t contacted John yet back on the situation because I have until

February to do that and I am doing research on the in ground ones,

the in the store ones that he’s talking about, but you know, to just

blanket everybody into one category without, nobody even came down to

my store and looked at anything when I took over.

I had my health inspection, but they didn’t come down and look at my

grease trap. They didn’t come down and look at which sinks were even

attached the grease trap, nothing like that. It was just boom, boom,

boom. And, I think the only question I have, since there was no new

ordinance passed, does the 1979 ordinance, does that state that you

need a thousand gallon grease trap? Because if not, then I’m

complying with that ordinance.

Like me, in the newspaper, I read that there was an ordinance. As a

matter of fact, the reporter that interviewed me said that they

changed the ordinance and that was in there that you need a thousand

gallon grease trap. I mean, is it an ordinance? Do you need a

thousand gallon trap or are you going by ---

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: The only thing the ordinance did, the ordinance was

vague as to who makes the final decisions. That’s all the ordinance

was vague on. And, as it worked out, we sat down, John, Chuck, myself

and Tony, we sat down and we said, okay, if you take your three

departments, who needs to make the final decision? We all agreed that

John’s department is the final decision as to whether certain things

have to happen. With the input from Chuck’s department and from

Tony’s department. And, so that’s all the change did.

It set forth one person who is the one responsible to make the final

decisions. John’s department was that. That’s all it did. It didn’t

require a thousand. What happens with the thousand is, is that under

our sewer ordinance it talks about, in your system, John’s job is to

protect our Town’s sewer system. And, how he does that, he has to use

his knowledge and the knowledge he obtains from Chuck’s department

and from Tony’s department and looking at proposed state regs or

recommended state regs. That’s where the thousand gallons came from.

So, everyone’s talking about --- I don’t know where it comes in, but

everyone’s talking about this change that we did, put or required a

thousand gallons. That never happened.

The reason the thousand gallons is there is because based upon the

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knowledge of the individuals we have here and their expertise and the

requirements and the recommendations – the requirements by the feds

and the recommendation by the state, the thousand gallon came in as a

minimum.

You’re asking how you got classified. The State of Connecticut

classifies you.

SPEAKER: I understand that.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: We don’t as the Town of Southington say, okay, the

classifies you as – what’re you a III?

SPEAKER: Yes.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: You’re classified as a III. We don’t send Chuck

Motes in there to say we’re going to modify you because you don’t do

that. You’re class III and that’s the way we have to treat you. That

may not be what you want to hear, but that’s how it happens.

MR. SECONDO: Do you own your property?

SPEAKER: No, I don’t.

MR. SECONDO: What, do you rent?

SPEAKER: I rent, yes.

MR. SECONDO: What do you figure it’s going to cost you to comply

soon?

SPEAKER: I have had appraisals done and they have ranged from $15,000

up to $25,000 because of the situation. Because of where the grease

trap would have to go, you know? It’s not, 1400 to 2000 on a clear-

cut, perfect job, the lowest I’ve gotten was $5,000. So, those

figures are off, right there.

Maybe that’s what John was given. And, I have dealt with well-known

names in Southington as far as plumbing and excavating goes and

that’s what I was given. As a matter of fact, one of them even turned

down the job and said he can’t do it.

But that’s not, and that’s where the indoor one comes in. And, I

understand that.

(End of Tape# 2, Side A) (Beginning of Tape #2, Side B)

MR. WEICHSEL: (Continuing) --- different than the numbers you have

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been circulating.

SPEAKER: Well.

MR. WEICHSEL: Four thousand. A moment ago you talked about 18 to 22

thousand.

SPEAKER: Okay, well, you know ---

MR.WEICHSEL: Four thousand sounds a lot more reasonable to me.

SPEAKER: Excuse me, sir, but I think that whether I said it to the

reporter or not, obviously, it wasn’t published and we were all just

told don’t go by the newspapers. So, please don’t go by the newspaper

because I did mention to both stories that John was allowing these

indoor grease traps, these indoor automatic ones. And, as a matter of

fact, I’ve spoken with a few different restaurants that have

installed them and we’re all in the same ballpark. It’s all around

$4000.

But my question is: How do you, I mean, is it in writing where all of

a sudden you apply for a permit and boom, like they said, new or they

sold the property, it’s a new property. Restaurant. Are they required

to put in a thousand gallons? I mean, is it in writing? Does it say,

look, you can’t get your food service permit until or unless you have

a thousand gallon grease trap? Because that has happened in Town.

And, there are restaurants that have put these in and they have spent

a lot of money on them and if they didn’t need to, I mean, why am I

going to go o9ut and do it if it’s not even an ordinance.

THE CHAIR: It is.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: It is.

MR. WEICHSEL: It is an ordinance.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: And, I don’t know where you are getting confused on

that. What happens is, you’re going in for a new restaurant, you’re

leasing from Joe Blow over at your mall, all right? You want to get a

food service permit. The first thing you have to do and I advise you

or anybody else, the first thing you have to do before you sign that

lease is to do your due diligence and go first to the health

department. The health department will send you to John’s department.

And, I’ve seen it happen because we set all this up a while ago. What

he does is he sends you to John. John then sees your situation and

sends it over to Tony. Tony then designs. It happens all the time.

You’re looking for some wording that says you’re required to put a

thousand gallon grease trap in and you’re not going to find that

anywhere. John DeGioia, who is in charge of our sewer systems, he,

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under his authority, will say yes, he’s a class III or class IV and

he needs one.

John gets his input from Tony’s department. Okay, Tony, this is what

he does. He’s a class III. Here’s the site, what do you recommend?

Tony then looks at it.

Your guy designs it and Tony reviews the design. That’s how it

happens. MR. TRANQUILLO: Mr. Chairman, as a matter of fact that did occur in

this instant case. Dominick did come in to us. We had a meeting, the

three of us. I’m not sure if Mark was there, but we had a meeting,

sit down meeting, and Dominick brought up the difficulties of putting

an exterior tank in.

The direction we gave him was have a plumber look at it, give us a

rough estimate and explain why it’s a hardship. And, then we’ll

consider other options. That’s the final meeting we had with

Dominick.

So, the process was working, but it’s not a pleasant answer we give

them, so they go away upset.

MS. TRIANO: So, my question is: Dominick, did you or have you done

what Mr. Tranquillo’s asked you to do?

SPEAKER: Yes, I have had --- I haven’t submitted anything, yet. But I

have, you know ---

MS. TRIANO: I think that would be very important for you to do at

this juncture, Dominick. Because Mr. Tranquillo is saying he wants to

work with you and I think sometimes we get all upset when we read

something or hear something and the facts are not clear and so we get

all worked up over something when the fact of the matter is, that the

situation hasn’t really been settled. And, so, my suggestion at this

juncture is to do what Mr. Tranquillo’s asked you to do. Get that

down and get a final decision on exactly --- then if there’s a

problem and it’s a huge hardship, then we take it to the next step.

But unless you go to this juncture first, thinking about what might

happen or could be required or what the Town is going to force you to

do, is really premature. Let’s take care of this first step first and

going to Mr. Tranquillo and then Mr. Motes and John and see if we can

get something together that fits your needs as well as answers to the

requirement of the community.

So, I think that that is the first step. I mean, nobody wants to see

anybody go out of business. Everyone wants to see businesses be

successful. You know I buy bagels there.

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SPEAKER: Oh, I understand.

MS. TRIANO: But my point is, let’s not get so worked up over what

might be until we find out what actually is.

SPEAKER: My concern is just that it needs to be reviewed and it

needs, there is still some confusion and before you make something

public, you know, let’s try to get everything in order because I

started out in the beginning like I said, back in January, now if

need be to have my attorney present and we go over the steps, you

know, I could bounce you guys around, there was nothing clear cut

until --- so I have no intentions of not following or submitting

anything. Like I said, I also ---

MS. TRIANO: Then Dominick, do it.

THE CHAIR: Mary?

MS. BAKER: You know, Mr. Chairman, Dominick’s situation seems to have

been prior to this ordinance and I want to say to John DeGioia, thank

you for the summary and explanation – it was not the issue before the

ordinance?

MS. TRIANO: That ordinance has always been on there.

MS. BAKER: Before any change. He has had this since January, he said.

We took no action, our action did not change anything, like Attorney

Sciota said.

I just want to say thanks to John DeGioia for supplying us the

summary of information and to explain that this is a sewer issues, a

school issue, misinformation is a problem. And, if I could give John

Weichsel’s number, I will, but go to Southington. Org, speak to a

representative of the Town. I don’t speak to another parent when I

have an issue at the school. I speak to the Principal. Get direct

answers. The gossip makes the problem worse. It spreads it and I

don’t think we need to sit here and listen to this any more, to be

honest.

And. I go to Fancy Bagels and I like their establishment.

MR. LANDINO: I just want to make sure that everybody’s clear on it

and by doing that I’m hopefully going to make sure that I’m clear on

it.

If I go to open or if I am planning on opening a restaurant tomorrow,

I will go down for an application to the health department, whoever.

One of these three gentlemen will tell me personally that you are a,

if I’m rated as a III or a IV, that I hope you realize you will need

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a 1000 gallon grease trap. They will tell me that personally. That’s

how I will find out? Or, will I read it in our regulations?

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: The health department will say you are a class

whatever. III. What they’ll probably tell you is not you’ll need one,

you better check to see if there’s one already there.

If you’re building one, then absolutely they will tell you that. But

if you’re about to rent one, the first thing they’re going to say,

check with your landlord to make sure there’s one there because if

there’s not, you sign the lease, you’re stuck with the lease and

you’re still responsible to put this in. Your landlord is going to

tell you to drop dead.

MR. LANDINO: Right, exactly. I just wanted to make sure that

everybody’s aware that they should be told this and I hope these

three gentlemen and I know they are that they do tell every applicant

that if they end up being a III or IV that a thousand right now is

our regulation for our minimum so you’re going to get a thousand

gallon tank if you try to open a class III or IV restaurant here in

Southington.

SPEAKER: My last comment is this: I shouldn’t have been able, I

shouldn’t have received my food service permit unless I put this

thousand-gallon grease trap in. That’s where my problem lies. I did

receive my food service permit which is dated in February and that’s

where my problem is. I did receive it. And, like I said back then, it

was, but we’re talking about this and the state’s talking about that,

but I was received, my food service permit was permitted and now I’m

getting --- and I was told by all three gentlemen including Town

Attorney Sciota that if I did not do this by the 15th then I would

face up to a $1,000 fine and I would not receive my food service

permit.

Now, that’s where my problem is. And, there is somethings that need

to be ironed out and I thank you all for your time.

And, one last note is, throughout the state, Tony Tranquillo, John

Degioia and Mr. Motes, they are recognized as – John’s plant is

recognized as a good plant, it’s solid. These guys, they have a solid

rep. That’s why it boggles me that it got to this point when dealing

with the state, all three of them are recognized as experts in their

field. They all have a good track record. And, I just hope that it

gets ironed out before other things do happen and more confusion is

made and other businesses don’t come to this Town.

But, I thank you all for your time.

MR.LANDINO: One more quick one. How does he get his permit if he at

that point in time didn’t tell you or you three guys weren’t

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satisfied that he had that thousand gallon tank?

MR. DE GIOIA: Apparently, something slipped through the cracks.

Because I never did see an application. A food service application. I

would have marked it that it needed it.

MR. LANDINO: In other words, if someone comes to you, they have to

meet the recommendation of a thousand gallons before they’ll even get

their permit?

MR. DE GIOIA: Oh, yes. Yes, that’s how we do it.

MR. LANDINO: Okay.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: Not to say, we aren’t perfect.

THE CHAIR: Okay, thank you. Anyone else?

B. Center Street - Phase 6C

MR. WEICHSEL: We have the letter from Tony Tranquillo. (Read

Attachment 7)

The second bid was within a few dollars. It was very, very

competitive bidding, which tends to verify that it’s a good bid and

you have heard the recommendation.

THE CHAIR: Any questions?

C. Report by Town Engineer on pavement cuts policy

MR. WEICHSEL: Tony will review our pavement cut policy.

MR. TRANQUILLO: As the Council well knows, in a Town that is as busy

as Southington is and developing as rapidly as we are, there are

tremendous activities that take place on Town roads. Utility

extensions. Lateral installations. Repairs. The streets appear to be

always ripped up and torn up.

We’ve struggled with this for years just like every other Town does

because the contractor goes out and digs a trench and it’s a fresh

trench so over a period of six months or a year, it settles and the

contractor is supposed to maintain it during that settlement period.

Guess what? Often times they don’t. So, there’s a bump there. It’s a

nuisance. Sometimes it’s a hazard.

So, I’m not the only one who has this problem. Every engineer in the

state has the problem. What other engineers have that we don’t have

is a better tracking system and a better licensing system. Believe it

or not, about three months ago we started a process to get a

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licensing system of road excavators. And, then a better permit system

to track them better.

As of probably December 1st or January 1st, at the latest, we will

start a new procedure where any contractor who is going to dig in a

Town road will have to be first of all licensed and have a $5,000

bond and a minimum of $2,500 cash on file with us.

Second thing we’re going to do is when a contractor comes in to take

a permit, we will estimate how many square feet he’s going to disturb

and he will have to pay us the final restoration. We’ll actually take

his money and put it in a special account in escrow and after a year

or a year and a half, we will use his money to do the final repair.

That will give us tremendous power and financial resources to make

sure that we keep better track of the trench system and that we don’t

have people digging illegally, which very honestly I have to tell you

now, we have about 250 excavations a year and I would dare say

probably 10% of those are illegal. They never take a permit and they

never post a bond. They just go out there some morning and start

digging. Unless we catch them, there’s nothing we can do about it.

So, the new system will have a lot of teeth to it and it will make a

system far more responsive to the guy who is not going to do it

properly or do it illegally and try to give us a bad job at the end

to try to save himself money. It cost us money to have bad trenches

in the street. This will be a way of solving those.

There are probably a dozen other communities in the state that have

this system. They’ve reported good results with it.

MR. WEICHSEL: Did I miss it, or did you tell them that the final

course we will do through a contractor we hire?

MR. TRANQUILLO: I didn’t say those words, no. But we will do the

final patch. I did say that.

MR. WEICHSEL: I think that’s important. That’s not --- I have not

wanted to do this for a long time for obvious reasons. But what

you’ve heard is that, particularly a Town like Southington that’s so

active, now I am persuaded and you have approved it by ordinance that

we will then be doing the final, not the maintenance, but we feel we

would get a uniform good presentation on the streets. The way it is

now, we’re in the hands, as you just heard, of the individual

contractor. Some good, some not so good. So, we’ll be getting a

decent contract and we’ll be able to do like 100 cuts at a moment and

get a uniform quality. That, to me, is one of the important things

out of all of this.

MR. SECONDO: Tony, does that include CL&P and the gas lines? They’re

the ones that seem to be ripping up the roads.

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MR. TRANQUILLO: No. The public utilities are slightly different. Even

in the ordinance it says that a public utility does the excavation,

they are not subject to the license, but they do have to take out the

permit. But we’ve had a problem in the past because of utility

companies trying to circumvent the regulations by taking the permit

in their name and then having a private contractor do the work. We

will no longer allow that.

If the utility forces themselves are digging with their own manpower

and their own equipment, they won’t have to take out a license. But

if they put out a contract to XYC contractor, and he’s not part of

their operations, then he will have to put up a bond, the monies and

get the license and get the permit.

MR. SECONDO: You would think that everybody who is cutting up the

road would have to put up an orange flag or some indication that

they’ve already gotten approval so everybody can be a watch dog or

somebody can be an informant. I can’t believe that you’ve had 25 cuts

into our roads a year that are unauthorized. Everybody should have, really, an orange flag put up there to get

permission. If you don’t see an orange flag up there, then they are a

bunch of pirates.

MR. TRANQUILLO: That’s right, but we are so overloaded with day to

day duties that we just can’t chase these people around, Art. It’s

impossible.

MR. SECONDO: I mean, if they didn’t have a flag, then it could be

apparent to all the police that there’s no flag, or even Council

people, anybody.

MR. TRANQUILLO: The system we have now, there are people out there

that would fabricate a flag and put the flag up, even though they

didn’t have a permit.

MR.WEICHSEL: A flag is not the answer.

MR. SECONDO: I mean, I’m just, well, I understand.

MR. TRANQUILLO: That’s just an example.

THE CHAIR: But Tony, what are the costs, administrative costs of what

you’re proposing? I mean, I can see the end game of this that the

costs are better. Are you talking about administrative costs that are

going to ---

MR. TRANQUILLO: There will be one man, probably half his time during

the week, that will be devoted to this.

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MR.WEICHSEL: We are not proposing to add staff. We’re going to do it

with existing staff.

THE CHAIR: For how long?

MR. TRANQUILLO: Well, let me just make a comment, we’ve had this

ordinance on the books for probably six or seven years and we did not

implement it. The reason we did not implement it is we were waiting

for a Townwide computer system. Proper Townwide computer system. We

now have that. That’s why we are implementing it. With a proper

computer system to track the licenses, the permits and the monies, we

can do this efficiently.

We tried to do it before and it would have taken one man all weeklong

to do this.

MR. RICCIO: Mr. Chairman, I’ve got to say that Tony’s office does a

good job --- Tony and his office --- when it comes to alternative to

subdividisions and that sort of thing. So, that’s a good thing.

Whenever we can do that, the contractor should be encouraged to work

with alternatives.

MR. DE PAOLO: Just a couple of questions, Tony. Does this include

cuts by the water department, also, any work that they do?

MR. TRANQUILLO: No. They are a public utility. So they will be exempt

from the license, but not the permit. And, they will not have to post

the restoration cost.

MR. DE PAOLO: They’re considered a public utility?


MR. WEICHSEL: But they would basically be under it. I mean, we don’t

need them to post a bond. They have money enough to pay. That’s the

least of it. They would be tracked and they don’t need an individual

license, but they would have to get an excavation permit and with

that we can keep control of that situation.

MR. DE PAOLO: Same with money, they’d have to give you money to do

the final paving?

MR. TRANQUILLO: No, the presumption here is that the public utility

is not going to disappear into the night. And, if they don’t perform

properly, we have recourse through the DPUC.

MR. DE PAOLO: Okay. Let me see if I got this right. He pays you for

the final paving?

MR. TRANQUILLO: Yes, upfront.

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MR. DE PAOLO: Upfront. And, then you go out to bid and somebody else

could get the job and we pay that other person with this guy’s money.

MR. TRANQUILLO: Correct.

MR. WEICHSEL: It wouldn’t be one cut, it might be 30 or 40.

THE CHAIR: Are we making money on this?

MR. TRANQUILLO: No, no, no. We’re not making money because there is

an initial estimate and a posting of money they post with us. At the

final patch, then it’s adjusted. If there is a credit, we credit him.

If there’s a debit, then it comes out of his $2,500 deposit that he

has with us.

THE CHAIR: Every cut could be different.

MR. TRANQUILLO: Correct. That’s what the man is going to do. He’s

going to go out there and measure the final patch. And, make the

adjustment. So you can understand why I waited until we have a proper

computer system. This can be very complicated. So, we’re writing

software right now to keep track of all this. And, generate monthly

reports, weekly reports to make sure that we don’t intentionally or

unintentionally take money that doesn’t belong to us. We’re not

looking to make a penny on this. We’re just looking to restore the

road surface to at least its original condition.

MR. WEICHSEL: You would measure it and you’d be pretty accurate. One

is 3 sy and another one is 6 sy, so ---

THE CHAIR: But the cost of material changes over a period of time.

MR. TRANQUILLO: It would be for one year.

THE CHAIR: One year, you are right, it’s not going to be a long

period of time.

MR. DE PAOLO: It doesn’t seem kosher to me, I don’t know. The guy

pays you and then you use his money to hire somebody else.

MR. TRANQUILLO: Well, let me make a comment though. The money that

the contractor is putting up front, let’s say $500, he should have

bid that in the cost of the job. So, when he digs his trench and he

gets paid a month later, his client will have paid him the $500.

MR. DE PAOLO: Why can’t he finish his own job? Why can’t he do the

work?

MR. WEICHSEL: That’s what we’ve been doing for 50 years and the

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results at this very meeting we hear complaints and this is an

attempt to ----

MR. DE PAOLO: If he’s bidding the proper amount according to the job,

he should do the proper job at the end and you should make sure that

he does.

MR. TRANQUILLO: Well, that’s the problem. We don’t have the manpower

or the time to chase people around.

MR. DE PAOLO: Well, this is going to cost you more manpower doing

this other work.

MR. TRANQUILLO: No, this is less manpower. Once it gets started and

the contractors realize that they have to put the money for the

trench repair upfront, the proper amount of money upfront, then

they’ll bid the job properly.

What happens now is you have 5 contractors bidding a project. So,

they say, well, I’ll chintz a little bit on the road patch. I’ll save

$200-$300 on that. So, they get the job and guess what they’re going

to chintz on? Road patch. And, then it’s up to us to chase them for

months, months and months to try to get them to fix it.

I’ve chased one guy for a year over on Spring Street. Four trenches.

I had to personally hound him. He wouldn’t respond to my men. I had

to personally hound him until he replaced the trenches.

MR. DE PAOLO: Is this a procedure used, other Towns use this?

MR. TRANQUILLO: There is probably a dozen other communities that use

this procedure. Ours is modeled on their system.

MR. DE PAOLO: It seems strange to me.

MR. TRANQUILLO: Well, you see, if you understand what’s happening

here is the contractor, if he realizes this is the system and he puts

the right money in for the trench patch and he does the job and he’s

collecting it from the homeowner and it’s passing through directly to

us, it’s not costing the homeowner any extra. It’s not costing the

contractor any extra. He’s just advancing it to us. So that we’ll

repair it a year later.

That’s in essence what this system is. It’s advancing the money for

the repair.

MR. LANDINO: I would think that they would like it. I would think

that the contractor would like it.

They’re finished with the job, they patch it, and they go home. They

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don’t have to worry about him hounding them. They just say, hey ---

you’ve got my money. You fix it.

MR. SECONDO: You see the problem is that’s for the future cuts into

the road. The problem is the ones that have gotten away with it now

and the ones that are doing it now. These guys, like John was real

quick to point out, we’re not adding any staff. But we worry about

peanuts when in essence all of our roads are --- a lot of roads and

John says they’re not that bad, but we have a lot of roads where you

need fixing or repaving.

My God. The cost alone, because we can’t catch up with these guys,

and Tony, I want to add, on Summer Street I did make a reference

about Summer Street. It’s not bad. For some reason, either somebody

went back and put that sealant on it.

THE CHAIR: They did that in late May.

MR. TRANQUILLO: That was a gas main.

MR. SECONDO: But that’s my point, this is great for the future but

unfortunately for the past ---- let me ask you one final question.

How many Inspectors do you have to check on this? MR. TRANQUILLO: I have two full time Inspectors. But they are very

busy with construction projects, subdivisions and site plans. I’ve

now put a third Inspector on to try to cover the workload. So, at the

moment we have three Inspectors.

MR. RICCIO: If there are bad ones, Art, bring them to the Council and

keep bringing them. We’ll fix them.

He’s setting up a system to go forward.

MR. SECONDO: But it’s costing us money. That’s all I’m saying. All I

said was it’s too bad we can’t do anything about the ones that are

already ----

MR. WEICHSEL: Well, any change, there’s always a transition. You

can’t avoid that.

THE CHAIR: We did get more LOCIP money, I saw.

MR. WEICHSEL: It wouldn’t hurt if the state would fund their roadwork

a little more like they used to.

D. Bids - Engineering Department vehicle

MR. WEICHSEL: We have this further letter from Tony. (Read Attachment

8)

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You folks cannot buy the Taurus at $13,000.

THE CHAIR: That’s a good price.

MS. BAKER: I know. That’s a great price.

E. Commercial Benefits - Masotti Electric, Southington Suites LLC

MR. WEICHSEL: Paul sat here through most of the meeting. We’ll let

him handle this item. Paul, do you want to brief the Council, please,

on these two items?

MR. HOOVER: We have two commercial enterprises in the – two new ones

that are operating in the enterprise zone. And, under the 1995

ordinance passed by the Council, they’re entitled to what we call

commercial benefits as a result of their being in that particular

zone.

It is an abatement of their taxes on buildings, only. It does not

cover machinery and equipment.

I want to remark briefly on the two separately because they have

slightly different circumstances. Masotti Electric is the first one.

It came to our attention not too long ago that they had been

operating there as a commercial enterprise, but for some reason, they

had not gotten a letter from our office indicating to them that they

were officially recognized as a commercial enterprise in the

enterprise zone and therefore, their tax abatement had not clicked

in.

The Assessor had recognized the situation in 1999, I guess it was,

that they had been on the record. And, then a memo of correction in

the year 2002, he was establish their abatement.

So, what we need to do is retroactively, I guess, approve the reality

that they are an enterprise working in the enterprise zone. And, give

them a continuation of their tax benefits.

The 1995 ordinance, if you’re aware of it, for the first two years,

they have 100% abatement of their taxes on the building. Then it goes

50%, 40, 30, 20 and 10, down for a 7-year program. That’s the first

one.

The one thing I couldn’t find in the record was that they had ever

made an application to get these benefits and the only thing that I

did find was that they had bought Lot 3 on Captain Lewis Drive and

they had gotten an approval from the Council as a business that would

operate there and was allowed under the rules of Captain Lewis Drive.

So, what was their belief that they had been approved and so that’s

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how it got situated in the tax line up.

The other – are there any questions on about that?

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: I have one question, Paul. Did you say you are

starting them now in 1999 so their 7 years starts in ’99 --- MR. HOOVER: I’m sorry. Not in 1999. I misspoke. They bought the lot

in the year 2000 and they were on the books according to the list we

had, they were recognized as a commercial benefit receiver in the

year 2001. That’s the October 1, 2001 Grand List and their tax bill

then would go in 2002. They didn’t get it, so they complained about

it and that’s when Herb gave them the memo of correction.

And, now this year they came back again.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: Are they being refunded for the Grand List of

October 1, 2001, are they being refunded that?

MR. HOOVER: No. No. They were put on a memo of correction. And, they

haven’t paid. Their tax has been abated.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: You are crediting them forward, then.

MR. HOOVER: They are going to go ahead forward after this year of

50,40, 30. This year, they’re still on 100%.

The other one is just a routine – this is the Dunkin Donuts

associated with the Residence Inn over on West Street. They’ve sent

in their application. They are – they meet the requirements. And,

they would get on the tax rolls as of this October 30th. And, would

or October 1st. And, then their tax bill would reflect the abatement

next July.

THE CHAIR: Thank you, Paul. Any questions of Paul?

MS. TRIANO: Mr. Chairman, I see that on Old Business, we’re going to

be making an action on one of these ---

THE CHAIR: Both of them.

MS. TRIANO: So, do we need to add it as an Item I.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: They’re both on H.

MS. TRIANO: Oh, Southington Suites? Okay, thank you. Sorry. It’s

getting late and I’m slipping.

THE CHAIR: No questions? Okay, thanks, Paul.

Anything else, John?

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MR. WEICHSEL: No, Mr. Chairman, that completes my report.

THE CHAIR: Any questions of the Manager? Town Attorney’s Report?

V. Town Attorney's Report

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. August has been a busy

month for the Town purchasing and in fact selling a piece. The Town

did complete it’s sale on East Street. If you remember that

correctly, I do want to report back to you. You asked me to report

after we got the appraisal for East Street. It was $40,000 and that

transfer has taken place. The Town did sell that parcel. I think the

Town did very well on that particular appraisal.

As for the Anderson and the Thompson purchases, remember those are

the last two for our library project. Anderson was purchased on

August 20th, 2003. As you remember, the purchase price was $170,000.

We paid most of that out of the budgeted amount that John and I put

in last year. There is still approximately a $20,000 promissory note

that has to be in next year’s budget.

Thompson was 210. We purchased that on August 19th. That’s been paid

in full and there is no promissory note.

And, as Bill alluded to, the Novick piece has been finally purchased

by the Town, August 7th. We received the clearing for the

environmental 6th, so we closed on August 7th. The family was very

interested in closing that as quickly as possible. If you recall with

that, the Town had authorized John and I to go as high as $200,000

for the clean up. We got lucky, in my opinion, with the clean up. It

cost $85,000. So, it was nowhere near the $200,000 that originally

was proposed to us. So, the total purchase price for that property

was $1,435,725, of which we still have a promissory note of $450,000,

which is due on or before July 31st of next year.

Also, Mr. Chairman, I have several items for Executive Session. I

know it’s late, so we’ll go as quickly as we possibly can.

THE CHAIR: Just a question on the purchases. Do we have any

maintenance that we have to do on the purchase of the library

properties?

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: Yes, as the procedure John and I sat up back when we

were buying for the Town Hall, we turn the properties over to the

Parks, but in this particular case, -- which house was it?

MR. WEICHSEL: Thompson.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: The library has asked John for the use of the two

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houses on the Thompson property which they are currently occupying so

they have taken over responsibility for that. They are using the

houses for storage, I believe. I’m not sure what else they are using

it for.

MR. WEICHSEL: Yes, storage.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: And, as for the Anderson property, that has been

secured by Jiggy’s office and the keys are with Jiggy and the

Manager.

THE CHAIR: Cutting lawn and stuff like that? We’re doing those

things?

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: Well, the library would be responsible for Thompson.

As for Sidorik and Anderson, which are the two closest to the library

that technically would be our responsibility through the Parks

Department.

MR. RICCIO: Mr. Chairman, I did get a call and I asked John about

tearing them down now.

MR. WEICHSEL: Well, at the budget we went through that, so I think

it’s untimely to now make a special request. In the next budget, I

indicated to Mike, that we would go for at least knocking down either

the Academy Street buildings or the library buildings. To get started

on that.

MR. RICCIO: We should get them down as soon as possible.

THE CHAIR: Definitely. Maintenance becomes a problem as time goes on.

But if they’re using them, I don’t know if ---

MR. WEICHSEL: Well, only one building has some use, but there’s no

question, I mean, budgets are always tough times and you look for is

there something you can delay and so on.

THE CHAIR: This one, being on Main Street, its kind of hard not to

maintain those properties.

MR. WEICHSEL: Well, I get the drift from the Council you wish me

definitely to include that then in the upcoming budget.

MR. RICCIO: I would say absolutely.

MR. WEICHSEL: Mr. Riccio would like to do it today.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: Well, we know have four houses for the library and

we have the three still on Academy so, certainly John will have to

sit down and figure out what is your first choice to tear down.

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MR. RICIO: My recommendation would be we get a bulk price on all of

them and –

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: All seven?

MR. RICCIO: Absolutely.

MR. SECONDO: There are people in some of those houses already.

MR. WEICHSEL: The homeless are going to complain, but I guess we have

to go forward regardless.

THE CHAIR: Any other questions?

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

VI. Report of Special Committees

(None)

VII Public Communications

ILLIO FUSCIELLO: 82 Autran Avenue. I just to be here and see its

about $17 million, if I got it right. I know that finances put in the

detail and then the Council overrules to give more money.

A few years ago, New York, they were going to bankruptcy. And, then

they got money to keep going. Now, we have California to go to

bankruptcy. I heard in the news that they gave almost $100,000 to

those they call the warrant, those that look for those who are in

jail.

They say if you no give to us, when election comes, we don’t vote for

you. I heard the same thing in this Town a few years ago. I know that

Mr. Giuliani said we have to think about the children and

grandchildren and if my father was still alive, he should still take

care of me.

I did the income tax like everybody else last two years. By myself

for the first time. I grossed I think about 21,000 or 22,000 dollars.

And, I pay about $8,000 taxes. And, I guess I net 12,000 dollars.

This is going for years.

Where is the 27 mil for thousand. It means if you have a house that

cost, you appraise at $100,000 you have to $2,700 taxes?

EVERYONE: Correct.

SPEAKER: That is what that means? So, if you appraise the house ---

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ATTORNEY SCIOTA: Assessed. Not appraised. Assessed.

SPEAKER: Assessed. Excuse me, thank you for correcting me.

Assessment, thank you.

So, if you have the house and you work and everything goes well and

it’s worth $200,000 and then you pay over $5,000. Right? Tax? And, if

you don’t work any more you have to live on disability, something,

you still have to pay that kind of money.

Well. But, that discourages people to have a house in a certain way.

I know in certain places, they pay – it means $100,000 – they pay

$700. I’ve been lucky to visit San Diego a few years go to see my

relative and the house was about three times bigger than mine. I paid

600 or 770, they would pay $1700.

Thank you to listen.

THE CHAIR: Anyone else from the public wishing to speak?

VIII. Old Business

THE CHAIR: In terms of action on this, can we set them all at once,

or do we them one a time?

MR. WEICHSEL: One at a time, please.

THE CHAIR: As for the date, Leslie has requested it be Wednesday,

October 15th. She felt that the day after the Columbus would be a

logistical problem for her, so she’s requested that.

She also made a request for the hours of operation at one school,

12:00 to 8:00.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: Derynoski is her request.

MR. WEICHSEL: Might I just comment? The comment made earlier in the

meeting by Phil is not constructive. I remember a Mayor saying that

once you are in a car, you’re in a car. I mean, if you’re going to

drive even from Mt. Vernon, what’s the difference if you’re going to

a West Street School or you are going to Derynoski. So, I don’t think

that was a very good comment to suggest we’d have more than one

booth.

The hours, that’s up to your folks. But to put up more than one booth

I think is a waste of time.

MR. DE PAOLO: I agree with John on the location. I think one school

is adequate. But, I think 12:00 TO 8:00 is really not enough time. A

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couple of years ago we had one, I remember, 8:00, Attorney Nugent was

fighting people to try to get in the door because they didn’t have

enough time to come and vote. I don’t’ think 8 hours is enough. Maybe

we don’t have to go from 6:00 am, but there probably could be some

compromise, but it should be more than 8. Maybe 10:00 to 8:00 or 8:00

to 8:00 or something. But, I think definitely more than 8 hours.

MS. TRIANO: Mr. Chairman, I would agree with that. I would even go

one step further, Bill. I think that because folks go to work in the

morning, most would like to vote before the leave for work. I don’t

see a problem with opening the polls at 7:00 or 6:30 in the morning.

I know it’s a long day for the folks, but I would like to give

everyone the opportunity even before they go to work to be able to

vote on these very important matters.

MS. BAKER: Mr. Chair, has there ever been any referendum when they

split time? I think 6:00 am is better as well and if you could 6:00

to noon and 4:00 to 8.

THE CHAIR: That would make it more confusing.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: Leslie said whatever the Council wants. It’s only a

recommendation.

THE CHAIR: I’m hearing that the consensus of the Council is 6:00 to

8:00 and one location. Derynoski.

A. Action on Proposed Ordinance appropriating $1,750,000 for the

Misery Brook Sanitary Sewer Interceptor Emergency Bypass Project.

THE CHAIR: I’ll entertain a motion on the first ordinance?

MS. TRIANO: Mr. Chairman, I would move that we place the referendum

vote ---

MR. WEICHSEL: Excuse me, just a second. Approve the ordinance and

then the second part of that, the referendum.

MS. TRIANO: Okay, so we need two motions on each item?

MR.WEICHSEL: No, it can be --- but you kind of jumped over the first.

Approve the ordinance and then establish ---

MS. TRIANO: Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I would move that we approve the

ordinance appropriating $1,750,000 for the Misery Brook Sanitary

Sewer Interceptor Emergency By Pass Project and also place it on a

referendum vote for October 15th, from the hours of 6:00 to 8:00 at

Derynoski School.

THE CHAIR: Six am to 8:00 pm. Okay.

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MR. RICCIO: Second.

(Motion passed 8 to 0 on a roll call vote.)

B. Action on Proposed Ordinance appropriating $10,000,000 for the

Carl M. Small Regional Vocational Agriculture Center Project.

MR. RICCIO: I’d like to make a motion to approve the ordinance

appropriating $10,000,000 for the Carl Small Regional Vocational

Agriculture Center Project. And, place it on referendum for a public

on October 15th from 6:00 am to 8:00 pm. At Derynoski School.

MR. SECONDO: Second.

MR. RICCIO: Just a comment, I would like to thank Dr. Polansky and

his staff, I see Marian is still here. I had the opportunity to have

some discussions with her on expanding the vocational program to some

farmland that the Town has acquired and had some very interesting

discussions. And, the enlightenment that the public received tonight

I think was excellent in expanding this program and keeping it in

Southington.

I know John made comments, I was a little disturbed by his comments

about giving it to another community out of Town. This is a great

asset for us and we should be improving the education for our kids.

Thank you.

(Motion passed 8 to 0 on a roll call vote.) C. Action on Proposed Ordinance appropriating $2,000,000 for

acquisition of land for open space, passive recreation and

conservation purposes.

MR. DE PAOLO: Mr. Chairman, I make a motion we approve the ordinance

appropriating $2 million for acquisition of land for open space

passive recreation and conservation purposes and place it on

referendum for October 15th.

MR. RICCIO: Second.


D. Action on Proposed Ordinance appropriating $1,600,000 for

acquisition of the Brandenburg property on River Street.

MR. SECONDO: Mr. Chairman, motion to approve the proposed ordinance

appropriating $1.6 million for acquisition of the Brandenburg

property on River Street and that the referendum be held on

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Wednesday, October 15th at Derynoski School from 6:00 am to 8:00 pm.

MR. RICCIO: Second.


E. Action on Proposed Ordinance increasing the appropriation and

borrowing authorization for the Central Fire Station Addition Project

to $1,645,000.

MR. BARRY: Mr. Chairman, I make a motion that we approve the bonding

ordinance of $1,645,000 to be placed on the October referendum date.

MR.SECONDO: Second.


F. Award of Center Street - Phase 6C Bid

MS. BAKER: Mr. Chairman, I move that we award the bid for Center

Street beautification to LaRosa Construction in the amount of

$452,042.


THE CHAIR: Tony, does this have the same issues of performance, the

performance bonus?

MR. TRANQUILLO: Actually, slightly different. We have set up a time

schedule of I believe December 15th for completion. If they finish

late it will be $1,000/day penalty. If they finish early, they’ll get

a bonus of $1,000/day. THE CHAIR: Now, last year, the weather would have intervened and that

would have made that impossible.

MR. TRANQUILLO: Well, the reason we set the benefits so high is that

we really want them to rush to finish before winter. We can’t control

the weather.

THE CHAIR: Neither can he.

MR. TRANQUILLO: We’re going to have to keep our fingers crossed.

THE CHAIR: But they all agreed to that?

MR. TRANQUILLO: If they bid, I assume they’re agreeing to it.

THE CHAIR: Obviously, they did.

MR. TRANQUILLO: Actually, LaRosa called me Friday and they were very,

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very happy that they got the project. So, they’re ready to go.

MR.RICCIO: Just a comment, Tony. Can we address the grates on this

round?

MR. TRANQUILLO: The grates in the 2nd Phase are being shipped back to

the factory and refinished.

MR. RICCIO: So, the next phase, they’ll be ---

MR. TRANQUILLO: I’m hoping that they’ve learned their lesson after

two mistakes. That they have to do it right the first time.

MR. RICCO: Really. Same factory?

MR. TRANQUILLO: Same supplier, yes.

MR. SECONDO: Tony, when you get the drawings on this last phase,

would you just show it to us to make sure that we have the same

amount of benches and lamps and all that all of the way down?

MR. TRANQUILLO: We have the plans already if you want to see them at

the next meeting. We’ll do that.


MR. DE PAOLO: I just want to comment. LaRosa did a great job on the

last phase and everybody’s going to be happy with him, even the

merchants down there and the Town’s people. He goes over and above

just doing the job. He’s concerned with entranceway into their

buildings and things of this nature.

My only concern was, I didn’t realize it was $1,000/day. He finished

like a month early last time he did that?

MR.TRANQUILLO: The last time we gave him a little bit more time and

he finished about 28 days early.

MR. DE PAOLO: So, if he does that again, we’re talking 30 grand more

on top of this project.

MR. TRANQUILLO: Luckily, we budgeted 575 and the bid came in at 452.

So, it would not be a budget breaker.

THE CHAIR: There’s no clock this time.

MR. WEICHSEL: We felt the area that you’re in, that timing is very,

very crucial. We know we’re putting a lot of money on the table, but

we think downtown, you’re kind of obliged to make every effort.

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MR. TRANQUILLO: You really don’t want to live through the winter with

that project half finished and that’s why we have that at $1,000/day.



(End of Tape 2, Side B) (Beginning of Tape #3, Side A)

MR. TRANQUILLO: (continuing) --- have that responsibility. And, Matt

Welinsky was handling that very adequately for them and then they ran

out of money or they decided to terminate his employment, whatever.

But we have received about $15,000 from them. We still have

additional monies that are due us on that whole program. We have

written several letters regarding that issue. I believe we were

reticent to really start ordering a lot of things there until we had

the money issue squared away. But, we are going to get started.

MS. TRIANO: Well, let me ask you a question: Those individuals that

purchased lamps and benches, paid for – paid the Chamber. Now, did we

get all of that money?

MR. TRANQUILLO: No.

MS. TRIANO: And, the Chamber still has that money?


MR. WEICHSEL: They gave us 15 and we now expect the rest.

MR. TRANQILLO: By my estimation that sum should have been 45,000

roughly. We have received 15. And, now we’re going to take over the

Phase II plaques. And, what we need to do is contact all of the

individuals who bought items because the benches and the lampposts

have been moved around slightly. So some individuals purchased those

facilities with the intent of it “must be” in this location.

MS.TRIANO: Yes.

MR. TRANQUILLO: It must be right here. So, we are going to give them

the opportunity to withdraw if they’re not happy with the location.

But that implies that we need to give them money back. So, that’s why

we held off on doing all of this because we wanted the monies from

the Chamber.

I also hear rumors now that they sold 600 or 700 bricks. And, there

are many people that are stating that the bricks aren’t there. Their

brick that they bought is not there. So, this is a major nightmare

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for my department, trying to straighten all of this out.

The first issue is the money. The second issue is a detailed list of

who bought items and what the inscription had to say. We don’t want

to mess that up. So, we’ve waited quite a while for those two items

and now we’ve waited as long as we can and we’re probably going to

get started with contacting people and saying, do you still want to

be in the program. We do have that $15,000 that we can refund if we

need to.

MS. TRIANO: So, you are going to back to the original group of people

that purchased things to see if they still want to be in the program?

MR. TRANQUILLO: Yes, because the items have changed. The location of

the items have changed. So, they may wish to withdraw. We have to

give them that option. Because Matt Welinksy told me some of these

people specifically said, I will buy this item, but it must be

located right here at this location.

MS. TRIANO: Yes, I was one of them.

MR. TRANQUILLO: Yes. I didn’t want to mention your name. But, we will

give that individual or all the individuals the option of saying this

is where the bench was moved to, do you want your money back or are

you happy with that location?

MS. TRIANO: I’ll speak to you this week, Tony.

MR. TRANQUILLO: That’s the only thing we can do, Vicky.

MS. TRIANO: I understand.

MR. TRANQUILLO: There’s nothing else we can do. THE CHAIR: I’ve seen Tony’s file on this and it’s not a pretty sight.

MS.TRIANO: Well, I just, it’s a shame that this is happening because

people in good faith gave that money and I’m sure that the Chamber

will make good on it. I’m sure they’ll make good on it.

THE CHAIR: John likes to say, no good deed goes unpunished.

MR. DE PAOLO: Is there going to be a problem with the funds? I mean

Vicky’s comment is well taken. Are we going to have some problems

with this – what are we talking $30,000? That’s a lot of money.

MS. TRIANO: Yes, it’s a lot of money.

MR. TRANQUILLO: Well, I spoke to John about this. And, we basically

said, if there’s a problem, the Chamber is going to have to answer

for it. That’s the bottom line. The Chamber has sold items and the

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individuals have recourse through the Chamber. What are we going to

do about it? We didn’t take the money.

MR. DE PAOLO: I’m just asking you if in your mind, do you anticipate

a problem collecting this $30,000. That’s all I’m saying.

MR. TRANQUILLO: Well, I don’t know. I’ve made several calls to the

Chamber and I think Mark wrote a letter. I think the Manager wrote a

letter and we’ve received $15,000 to-date.

No good accounting.

MR. RICCIO: Perhaps we should get in touch with the Chairman of the

Board over there.

MR. WEICHSEL: Well, if they would hire a Director, I’m sure things

could go better.

MR. DE PAOLO: Well, they have people running the show. Let’s get in

touch with them. This is a lot of money. We only got 15. I didn’t

realize it was that much difference. I thought it was just a few

thousand dollars. We’re talking 30 grand.

MR. TRANQUILLO: I added up the items they sold and by my estimation,

it’s something in the order of 40 or 45 is what they sold. Now there

are expenses off of that. The plaque. Engraving of the brick. There

are expenses. So, if you discount some expenses, we might expect 30

or 35 and that’s what I wanted the accounting of.

MR. DE PAOLO: Sure. Well, if they sold it, they have the money. As

Mike says, somebody’s over there in charge. Let’s get going on it,

whatever. We just can’t let the thing drag. And, if legal action is

necessary, fine. But there’s people that paid money for these things

and where is it? Nobody knows.

MR. TRANQUILLO: We will contact them within the next two weeks.

MR. WEICHSEL: We’ll follow through. We’ll probably sick our

collection dog after them.

THE CHAIR: Okay.

G. Award of Engineering Department vehicle bid

MS. TRIANO: Mr. Chairman, I would make a motion that we approve the

engineering vehicle bid to Crowley Ford with the amount indicated in

the bid.

MR. LANDINO: Second.

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H. Action on Commercial Benefits to Masotti Electric and Southington

Suites LLC.

THE CHAIR: Masotti Electric, it’s going to be retroactive and

Southington Suites, LLC is as it is.

MR. RICCIO: Make a motion to approve as our Economic Development

Officer has presented to us.

MS. BAKER: Second.


IX. New Business

A. Establishment of Public Hearing for sewer rate increase

MR. WEICHSEL: You are concurrently going to take care of the

Miscellaneous item when you set that.

THE CHAIR: This and the next meeting will be together here.

John has requested that there be a change in the meeting schedule so

that it be on the 29th instead of the 22nd. Any discussion on that?

MR. SECONDO: I’d just like to keep it the 22nd because that is what

people are used to. We meet the 2nd and 4th Mondays. Unless there’s

something so vital we have to have John here. He goes away to a

conference and we can’t have a Council meeting?

MR. DE PAOLO: Mr. Chairman, I think it’s not unprecedented. We’ve

changed meetings before. I think if the Manager makes a request of

you, there’s a reason that he wants to be here and I think this rate

change, going up 19 percent, should have him here. I think because of

his request, if nothing else, we should change it.

EVERYONE: Agree. We like the change.

THE CHAIR: Jim Bowes did make a request through Jimmy, and he’s not

here, that John be here.

MR. WEICHSEL: I think the grief of it, I should have the pleasure.

THE CHAIR: I’ll entertain a motion on the establishment of a public

hearing for sewer rate increase. If we do decide on the 29th, then

that will change the meeting to the 29th.

MS. BAKER: I move that we establish a public hearing for the sewer

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rate increase on September 29th at 7:00 pm.

MR. BARRY: Second.

(Motion passed 7 – 1 with Mr. Secondo opposed on a voice vote.)

B. Appointments:

1. Commission on Disability - 1 member

MS. TRIANO: Mr. Chairman, we would like to place Ralph Thomas Riccio

in as Commissioner on Disability. As many of you know, Ralph is a

native Southingtonite living on Main Street in Town and I think he

would be great to the Commission.

MS. BAKER: Second.


2. Mid-Connecticut Workforce Development Board - 2 members

THE CHAIR: Right now it is Ed Kalat and Larry McNellis. Reappoint

them, John? That’s a reappointment of the Council?

MR. WEICHSEL: Yes, all of these are Council appointments.

THE CHAIR: Will someone nominate ---

MR. DE PAOLO: Mr. Chairman, I move for reappointment of Ed Kalat and

Larry McNellis to the Mid Connecticut Workforce Development Board.

MR. RICCIO: Second.


3. Board of Ethics - 1 member

THE CHAIR: Currently Len Marcheselle, served for three years. He may

serve a second term.

MS. TRIANO: Mr. Chairman, we would like to reappoint Len Marcheselle

to that Board.



4. Board of Ethics Alternates - 2 members

THE CHAIR: Currently Jeanne Corrigan and Eric Monte. Both have served

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six consecutive years.

MS. TRIANO: Move to table, Mr. Chairman.

MS. BAKER: Second.


5. Southington Enterprise & Economic Development Commission - 4

members

THE CHAIR: John, myself as Council Chairman and that’s going to

change obviously in November, and Joe Lombardo. These are set

positions. That’s for three. The other vacancy we don’t have. It’s

one that we haven’t been able to fill. It has to be a business owner

in the enterprise zone. Currently, we do have one business owner in

the enterprise zone, but we need a second.

MR. RICCIO: Is Craig Yarde on that committee?

THE CHAIR: He’s not. But one thing we’re looking at is to whether he

lives in Town. John and I discussed this and ---

MR.RICCIO: He pays taxes in Town.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: To be on our Town Boards, you have to be a resident.

MR. WEICHSEL: He can vote in referenda, but he can’t serve on a

board.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: He can speak in front of you, but he can’t serve on

a board.

THE CHAIR: We have a possibility. But right now –

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: Approve the three and table the one.

MR. RICCIO: Motion to replace or reappoint the Town Manager, Mr.

Weichsel, Council Chairman Ed Malczyk and Mr. Lombardo at this time.

MR. LANDINO: Second.


THE CHAIR: The one vacancy will still be there. Just list that,

please, John.

6. Tourism District - 1 member

THE CHAIR: Is that Elaine?

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MR. WEICHSEL: That’s Elaine Bedard.

MR. BARRY: I make a motion to reappoint Elaine Bedard to that Board.

MR. DE PAOLO: Second.


MR.WEICHSEL: I think you are all aware there used to be 11 districts

in the state and now they’ve consolidated and now this person will be

your representative to a larger district.

THE CHAIR: And, that was against our wishes. And, her’s too.

(Motion passed 7 to 1 with Mr. Secondo opposed.)

C. Tax Refunds (Attachment 9)

MR. LANDINO: I make a motion we refund the taxes presented before the

Council this evening.

MS. BAKER: Second.


X. Miscellaneous

A. Confirmation of 9/22/03 Council Meeting or change to 9/29/03 THE CHAIR: We did the meeting.

The other thing is Tuesday, October 14th, pictures at 7:00 pm is the

request. If anything goes wrong, we still have another meeting for

back up.

MR. SECONDO: Before we adjourn, Mr. Chairman, I’d like to suggest

that the Council send a letter to the Plainville Town Council

expressing our sentiments and sympathy over the loss of their Town

Manager. We’ve always been close with Plainville and I think it would

be a good will gesture if we did that.

EVERYONE: Yes.

THE CHAIR: John did represent us, I believe, at the wake.

MR. WEICHSEL: I conveyed directly to the widow. But, a letter would

be fine.

XI. Adjournment - Executive Session - Real estate, litigation matters

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Mr. Landino made a motion to go into executive session. Mr. Riccio

seconded.


Whereupon, the meeting was adjourned at 10:20 pm.

A motion was made to go back into public session at 10:22 pm.

MR. WEICHSEL: The press has brilliantly brought to our attention that

the first item we set for referendum. If we did, then that was

incorrect. The $1,750,000.

MS. TRIANO: We just passed the ordinance.

ATTORNEY SCIOTA: The mover can correct her motion saying: to pass the

ordinance, but not set for referendum.

MS. TRIANO: So moved.

MR. RICCIO: Second.

(Motion passed unanimously on a roll call vote.)

MR. WEICHSEL: In your Charter, you are allowed to have an emergency

expenditure whish is understandable up to three percent of your

budget.

Your budget is 90 million dollars, so you can go to three million in

an emergency.

A good example would be the high school. We didn’t go for a

referendum and we spent more than one million dollars.

(Whereupon, the meeting was adjourned at 10:25 o’clock, pm)

ATTEST:

___________________________ Kathy Larkin Assistant Town Clerk

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MINUTES OF EXECUTIVE SESSION

TOWN COUNCIL MEETING

TOWN OF SOUTHINGTON

September 8, 2003

The following Councilpersons were present:

Present: Edward M. Malczyk, Chairman; Mary E. Baker; John N. Barry; William V. DePaolo; Philip G. Landino; Michael A. Riccio; Arthur H. Secondo; and Rev. Victoria Triano. Also Present: John Weichsel, Town Manager; Mark Sciota, Town Attorney; portions: Atty. A. Sheffy and Atty. E. Rosenblatt.

The Executive Session convened at 10:25 p.m.

Several litigation matters were discussed. A real estate matter was discussed. No motions were made and no action was taken.

Upon motion duly made, seconded, and unanimously carried, the Executive Session was adjourned at 10:55 p.m.

____________________________

John Weichsel Acting Clerk

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1. proposed ordinance appropriating $1,750,000 for the ... · john barry victoria triano ... we...

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