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Sunday, April 25, 2010

TOWN OF WALLINGFORD, CONNECTICUT - REGULAR TOWN COUNCIL MEETING

Town Council Chambers

April 27, 2010

6:30 P.M

AGENDA

Opening Prayer – Deacon Eugene C. Riotte

1. Pledge of Allegiance

3. Consent Agenda

3a. Consider and Approve Tax Refunds (#708 - #723) totaling $10,214.37 Acct. # 001-1000-010-1170 - Tax Collector

3b. Acceptance of Donation and Approval of an Appropriation in the Amount of $50 Youth & Social Services Special Fund to Donations Acct # 213-1042-070-7010 and to Expenditures Acct # 213-3070-600-6000– Youth and Social Services

3c. Accept a Donation and Approve an Appropriation in the Amount of $299 Youth and Social Services Special Fund to Donations Acct # 213-1042-070-7010 and to Expenditures Acct # 213-3070-600-6000– Youth and Social Services

3d. Accept a Donation and Approve an Appropriation in the Amount of $1,360 Youth and Social Services Special Fund to Donations Acct # 213-1042-070-7010 and to Expenditures Acct # 213-3070-600-6000– Youth and Social Services

3e. Request for Consideration of Farmland Lease Properties Program Bid Award – Conservation Commission

3f. Schedule a Public Hearing for May 11, 2010 at 7:00 P.M. to be held in connection with an Ordinance entitled:

AN ORDINANCE APPROPRIATING $2,180,000 FOR THE PLANNING, ACQUISITION AND CONSTRUCTION OF VARIOUS MUNICIPAL CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS 2010-2011 AND AUTHORIZING THE ISSUE OF $2,180,000 BONDS OF THE TOWN TO MEET SAID APPROPRIATION AND PENDING THE ISSUANCE THEREOF THE MAKING OF TEMPORARY BORROWINGS FOR SUCH PURPOSE

3g. Approval of corrections to the Minutes of Regular Town Council Meeting of March 9, 2010

4. Items Removed from the Consent Agenda

5. PUBLIC QUESTION & ANSWER

6. Executive Session pursuant to §1-200 (6)(D) of the Connecticut General Statutes with respect to the purchase, sale and/or leasing of property – Mayor

Sunday, April 18, 2010

CRRA surplus payment to help reduce Wallingford’s budget

As Published in the Record Journal Sunday April 18, 2010

By Dave Moran
Record-Journal staff
dmoran@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2224

Follow all the news directly on the Record Journal Website for the most up to date information. www.myrecordjournal.com

Write a letter to the editor letters@record-journal.com

WALLINGFORD — Amid sizable cuts to both the Board of Education and general government budgets for 2010-11 and a proposed nearly four percent tax hike, there’s a relatively small item that could lead to big savings in the future.

In an effort to reduce budget costs and tackle some looming capital projects, Mayor William W. Dickinson Jr. has proposed using an estimated $5 million payment the town expects later this year from the Connecticut Resources Recovery Project to fund a number of infrastructure improvements for the town and school system. The items do not count against his $141.5 million budget proposal because they are classified as capital expenses.

Last year, the town received a $7.2 million surplus payment from CRRA, which owns a trash-to-energy facility on South Cherry Street that is used by Wallingford and surrounding towns.

Facing requests that he apply at least some of that money to his budget proposal last year to reduce the tax rate, Dickinson, a Republican, instead reserved it for the purchase of a new fire truck and the construction of a new station for the North Farms Fire Department, a project that still lacks a timetable for completion. This year, Dickinson opted to remove a number of capital item requests from the budget requests of several departments and fund them separately through the surplus payment, thus reducing the town’s overall budget and the amount of taxpayer dollars needed to fund it.

“It’s one-time money, so we certainly didn’t want it to impact the operational budget because it won’t replace itself,” Dickinson said about his decision to use CRRA funds for capital improvements. “It seemed appropriate to spend the money on capital items that are necessary and won’t repeat.”

Comptroller James Bowes said although the expected payment is not being applied directly to the budget, it will still lead to savings in future budget years by eliminating a number of capital projects that would need to be funded through future budgets.

“We aren’t going out and looking for items to spend money on,” Bowes said. “We are addressing needs that are coming in next year’s budget and very shortly thereafter that we’re going to have to attack through taxpayer dollars if we don’t utilize these funds.”

The CRRA distribution will pay for two new snow plow trucks for the Public Works Department, a new ambulance for the Fire Department and roof replacements to both fire and police headquarters.

But the bulk of it, more than $1.2 million, will be used to fund improvements to the school system, including new bleachers for Mark T. Sheehan High School, boiler repairs for several schools and a $600,000 energy efficiency retrofit project that is forecasted to shave almost $500,000 from the system’s annual utilities costs.

Thomas Hennessey, Board of Education chairman, said those capital improvements will not have to be accounted for by the system in future budgets and that the energy savings project will yield immediate savings. Both help to cushion a more than $2.5 million reduction that Dickinson made to the school system’s budget request, he said.

“The energy stuff will save us hard money eventually, because every year we are going to be spending less and less money,” said Hennessey, a Republican. “The capital improvements are things that we would have had to do eventually.”

John Sullivan, a Democratic councilor, said he supported Dickinson’s use of the CRRA funds because even though the money is not being injected directly into the town’s operating budget, it is being used to remove a number of costly capital projects from the upcoming and future budget years.

“We don’t have to use tax dollars to pay for those items,” Sullivan said.

Meriden and Cheshire, which also took part in the CRRA trash disposal project that led to the surplus accounts, don’t plan to use any of the surplus money to fund their general operating budgets either.

Cheshire plans to bolster several of its reserve funds, like pension contributions and debt service, while Meriden wants to add the money to its undesignated reserves in an effort to strengthen the city’s bond rating, which appears set for an upgrade, city officials said Friday.

“Meriden is still in a situation where we believe there is a need to build the reserves a bit higher than where they are presently, so we’re not budgeting the CRRA money,” City Manager Lawrence Kendzior said.

Paul Nonnenmacher, the resource authority’s director of public affairs, said there is no timetable for when the surplus funds might be distributed to the town. Dickinson said that Wallingford will not implement any of the capital improvement projects until it receives the funds.

FROM WALLINGFORD - In the same fiscal boat

This week’s FROM WALLINGFORD is from my counterpart on the column – Stephen Knight

The Wallingford Town Council held a public hearing on the proposed 2010-2011 Town Budget last Wednesday. As expected, most of the attendees spoke about the Education budget. Most were parents and teachers (very often both) speaking out in favor of maintaining the current level of education spending. As Chairman Parisi acknowledged, they were passionate, articulate, knowledgeable and polite, altogether a real credit to themselves and to the public process.

There was one other attendee: a giant elephant in the room that no one save one lone speaker would even admit existed. That is the proposal that the employees of the Town of Wallingford forego a wage increase for one year in order to prevent layoffs. They spoke about how many talented teachers would be lost, how much the Special Ed students benefited from the system, the potential disruption of reconfiguring the elementary schools, and how hard the BOE had worked to trim the budget already. Everybody talked of the hardships resulting from teacher and staff layoffs, but nobody even came close to recognizing the obvious solution.

It was almost surreal. Speaker after speaker pleaded with councilors not to eliminate these positions, eloquently describing how much value these young teachers brought to the system and how we would lose their energy and talent because of their absence. Yet the simple idea of town employees giving up a wage increase for one year was considered so alien a concept in this world that all the dislocation and hardship described was considered utterly unavoidable.

Why does this perception exist? Let’s examine it from these two vantage points: 1) the public employee world and 2) the union world. And please understand from the get-go that this is not criticism of either but analysis of the reality of both.

First of all, until very recently, government employees have lived in a universe of ever-expanding dollars. Dollars in the private sector are finite, because institutions in this world are confined to only that money they can attract by offering something people want. Government, on the other hand, commands its resources through taxation, the amount limited only to the greater economy’s ability to provide. And that money has always gushed forth from the dynamic American economy. The public employee has never known otherwise — until now — and the new reality of limited resources is not really setting in. 250 people laid off at Marlin Firearms? A one-day story. Layoffs in government? Unheard of. Can’t happen. The money’s there somewhere.

Secondly, unions are in the business of negotiating more for their members. Not less. Not the same. More. Here’s why. Have you ever had to push a car? Remember how hard it was to get it rolling; how much effort it took to get it moving? And how much easier it seemed to keep it moving, and the last thing you wanted was for it to slow to a stop because of how hard it would be to get it going again? Well, unions think that way too. It took them years and years to get to the point where, when they sit down with management to negotiate a new contract, wage increases are assumed. The momentum of negotiating is not whether there will be increases, but how much will these assumed increases be. And we are now asking them to accept a wage freeze — to stop the car, if you will. And their thinking is: if we do this, how will we ever get that momentum back? How will we ever get back to “more” being inevitable?

We are all — taxpayer and public employee alike— navigating in some rough water, and it sure looks like we will be for quite some time. The question then becomes: when will we realize that to survive, we all need to be in the same boat? And paddling in the same direction? And how in the heck do we get there?

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Follow up - asking for permission to approach several of the town unions

So from the story that was printed in the Record Journal this morning (Saturday April 17) where I had indicated to Dave Moran that I was going to ask for permission to approach several of the town unions regarding reducing hours and / or their time (effectively asking them if they would be willing to donate their time) I had a good conversation with the Chief Dortenzio regarding the subject late in the day on Friday.

It would seem this is something that is not permissible even for a regular citizen to do as it does not comply with wage and labor laws even if some or all of the union members would be willing to do it.

Having said that I cannot approach them to even ask because it is not permitted by law.

I will probably ask if the unions proper if they would be interested in taking a vote to make a donation to the event but that is the most that is allowed under the law.

It may seem unfortunate to some extent that the law is that way as it could have been one way to reduce the cost and relieve some of the fundraising burden, but that law is there to protect the workers as much as the employer (the Town) where it comes down to fairness, workman’s compensation, insurance and so forth.

I am good with the explanation and the discussion and appreciate the Chief’s time.

Steady as she goes…

Zandri plans to rescue rockets - Fundraiser set for fireworks display

As Published in the Record Journal Saturday April 17, 2010

By Dave Moran
Record-Journal staff
dmoran@record-journal.com
(203) 317-2224

Follow all the news directly on the Record Journal Website for the most up to date information. www.myrecordjournal.com

Write a letter to the editor letters@record-journal.com

WALLINGFORD — If Jason Zandri gets his way, the town will still have a traditional Fourth of July celebration this year — but first his Save Wallingford’s Fireworks 2010 effort will have to raise a considerable amount of money in private donations to make that scenario a reality.

“I guess the back story for me is I saw this thing get cut again this year, the fireworks, just like it was last year,” Zandri said Friday as he was walking around the downtown area handing out fliers and trying to raise the profile of his fundraising effort. “Fifty-plus years of having fireworks in town is just something that I don’t want to see end. I’m going to try and bring it out to the people and have them funded.”

Like last year, Mayor William W. Dickinson Jr. proposed a budget for the 2010-11 fiscal year that does not include funding for the town’s Fourth of July fireworks display. But unlike last year, when the then-Democratic controlled Town Council cobbled together $30,715 in savings from a renegotiated insurance contract at the eleventh hour to save the celebration, that scenario does not appear as likely under the new Republican council.

The cost of the celebration is spread across a variety of town department budgets, including overtime for police and fire personnel, entertainment expenses and the cost of the fireworks themselves, totaling more than $33,000 for the entire affair.

Zandri said Friday that he was unsure whether his fundraising effort will be a success, but that he is going to explore every option to raise the money, while also trying to find ways to trim the total cost of the celebration.

“I’m going to turn the rock over, that’s for sure,” Zandri said, noting that he started a Save Wallingford’s Fireworks 2010 Facebook page that garnered almost 200 friends in a day.

Zandri has scheduled a $25 a-ticket fundraising dinner May 21 at Zandri’s Stillwood Inn, a banquet facility owned by his uncle, Jim Zandri. Meanwhile, he’s exploring options such as finding a corporate sponsor or two to pick up a large portion of the tab, and possibly asking for permission to approach several of the town unions that would be required to work overtime during the celebration to see if they would consider reducing overtime fees.

Robert Parisi, the Republican chairman of the council, who also sits on the committee that organizes the Fourth of July celebration, tried a similar effort to save the fireworks last year without much success. Parisi said he is going to throw his support behind Zandri’s effort this time around, but said he did not want to predict whether it would be successful.

“Let me say that I hope it will happen,” Parisi said. “It’s an uphill struggle, but it depends on how many people get in on it right away.”
When asked if he thought the council might try to restore the fireworks funding again this year, Parisi said he would have trouble supporting such a move.

“That’s a fine-tuned budget,” Parisi said. “I just am very hesitant — I don’t mind saying it — to tamper with it in any way. I liken it to a house of cards, and if you pull the wrong card the whole thing is going to collapse.”

Zandri said he must notify Telstar Display Fireworks , a New Hampshire-based pyrotechnic company that the town typically contracts with, by June 1 to book the fireworks display for this year. He said the fireworks themselves cost about $18,000, and if he doesn’t have enough money raised to make a down payment by that date, he would likely cease his fundraising and return any money donated after he paid any expenses incurred.

“I’m probably going to have to return the difference,” Zandri said. “I think that would be the proper thing to do.”

Even Dickinson seemed to support the effort to fund the fireworks through private donations.

“If people are willing to make private donations, we’d be able to do it,” he said Friday.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Wallingford Democratic Town Committee Meeting

Wallingford Democratic Town Committee Meeting

Wednesday, April 21, 2001 7:30pm

350 Center Street, Room 212

Local Candidates for Office (Judge of Probate, Registrar of Voters, State Representatives, and Democratic State Central Member) will have an opportunity to address the committee

Gubernatorial Candidate Rudy Marconi will be in attendance at 8:30pm to speak about his candidacy

The DTC will also be discussing and possibly voting to endorse US Senate Candidate Richard Blumenthal

 

Meeting Agenda

1. Attendance

2. Acceptance of March 24, 2010 Meeting Minutes

3. Treasurer’s Report

4. Chairman’s Report

5. Candidates for Judge of Probate, Registrar of Voters, Democratic State Central Member, and State Representatives (Depending on Session Schedule) may address the committee

6. Discussion and Possible Vote on DTC Endorsement for US Senate Candidate Richard Blumenthal

7. Guest Speaker: Gubernatorial Candidate Rudy Marconi

8. Local Government Reports

9. Discussion of Possible May Fundraiser

10. Announcements / Open Discussion

11. Adjournment

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

WALLINGFORD - Special Town Council Meeting #2

FY 2010 – 2011 BUDGET WORKSHOP 

Special Town Council Meeting

THURSDAY APRIL 15, 2010 6:00 P.M.

Town Council Chambers

BUDGET WORKSHOP AGENDA

1. Moment of Silence

2. Pledge of Allegiance and Roll Call

3. Budget Workshop - Board of Education, Cafeteria

WALLINGFORD - Special Town Council Meeting

PUBLIC HEARING for the FY 2010 – 2011 BUDGET

Special Town Council Meeting

WEDNESDAY APRIL 14, 2010 6:00 P.M.

Town Council Chambers

AGENDA

Opening Prayer –Reverend Dean Warburton

First Congregational Church

1. Pledge of Allegiance

2. Roll Call

3. Public Hearing for the Budget FY 2010-2011

WALLINGFORD REGULAR TOWN COUNCIL MEETING

Town Council Chambers 6:30 P.M

April 13, 2010 - AGENDA

Opening Prayer – Reverend Margaret Jay, First Congregational Church

1. Pledge of Allegiance

2. Roll Call

3. Consent Agenda

3a. Consider and Approve Tax Refunds (#670 - #707) totaling $10,763.63 Acct. # 001-1000-010-1170 - Tax Collector

3b. Reappointment of Robert Beaumont to the Historic Properties Commission as a regular member for a term expiring March 27, 2015 – Chairman Robert F. Parisi

3c. Accept a Donation from Operation Fuel and Approve an Appropriation in the Amount of $260 Youth and Social Services Special Fund to Donations Acct # 213-1042-070-7010 and to Expenditures Acct # 213-3070-600-6000 – Youth and Social Services

3d. Consider and Approve a Fair Housing Resolution - Mayor

3e. Consider and Approve a Resolution to Contract with the Connecticut Association of Directors of Health, Fiduciary for the Connecticut Department of Public Health, Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, for available funds of $2,797 and any amended amounts to conduct educational outreach and awareness to prevent lead poisoning – Health Department

3f. Acceptance of Grant and Appropriation of $2,797 for Lead Poisoning Prevention to Revenue Acct # 224-1040-050-5000 to Expenditure Acct # 224-3010-605-6000 - Health Department

3g. Consider and Approve an Appropriation for Town Aid Road Grant in the Amount of $70,373 to State Grant Revenue Acct # 229-1040-050-5001-00 and to Expenditures FY 2009-10 Acct # 229-5015-611-6501-00 –Public Works

3h. Consider and Approve a Transfer in the Amount of $1,250 to Computer Acct # 001-5015-999-9112 from Purchase Professional Services-Boom Truck Testing Acct # 001-5015-901-9027– Public Works

3i. Consider and Approve a Transfer in the Amount of $225 to Regular Salaries & Wages Acct # 001-7040-101-1000 from Continuing Education & Training $125 Acct # 001-7040-501-5700 and from Office Expenses & Supplies $100 Acct # 001-7040-401-4000 – Environmental Planner

3j. Approve Minutes of Regular Town Council Meeting of March 23, 2010

4. Items Removed from the Consent Agenda

5. PUBLIC QUESTION & ANSWER

6. Consider and Approve a Transfer in the Amount of $12,000 to Unemployment Insurance Acct # 001-1602-600-8290 from Retirement-Sick Leave Acct # 001-1602-101-1750 - Personnel

7. Consider and Approve a job description for the position of General Line Foreman in the Electric Division - Personnel

8. Acceptance of Grants awarded to the Board of Education as follows:

Title IV

IDEA- Part B

Pre-School Handicapped

Summer School

ACES

Formation of Adult Medical Entrepreneurs (FAME)

- Board of Education

9. Consider and Approve Farm Land Lease Program as presented – Environmental Planner

10. Executive Session pursuant to §1-200 (6)(D) of the Connecticut General Statutes with respect to the purchase, sale and/or leasing of property – Mayor