June 26, 2019 Special Town Meeting
Notes by Meghan Peterson, PhD
Editor’s Note: Video of the Town Meeting will be available for viewing on valley shore community tv and its website: vsctv.com.
A Special Town Meeting was held on June 26, 2019 at the Haddam Volunteer Fire Company Station #1 for two central purposes: 1) vote on Town acceptance/spending of a $225,000 state Brownfield Grant for remediation of the Scovil Hoe (old DOT Garage) in Higganum; 2) vote on transferring $38,073 from operating to Capital Non-Recurring (CNR) for Capital Reval in 2020.
Tony Giamei was nominated moderator from the floor to preside over the meeting. Town Clerk Scott Brookes read the legal call for the meeting. First Selectwoman Lizz Milardo provided a brief synopsis explaining the context for each item.
In terms of the Brownfield Grant, Milardo said that the Town had applied for a $1 million grant but that state funding was short. To date, the Town has received $200,000 for remediating Scovil Hoe, Milardo explained. Over the course of meetings with the Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD), Milardo said that the state indicated “great interest” in remediating the building and urged the Town to write a letter requesting additional monies. The state is now giving Haddam an additional $225,000. Sally Haase inquired about the Brownfield grant. Milardo explained that there will be phases and steps for the remediation process. To this end, Milardo says she hopes that the money can go not only to the planning of remediation but actual remediation as well.
In terms of transferring $38,073 from operating budget to capital for 2020 Capital Reval, Milardo explained that the Town had planned to do the reval in-house, as the Tax Assessor at the time was confident in doing so. Milardo said, however, that the Town changed this process and recently accepted a bid from Equality Valuation Services to do the reval. Milardo emphasized that this is “a basic transfer from operating back to capital.” This author asked whether the Town had previously done reval in-house. Milardo said no and that contracting for the reval is going to cost the same amount of money were the Town to do it in-house.
Both items passed unanimously. The meeting adjourned.
