4/21/2023 A Message from First Selectman Bindelglass

Good afternoon,

At the Annual Town Meeting on Monday, April 24, at Samuel Staples Elementary School at 7:00pm, the budgets for Easton and Region 9 will be presented. For the town budget, there is an overall increase of 3.97%.  As always, a large part of the increase is from contractual pay raises, but as we are well aware we are going through a period of high inflation which has influenced fuel and energy prices significantly. The board of education increase is 3.56%. Their budget information can be found at www.sites.google.com/er9.org/Easton-budget/home (copy & paste). On the town side, we are expanding the hours of the land use consultant. The land use consultant adds professional support to planning and zoning. That department as many of you know is undergoing some upheaval and in addition, it has been proposed that the town consider making it an elected board. Also, this is a period with many potential land use issues coming to the forefront including land acquisition and preservation, as well as storm water management and watershed protection. For those reasons, I am recommending that the land use consultant position be expanded. We are expanding the Registrar of Voters’ budget because we need to set aside money for early voting, even though we are not certain exactly what will be required by the state or how much money will be distributed to us for this expense. We are also increasing our contingency fund to deal with potential increases that arise from new union contracts and other expenses. Finally, we are increasing the fire department budget for fire prevention measures. These are the major drivers of the increase. The overall Region 9 budget is increasing .23%. Due to the increased number of students from 51.37% to 53.43%, the Easton portion of the budget is increasing 4.24%. There is also a proposal for a $4.5 million bond to upgrade the athletic facilities at Joel Barlow High School to convert an additional field to artificial turf and upgrade locker room facilities. I have written about the town contribution to this project previously.  Remember that we only vote on the expense side of the budget. Afterwards, the board of finance will decide how much of our undesignated fund (surplus that the town holds) will be released to fund our expenses. Our fund continues to grow. Last year when the balance was $7,133,839 we released $2,950,000. Once we determine how much to release the board of finance will set the mill rate and that will determine what we pay in taxes. A projection for this will be presented at the town meeting. The last items, accepting the grand list and the 5-year capital projections are standard items that are mostly housekeeping.  After the presentation at the town, the budgetary questions will be put to a referendum on May 2. Absentee ballots will be available on Tuesday, April 25 for the referendum vote on May 2. Please see Easton Town Hall website home page for further details.

On behalf of the Connecticut Municipal Animal Control Officers Association and the Town of Easton, we would like to take this opportunity to recognize our Animal Control Officer Deborah Ice and Officer Donielle Kish for their hard work and dedication. Officer Ice and Officer Kish have served the community with compassion and professionalism, putting the well-being of the animals in their care at the highest priority. Thank you for being outstanding Animal Control Officers.

Often in town essential work gets done by volunteers who are passionate about helping to do certain things in town. Cleaning up Union cemetery which is not actually town owned is one of those tasks and we want to recognize the efforts of Bruce and Bob Laskay who have spent hours cleaning up the cemetery.  See the Easton Courier article at Union Cemetery.

The Easton Electric Car Show, sponsored by the Easton Energy & Environment Task Force, will be held Saturday   April 22, from 11:00am-1:00pm at the Easton Public Library (Rain Date: April 23). Come by and see why your neighbors love their electric vehicles! Last year this was a very well attended event.

As a reminder, the National Drug Take Back Day is Saturday, April 22 from 10:00am-2:00pm at the Easton Public Library.

Please join Easton’s Here to Help, our town’s coalition promoting best practices in substance abuse prevention and mental health, via Zoom on Wednesday, April 26 at 7:00pm for a discussion on “Cultivating Emotional Stability for Teens” with Dr. Aaron Weiner. Parents and caregivers are invited to register for the webinar here: https://bit.ly/EHTH_teens2023.  

If you have questions, please email Easton’s Here to Help at: info@eastonsheretohelp.org or call Alison Witherbee at 203-268-1137. Thank you, Easton Police Department, for co-sponsoring this event.

The new bus for the Easton Senior Center has finally arrived, and will be put into service. This vehicle was purchased with a state grant and private fundraising. We will now use it and our previous bus to provide transportation services to our seniors. It truly is a great service and congratulations to Val and her team and Christine Calvert our Finance Director for making this a reality. This is also a great time to recognize our drivers, Dennis and Emil who help provide great service and are so helpful to our seniors.

At last night’s board of selectmen meeting we discussed that considering the recommendation of the board of ethics Ray Martin, chairman of the planning and zoning commission has decided to resign. The chairman of this commission has a significant impact on the functioning of the committee particularly on matters which are technical in nature. It is very much in the town’s best interest to make sure that the transition that will occur is well thought out and Ray and town counsel are working with the board of selectmen to plan this transition.

Also, a resident presented a narrative of the situation at the Easton Village store which was almost completely fallacious. Several times I have posted links to the DEEP website where all the information for tests and plans can be found.  Again, it is here: CT DEEP Document eSearch. Please complete the town field and address field only and submit.

What follows is the most recent communication from DEEP:

On Mar 16, 2023, at 11:56 AM, Tyson, Omar <Omar.Tyson@ct.gov> wrote:

Hello Mr. Huribal,

Yes indeed…Likewise. Thank you for submitting the compliance statement identifying the schedule of planned actions to be performed on the site to address the remaining concerns discussed in the meeting.

Although there is a typo in the first paragraph of your schedule (April 30, 2022), I am clear on the dates proposed. The activities planned are satisfactory. If it is determined that an acceptable alternative can be calculated we will look forward to submission of the alternative criteria. If it is determined that to effectively address the impacted soils, excavation is necessary, we will coordinate with ERU in the event they want to be present during those excavation activities and will look forward to the final report.

Lastly, although the LEU along with colleagues from the CAU and REM will continue to be involved and consult as these activities move forward, I am the lead on this matter so please continue to keep me as the point of contact but maintain those copied.

Thank you for your prompt response to these final issues as I am confident we will soon be able to put this matter to rest. I do not suspect we will need to communicate with you while you are away but will touch bases with you upon your return.

Safe travels!

Best regards,

Omar Z. Tyson
Sanitary Engineer II
Licensing and Enforcement Unit
Emergency Response & Spill Prevention Division
Bureau of Materials Management & Compliance Assurance
Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
79 Elm Street, Hartford, CT 06106-5127
P: 860.424-3116|M: 860-416-5404|omar.tyson@ct.gov

Previously I have discussed reconstituting the land acquisition authority. I discussed the importance of this committee in that the town will potentially need to look at large pieces of land in town coming to sale and considering what the town would be willing to purchase for preservation or town purposes. We are looking for volunteers to serve on this committee. Please contact Ginger Fiore or your party leadership if you are willing to serve or if you would like to discuss this. Thank you.

As it is getting warmer we are all looking to spruce up our yards, and maybe do some work on our homes. We use lots of different equipment some of which is quite noisy as do our landscapers and contractors. We are all sensitive to polluting our beautiful and rural town, but noise is an important form of pollution that we should try to limit. There has never been much appetite for an ordinance to restrict noise, so we all must do our part to limit it and, as we always try to do, look out for our neighbors.

Have a good weekend,

Dave